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Roles

More players on MUDs mean more opportunities for interaction and ultimately survival. Richard Bartle posited that the less interesting MUDs needed higher numbers of players to flourish. He also characterized MUDs played by teenagers as more violent and acrimonious than those played by adults in their thirties. Even gender is a factor, with an equal gender distribution turning MUDs into “little more than dating agencies” (1990).

Creator Roles

Creator roles include the computer program that hosts the game and the wizards who code on it.

Computer Program

On MUDs, the computer fills roles traditionally handled by a Dungeon Master. At the simplest level are programmed nonplayer characters. They are sometimes called ro(bots) or mobs, short for mobile objects. Generally speaking, mobs are hostile opponents who seek to kill the character. They are the monsters of the world, the most basic beast capable of slaying an adventurer.

Castronova differentiates the more sophisticated bots as nonplayer characters, using the tabletop role-playing game term to identify the seemingly more intelligent mobs. These are the merchants, guards, and otherwise nonhostile beings inhabiting the universe that create the illusion of a living world. They are the workers, the faceless masses, and the roles originally played by Dungeon Masters.

The nonplayer character is the one of several computer program roles that mimic a tabletop role-playing game’s Dungeon Master. A subset of this type of character is the mentor, who introduces the game world to the player by going beyond the game’s in-world dialogue to explain how the game world works.

There are also MUD characters quantified in tabletop Dungeons &Dragons as “henchmen.” Henchmen were defined as “a safety measure against the machinations of rival player characters [who] provide strength to the character and his or her stronghold, and lastly serve as a means of adventuring when the player character is unable to” (1979:34). Henchmen acted as allies to help round out a party.

Pets are controlled by the player, either permanently or temporarily, and are distinct in that they are not bots to be defeated or nonplayer characters to be interacted with. They are essentially an extension of the player’s character, usually with limited control that prevents them from being considered fullfeatured characters.

Castronova quantifies one final, invisible role, that of the artificial intelligence operating the world. This includes everything from doors opening and closing to fire burning. A logical effect put into motion has a logical conclusion. It is when the player attempts to influence the natural course of events that the invisible role of the code base that runs the game comes into play. If I try to douse the fire, does it go out? What determines if I have enough water? If I attempt to close the door, am I strong enough to close it? What if it’s too heavy?

These roles are all adjudicated in tabletop role-playing games through two mechanisms: rulebooks and dice. The rulebook provides a general outline of the rules that apply—the strength necessary to open a door, the dexterity necessary to put out a fire, and so forth. The dice provide the random element that means an action may, but not necessarily will, result. On a MUD, these mechanisms are controlled through the codebase, a system Castronova calls “Nature” (2005:95).

Wizard

Despite the immersion of a MUD’s players in their character roles, they are still capable of appealing to the “coding authority,” the creators of the game. These creators are pressured through in-game and out-of-game tactics, in the same way that tabletop role-players attempt to influence the game master during play. Like unpopular Dungeon Masters, the coding authority risks mass protests that, at their most extreme, culminate in players leaving the game and discouraging others from joining (Castronova 2005:152).

Wizards are the coding authority of