Short: I left the mush once because they were the victim of a horrible crime, but left so I could report it, only to be convinced to return and regret it seconds into my first scene.
Medium: This mush has so much going for it; so much potential only to have a completely non chalant attitude about game integrity or embracing new players. When you GO old school you get the good of nostalgia and old systems not written by the PC policy and you get the bad of the old and remember WHY there are safety checks in National Larping and WHY Larping is going to the nordic model; because hapless nitwits seem to like to hire sadists or have sadists attracted to work for them, and/or maybe a combination of both.
Maximum Verbosity: The king of all World of Darkness Mushes is Dark Metal, which is over 30 years old, was set in the future of the LA area and merged Old World of Darkness and Cyberpunk perfectly. It was also a jungle; the staff was as old school as it gets and basically anything goes. Any abuse you have ever heard of staff doing anywhere on another mush, including threatening people with their characters, making super characters to beat the shit out of people, letting sabbat eat people in broad daylight and then having the uber ridiculous Metsec Cyberfreaks show up and mow everyone down, and it was great. I still have a character on the lingering legacy shard thereof and likely will as long as its running and it is run as a labor of love by those that run it.
With Retromux, that's basically what you're getting; smaller, quieter, 'risk levels' that put a smiley face sticker over the barbarism of teenagers doing teenager things without the coolness of it all being new, the game being new, the perfect genre mash up of cyberpunk and WOD and the hundreds upon hundreds of players that played on Dark Metal back in the day. Instead, you get a small baroque mush set during the heydey of world of darkness in 1994 using the M20, V20 and W20 rules. The staff is engaged and expereinced, and they are up front about what the mush is, but just like any infernal contract you need to read the fine print.
Let's start with calling a spade a spade. There were two versions of this MUX. The first one, that I very much wanted to play the characters I made for it including a Gangrel that I loved from a Floriduh LARP, a celestial chorus mage librarian and worshipper of Zoraster, and a kinfolk smith who was quite and stoic. It was great. I had a few scenes, it has SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL
And then Polk ruined it.
Yeah I'm naming names, and Polk if you want to sue me, feel free. I'm serious. Get an attorney, get a supoena, find my IRL address from google, send me a supoena, and then I will hire an attorney, and then there will be discovery. I can afford an attorney, and I can and will find a VERY VERY GOOD ONE. And I can and will call witnesses, some of whom will be hostile to me for writing this, but they will be UNDER OATH to talk about you and the shit you do.
Bring it.
Now since we are bringing lawyers into this, let's start with the fact that I have not witnessed anything first hand. What I know is that on an old mush I was on, Polk got banished, and rumors were for some pretty dark shit; like hacker type shit. I didnt see it, but I thought he might have gotten a raw deal because that MUSH was the cliqueyest place I've ever been in my life, and I ended up getting banned because I called them out for it. To this day, aside from Heromux, who had a wizard who allowed a sadistic little abuser to fuck with my stories and character, that I ahve ever been banned from. Social media and I do not get along, but only two mushes (Maybe three after I write this). But that place had PROBLEMS, so you can see why I might wonder if Polk got a bad deal.
Then I hear that he is staff at the new mush. So I'm all aboard it because Polk is a great story teller. Well then I try to log in and find I cant. So here is what I KNOW, because I expereinced it first hand. And its down. And the wiki is down too. On the discord server rumor is its Polk. Rumoris, Polk and some other rando dude tried to blackmail the person who runs the mush, who, despite asking us all not to say anthing about this spycho, was CLEARLY the victim based on observations and hearsay. What I KNOW, is that the person who runs it was terrified becuase Polk threanted to SUE and said anyone who badmouthed him would be BANNED from the mush.
So I left the mush. I had every intention of writing this then. I dont let shits get away with this kind of thing. I am not telling lies.. I am perfectly willing to get into the laundry of a man who would do this kind of shit, because if he has done it two I know about; HOW MANY FUCKIGN TIMES HAS HE DONE THIS? What about the guy who helped him? How many times has HE threatened to crash a mush or wiped it or ACTUALLY DONE IT?
But that didnt happen, until now, because I was convinced to just go back. So I do, and I make a vamp, and THIRTY SECONDS after joining, the Harpy comes over and goes out of HER way to make sure I have to get out of her way, all in one pose, deliberately making drama. I've dealt with this type of player in mushes and larps all the time. I was briefly annoyed, but I was more annoyed at staff for not calling it out. There is nothing wrong with playing your character and if you are STUPID enough to play the sadistic tower that is the Camarilla in Vampire the Masquerade (and I was, on request, and that will NEVER EVER EVER happen again for ANYONE) then you get shat on by the upper rims of the tower. Just like in DND, if you are playing a party of evil characters, evil characters are gonna do evil things.
But as I said, the REASON modern LARPS and modern games go OUT OF THEIR WAY to distinguish out of character play and in character paly is t his retroshit. Retromux means old school style mush GM's letting power players shit all over the newbs. You want a nice welcoming place/ This aint it. You want a vamp sphere that gives a shit who you are as a player? This place aint it. The fucking clueless idiot who runs theirv amp sphere doesnt have the same sense I did when I was 12 years old running first edition dnd that you dont let the older players SHIT all over the new players right away without motivation BECAUSE ITS ALSO FUCKING METAGAMING. And the fucking idiot didnt even see it. Needless to say, after the fact that the person running the game hired this idiot to run the vamp sphere and let Polka and his pal lock her out of her own code, I decided it was time to move on to greener pastures, left the mush, left the discord server and blocked everyone on discord. And frankly, I am never EVER doing another WOD mush again as long as I live.