chapter 2 "The Vision Thing" Are you sure you want to run a mud? I mean, are you *really* sure? Most newbie admins have no idea what a difficult task lays before them. I started my own mud in 1995. It's still around today, in fact. Back then, I'd been coding on a mud that had its hosting pulled. I finagled access to my university's systems and told the old mud's admin "Hey, let's host it here!" He didn't want to, so it was just me and my new Nightmare IV mud. I figured "what the heck, maybe I can run my own," and the rest is history. I hadn't a clue how to manage people, and things just wouldn't come together. I had literally dozens of creators come and go, and I could never figure out why they'd build a few things and leave. The problem was me, obviously. There was nothing about the mud people disliked: Nightmare was a very popular lib at the time. The problem was that people wanted leadership from me, and I didn't even know it, much less know how to provide it. Creators ("builders") are your most precious resource. Without them you don't have a mud, you have a lib. Sure, you can try building everything yourself...and with Dead Souls, that's not so farfetched an idea. But after a few months of toil, you'll see that you have weaknesses, you are not the perfect builder, and you will wish for the help and support of others. If you don't carefully cultivate your relationships with these people, you will fail. Your mud will be a failed mud, and your self-expression squelched. This is why I ask you if you're *really* sure you want to run a mud. Running a mud isn't about lording it over puny mortal players. It isn't about being the sharpest lib coder logged in. It isn't about bossing your staff, or making long lists of rules and job titles and meeting schedules. Your job as an administrator is to manage people, and guide them toward a single vision, over which you yourself may not have full control. People will listen to the admin at first because, well, she's the admin. But if you can't demonstrate the qualities of leadership they expect, they will stop respecting you, and they will leave. Or worse, they will hang around and be difficult. What's this about a "vision"? People will work for a variety of reasons, mostly money, fun, recognition, etc. Rewards. When your new coders show up, they will need motivation to work. Since you probably won't be offering much in the way of money or recognition, you'll need to find a way to motivate your coders by making it fun to work with you. Obviously I don't mean you need to be jolly and wear funny hats. In fact, you can be quite boring a person and still be good to work with. When I mean it has to be fun for your creators, I mean that they have to be inspired to do stuff...they have to *want* to build because they are expressing themselves in a way they enjoy. This means you'd be unwise to start parceling out "missions" and "assignments". Find out what your new creator *wants* to do, then do your best to accommodate them. It's that simple. If they're working on what they *want* to do, you don't need to actively motivate them...you just need to make sure they have what they need, and that they understand what is expected of them. These expectations are the other part of the individual management of creators. Just as is it fatal to give creators "homework", it is just as counterproductive to say "do whatever you want, man, you're free to do anything." Part of the fun of work is knowing what the standards are, and how your work will be judged. If your creator feels like you don't actually care what she builds, she won't care much about doing a job that's up to any standards but her own. After a while of this, she's going to figure out she might as well just run her *own* mud. You therefore have to have a strong sense of what your mud will look like, and what each creator's role in that mud will be. If you don't know, or it seems like you don't know, you'll lose them. You don't run the mud because you have the admin password. You run it because people think you run it. If they stop thinking it, you stop running it. So I ask again. Do you know what you want out of this mud? Have you planned out what you want people to be doing? When a talented coder shows up, will you be prepared to negotiate their proper role, and persuade them that the mud will succeed? Do you *really* want to be a mud admin? Or are you just looking to be someone's boss? First, find your vision. Everything else will be hard work, but if you know what your mud will be, and what you need from other people, then you just might have a chance to succeed.