How not to do a MUSH plot: by the numbers

There is a massive, over-arching plot running on a MUSH that I play on. It's shaping up to be a disaster on many axes, including:

  1. Just taking waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long!
  2. Staff is being wishy-washy on its impact on the setting. They're not committing to it being a major upset to the setting, but they're not not committing to it either, leaving things in kind of a weird state where some people are acknowledging the plot and others are not.
  3. It's very clearly a “plot on rails”. (The person who made it and is running it denies this, but the person who made this has also scheduled scenes with evocative titles that imply events that have not yet happened as far forward as March and possibly beyond.)
  4. The foundation of the plot is one archangel going berserk and wanting to end all reality—yet mysteriously every other group that should be very concerned about this whole thing (other pantheons, the Hells, the New Gods/Immortals, etc.) are “sitting this one out”.
  5. It's a plot that “everybody can participate in” but there is, in reality, aside from the “sitting this one out” schtick, a blacklist that blocks specific players from participation..

Let's look at these by the numbers.

1. Excessive duration

This plot started in November, albeit in a low-key occult murder mystery style. At the end of December it kicked up into being a game-wide thing that has a massive impact on what and how people play (staff wishy-washiness aside, for which q.v. below) ... and it has its third act planned well into April. (Given how there will inevitably be things that interfere with the planned schedule, this means it's likely to actually be continuing into May and possibly June.)

This is an absurdly long time to let a single player dominate a game. This is, by the planned schedule, almost half a year where a single person gets to set the tone of the RP on the game, and the staff's attempt to mitigate this actually makes things worth.

Which leads us straight into...

2. Wishy-washy staffing

This MUSH prides itself on its coherent setting. One of the staffers involved is a genius at tying together seemingly-disparate concepts to unite what would otherwise be a very difficult thing to make consistent. The result is a MUSH encyclopedia wiki that is truly awesome in its depth and its scope. It is almost breathtaking.

Which is why it's so weird that this plot is considered both officially-supported and yet something you can completely ignore if you so choose. There is massive upheaval in this plot. Manhattan has been invaded by angels—and the old-school Biblical style, not the hotties from Heven in Marvel's setting. The burrough has been evacuated and, indeed, NYC in general is being evacuated to the surrounding cities. This means literally millions of refugees flooding New Jersey, Boston, Metropolis, Gotham, etc.

Yet somehow, also, you can just have your Manhattan shopping trip scene if you like. People playing in Gotham can completely ignore the massive influx of desperate people fleeing conflict. (If you want a hint as to how unrealistic that is, look at what Syrians fleeing their war-torn homeland did to the countries around them that they fled into, then the countries around those, then all the way into the heart of Europe. To call it a disruption is to understate things dramatically!)

This sparks a bizarre schizophrenia in the setting now: a setting that had hitherto been amazingly consistent and coherent. I understand the staff is trying to accommodate both those who are interested in the plot and those who want nothing to do with it (which is an increasing number as some of the other flaws are becoming manifest), but I think making the setting inconsistent and incoherent is not the way to do it. Really the staff should have made a choice: either come down on side with the plot, making it canon, or ask the plot runner to scale it down so that it doesn't cause unwelcome mass disruption.

It's really not possible to have it both ways.

3. Plot-on-rails

I make no secret of my disdain for plots-on-rails in gaming. I think they are a symptom of a fundamental failure in comprehension: role-playing gaming is not writing. Even when MUSHing, a collaborative writing exercise, really, more than a role-playing game, it is different from authorial writing.

Role-playing games have some relationship to literature. MUSHing has an even closer relationship. But they are not the same thing, and the key difference is enshrined in the word “collaborative”.

When you author a story, you are the sole stakeholder. Even when you're co-authoring a story there is a small number of stakeholders compared to characters in the story. When you are in a role-playing game (or when MUSHing): you are just one stakeholder among many!

The reason “plots-on-rails” are so despised in the role-playing hobby is that they strip agency from all but one or a few stakeholders. The “plot” (a horrible word choice that likely leads to the very misunderstanding that turns into this profound error) is not your story. It is the story of all those present.

In short: if you want to write a story, write a story. Don't force other people to write your story your way for you.

Though the plot's author denies this, the plot in question is very clearly a plot on rails. Consider this scene description for a scene schedules on February 13th, almost a month in advance:

The Hosts of Heaven have a very special delivery for a very special foe.

There are five scenes scheduled under the name of that plot between now and that scene. There are also a few side scenes based on that plot scheduled. Yet somehow the plot runner knows, despite the five scenes in between, the first of which reads as this...

