on LambdaMOO: reprinting a comment on last entry

[scarfman]

A MOO is a text-based MMORPG system, where MOO stands for MUD (Object-Oriented) (where MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon). LambdaMOO was the first and the biggest, and may still be the biggest though graphics-based ones are bigger nowadays of course. I've been a member for fourteen years, but I (and the people I know there) use it for chatting rather than gaming; sort of like sitting around a con in hall costumes cosplay.

I still like text-based RPG for the capability it affords to adopt a persona, any persona without regard to game-provided options, with a sentence or two of verbal description; and for the capability it affords of dressing up as more than one person at once. One of the ways to do the latter is a "puppet", an object that appears to be another player but in fact is controlled by another player. One of the first things I did when I became a member (there was a waiting list in those days; dunno about now) was get myself the ability to morph and a puppet that could also morph, and set us up respectively as all the Doctor's incarnations and all the Doctor's companions. I also built a TARDIS to travel around in. And I have several non-Doctor Who morphs.

I decided I'd better edit the companions' descriptions when someone reacted to the word "girl" in one as if it meant she was prepubescent.