The Mossy Player’s Handbook

“Great party, Shane,” you say as you grab your coat, “by the way, how did you meet the little person, and while we talked for some time, I can’t remember his name.”

“I must have look over him, but all jokes aside, I didn’t see him, so I can’t help you. Must have been a friend of someone else,” Shane says finishing off his glass of wine.

“Huh. I would have thought the perfectly quaffed Vandyke and the blue-tinged hair on an older gentlemen would be pretty noticeable.” As you stumble home, you remember the ticket. Ah yeah, you have it, one entry ticket to Wyldwood Bar.

Even the description he gave you to get to this bar sounded wild. From the Gladstone city park, follow the red bandannas under the hawthorn trees…

Introduction

With all the talk in the TTRPG community about OSR (Old School Revival), I’d like to invite you to an old school online RPG experience (er, experiment), I call Sitting on Moss and Jumping in Puddles. This is:

  • cozy: light-hearted and jovial
  • casual: arrive and leave when you want/can
  • rules lite: so much so, the interface I’ve programmed takes care of the rules
  • role-play heavy: the interesting characters produce the entertainment, and like improv, do a “yes, and” to the characters other players puppet.

I guess I’ve made a “collaborative storytelling system”, where we’ll be playing either Fey denizens of this Otherworld or more normal fantasy characters, who tripped and landed in the middle of a faery circle, and now finds themselves outside time, caught at a tavern in a Feywild™ domain. Such narrative-first, each player does “add” to the story.

Keep in mind that this game is different. It harkens back to the nineteen-hundreds where mechanical mice and online graphical interfaces didn’t exist, so you would type your commands, and read about the world. Here’s an example:

You find yourself in an amazing room formed from a ring of living trees. The canopy of boughs above twinkle with the lights of small, glowing orbs. Working the bar, a haughty-looking elf; waiting on tables, a smiling mushroom man, er…person. You notice a bowl of candy, and a sign above the bar. You also see the following characters: A quartet of pixies playing music A shrub nursing a glass of water A large frog looking dapper in his pinstripe suit and hat

>> look sign
You see a large sign made of wood over the bar, hanging from a branch of one of the living trees. Painted words at the top read, Wyldwood Cocktails, and a list of drinks you can order.

The pixies atop the giant, red-capped mushroom begin another tune.

White mist appears…along with the smell of sulphur… When the smoke clears, an old gnome with fading blue hair and a white vandyke beard materializes.

The old gnome happily asks you, “Ah, a wanderer from the Mud World, I see. You look familiar, old chap, have we met before?”

>> say Gosh, I dunno, Mister, I don't ... Why are you so small?
You ask, “Gosh, I dunno, Mister, I don’t … Why are you so small?”

The old gnome indignantly asks, “Judge me by my stature, will you?”

>> say I didn't mean no offense!
You exclaim, “I didn’t mean no offense!”

The old gnome slams his staff against the floor. The room goes completely dark.

The music stops abruptly.

In the darkness, you see a pair of large red eyes, and a low gutteral growl.

The old gnome whispers to you, “No offense taken, mah boy.”

The glowing orbs along the branches of this room relight and the music, starts again.

>> say/carefully Nice to meet yer acquaintance, sir.
You carefully say, "Nice to meet yer acquaintance, sir.”

You won’t know any character’s name (necessarily) and with the online interface I’ve made, you won’t even know which player is playing which character, and in fact, until a player actually introduces themselves, you may know them as “blond-braided elf”. My interface is sort of like two chat channels: one for the players and one for the characters.

Does this sound fun? If so, think of an interesting character you can use to entertain. You can log in any time you want to get a feel for the interface, and create a character (and you can create more than one character, so don’t fear commitment). You can change anything about your character (so again, don’t fear commitment).

This game has two distinct sections:

  • Solo areas, where you can wander around the Land of Moss to get a feel for the interface as well enjoy the hidden mirth.
  • Party areas, like the Wyldwood Bar, where you interact with others, are available on particular times, like Tuesday evenings from 1900 (7 PM) to 2100 Pacific Time. These areas aren’t available at other times, because they require personal puppeting as I don’t want non-interactive zombies or LLM agents ATM.

The interface I’ve programmed has an online help system and a tutorial to walk you through how to play, but the following document explains how to use this game interface.

Connecting

Log in via https://www.howardabrams.com/cozy and click the Enter button (if you would rather not use a web browser, you can install any MUD application, and connect to howardabrams.com at port 4000).