The contest for major neighborhoods in Manhattan continues. The angelic hosts do not seem to be relenting regardless of how the tide of battle is going. Can the forces of Mortal-kind beat back the flood of angelic warriors or will they be forced to retreat to safer havens?

...that the hosts of heaven will be making a delivery. Somehow I think the answer to the question posed in the earlier scene is already written down.

And remember that's just the scheduled scenes. The plot's plan has a third act that extends all the way to APRIL.

4. And let's not forget the other in-setting stakeholders

The conceit of this plot is that the archangel Michael is intent on destroying all of Creation to force God to start it all over again, this time with blackjack, hookers, and blow or something. (I'm being a bit flippant, but not as flippant as that should have been.) Yet somehow here are some major in-setting forces that are not weighing in to send Michael packing, leaving some measly mortals (albeit some of them superpowered) to do the heavy lifting for ALL OF CREATION ANYWHERE:

  1. The Greek pantheon.
  2. The Norse pantheon.
  3. Kirby's New Gods/Eternals (most especially Darkseid).
  4. The forces of various Hells.
  5. Galactus.
  6. The Beyonder.
  7. A myriad of interstellar empires (Shi'ar, say, off the top of my head).
  8. ...

WTAF!? Somehow the Greek gods don't have concerns about the dissolution of all reality!? Darkseid, a person who is a) absurdly powerful, and b) who has designed on controlling all of reality is sitting this one out? Somehow only the mortals in a small patch of land on a single small planet are willing to fight this literal threat to everything and massive star empires with huge militaries are ... also sitting this one out?

If the scheduling alone, complete with key events already planned a month in advance, wasn't enough to convince that this plot was purely authorial in nature, the utter illogic of all these listed forces and many more (I'm not going into the game's Wiki to find all of the stakeholders that are mysteriously sitting things out!) should be a good sign that the plot's runner has a very specific story in mind without any thought given to what others might dream up.

5. And then the “plot for anybody” turns out not to be for everybody...

Knowing that I was unlikely to be able to attend any of the actual major scenes of the plot in question, I thought I might be able to (despite the evidence of plot-on-rails above) have some kind of influence on a scene. As such I RPed with a major mover and shaker in the plot and had my character offer, through chicanery, a major military force (of someone else) to assist in the fight against the angels. (The fact that this would further my own character's goals while furthering the goal of, you know, reality continuing to exist was just icing.)

The other player in that scene thought it was a good plan and took it to the plot runner, both IC and OOC.

Then the day of the big battle comes. And my offered forces are nowhere to be seen in the scene logs. I found this curious and was actually at first miffed with the other player of that scene, thinking he'd decided not to proceed with it. Fortunately I took it up with him and he turns out to have been as surprised as I was. He took it up with the plot runner.

It turns out that the plot that's for everybody, that getting involved in is simply a matter of “just show up!” has a blacklist. And I'm on it.

I'm not allowed to participate in his plot. I'm not allowed to even have an indirect presence in it. So even if I didn't have massive misgivings based on #1-4 above, #5 seals it for me: I'm a second-class citizen in this MUSH now because a MUSH-wide plot that's unofficially-official (or officially-unofficial or whatever) is closed to my participation.

Period.

And that is the final disaster in a stream of disasters that is this plot. If you're going to run a plot, on rails or otherwise, that has such a major impact across the whole MUSH, you cannot have blacklists. Personally you don't have to scene with someone you don't like to. Consent rules the roost. But you cannot lock someone out of participating in any way whatsoever.

And it gets worse when the poltroon that ran the plot denied to my face knowing what I was talking about while telling other people that yeah, I was blacklisted.

And it gets even worse when the staff apparently tolerates this behaviour.

For when I requested that the scene that tried to get peripherally (!) involved in the MUSH-wide plot be deleted because I was blacklisted from it, the reaction of staff wasn't “WTF?! What blacklist!?” The reaction was a cheery “OK!” and that was the end of it. The staff either knew about (or, worse, didn't care about) the existence of a blacklist in a game-wide plot.

Conclusion ... of more than just this rant

And that marks the conclusion of things. This plot is a disaster from inception through execution. There is no way this is going to go well for any but a small number of players. It has already alienated several players, and now ...

This marks the conclusion of my relationship with this game. Allowing a plot this disruptive to exist? That's an error, but it's also a learning experience. I had enough faith in the staff before today to think they'd learn from the mistake they made in letting this monstrosity happen.

Then I found out that they not only tolerate, but seemingly cheerfully condone blacklists.

And that's the end of my faith in staff, the end of my time on this MUSH, and the end of my time on all MUSHes at all.