Once upon a time, there were very few help texts available to Nanny's players. This has changed with time, and today there is an abundance. There is even a special guide for new players, known as The Newbie Booklet. Every new player in the game is given a copy of the Newbie Booklet. Below is a copy of its contents.

Contents:

Welcome to NannyMUD!
This booklet will be your best friend in the beginning of your time on NannyMUD. Every time you logon you will find it in your inventory -- that is, among the things you carry around. There are chapters about almost anything you will need to know. Of course, there are also other players who can help you as well, but you will always carry this booklet with you, wherever you go. You will not be able to drop the booklet (who wants to get rid of his best friend?), but when you have reached level 5, you will be able to destroy it. If you, later on, want a booklet again, you can buy one in the bookstore on Malkuth Street. By then, you should know where that is.

As a standard in this booklet the following notation is used: 

>xxxxx
That means that you should type 'xxxxx' and hit the 'enter' key if you want to try the command xxxxx yourself. Good luck!

P.S. This booklet is also available on the WWW: http://mud.lysator.liu.se/www/newbie.html

Information about yourself
As this is a roleplaying game, your character in the mud has some attributes, like gender, level and strength. To see some information about yourself, you use the score command: 

>score
Explanation of what you see:
  • Name: The name you chose when you first entered NannyMud.
  • Title: depends on your level or, if you are a member of a guild, your guild status.
  • Alignment: Ranging from demonic to saintly. The more evil monsters you kill, the better your alignment will be.
  • Level: How far you have come on the way towards wizardhood. The levels 1 - 19 are mortal levels, and all levels from 20 and up are different kinds of wizlevels. (For more info about levels: >help levels)
  • Experience points (XP): How many experience points you have collected so far.
  • Gold Coins: How many gold coins you currently are carrying.
  • Nanny points (NP): How many Nanny points you have collected. You need 1 million NP to become paragon, and 2 million NP to become wizard. You gain NP by killing monsters and solving quests and puzzles. Your NP also increase with age.
  • Hit points (HP): Your 'life points'. If your HP goes below 0, you die. (more about death on page 11)
  • Spell points (SP): Your mental strength. Used for spell casting, communication and other mentally exhausting actions.
  • Intelligence (int): The higher your int, the more SP you have.
  • Strength (str): The higher your str, the more you can carry.
  • Dexterity (dex): The higher your dex, the harder you hit in combat.
  • Constitution (con): The higher your con, the more HP you have.
  • Quest Points: How many quest points (QP) you have earned. (for more info about quests: >help quests)
  • Information about how encumbered you are.
  • Information about your playerkiller status. (for more info about playerkilling: >help playerkilling)
You regain lost HP/SP automatically with time, but you can increase the 'healing rate' by making sure you are not starved, thirsty or wet. Intake of alcoholic drinks is also known to make your HP/SP regenerate faster. There is a special page in this booklet about healing.

To see what you are carrying use the inventory command i: 

>i
To see what you look like in other players eyes, examine yourself: 
>exa
Exploring
To see the other players (and other objects) that are in the same room as you, type: 
>look
This will give you a brief description of the room followed by the exits leading from the room and finally a list of the objects present.

If you want to take a closer look at something (a book for example) in the room, type: 

>exa book
or 
>look at book
If you are carrying a book, and want to look at the book in the room, you should type: 
>exa book in room
Otherwise you will look at the book you are carrying.

Also things mentioned in the description of the room are worth examining. If the thing has any importance at all, it will be described for you and maybe also give you a hint about what you can do there. Otherwise, you will be notified, that it doesn't look very special at all.

Moving around
The exits listed when looking in a room can be accessed via their directions, like this: 

> east
You will move to the room east of the one you are in.

Some exits may be blocked for you, even if they are marked as obvious exits. You will get a message explaining why you can't move in that certain direction. There might be a closed door in your way, or a guard demanding a fee to let you enter, for example.

Moving is simple, but also quite risky: You might get lost! To avoid that, try to remember where you go, draw a simple map on a paper or in your memory, until you have learnt your way around the world.

