Can I roleplay a character while Im on the MUD?
Well, there’s nothing stopping you, but it’s not really part of ifMUD culture. A lot of us go by our real names; others of us use handles, but even then, they’re just handles, not characters. Playing a character on ifMUD is a bit like showing up at a low-key potluck dinner wearing a Halloween mask. Sure, many MUDs encourage or even demand roleplaying, just as many parties encourage or even demand that you wear a costume. On ifMUD, however, we tend to just be ourselves. The space around us may be downright surreal at times, but the conceit is that it’s just regular ol’ us wandering around in it. Now, one could make the argument that one’s online persona is always different from one’s real-life personality — you might be chatty on the MUD but painfully shy in real life, for instance — and that there’s no clear line of demarcation between that phenomenon and playing a character. And sure, maybe there isn’t. But despite what the deconstructionists would have you believe, that does not me
