She/They
Currently running Silent Heaven, a small-town horror MU.
https://silentheaven.org
In two weeks, this thread has become the third most popular thread of all time on BMD, even beating out the Arx thread. That means that since the birth of BMD, no other game has negatively affected MU* players as broadly or as painfully as Star Wars: Age of Alliances.
People have mentioned in this thread that Cujo seems like the kind of person to be obsessed with being the biggest and ranked at the top, so…
Congratulations Cujo, you’re finally #1 at something.
Based on how big the MU Peeves Thread is, I was expecting to run into a lot of issues now that I’ve become a game-runner.
To my surprise, I absolutely love it. Silent Heaven is one month in, and I love all the players. I haven’t run into anything that’s made me want to crawl away and hide. Making and running a game has been one of the most fun and rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life.
OVERVIEW
Silent Heaven is a small-town roleplaying game focused on personal demons amidst a backdrop of supernatural horror. The only people who find their way to the town of Silent Heaven are those who aren’t okay, even if they act like they are. Your character is among this twisted cast of characters. Everyone hopes to find that road to salvation, but temptations lurk around every corner.
Be bad. Be vulnerable. Embrace your sorrow. Will you face your darkest times and recover? Or will you succumb to the town and be lost forever?
The worst thing that can happen is getting comfortable with living here.
FEATURES
Silent Heaven is a unique world set in an unspecified location. It draws inspiration from many sources, including Silent Hill, LOST, American Horror Story, Omori, and much more.
Silent Heaven is made using the Evennia codebase with a custom gameplay system.
Gameplay Overview:
RPI-lite: MUSH-style RP + coded support for supplementary skills.
No Alts: You may have only one character at any given time.
No Grinding: XP is earned through logging in each day + bonus XP for roleplaying for about 30 - 60 minutes.
Simple Crafting: Craft a unique description and custom name for any item, giving it a bonus to its effect.
Simple Combat: A customized conflict system focuses on coming to solutions that don’t involve costly violence. Simplified locational combat allows you to spend more time RPing during and after conflicts.
Traditional Grid: Movement directions are only North, South, East, West, Up, and Down. Room sizes and shapes vary.
Character-driven storylines: The best rewards are for doing what would tell a good story rather than gaming the system or playing to win.
Characters cannot die: For some mysterious reason, if a character would die, even if they’re fatally bludgeoned, the town seems to keep them alive. Why? That’s a spoiler.
End of the road: When your character reaches max XP, a special Storyteller-run plot will help to determine the ultimate fate of your character.
Unique-ish Features:
Consent Checklist: A customizable checklist allows you to choose the themes you want to see in RP. Your character may be terrified, but we want to make sure everyone is having fun that they enthusiastically consent to OOC. Consent may be revoked at any time. Revocation will be respected, and you don’t need to supply a reason why you’re revoking it.
Whispers: The quietest voices spread around town via mysterious wind currents, making it difficult to keep secrets.
Shelter: Retreat to your safe space when you need downtime. Public locations become less safe as more characters gather in one spot. Don’t stay outside too long, either. There are monsters out there. Some of them even look like monsters.
Panic: Suffer emotional damage that can’t be healed through conventional means.
In-depth NPCs: Each NPC is a complete character with a history, goals, and fears. Though you may befriend some of them, NPCs almost always have an ulterior motive. They wouldn’t have found their way to Silent Heaven otherwise.
Intersectional-LGBTQIA+: Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. are unwelcome. Pronouns aren’t tied to your character’s sex, gender or outward appearance. You can even randomize your character’s pronouns.
Drugs & Toxins: Provide beneficial drugs to those who need help, or poison your enemies. Lace your creations into food, or even create chemical weapons.
Blood Tests & Forensics: Diagnose patients with mysterious ailments. Collect blood samples and other metadata from locations to find out who’s been up to what.