The mud contains of more than 50000 locations, and many of them are illogically connected. Here is a map of Lars Town just to get you started: 

     |                              |             |                 
    (1)                            (+)-(C)   (Z)-(Y)-(X)(S)         
     |       |  \|   |   |          |      |      |      |   |   |
   -(2)-(3)-(4)-(5)-(6)-(7)-(8)----(9)----(L)----(M)----(U)-(V)-(W)-
     |   |   |\  |   |       |      |      |      |      |   |   |
                               (B)-(A)-      (!)-(N)-($)(G)
  1-Orc Cave.                       |             |
  2-Orc Valley.                   -(D)-      (P)-(O)-(T)
  3-Slope                           |             |
  4-Forest                        -(E)-      G-The Adventurers Guild.
  5-A small Clearing.               |        L-Track going into Village.
  6-Forest.                       -(F)-      M-Village Road.
  7-Wilderness.                     |        N-Narrow Alley.
  8-Humpbacked Bridge.                       O-Narrow Alley.
  9-The Village Green.                       S-The Shop.
  +-The Church                               T-Tourist Information.
  C-Chapel                                   U-Village Road
  B-Deposit Box Service.                     V-Village Shore
  A-Lane of Ingis.                           W-Jetty
  D-Lane of Ingis                            X-Pub
  E-Lane of Ingis                            Y-Yard
  F-Country Road                             Z-Magic shop
                                             $-Bank
                                             !-Smithy
This is a map limited to Lars Town and its closest surroundings. All - in the map means there are more places to visit in that direction. It's important you pay attention to where you are going. Try looking at things in the environment and people and animals you pass by. It's a good way to learn about the world.

In the Tourist Information Office you can borrow booklets about all the wizards who has created an area that you can visit. You will often get a hint of where the area starts and what special features you can find in there.

More information about the geography of the world and how you can travel between the different lands can be found in 'help travelling'.

Objects in the MUD
In the rooms (locations) you enter there might be 'objects' present. There are different kinds of objects:

  • players (Ex: Mats, the Creator (ancient God))
  • monsters (Ex: A mean troll)
  • weapons (Ex: A longsword)
  • armours (Ex: A brass helmet)
  • containers (Ex: A leather bag)
  • food (Ex: A sandwich)
  • drinks (Ex: A bottle of milk)
  • things (Ex: A small note marked 'About NannyMUD')
Some of the objects can be picked up. 
>get note
Objects may be too heavy for you to pick up, and some are not possible to take at all.

That will give you a list of all things you are carrying. If you want to drop something, for example the note, use the drop command: 

>drop note
Some objects you are carrying can't be dropped, for your own good or because they are cursed in some way.

In containers you can put things: 

>put note in bag
If you fail to put an object in a container, either it is full or the object for some reason never will be contained.

Of course you can retrieve things from the container too: 

>get note from bag
You can eat and drink commestibles: 
>eat sandwich
>drink milk
Weapons and armours are used for combat. See chapter about combat.

Who is logged on?
To check what other players who are logged on use the who command like this: 

>who
You will recieve a list of all players divided into three groups:
  • Wizards are the creators and maintainers of the world.
  • Paragons are the best players on the Mud. If you have questions about how the game work, you should ask them.
  • Mortals (With your name too, right?)
If there are many players logged on, the output will be split and a message:
"Press return for more"
will appear at the bottom. If so, just press the 'return' key to allow the "who" command to finish its output. Then you can continue your input of other commands.

There are 19 mortal levels and after that you can chose between becomming a Wizard and create your own area, or becomming a Paragon and help new players and continue to explore the world as a mortal.

For more help about the level system of NannyMud, type: 

>help levels
For more info about Paragons of NannyMud, type: 
>help paragon
For more info about wizardhood of NannyMud, type: 
>help wizards
Communicating with other players
To communicate with players who are in the same room as you, use the command "say", like this: 
> say Hello everyone!
All players in the same room as you will see the following message: 
(Your name) says: Hello everyone!
To tell a remote player something you use the tell command, like this: 
> tell mats Hi!
If Mats (the God) is logged on, he will recieve the message: 
(Your name) tells you: Hi!
There are also clubs and guild that have their own communication channel, also called lines. Check guild/club help for more information.

