P

To fill unwanted spots with something else.

To notify. A command by this name exist on many MUDs, most esp.social oriented ones. It either allows the user to send amessage toanother user or tells the user that the sender wishes an audience.

See: tell , say .

Party, n.

Team of players working together towards some specific goal.Usually involves movement of characters from one area of the game toothers. Most often formed to solve quests or forcombat purporses.

See: group .

Password, n.

Secret key sequence normally needed to authenticate or show thata person is the user that they claim to be.

Path, n.

(1) Technical directory specific location of aroom , monster or object .Example: /worlds/earth/myhouse

(2) Series of links that lead from one location to another. Anyrepresentation of the same.

See: mudlib .

PBEM, n.,v. [Comp. of Play by E-Mail.]

Same as PBM , except limited to e-mail.

PBM, n,v. [Comp. of Play by Mail.]

Also PBEM .

(1) Type of game that is played by mail. Originally suchgames were by snail mail but today largelyconducted via e-mail. Games of this sort are closely akin toMUDs, sharing a common ancestory (RPG games).

(2) To play a game by mail.

PC, n. [Comp. of Player Character.]

(1) All of the data and characteristics of an object which a gameuses to represent an actor whose actions anddescription are mostoften under the control of a human user .

(2) Actor within a game. May be human controlled or automatic.The latter of these being often called AI (artifically intelligent).The human controlled presents a persona composed of virtual and real elements that are a character in the live theater orcinema sense and something more when one considers that the observeris also immersed within the world of the MUD.

(4) Personal Computer. Example: An IBM clone.

See: character .

Peek, v.

(1) Wizard command that when used with the argument of a player name will give you thepath , short and long description ofthe room where the specified character is located.

See: people .

People, v.

Wizard command lists the names andlocations of allusers andplayers presently connected.

See: peek , wizlist .

Ping, v.,n.

Intermud service that allows you to check whetheranother game is presently online and how much lag thereappears to be.

PK, n., adj., v. [Comp. of Player Kill(er).]

See: Player Kill and Player Killer .

PL, n., v. [Comp. of Player Looting.]

See: player looting .

Player, n.

(1) Human who plays.

(2) Single actor. The character owned by a human.

See: character , PC role-play .

Playerfile, n.

(Singular) Single file in which all of the important dataconcerning users of the game is stored.

(Plural) Body of files on which all of the important dataconcerning users of a game are stored.

Player Kill, v., n.

Also PK.

(1) (v). To kill a player. Usage: "I'll pk him."

(2) (n). Instance of such a killing.

(3) Flag that allows a player to kill others.

See: Player Killer .

Player Killer, n.

Also PK

PC (player) who has killed a fellow player. A PK can never bean NPC but only a character under the control of a real person.The term is usually used to describe habitual killers.

See: Player Kill .

Player Looting, v.

Also PL.

Removing equipment or something of value from the corpse of a PC without the permission of theoriginal owner. Typically fresh corpses are involved.Chiefly occurs on combat games.

See: corpse retrieval .

Player Wipe, n.

When a game's database of players is deleted forcing everyone to eitherquit playing or to start all over again.

Pointer, n.

Reference.

(1) To something real.

(2) To something virtual .

(3) To nothing at all. Esp. when used in programming.

Population, n.

Of a MUD is theaverage number of unique players that play the gameon an ongoing basis.

See: Population Density .

Population Density, n.

Number of players visible to the average player ina particular location within the game.

Port, n.

Number of the line a player is connected to the game by.Holdover from the BBS days when modems tied directly into thecomputer running a game. Now port refers to the index number ofthe file descriptor by which the game is presently communicatingwith the player. Essentially this number is meaningless toall but those involved in coding or working on the game behindthe scenes.

Powergamer, n.

Player who is only interested in accumulating as much personalpower as possible.

See: twink .

Pretitle, n.

Surname or title.String that appears before a player's name. Often of twentycharacters 3 or less. Automatically assigned onsome games, earned on others. Example pretitles: Lady, Lord, Madam, Prince, Princess, and Sir.

See: who , title .

Procedure, n.

(1) Part of a computer program that does work but does not return a value or pass the result on to another part of the same program.

(2) Rules to follow.

See: function , program .

Process, n.,v.

(1) Collection of procedures yielding structured or plannedresults.

(2) Computer program . Most often a currently running one.

Program, n.

Collection of instructions acted on by a computer to perform a task. A MUD is a program.

See: procedure , function .

Projectile, n.

Item for a weapon producing messages depicting the flight ofsaid item. Capable of actually striking targets. May require acoordinate system environment.Example: "Joe fires an arrow at You!"

See: armor , ranged_weapons .

Prompt, n.

Symbol or line of text which indicates that the MUD is ready toaccept commands . Prompts may also contain other informationsuch as player statistics .

See: client .

Prison, n.

Location isolated from others within which playersmay be held. An alternative to character deletionand similar permanent actions.Typically a single cell is designed for one occupant andcalled a prison. Suchplaces can be used by game administrators to punishbad behavor. Not to be confused with other places called prisonsthat serve thematic or quest roles in a game rather thanactual administrative purposes.For examples of bad behavior see:sexual harassment , spam .

Prop, n.

See: property .

Property, n.

Also prop.

Attribute or variable associated with a game object such as a PC .

Psi, n.

Same as Psionic .

Psionic, n.

Class of those who practice psionic or psyhic powers. Powersmay include:Astral Projection: appearing elsewhere in a non-solid form,Aura Detection: to easily visualize characteristics of othersbehavior that are usually hidden:Clarvoyance: to recognize associations between items andevents or characters past or future, knowing by simplythinking about it that a key youjust found was used by Joe Smith of Seattle, Washington 50years ago for example.Precognition: knowing events before they occur.Remote Viewing: very similar to astral projection.Telehypnosis Getting others to do what you want them to by merethought.Telekenesis To manipulate items by mere thought.Telepathy.: To transmit messages to another individual by merethought.

While these parallel alleged paranormal or supernaturalabilities practiced by persons in the real world others may bewholly derived from the popular images of fanastyor fiction.

See: mage .

Psteal, v., n.

(1) (DIKU) To steal from a PC .

(2) PC (player) who steals from a fellow player. A Psteal can never bean NPC but only a character underthe control of a real person.See: Player Killer .

Psychic, n.

See Psionic .

Public, n.

MUD which is open to the general public, who can create newcharacters at will.

See: semi-public .

Pulse, n.

Also heartbeat .

Smallest meaningful unit of time in a mud.Pulse duration is of variable length dependingon what the MUD attempts to perform during thatpulse. For example, a tick may occur every 200pulses, while reading commands from the inputqueue is done every pulse (consequently, the pulsethat coincides with a tick takes longer to perform).

See: tick .

Purge, v.

Command destroys all items in a room except for the user.

Pure PK, n. [Comp. of Pure Player Killing.]

Type of MUD on which play consist entirely of player to playercombat.

See: PK .

Pwipe, n., v. [Comp. of Player Wipe.]

See: Player Wipe .