Rituals and fat͓̖̟̥̠̺̩̙̽̉̒͆̈͊͛̓̏͘ȓ̶̢̧͙̼͓͛̄̆̒͗͊̅͡͡l̮̮͉̻͎̰̘͛̋̓̚̕j̸̧̰̥̜͍̜̗̔̏̄̈̽̿͜͝o̮̻̗̱̻̖̎̌̇̉͒̐͝i̷̮͖͚̦̖̊̽͗̈́͗̈̕͘͜͡l̶̞͎̯͚̱̓͊̽͊͂̐͟͝f͖̬̻̩̜̾͛̒͐̌͝k̴͕̦͎͚̬̘̫͚͍͌̏̌̑̈́͗̐̚̚͠j̧̛͍͇͚̫̱̹͍̘́͊͊͑̀͘͠͝:̴̡̩̪̟̓͑͆̿͜͠ a̮̖̜̯̭͍͎̅̔̓̈̅͒̕̚͟͡ć̸̡̬̞̬̫̺̾̍̏̚t̖͓̻͉͌͋̅̆̽͛̌͘ͅǐ̧̛̤̱͍̱͈͍̾͆͂̽̀̿͘͞ǫ̶͇̦̮̻͕̣̦̠̽̿̈́̂̑͟n̷̢̧̛̹̗͈̯̞̈́̾͐͘̚͝s͎̪̤̠̗̫̓͑̏̈̔̅͂̂͘͝ h̷̨̺̠̱̮̤̯̰̯́̄͐̄͞a̶̺̤͍̘̤͑͌̾͆̔͌͘̚̚͡v̸̥̤͍͍̲͋̀̐͗̍̀̄͗͡ȅ̢̱͔͖̪̳͚̿̀̍̿͌̌̎̉͠ f̵͇͔̣̗̗̮͖͖̼̊͆́͆͡a̡͙̘̘͚̥̼͗̂̿̓͌͘r̶̛̯̟̗̙̳͑̓̅̉̈̏͆͞-̨̪̘̼͎̺̬̟͂͊̀́͒͂̚r̸͔̻̠̬̼͕̊̀̂͆̅͞è̸̢̛̗͔͔̬͈͋͂͡a̵̧̲̫͙̘̅̈̊̏͗ͅc̷̡̨̪̙̰̺͛́̃͐̑͐͛̽͢͠ḩ̸̨̹̫̞͖̲̳͍̱̓̄̆̉͂̆̎́͞i̸̢͙̪̦̱̥̰̯͙͎͑̑̑́̏̓̽ñ̵͈͈̠̬̜̙͔͈͊̀̀̕͘͞͡g̷̺̦̰͓͖͒̒̿̎̈ c̶̨̢͓̺̪̭̬͔̳͑̐̅͋̒̀͘͟ò͓͔͔̜̙̫̠͉̫̔̇̐̚̚͠n̵̨͇͖̱͋̐̉̌̏̋̾͟ś̡̟̺̻̥̩̼̟̏̔̉͢͞ė͖̞̻̠̟̑͆͗̄ͅq̷̨̜̺͌̋̉̃̍̈́̃̔͜͟͝u̵̞̯̱̹͙̫͌́͊̂̑̅̅̈́͟ͅę̸̖͖̦̼͒̔̄̉͒̏̕n͖͓̙̞̼͓͈̯̋͛̈́̇̚͡ͅç͎̟̦̰̜̑̈́̋́́̓̔͡ę̸̢̖̖̲̳̭̊̇̆͌͋̇̉̀̕͝s̶̛̖͈͙̺͔͑͂̕̕͡.̷̠͈̦̦͍̩̜͍́̃̓͛͛̽͌͢͟
CONFLICT BETWEEN CHARACTERS
Throughout your character’s story, your character will likely engage in conflict with other characters, whether they’re NPCs or PCs. Conflict helps move stories forward. However, there’s a firm line between what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
You’ve likely heard of Player vs. Player (PvP) gameplay, where you compete against other players in a game, whether it be via combat, social prestige, or deception. We don’t do that in Silent Heaven. As a community, we’re expected to be friendly, respectful, and supportive of our fellow players.
It’s important to be able to separate conflict between characters (CvC) and conflict between players (PvP). We’re all having a good time as players putting out characters into dangerous situations. We encourage OOC check-ins to make sure everyone is still enthusiastic about what’s happening, and coming to an amicable resolution if things are starting to get uncomfortable.
