A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ?

b

preposition Abbreviation for 'but', used as the universal excluding preposition by true addicts. 'G t b tr' means you want to pick up all the treasure in your room except any which is also classed as a trinket.

bad weapon

noun A weapon which isn't particularly effective. It will still probably be better than a non-weapon in a fight. "Don't bother with the blade, it's a bad weapon". objects that aren't weapons which are being considered for use as a weapon may sometimes be said to 'make a bad weapon'. See good weapon, weapon.

balance

1. noun How many charging units you have left. Q: "What's your balance?" A: "Oh, I'm good for another 30 minutes".

2. noun The quality of being well-tuned. Often used as a verb. New additions to the game are assessed in terms of balance, to decide whether or not they are a Good Thing. "Don't add anything to the dwarfs, that whole area is really well balanced". The term is sometimes negated, eg. "If you add MUD1's wand to MUD2, you'll imbalance the whole magic system".

ballroom

noun A legend (3) arising from the accidental discovery in BL that 'dance floor' makes some kind of sense. players originally trying to figure out what it might mean postulated the existence of a dance floor, ie. a ballroom, and lesser mortals took them at their word. It's one of those legends that's backed up by the Strange Things that happen if you type the right words, but which is completely without foundation.

baloons

1. noun What you get when players are given the ability to make textual changes to The Land. It comes from the first time wizzes were allowed to add objects of their own devising, when dozens and dozens of red 'baloons' were seen floating around. players are notoriously bad at spelling, yet assiduous in spotting spelling mistakes, and therefore baloons are regarded as a Bad Thing that deals a serious blow to any pretence of mystique a MUA may have. "We can't let mortals decide their own descriptions, we'd get baloons". See blank.

2. noun Metaphorically, any suggestions or additions which would ruin a game's atmosphere, such as semi-automatic pistols in a piracy scenario or a large desert in the middle of a forest. "If you put in a Roman centurion it'd be as bad as baloons". plodders often make such suggestions. See castle in the air.

baloonatic

noun A person who creates baloons (1).

bandstand

noun There is a powerful legend (3) which has extended across all incarnations of MUD that if you can get all the musical instruments together at the bandstand then Strange Things will happen. The nature of these differ, from simply showering you with points to having a ghostly orchestra appear and your having to solve that as the real puzzle. Naturally, what exactly constitutes being a musical instrument isn't ever quite clear... On CompuNet MUD, there was a further development where a ghostly conductor would appear and you had to give him the baton; singing along while he conducted his band would cause the bandstand to "crumble before your eyes. You score about 800 points for doing all this". I'm sure you do...

bash

1. verb¹ To kill mobiles, eg. "Let's bash a few dwarfs", although sometimes used humorously of personae ("Let's bash a few mages"). See mobile bash.

2. noun A BL term for a meet.

BB

noun Short for 'big brother', in the context of BB/BS.

BB/BS

noun Abbreviation for 'big brother/big sister'; usually fully capitalised. In some incarnations of MUD, most notably BL (where the term arose), mortal wizzes are assigned an experienced wiz to instruct them in the ways of wizdom. A wizard would be a BB, a witch would be a BS. There's no generic 'big sibling' term, so BB/BS is used. The game management strategy of using BBs/BSs is referred to as having a BB/BS programme (or program for American spellers). See mentor, perm, wiz bit.

B-29

noun One of the most enduring legends in BL, of such complexity that it beggars belief. It occasionally occurs as a B-52, B-17, or whatever other Boeing bomber comes to mind, but each variant is always capitalised. The gist is that you have to collect all the metal you can and get to the dwarf forge (see also armour), where you can make a B-29 if you know how to use the poker. The ventilator is its propeller, and it may help if you can get the cannon on board. The command to take off is 'contact'. Drop the bomb you made and the game will crash. There are different versions of what happens next. Everyone except the pilot usually dies, although it may be that only those at ground zero are dead dead. The bomb-dropper may make wiz automatically, or may get the kill points of those personae who are bombed, or may just get 10% of this total. Whatever, it's a lot - "well worth going for"... Oh, and don't fly too low or you'll crash into the Cottage.

berserk

1. verb⁰ To gain points only by killing. MUD1 had a special 'berserk' command which gave double points if you killed anything and endowed you with a higher stamina, but you couldn't swamp T any more and couldn't flee from fights. People who entered berserk mode like this (ie. berserkers) could make it to a reduced-power 'berserk WIZ' level. See Mist.

