“Why do they call them ‘mobs’?” my eldest daughter wondered aloud during one of her Minecraft play sessions. “A mob is a big group; there’s only one villager here.”

“It’s short for ‘mobiles’,” I explained. “Gamers often shorten words. So a ‘mob’ is any creature in a game that moves around.”

“How do you know that?”

“That use of the word has been around a long time…well before you were born.”

That little conversation led us into a deeper discussion about the history of online games, MMORPGs, and even MUDs…and for my part, I spent most of the chat quoting from Raph Koster’s new book, Postmortems to explain different concepts to my daughter. As you might infer from the above, she’s quite into Minecraft these days (because we won’t let her play Fortnite)…which game, Koster pointed out to me, “at this point is basically a MUD server”.

And that’s Postmortems in a nutshell: it’s 700 pages of essays, notes, blog posts, transcripts of talks…and it’s all connective tissue, in a way. In reading through the section about MUDs — about the different kinds of MUD design that rose to prominence, about the differences between a Diku, a MUSH, a MOO, and an LPMud — your thoughts will immediately leap ahead to modern MMORPGs; by the time Koster explicitly calls out the connection between Dikus and World of Warcraft, you’ll probably have made those connections and realizations for yourself.

Which is a testament to the real power of the book: Koster’s writing style. If you’ve read A Theory of Fun or any of his other works, or even if you’ve been an avid follower of his blog for some time, you know what you are in for with Postmortems. Koster isn’t just a talented designer; he’s a consummate storyteller, and whereas it would have been very easy for someone to write up a very dry and uninspiring explanation of mob logic in a Diku, Koster makes even that section of the book fun to read through.

Postmortems is, as noted above, a lengthy tome; the section on Ultima Online (which I’m sure will be of particular interest to readers of this ‘umble site) doesn’t begin until about the 180th page. But I’d caution against skipping ahead; there’s a lot you’ll miss, including an extended look at LegendMUD…which, in a way, frames much of what follows. Connective tissue, yet again; the lessons Koster teases out of his time working in LegendMUD come up again and again as he discusses his work on Ultima Online, and I’m sure they’ll bubble up yet again as the book moves onto — and beyond — Star Wars Galaxies.

As you might infer, I haven’t finished the book yet; would that I had more time to read (in general, but also this book in particular). Still, for as much of it as I have read, I’ve found myself spellbound by it. I’d definitely recommend picking it up and giving it a read…and as it happens, a physical copy of the book is now available for sale. You can grab the paperback version from Amazon, or the digital version for Kindle.

(Full disclosure: Raph Koster was kind enough to provide me with a PDF copy of the book in advance. That said, I will be buying a physical copy of it as well. I suspect my daughter will enjoy reading it.)