First time? Create an account by typing: 

create yourname password

You can use your name for the yourname and enter an interesting password.

You will then log into the system each time, by typing: 

connect yourname password

To play, you type commands as if you were using a terminal as a grizzled computer programmer from the 80’s, because, that is pretty much what this interface is.

Let me describe most of the commands.

Character Creation Commands

The first time you log in, you enter the character creator, a text-base wizard interface, where you can type back and next to answer prompts answering questions about your character. You will need to answer the following:

  1. Short Description, like beardless dwarf or tall, blond elf, etc.
  2. Set Gender for pronouns: male, female, neutral or ambiguous.
  3. Character’s “Pose”, like smoking a pipe, or smiling. You will change this often, but if anyone looks around the area, they will see something like: beardless dwarf smoking a pipe
  4. Long Description is a full description that if anyone looks directly at your character, this is what they see.
  5. Character’s Name is for you to keep track of your characters.

You can re-use that system to create a new character at any time, by doing: 

ooc

charcreate

You can also use the chardelete to get rid of a character you don’t want to play, and type ic to switch to a different character.

During the game, you can change everything about your character, using the following commands:

look

Type this to see what other see when they look at you: 

look me

Of course, you can use the look command alone to look around the room, or look at someone or something in particular.

sdesc

Since you won’t know any character’s name, you may know a character as a short description, like “blonde-braided elf” or “beardless dwarf”.

Come up with a punchy short description of your character by typing: 

sdesc hobbit with mutton chops

While descriptive, everyone will see this all the time, so short and punchy should be your goal. 

The hobbit with mutton chops says, "Hello."

pose

Let the world know what your are doing with the pose command. 

pose leaning against the bar

This phrase, shown when someone types look without being specific, shows the room and its contents, for instance: 

You also see the following characters:
A lizardman hungrily looking around the room for a snack
An old gnome smoking a pipe
A shrub nursing a glass of water

You may have a default pose, that can return to. For instance, if you set your default as: 

pose default whistling a tune only dogs can hear

Then when someone cracks a joke, you type: 

pose snickering

Later, you can return your default pose with: 

pose reset

gender

This command sets the pronouns for some situations for your character. Note the simplification, as we have limited this to four in our game: 

gender male

For he and his. 

gender female

For she and hers. 

gender neutral

For it and its. 

gender ambiguous

For they and theirs.

setdesc

If someone looks directly at you, for instance, by typing: 

look hobbit

They will see your description you set with desc.

What do you want them to see? Feel free to get creative and give them a reason to ask you about your character. 

setdesc A small, hunched old man with a gray vandyke and an eye twinkle. Spectacles perched precariously on the end of his hooked nose, wobble with his head. A jaunty crimson cap contrasts with his dark brown cloak.

Character Communication

Use the following commands for your character to communicate with other characters, in story …

say

Type say and a phrase to say something so that everyone in the area can hear that. Because we use this command so much, and we want to make the text to read more interesting, you can use some aliases, including:

  • ask, so that it may read: 

    Beardless dwarf asks, “How are you?”

  • reply, so it may read: 

    Tall, blond elf replies, “Well, and you?”
  • respond, yell, and scream, are similar.

  • Remember, " and ' are shortcuts allowing you to type: "Greetings to have it read: 

    Beardless dwarfless says, “Greetings”

whisper

Allows you to say someone to a character that no one else will hear. So typing: 

whisper gnome = Hey there, wake up!

Will send a private message to the character matching the short description, gnome.

emote

This command allows you to state anything else, you want. Essentially turning the chat channel into a bit of a novel. For instance: 

emote grins.

Will show: 

Beardless dwarf grins.

Entering the following command with a /me removes your sdesc from the beginning of the message, and puts it where you want it, for instance: 

From the corner of the room, /me walks over to /elf. "Hello," she whispers.

Would read: 

From the corner of the room, beardless dwarf walks over to tall, blonde elf. "Hello," she whispers.

Why use the /me and /elf? Well, they are shorter, but also plays to how each character views that character. See the next command for clarification.

recog

This command allows you to sort-of rename someone. For instance, if you knew the elf’s name was Shasta, you could type 

recog elf = Shasta

and now the previous example would read: 

From the corner of the room, beardless dwarf walks over to Shasta.