2. verb⁰ To indulge a sudden blood-lust, usually against large numbers of vastly inferior opposition (dwarfs, rats, lowlifes etc.), until sated. T and the like is ignored until the player returns to his or her senses. "Don't bother Toeknee just now, he's berserking".

3. adjective What you are when you're berserking. People tend to apply this to players rather than personae - a persona would be a berserker, whereas a player would be berserk. However, when a persona enters berserk mode the process is still referred to as going berserk.

berserker

noun A persona dedicated to scoring points only (or, these days, primarily) from killing. In MUD1, berserkers were a separate stream (2), but there is no such official recognition in MUD2: this is because the presence of berserkers in MUD1 tended to make the game be unplayable for other mortals, so the facility was eventually switched off (except in some fight-oriented databases written in MUDDL, eg. Mist). As far as the MUD1 (and therefore the MUD2) database was concerned, berserkers were inappropriate.

berserk mode

1. noun The condition of a persona of being a berserker.

2. noun The condition of a player of being berserk.

big stuff

noun Synonym of big T.

big T

noun Things that score you points. Although it does refer to objects which are themselves valuable on an absolute scale ("The crown and the icons? That's big T!"), the term is normally used more vaguely to mean some of the high-scoring puzzle sequences commonly attempted by highlife. These can consist of large caches of T, or of lots of pieces of not-very-valuable T accumulated over time. Examples of big T are the fountain, the druid treasure chamber, the dragon, the Dwarf Realm and the Keep (the first three are classically done together). "I need the points to make necro, I'm going for the big T". See D&D (2).

Bimbo of the Year

noun Each year, BL's real female witches (informally, the SWC) select among themselves who is to be the recipient of this award. Being elected Bimbo of the Year is considered (by the winners) to be an honour. This shows just how deserving of the title they really are..!

binder

noun The part of MUD which finds the referents of a command's nouns in the context of the game. If you 'drop gold' it means drop the objects of class gold that you are carrying; 'get gold' means get the the golden objects in your room; 'steal gold from <player>' means steal the golden objects that <player> is carrying; 'wh gold' means find all golden objects, no matter where they may be. The binder determines which specific objects the command refers to, and executes the command on each such object. The binder is also the deep magic that makes sense of noun phrases like 'the 2 fullest locked boxes which are also gold but not marked "CORN FLAKES"'. See parser, interpreter, command.

BL

noun Abbreviation for 'British Legends', the incarnation of MUD1 played on CompuServe ('go legends' to play it). It's actually a modification of the classic Essex MUD, to account for American tastes and CompuServe's idiosyncrasies. This means that all American traps have been removed, and certain programming constraints have been imposed (most notably, it has a seven-second sleep inserted between commands so as not to use up too much CPU capacity - at that rate, MUD2 players would probably have to endure delays of seven minutes!). Officially, BL is MUD version 3B.

blank

1. noun A creation of a wiz. Contrary to folk wisdom, mortals can be killed by blanks and remain dead dead. See reaper.

2. verb¹ The act of creating a blank (1). This unmodified form is rare: normally blank up or blank <player> is used.

blank <player>

verb¹ The act of creating a blank (1) for <player>, where <player> will normally be 'myself'. The object so blanked will either be for <player>'s own personal use ("I'm going to blank myself a doughnut") or something from which <player> will gain fun ("I'm going to blank myself the cavern quest"). Infrequently, this command will be combined with blank up to mean that the blanking is for <player>'s benefit but is unpremeditated ("Pawla looks sad, shall I blank her up some T?").

blank up

verb¹ The act of creating a blank (1) on-the-fly. The up adverb indicates that the blanking is unplanned ("Shall we blank up a few weapons to make the bash more interesting?"), trivially easy ("I'll just blank up the usual noticeboard") or unprofessionally bad ("Who blanked up this 'ray gun of the orcs'?"). See also blank <player>.

blat bath

noun Variant of blat fest.

blat fest

noun A series of short, sharp skirmishes with lot sof attacking going on, usually constrained to a few rooms in the same vicinity. A localised, mini-version of hack & slay. The fest part is short for 'festival'; the blat is a cross between 'blood' and 'splat'. Occasionally,blat bath is also seen.