As a last resort to the problem of being lost, or when you simple have to let everyone know something, you can use the shout command. This costs some of your SP. 

> shout Can anyone help me? I am lost in some orc valley!
_ALL_ players in the game will recieve: 
(Your name) shouts: Can anyone help me? I am lost in some orc 
valley.
Feelings and adverbs
All players and some monsters have a 'soul' that allows them to interact with each other. If you type: 
>smile
...the other players in the same room will see that you smile. To get a list of all predefined feelings, type: 
>help feeling list
To make those feelings even more versatile there are a set of adverbs that you can add. 
>admire mats proudly and smile gently
...which gives: You admire Mats proudly and smile gently. To get a list of all the available adverbs, type: 
>help adverbs
Both guilds and clubs have their own feelings and adverbs. Check guild or club help for more information.

Mail systems & boards
Of course it is possible to communicate with other players and wizards via mail. Just go to the Post Office (dir: s 2e 2s w) and follow the instructions given there. You should also use: 

>help mail
to get even more information.

You should also know that whenever you solve one of the Quests, you get a mail from the wizard who is responsible for it. Wizards are always interested in feedback from you, so you should really reply to that mail.

Your read mail is saved in your mailbox for some time, but you should not keep really important things, like addresses, phone numbers and other special mails, in there. Instead write it down on paper, or keep a file on your home computer.

Note that the mail system is only for internal NannyMud usage. Thus, it is not possible to send mail out from NannyMud, and it is not possible to send mail to a character on NannyMud.

Another way of written comunication betwen players are the notes put up on the many boards NannyMud. You can read the notes, reply to notes and write new notes. For more information about how to use the boards, check: 

>help boards
Guilds and clubs usually have their own boards, where the members can discuss specific guild/club stuff. Take part in the discussions!

Equipment
A good way to gain XP (experience points) is to kill monsters. As a new player, you are fairly weak and have to start with small, easy monsters. Of course, you need a weapon and some armour.

There are different types of weapons around, making damage in different ways, ex: slashing, chopping, piercing. If you want to use a weapon in combat, you should wield it: 

> wield knife
There are different types on armours around as well, fitting different parts of your body. You should put on the armours before joining combat. 
> wear helmet
To see what equipment you are using, use the equipment command: 
>eq

	OUTPUT:
	Location		Armour type
        ------------------------------------
	Head			(Helmet)
	Neck			(Amulet)
	Back			(Cloak)
	Body			(Bodyarmour)
	Hands			(Gloves)
	Finger			(Ring)
	Feet			(Boots)
	Shield			(Shield)

	Wielded			(Weapon)
        ------------------------------------
        You have xxxx gold coins.
Where do I find equipment?
  • There is usually equipment lying around. Search and you will find.
  • In the shop (dir: s 3e n from church) you can buy equipment if you have some money.
  • If you are a member of a guild you can borrow things from the shareroom, a place where all guild members leave things they don't need.
  • Ask other players for help to find suitable equipment.
There are also magical objects that can be useful if you know how to use them. A good start is usually to start by examining them: 
>exa wand
Some of the magical objects around can be quite dangerous if you use them in the wrong way, so be careful!

NOTE:

  • If you quit the game you will drop all equipment and other objects you are carrying. Thus, you should remember to go to the shop and sell all your things before logging out. Gold coins are stored between sessions.
  • If you are a member of any guild, you can store your things in the guild's shareroom. Check your guild help for more information.
  • You can also rent a box in the deposit service (dir: s s w from church) to store your things in.
Combat
When you are equipped for combat you can start a fight. Find a suitable monster, for example a rabbit. So, what is a suitable monster? If you are a member of a guild, you might have special abilities to compare the strength of a monster with your own, otherwise you will simply have to dare an attack and be prepared to run away if you get beaten.

There are also areas designed espacially for low-level players. Those areas have been checked and tested so that all monsters are suitable targets for newbies equipped with a weapon and some armour. (see chapter about Newbie areas)

You start the fight by using the kill command: 

>kill rabbit
There are also some aggressive monsters that will attack you as you enter the room they are in. Beware of those, especially when you are low on HP.

