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.