This associates a label to a character for you only. Others may have the Elf labeled only as bitchy elf. So, when you write, in an emote, /Shasta, they might see bitchy elf instead.

mask

Other characters may have labeled you as someone they have met before, but now you look different. Use this to show that they wouldn’t be able to recognize you. 

mask hooded stranger

Once you remove your mask (or hood in this example), return to your regular sdesc with: 

unmask

Player Communication

If you want to talk out of character … you know, player-to-player, uses these commands:

pub

Use this command to send a message to the out-of-character public channel. All logged in users receive these OOC messages, prefixed by your username, not your character.

Typing something like: 

pub Is anyone here yet?

Might show a transcript like: 

[Public] howard: Is anyone here yet?
[Public] rick: Yeah. I just got here.

Yes, for most client apps (including my web version), the in-character and out-of-character messages are interlaced. Not ideal, and I’m going to see if I can do something about that.

I have more commands for getting and drinking Fey cocktails, and exhibiting their effects, but that should give you an idea of how this game will be played. Nope, no audio and no visuals, so feel free to put on your favorite Fey-inspired music and ambiance and casually role play with us.

page (or tell)

Like the pub command above, this allows you to talk to another player directly. I expect we will use this primarily for talking to the GM during the game session. For instance: 

tell howard I am here.

And you might see: 

You paged howard with: 'I am here.'.
Account howard pages: Great.

While both commands do the same thing, page sounds like the user gets a notification even if they aren’t logged in. That’s not how it goes.

Perhaps you should probably create an account with your actual name, so I can keep track of who’s who. 😏

think

This command puts a thought bubble on the public channel. Use this to be cute about commenting what you see as a player, and not as a character. 

think Did he really say that out loud?

May display as: 

[Public] howard thinks aloud... o O ( Did he really say that out loud? )

Misc Commands

Lots of commands I call miscellanea. These commands can also change depending on where you are, or what you have. For instance, the cast and reel commands are only available when you have the fishing pole down at the Lazy Dock. You can type help to see all the commands available at any given point.

get

See something you want, type get and the name of the object. If you can get it, it will be in your inventory. Type inv to see what you’ve got. 

get stick

drop

Use this command to leave something from your inventory in the current location. 

drop stick

give

Use this command to give something in your inventory to someone else. 

give book to elf

take

Use this command to take something that someone has that you want. Stealing is frowned upon, so very little can be taken. You also need to specify who has what you want, for instance: 

take ring from knocker

read

You see that sign in the Bar with the cocktail list? You can read it: 

read sign

This is also how you can read a book in Dabbler’s house.

eat

Did you get some berries from the brambleberry bush, or a scone from Dabbler’s? Use this command to find out what it tastes like. 

eat scone

You can also use the feed command with the beast and other wildlife.

drink

Got a cocktail from the bar, or a teacup from Dabbler’s? Use this command to enjoy it. 

drink

You can only drink so many times before the glass or cup runs out, and you need a re-fill.

That is also when the effects of the potions…er, cocktails kick in.

Character Backstory

Every character has a backstory, and I would appreciate if you could share yours with me. I can then start to craft the world to make a home for your character. This doesn’t need to be extensive or long. Perhaps you can think about answering some of the following questions?

  1. Where are you from? Think of the D&D Multiverse (and Beyond), and pick your favorite location. If you are a Fey entity, choose a Domain from cannon or of your own devising.
  2. How did you get here? I have a lot of text about encountering a blue haired gnome with a white, Vandyke facial hair who invited you, but you don’t have to use that.
  3. Character philosophy or religion? Obviously, unless physically noticeable, what does your character think or worship? Don’t worry about what gods are cannon, for while I really like the names that Matt Mercer uses in his Exandria source book, AllFather, Stormbringer, etc. Your god doesn’t have to be “real” for your character to believe in.
  4. Any special Fey-related wishes? Now that you’re here, can you think of anything you want or anyone you hope to meet? What has your character heard about the Plane of the Fey?
  5. Any character-defined events of your past? I suppose all the standard character development features you might find in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, or from The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide can be applicable. Granted, most of this could also be fleshed out during play.
  6. What story would you like to tell? And I mean, actually telling a story. I would love to have an NPC ask a question or help set up a scenario where you can tell a story from your character’s past.

Email these backstories to me, and I’ll start to bend the main story to them, and at least, have the NPC’s ask leading, opportune questions.

Hrm. What have I missed?