occupationmud

Occupationmud is a collaborative online practice that centers on the simulation and documentation of various occupations within a shared, text-oriented world. It draws on elements of role-playing, collaborative fiction, and wiki-style world-building, with an emphasis on work processes, tools, routines, and the social dynamics of labor in a fictional or stylized setting. The name signals both a focus on jobs and a nod to the evolving, sometimes improvised nature of online worlds.

Origins and terminology: The term emerged in online communities that experiment with collective storytelling and world-building. Participants create characters defined by a trade or profession and contribute diaries, procedure notes, incident reports, and workplace histories. Content is typically organized through template-driven pages that enable remixing, cross-referencing, and gradual canon formation.

Practice and structure: Common outputs include character sheets tied to occupations, workplace logs, procedural guidelines, and short scenes set within the shared setting. The environment is usually non-linear and maintained by community norms rather than a single author. These projects often explore themes such as skill acquisition, hierarchy, collaboration, and the ethics of labor, sometimes adopting a pragmatic, satirical, or reflective tone.

Variants and reach: Occupationmud features multiple communities and settings, ranging from industrial or laboratory contexts to fantasy or speculative worlds. Variants may emphasize different scales of operation, from individual craftsmen to large organizations, while preserving the core emphasis on occupations and collaborative documentation.

Reception and impact: It is a niche phenomenon within online storytelling and game studies. Proponents highlight its capacity to illuminate mundane labor and collective authorship; critics note potential fragmentation of canon and uneven quality control.

See also: MUD, collaborative fiction, wiki, role-playing game, alternate reality game.