You and the rabbit well then alternatingly do your best to mutilate each other. How much damage you do depends on the weapon you are using, your stats, and how well the rabbit is protected. How much damage you take depends on what armours you are wearing and how hard the rabbit beats you.

To check the shape of a monster you are fighting you can use the shape command: 

> shape rabbit
This shows the relative strength of the monster, i.e. its current shape compared to its best possible shape.

The 'shape' is one of the settings that can help you survive the game that you can 'toggle'. Another one is 'hpinfo', that when it's turned on shows you all changes to your HP/SP. Check 'help toggle' for more information.

After you killed something you can loot the corpse on money, equipment and valuables. 

>get all from corpse
Special newbie areas
The certified Newbie areas of NannyMud are: 
The Rabbit Paradise   n, n, enter graveyard, enter hole
Blanka's Newbieland:  s e e e e e n w
Beginner's World:     s w w w s s s w
Carrion's newbieland  s s s s e s s s, say please let me in,
                      w s s e s s s s w w w w, enter hole
The Farm:             s s s s s s w 
The Kobolds:          s s s s s s s s e
                      enter cave          (Not without risks!)
The Orcs:             s w w w w w w w n   (Beware, Quite dangerous!)
Snowstar's area       s e e n n n n n n n e n n n e

(all directions from church)
There are also other areas which might suit newbies quite well, but you have to find them yourself. Read signs and pay attention to messages brought to by other means.

Healing
When your HP gets low, you should find a cosy place to relax and heal your wounds. There are establishments willing to offer both nice atmosphere, food & drinks and even enjoyable company while you heal. And food & drink and nice company are known to increase healing rate significantly!

Here are the directions to some of the more popular places: 

The Rose and Dragon:  s e e n e
Ingis' Milkbar:        s s s e
Maple Tree Tavern:    s e e e e e up 
Sunshine Inn:         s w w w w n e s s e e e e e e e n n n w
There are pubs with very cheap healing for newbies in Blanka's Newbieland and in Beginner's World.

Of course, there are other types of healing as well. Massage, magical healers and even some sort of ... hmm... escort service. Well, there is a full listing of healing facilities available: 

>help healing
If you are a member of a guild, check out what possibilities there are to heal within the guild. Some guilds have quite fancy healing services setup. Check the guild help. And, when on the guild issue, members of some guilds might provide healing for you. Pay attention to what goes on around you. You might see things that are quite astonishing!

Death
Even if you are careful, you might have to experience death sometiems. Dying on NannyMud means your soul leaves your body, that becomes a corpse holding all your things. As a ghost you can't carry anything and don't do any actions, except walking and communicating.

How do you cure death? Simple, you go to the church and pray, and your body is restored. 

>pray
But, you have lost one level, one point on each stat (con, dex, int, str) and some of your gained XP. If you are a member of a guild, your status within that guild might also be affected by dying.

Warning! When you have received a new body you are still rather low on HP. Don't run back to rescue your things and money from your corpse without healing a bit first.

There is no limit on how many times you can die, and you will not be expelled from the game due to dying.

Clubs
Players and wizards with certain common interests can join one or several of clubs available. The clubs are there for social interaction and have all a special Chat line, where the common interest can be discussed.

There is one main Chat Club, where almost all players and wizards are more or less active. You can join the Chat Club in their house at Lazlar Square on Elm Road.

There is a Traders Club, which main purpose is to be a forum for trading objects and information. On the Trader's line you can ask for help and auction very special objects to the highest bid. Go to the Traders' Tent just west of Lars Town and join the haggling crowd.

There are also other clubs, some really weird, like the Sock Fetischists, and some quite exclusive, like the Gentlemens Club. How to join those other clubs more experienced players can tell you.

Guilds
Guilds are gatherings of players around a theme of some sort. NannyMud offer you membership in one of different guilds. The guilds are based on traditional fantasy themes like knighthood, paganism, mysticism and religion, but there are also guilds built around other themes such as cooking, and leprosy(!?).

Guilds provide different gaming styles, due to the thematic powers and restrictions infered on the guild members. There are 13 guilds, ranging from pure killing oriented guilds to guilds with themes of healing. The guilds have powers and abilities depending on their main theme, so you really have to adopt a playing style that utilizes those guild powers the best to become a really successful guild player. Generally, one can say that a player who is a member of a guild is more more powerful than a player not in a guild, if he knows how to use his guild powers, that is.