bloodlust

noun A mechanism employed by some MUAs to reduce the number of operational killers. The idea is that the more times a particular player attacks other players, the greater that attacking player's bloodlust becomes; the number of points the attacker stands to lose when fleeing a fight is directly proportional to that persona's bloodlust. Highly active killers therefore risk losing enormous quantities of points if obliged to flee hostilities that they started. Sometimes, the term is applied more broadly to mean the concept that attackers should lose more than defenders, whether they flee or die; in this case, bloodlust is usually implemented as a global scaling constant, rather than as a persona-dependent one.

blouse

noun A player who dislikes combat with other players, usually because it's distasteful or tiresome. Blouses will studiously avoid inter-persona fights wherever possible, and often flee early when ambushed. They will almost never initiate fights against non-mobiles except by accident, even under intense provocation. This doesn't mean they're no good at fighting (indeed, some true addicts are blouses); it simply means they don't like it. The term derives from the mainstream idiomatic phrase "big girl's blouse"; it's only a mild disapprobation, and naturally even its frequent use is unlikely to drive a real blouse to set about anyone with the LS..! See socialiser.

bodyguard

noun Someone who has made an arrangement with a (usually higher-level) persona to come to their aid in the event of attack. If this happens regularly, or when a mage is on a wiz run, it is regarded as a form of cheating by some wizzes, even though strictly speaking it isn't illegal. Anyone making wiz while being bodyguarded, though, will undoubtedly be given the cold shoulder for some time, since they have effectively sneaked to wiz; if they have a BB/BS, they could required to do a lot more work before finally being recommended for perming. The use of bodyguards is sometimes an outward manifestation of multi-lining.

bogroll

noun A legend (3) on CompuNet MUD held that it was possible to acquire lavatory paper for the bathroom in the Cottage. This involved taking the rotting leg, roasting it to attract zombies, and following them as they marched off to the underground zombie kingdom. Giving the leg to the zombie kind would stun him, and you could unravel from his body the toilet paper in which he was wrapped - 'roll paper round scroll'. Taking this to the bathroom would turn it to gold worth over 500 points. Yes, some people did believe this!

bomb

noun The legend (3) that you can make a bomb out of the uranium. The fact that this would be a monumental programming task to implement cuts no ice whatsoever with Believers. This is a legend which has arisen independently in all incarnations of MUD. In BL, it's part of the B-29 myth.

bonebag

noun A skelly. See also bonehead.

bonehead

noun A skelly. See also bonebag.

bounce back

verb⁰ To shrug off a justifiably depressed condition, in particular that of being gutted.

brand

noun A stick. When lit, you can use such objects to see in the dark. When carried lit into the swamp, you will blow yourself to pieces and die dead (see brands hatch). In MUD1, brands were not numbered and would appear in inventories as eg. 'brand brand brand'. In Essex MUD, and MUAs derived directly from it, this was used as an in-joke way to raise a laugh. P1: "Oops, I hit caps lock by mistake". P2: "Pompom the hero is here carrying brand brand brand axe brand hearingaid brand".

brands hatch

noun When someone stacked with goodies plus one lit brand enters the swamp, they blow up. This is a brands hatch, so called because of the race ('Brands Hatch' is a motor-racing circuit) to get back before anyone else nicks the fruits of your hard labour (although it also evokes imagery of T "hatching" from an egg, just waiting to be picked up and swamped). The term can refer to the event, eg. "I lost the lot at a brands hatch" or to the pile of expected goodies which remains: "The LS? Oh, I got it in a brands hatch". Brands hatches usually occur at the rapids, but can happen elsewhere. It is considered cheeky, but inoffensive, to pick up the T from a brands hatch and swamp it before the previous owner can get back ("Sorry, was it yours?"), as it serves them right for being so careless in the first place (especially if they were playing in macro mode at the time). However, it is very bad form not to leave the poor victim their kit, so they can continue playing. Surprisingly, there is no term used to describe the situation where you pick up a brands hatch in its entirety, including the offending lit brand , then zw to the swamp and blow yourself up. See race (2).

