First off, let us stress that it is indeed just for some characters. 90% of the characters available can be had with an extremely minimal “application” which consists of the prospective player telling us if have read the books or not and if they have MUSHed before or not. With those answers, we can better tailor our help and advice to what the player is likely to need. They also get the option to send in their concept for feedback before entering CharGen, but that is entirely voluntary.

The vast majority of players on the game are playing this type of character. We call these characters “Open”.

But, yes, there are other character types too. Each character has a Type attribute which determines its availability. Other than Open characters, players can also request Restricted and Limited characters, and for these the application process is more detailed.

The reason for the more detailed applications lies in why the characters are assigned these types. Some represent more difficult roles, some represent more powerful roles. In all these cases, we want to see players with solid experience of the setting and of MUSH roleplay. We also want to see particularly solid concepts for these characters, especially those that are in positions of more IC power where they will have more effect on the game and on other players. Finally, we also want good roleplayers—which of course can be very subjective—in these roles so that they can be role-models for less experienced players, setting examples through their roleplay, leadership and initiatives. So, we ask for an actual application when someone requests a Restricted or Limited character.

In some senses, Restricted and Limited characters represent the same types of characters that some games might call “Features” (we use that exclusively for the few canon characters that show up in our family trees), which may perhaps show more clearly why we place more strictures on these characters.

The quotas that we have implemented do not have anything directly to do with whether a character is Open or Restricted or Limited. Instead, the quotas are based on which Tier a character is. Tiers run from I to V and the quotas regulate II and III (and I, but that is only available as an in-game promotion). A II is always at least Limited, a III is always at least Restricted. Open characters are IV which in game terms is “above average” as we feel that any PC should be at least that good.

Tiers were born out of our desire to have a game where the CharGen system didn’t necessarily strive to equalize everyone, which usually means that being good at one thing would lead to you invariable being bad at most everything else. We also wanted to be able to portray the great fighters, the great masterminds and some of the rare and unusual concepts of the series. So, we made it so that one component that decides the Type of a character is its CharGen setup, where IIs and IIIs are given more points to set themselves up with as well as access to some attributes that IVs don’t have access to.

Overall, Type and Tier simply means that it is possible for an experienced player to start out with the sort of role that otherwise might only be available through in-game promotions if they are willing to make the extra effort of submitting an application. If they prefer not to, Open characters are readily and easily available and they are not in any way second-class characters suitable just for newbies. Some of the key movers and shakers on the game are Open characters.

Finally, since the question does come up now and then, why all the hoops, in this day and age of shrinking MU*s? We would naturally not mind a big game, but quality is more important to us than quantity, and a lot of our current players (including the ones playing Open characters) feel the same when asked about it. We’re not putting these requirements in to keep anyone out, but we do believe that the these rarer roles should go to really good roleplayers with really good character concepts.