[MUD-Dev] Room descriptions

[Koster]

I've often seen it cited as a rule that room descriptions in muds should
not impose feelings on the player or character.

How do you feel about room descriptions like these? These are from an
area I did for Legend which was never completed, themed around an
idealized 1950s:

The Mannequin Room
Every step in this room raises small cloudlets of dust, dust that
settles on the shelves and the haphazardly stacked boxes. It makes
everything seem to move, as if you were in a geometric and ancient city.
And then it is that the mannequins come alive: faces veiled, translucent
silks draped across their perfect faces, hats twitching on the bald
rounded heads... At night, you wonder if they turn to each other in the
moonlight, and comment on each other's clothing, talk about the latest
fashions from Paris, and daydream of the day when they earn legs taken
from the pile of spare parts in the chest under the window...

Gas Station
High octane, all a-bubble and roaring' to go: the chrome here is
blinding. Bright red pumps stand like overly alert waiters ready to give
the gift of gas to your guzzling eight cylinders. As the sun glints off
the transparent bubble plastic topping each pump, you imagine you can
hear the roar of engines racing down deserted roads, riding fast and
free on their tail of belching exhaust, maybe racing towards another car
in a chicken race. Yet there is also a feeling of serenity here, for it
is like a church. This is the place where the ghost of Henry Ford is
worshipped by the teenagers, where the Holy Grail of "making out" is
made possible, where the dreams of black greaser motorbikes are made.
This is the stuff of heaven, with the almighty odor of gasoline, the
tiny dropped blobs of car wax, and the patches of oil left to reflect
infinite rainbows off the pavement.

The Bestest Part of Main Street
This is the bestest part of Main Street. And you can tell all the time,
'cause the smells are like sugar glazed on top of sticky buns! And the
colors are the colors of tinny little wrappings painstakingly removed
from
chocolates. Ones just a BIT too soggy to be edible with the sort
of propriety Grandma demands at the dinner table. This is the bestest
part of Main Street, because right to the north is the door to Heaven!
Not heaven like they say in church, 'cause they don't sell harps there,
but they do have Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman even for the
sissies
and the girls, and of course they have every delight known to mankind,
because this is the bestest part of Main Street where the CANDY store
is, except on Sundays after 5pm and weekdays after 7. Then it's boring.

Before the Sinclair Station~
The dinosaur logo of the Sinclair filling station is overhead. Sometimes

you wish it would come alive, preferably in better colors, and would
careen 
around the downtown area, chomping miscellaneous people and stepping on
the 
odd automobile. Maybe the first victims would be the obnoxious 
letter-sweatered senior high basketball team. And maybe the dinosaur
would 
become your friend, and let you ride on its back, and yeah right, maybe 
pigs can fly and maybe the higher grade kids won't be such jerks next
year 
and maybe you'll also win the lottery and get to stay up later and be 
allowed to listen to the music YOU wanna listen to (the stuff that
barely 
comes through, that plays the Southern stuff with the beat that the 
preachers say is sinful).

North Market Street
Any minute now violent criminals could burst forth from the big wooden
doors
on the east side of the street! Bullets could go flying, ricocheting
through
the air with a sound like hyperaccelerated bees, and people could shout,
'Take cover! He broke out of the handcuffs!' And then everyone would hit
the
ground, rolling away from the sharp retorts of gunfire, hiding behind
the
scant protection of parked cars! And a bullhorn would come out, and the
police chief would say something cool and harsh like, 'Come out with
your
hands up! You can't possibly escape. Don't make us return fire!' even
while
he gestured with his hands to send YOU forward to carefully walk along
the 
edge of the building, to reduce the escapee to a quivering mass of fear
with 
a single karate chop to the wrist! It could happen! It could! Maybe!

The Candy Store~
Gumballs, bottom right. Chewing gum, first box with and second box
without 
baseball cards. Milk duds. Lollipops for the little ones. Hard orange
candy 
that stings your tongue when you suck on it too long. French creams.
Necco 
wafers. Wax lips you can wear or eat. Rock candy that looks fresh-carved

from a cave in the heart of Africa. Peppermint sticks to stick in
lemons, 
up on the counter 'cause otherwise people would throw the lemons around.

Red hots. Bazooka bubble gum for a penny, with the cartoons that are 
usually funny. Superman comics but that's boring 'cause he always wins 
anyway. Apples and oranges and ripe peaches with more fuzz on their
cheeks 
than something that young has a right to. Oh! And the soda fountain with

syrup and malteds and fizzy water and ice cream and floats and root beer

and Coca-Cola and cherries and sarsaparillas and big curly straws and 
stools that spin ALL the way around and MOOooooOOM! Can't we just STAY 
here?


-Raph