About the Game
From FiranMUX
About FiranMUX...
FiranMUX is the brainchild of Adam & Stephanie Dray, and the product of many years of development. More than 50 different people volunteered their time and sweat to build Firan's rooms, objects, code, help and news files, and web pages, and it takes a very large staff to keep it running. While Firan may never be "complete," we are very proud of what we've accomplished to-date. We feel our ideas and systems are original and fun.
The game is a blend of elements that interest us: primarily a role-playing game environment with a touch of a coded MUD feel, and hints of ideas from games like Civilization and Colonization, SimCity, and Populous.
However, the real aim of Firan is to provide a rich environment that encourages role-playing and storytelling. The game helps players role-play in a number of ways.
Overview
Intrigue, romance and epic plots set the tone for the Roman-like FiranMUX. Set in the city Anarinuell, the political center of the Firan Republic, characters fight to retain and gain social status, use power to manipulate politics, preserve ancient clan rivalries, fight a common enemy and keep a sketchy banner of peace intact under a single captivating ruling family. Using a code-intensive customized system that is a hybrid of MUX and several other games, Firan systems are easy to learn, designed with player's ease in mind, and an aid to roleplaying, rather than a hindrance. Extensive help files, helpful staff members, and a friendly player base combine with the unique setting and history of the game to create a truly distinctive roleplaying experience.
FiranMUX is based in an original world, with a unique, staff-run, overarching story-line. The creators and staff of FiranMUX have pulled the best of many games into one with an emphasis on intensive roleplaying, but ornamented with a versatile combat system, universal rules that govern the use of divine magic, a circular economic system, and tools with which to govern cities and nations. FiranMUX also boasts of a large number of other coded and FUN systems: war, clothing, fashion, social status, economics, legal, witnesses, rumors and gossip, food and drink, smithing and crafting, training and teaching, and others.
The best part of the game is the characters. Players choose from a list of pre-generated characters who have pre-existing relationships, psychological depth and individual goals. You join the game fully immersed in the life of your character. Due to the complex relationships already in place, roleplaying begins immediately without a long search for connection to other characters.
Play centers around political and social interactions between the Ranivor (not quite a king, not quite a president), the hereditary leaders of the eight clans, various nobles, and other citizens. Major game events include the Spring and Fall festivals and the yearly summer campaigns to reclaim the city of Ellish, which is still occupied by the non-human Shamibelian army.
We encourage community-building through pages and chat channels that players can turn off when they want to concentrate on roleplaying. As a result, FiranMUX has attracted a wide range of mature, skilled roleplayers who know how to develop a character's personality, write entertaining stories, and have a good time.
Pre-Generated Characters
All of Firan's characters are pre-generated. You can't make your own. At first, this can put off a player who is used to total creative control, but we really have reasons for doing this.
First of all, it's really hard to create a fleshed out character that fits into the Firan theme. Even our veteran players and staff have a hard time doing a good job of creating a character, so Steph designs them all. While she originally chargenned almost every single character, it is too much work for any one person and, as such, she enlists the help of her staff in fleshing out her original designs.
Second, the characters are totally fleshed out and connected to the game and other characters. They have the normal stuff, like descriptions and personalities and backgrounds, but they also have relationships to other characters on the game. There are very few who don't have family and friends, and some have enemies and rivals. Most characters have secrets, too, to give them an extra twist. Expect a Firan character to come with goals and fears and loves and hates.
All of this means that, when you log in the first time, you'll have something to role-play.
Non-Consent Role-Playing
The non-consent style of role-playing means that the plots and storylines that your character may be subjected to are not always under your control. A commoner might start vicious rumors about your noble, without your permission. Someone could attack your guard without negotiating the scene first.
The flip side is consent-based gaming, in which every scene is negotiated between the players involved, though one's actions inevitably have consequences that you cannot ignore. Some people feel that consent-based role-play is The One True Way, and that's fine. We ask them to try our game for a while. We feel that NON-consent gaming can toss surprises at you and challenge you to role-play through difficult situations, and it also avoids a lot of the out of character angst that sometimes accompanies consent-based negotiations. Instead of spending your time talking about the scene, you can just play it out. Roleplay on Firan follows a very strict rule of IC Actions = IC Consequences, and the play is reinforced through the non-consent. Many consent-based players have found this to be refreshing, and usually not much different than how they may have played in a strict consent-based environment. In any case, there's nothing stopping two players from agreeing to negotiating a scene if both are agreeable. Just don't expect it.
We think the nonconsent-based style of role-playing works very well on Firan, and we believe that the quality of our role-players is very high.
Coded Systems
Firan has a lot of coded systems. Don't let that fact frighten you away. We've tried to design them so that you don't have to use that many of them, and you can opt out of many. Generally, a player might have a small subset to learn, depending on his or her character's profession. For example, a farmer would want to learn the farming commands, and a smith would need to learn the commands that let them make and describe arms and armor, but it's unlikely that a single character would require both.
Firan's code is mostly designed to enforce some basic consequences and to give players some kind of tangible ratings to guide their role-play. Characters have ratings for attributes and skills, and all the skills do something or influence the code somewhere. There's coded combat, though it doesn't get used that often, except for gladiator matches and the annual war.
Peek at What are Attributes Good For?
Story Arcs
Steph and Adam have developed some large story arcs that guide the Firan story. Unless you're one of the Feature characters, it's unlikely that you'll ever be directly affected by these arcs, but you could get involved by luck (or misfortune, depending on how you see it). The story arcs are sweeping tales that are likely to span many years of real time, and some of Firan's mysteries may never be resolved. Nonetheless, they should supply a backdrop to make the world seem more alive and exciting.
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