It's not easy to say what guild that will suit you best, you simply have to try one and see for yourself. For more help about the different guilds available check: 

>help guild
When you have decided to join a guild, you have to leave Adventurers' Guild, which is the default guild for all new players. 
>leave guild
Then you have to find out how and where to join the guild you have chosen. Talk to more experienced players. They should be able to direct you to someone who is already a member of the guild in question.

Quests
Quests are specially designed missions that you can take on. If you manage to complete the mission you will be rewarded with Quest Points (QP), and sometimes also with some money, special equipment, healing or alignment modification. The bigger and more dangerous the quest is and the longer it takes to solve it, the more QP you will get if you manage to solve it.

Questing is a large part of playing NannyMud. There are more than 100 quests for you to solve.

In the adventurers' guild hall (dir: s 3e s from church) there is a list of all available quests. Go there and type: 

>list
You can then get information a bout individual quests by typing: 
>list X
where X is the number of the quest you want to know more about.

There is also a Book of Quests to buy, but since that itself is a small quest, you will have to find the shop yourself. When you have the Book of Quests, you don't have to run to the guild hall each time you want to read about a quest. The Book of Quests is an autoloader, i.e. you will keep it until next time you logon. The Book of Quests will also provide informtion about what kind of reward you can expect to recieve when solving the individual quests.

There is a set of quests especially designed for new players. They are worth rather few QP, but they will introduce you to NannyMud and all its features. Try them out!

If you need help with a quest, ask more experienced players for hints. They are allowed to give general hints, but not specific directions, or exact commands to use.

More information about the quest system can be found in 

>help quests
NannyMUD local time
The times flies when you are having fun, they say, and the time in NannyMud actually goes faster than the time in RL. One nanny hour is about 22 RL minutes.

To check what time it is on NannyMud, you can check the clock in Rose and Dragon in Lars Town, or some of the other clocks available. You can also buy your own clock in Ye Olde Thyme Shoppe, in Elm road.

In short: 

1 Nanny year		13 Nanny months
1 Nanny month		 3 Nanny weeks, or 21 Nanny days
1 Nanny week		 7 Nanny days
1 Nanny day	        19 Nanny hours
1 Nanny hour            58 Nanny minutes
1 Nanny minute          23 Nanny seconds
For a more comprehensive help on how time works on NannyMud, type: 
>help time
NannyMUD dictionary
  • MUD: Multi User Dungeon
  • admin: the administration who runs NannyMud.
  • afk: away from keyboard
  • autoloader: An object you will keep until the next visit.
  • brb: Be right back!
  • emote: When you emote a string, your name appended with the string is echoes to everyone in the room, or on the communication line. Emotes are not usually not available for mortals, except on communication lines and in special locations.
  • idle: Being logged on, but not doing anything
  • lag: When the response on your command is delayed.
  • local: Someone logged in from the same site as the Mud is run on
  • mudsex: The art of typing very fast with one hand.
  • party: A bunch of players, joined into a party by the 'party object'
  • second: A secondcharacter, if someone has more than one character.
  • snoop: Someone watches your actions
  • steal kill: Killing a monster someone else has beaten down to weak
  • wimpy: You run away from a fight when your HP get too low
Help
NannyMud has an interactive help system that contains help about all you need to know to be able to play the game. There are two ways to use the help system: Help (topic)
If there is such a topic, you get the help page for it. If there are several topics matching your request, you get a list of those topics so you can decide which one you want to read. To make a keyword search for a help topic, type 
>help -k (topic)
This will show where in the help structure a certain topic can be found.

Intercative mode
The other way is the interactive mode. To enter this mode, simply type "help". You will now be able to navigate around inside the help structure following links to various topics. The help system works just like a filesystem, with / being the top, and categories named like file paths.

For more information about the help system, type: 

>help help
These help files are really important to read before starting to play: 
>help rules
>help password
>help multiplaying
>help legal
>help privacy
>help syntax
Your only obligation as a player on NannyMud is to know what is allowed and what is not. If you break the rules, you will be forced to leave the game.

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