breadth

noun The quality in a MUA (or, indeed, a SUA) of being able to deal with things the players try to do. If a MUA has trees and an axe, it would be narrow not to cover the eventuality that someone may want to fell a tree. Likewise, lakes and seas will encourage attempts to swim; indeed, there are some commands which are reasonable in almost any context (singing, sleeping, throwing, writing). The more that a MUA can cope with these without resorting to a stock catch-all "I don't understand that" response, the greater its breadth. MUAs with the most breadth handle cases which most players would not think of trying, such as trying to open a door with a skeleton or hitting a sack and expecting to fall asleep; such responses are appealing to explorers, who go around looking for them. breadth should not be confused with size. Compare depth, see silly (3).

break <one's> wizzer

verb⁰ To lose the ability to go into wiz mode as a mortal wiz in BL. See wizzer, ----*.

bridge

noun A bridge is what arises when the bow/baton is left in one location and the baton/bow in another as a means of transporting lots of people across a great distance quickly. In MUD1, it is traditionally used to get to and from the Isle of Woe easily. See pointer.

brigade

noun The collective noun used to describe a group of players sharing a particular outlook. "Look out, here comes the hack and slay brigade". "Wait until the whinge brigade hear of this!".

bristling

adjective To be kitted out defensively. Although this may mean you're carrying the same kit that someone else might consider enough to be tooled up, it implies you've no bad intentions towards your fellow personae yet they would be very foolhardy to attack you. "I suggest you stop tracking me, I'm bristling".

British Legends

noun The official name for what the players all call BL.

broad

adjective Of a MUA, having breadth.

BS

1. noun The abbreviation for the broadsword, one of MUD's strongest weapons. Many long words are abbreviated in this manner, eg. FS for firestone, CS for candlestick, BC for bookcase. All of them may be used in either upper or lower case, although capitals are the norm for plural forms, eg. FSs. See LS, SS.

2. noun Abbreviation for 'big sister' in the context of BB/BS.

3. noun The ASCII 'backspace' character (2).

BT

noun Abbreviation for 'British Telecommunications plc' - a large and fearless monster that stands between players and fun, mercilessly gobbling their money and swelling obscenely with its grotesque profits. The hanging-by-a-thread existence of MUAs in the UK is a testament to this awful creature's short-sightedness and voracious appetite for destruction. Avoid if at all possible. See comms, line-noise, carrier loss.

buglet

1. noun A minor programming irritation that doesn't have to be fixed immediately but is probably so simple that it will be, for example a spelling mistake.

2. noun A fiendishly complex situation, yet one capable of being reproduced, in which the expected results do not occur. Such buglets are usually unearthed by explorers who are true addicts. "If you light something and put it inside an inflammable container then pick up that container, you'll find that when the container itself catches fire the message you get says you're burned from the object inside the container rather than by the container itself". Er, yeah. See unrealistic.

bully

noun Someone who continually picks on and hassles a player's personae to the extent that the game is rendered unplayable for them. bullying is illegal, but is hard to define; perpetrators are usually given umpteen warnings first (possibly including being (LEGALly) bullied by wizzes) before eventually being FODded if they persist. bullies are despised, because they torment PBS types much weaker than themselves; at least honest killers can attract reluctant admiration for their acts of derring-do.

build back up

verb¹ To build up a persona to somewhere close to the point where it was prior to some awful catastrophe. See build up, work back up.

build up

verb¹ To acquire enough points to achieve some desired level or meet implied performance criteria. "I'm building up a killer ready for the next mage". "I'm building up a PP to map the Dwarf Realm". "Louis built up a sorc in just two resets this morning". Normally, you build up a persona for some set purpose, but work up your main persona or one you particularly care about. See build back up, play up.

bundle

noun A mass combat, usually involving at least three participants. Normally seen in a shouted message, eg. "Bundle at rapids"; this invites people to come along and participate in what will then be (but might not be at the time of shouting) a bundle proper. A bundle may be a general free-for-all, or it could have some objective such as disposing of a hated killer. Alternatively, it could be a hoax perpetrated by a killer attempting to lure potential victims into a trap (see PC (1)). Sometimes, the term is used as a verb: "I was bundled at the swamp". See tag team, swarm, blat fest.

burdle

verb⁰ To potter about inoffensively. "I was burdling around in the Dwarf Realm when Magnox set about me with the LS." "I'll just burdle off to the swamp, back soon." Not stoking, but not plodding either.