If you don't know what this is all about, or for some other reason want to read the whole glossary, please start with the section on Paris:Les Fleurs Du Mal and follow the links to the terms that don't make sense to you.
Recommended order of reading:

1. Paris:Les Fleurs Du Mal What is Paris, in itself, and in relation to other MUSHes? Optional.
2. What's a MUSH? How is it different from MUDs? For MUDders. Optional.
3. Role-playing What we do here. Recommended reading.
4. IC/OOC Recommended reading.
5. IC-Site/OOC-Site Why there are several websites. Recommended reading.

OOC means "out of character", denoting all that relates to you, the player (or actor), not your character (or role).
IC means "in character", denoting everything relating to the role (or character) you play.
If Harrison Ford plays Deckard in "Bladerunner", Deckard is the role or character, while Ford is the actor. If Emma Rhoids plays Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Emma is the player/actor, while Buffy is the role. What Emma says as Buffy is in character; what Emma might say for herself about how she cannot finish the scene because she has to go to work to be able to pay the internet bill is out of character.
Next: IC site/OOC site
Previous: Role-playing
->Player Character (PC)

Paris:Les Fleurs Du Mal has two websites; the OOC site (which you are on), which addresses the player, featuring texts on MUSHing in general and here on Paris:LFDM in particular (house rules, theme, setting etc.), and the IC site* (aka ParisOnline*), which addresses the characters.
ParisOnline* is a fictituous WWW design/advertising company that exists ICly and provides the characters with IC information and the oppurtunity to put up their own IC webpages (for themselves, their businesses, et cetera).
Both web servers have the sole purpose of making role-playing more enjoyable for the actors on Paris:Les Fleurs Du Mal.
Previous: IC/OOC

Paris:Les Fleurs Du Mal (LFDM) is a MUSH staged in the World of Darkness (WoD) described in several publications by White Wolf* (WW), such as Vampire:the Masquerade* (V:tM).
The name, "The Flowers of Evil", was inspired by the works of the french poet Charles Baudelaire.
Next: MUSH
Previous: Index
->Intro from the MUSH (longish!)

MUSH stands for multi-user shared hallucinations -- or something. A MUSH is a server one can telnet to and play a text-based role-playing game (a bit like the Infocom ones, if you are, um, mature enough to remember them) on with other people. For some reason, MUSHes seem to attract people that care for language, experience, and generally encountering new situations, while MUDs (mult-user dungeons) generally seem to attract the hack & slay crowd. This might be due to the fact that MUSHes have next to no support for fighting, an often straining character creation process and generally less options for "winning the game". Certain stats may be raised, but this is not the objective of the game. MUDs have four basic modes of conduct:

• team up with other player characters to kill bigger enemies
• fight other player characters
• ignore other players ICly, only talk to them OOCly ask for help on certain riddles, solve riddles alone, gain points.
• IC interaction with other player characters. This seems to be a rare and neglected option on most MUDs. On MUSHes, it is the only option. On MUDs, you can still go out and kill things or solve coded puzzles, while on MUSH, you're stuck. On MUSH, co-existing is not enough, playing while others are playing does not suffice; if you don't interact, the game is null and void.

A minor part (or semi-attributed ("statted") character) in the drama of the MUSH that is intended to enrich a given situation in role-play. NPCs can be created by players or by staff; they can be @created to physically exist as an object (often @set PUPPET) in the MUSH database, or they can be fully imaginary (using @emit). Shopkeepers, barmaids and other sidekicks are normally NPCs.
->PC

A leading-role (or fully "statted" character) in the drama of the MUSH; one that is intended to participate in role-play on a long-term "full-tilt" basis.
->NPC

To play a character, like an actor does in a stage play. The difference is, we don't normally work with scripts. We make up our responses to situations as they occur. Situations are formed by our own (player character) actions, those of other player characters and those of non-player characters controlled by players or staff. A good role-player would also take things like setting, weather, mood, et cetera into account --- we're "like writing this book together".
Next: IC/OOC
Previous: MUSH

The world of Les Fleurs Du Mal is divided into several "spheres" for easier administration and more consistency. If you are a model, you'd belong to the fashion sphere, vampires belong to the vampire sphere obviously, et cetera. A character can be part of more than one sphere. If your character is not supernatural, her primary sphere is normally determined by her job.

To play Paris:LFDM, you can connect to the MUSH server either using a telnet-client (do so*) or a special MUSH-client like tinyFugue (this is the preferred option). You can learn more about tinyFugue on the tf Homepage*.

Les Fleurs Du Mal is staged in the World of Darkness -- nominally, at least; some say what we have is really the World of Grey, if not the World of Pink (while we do have an enjoyable number of homosexual, bisexual and transgender characters on the MUSH, this more refers to seeing things to optimistically, I guess. YMMV).