Overall, Silent Heaven is a dangerous place, and your character will naturally fall into CvC. Bad things will happen to your character just as often as good things. Treat each player with care and respect. Keep conflict in-game. Know your limits.
If this style of roleplay suits your preferences, then Silent Heaven is for you.
LORE AND WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Lore? There’s plenty. But you don’t need to know anything ahead of time. As a fresh resident to a mysterious town, discovering it all in-character is part of the excitement. Want to learn more about that church? You could ask someone about it, or find and read some literature about it, or even go there yourself to soak in some history.
It’s perfectly acceptable for your character to ask someone, “What the f—k is going on in this town?” In fact, it’s encouraged. It’s an excellent way to spur roleplay and delve into how your character reacts to the unknown.
If you like solving mysteries, this town has plenty of them.
LIMITATIONS TO WHAT YOU CAN ROLEPLAY
The following should be OOCly assumed to be true:
Your character enters Silent Heaven as a modern-day human with no supernatural powers.
Nobody who successfully leaves Silent Heaven can ever find their way back in. There are no ‘return visits.’
There is no way to ‘fix’ the town of Silent Heaven. While your character may have influence on the future of NPCs and landscapes, the backdrop of a hidden town full of cursed characters will not change.
Silent Heaven isn’t in any set location. Outside contact within Silent Heaven will never happen. For what it’s worth, consider the town to be on an entirely different plane of existence.
The timeline of Silent Heaven diverged from the real world in 2010, and anything after that never happened. Humans still exist. Scientific and technological advancements continue as normal. This alternate world history is intentionally an amorphous blob, because your character’s storylines will center around being in a town isolated from the rest of the world.
LAUNCH DATE?
My goal to launch Silent Heaven is December 2022. That’s 7 months from this post. Early 2023.
Coding is 85% complete. There are only 8 major systems left to code.
Building is 25% complete. All remaining NPCs, items, and rooms are fully planned out. It’s just a matter of writing them all and putting them into the game.
To those who’ve already read this post in the previous forum, thanks for putting up with the repost. I’ve updated it to better reflect what Silent Heaven has become over the past year. Everyone’s guidance and suggestions have been invaluable.
I’ll also be posting updates with all the new major features I’ve added in the past 3 months:
But for now, I need a breather.
In the meantime, please feel free to join the Discord server, where I post regular updates and a ton of screenshots.
Stay spooky!
One accusation is concerning.
Two unrelated accusations is a pattern.
Any more than that is unquestionable guilt.
I’ve never seen a callout that deviates from these rules.
After discussion in the Silent Heaven discord server, we’ve decided to restrict this mechanic to NPCs/monsters only. PCs will have the option to opt-in. By default, it’ll be blocked.
This is probably the way I should have done it originally. But I’m always open to changes, and I think this’ll be a positive one.
Springboarding off the MU Peeves Thread, where the topic was spreading plot seeds everywhere, I have something good to share.
I’ve lucked out with my playerbase. At first, I created this chart where I’d make sure every character got a plot seed, and each plot seed was duplicated across multiple characters. That way, everyone would feel included and have something to do.
I only had to do that once.
I can drop a plot seed on nearly any character, and when I wake up, the entire town knows. My players will run around shouting to everyone about every new seed I toss out, and nobody’s left in the dark.
Now, six months later, I don’t need to give a plot seed to anyone. I make one change to the grid, or move one NPC to another room, or hide an item somewhere, and within an hour, someone’s found it and is spreading that knowledge to the rest of the town and sharing hypotheses about what it means. I don’t even need to announce that a change has been made. They find it, they include newer players in their discoveries (or sometimes notice it and tell the newer players to go check it out), and everyone gets excited and has fun.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’m thankful nonetheless.
Silent Heaven usually gets 1 new account created per day.
The day after Arx ended, Silent Heaven started getting 5 new accounts created per day. It has not stopped.
Around the same time, Andruid also posted an article about Silent Heaven! You can read it here: https://writing-games.com/silent-heaven-supernatural-horror-game/
I’m sure the player numbers will even out over time, haha. For now, though, I’m thankful that the core SH playerbase has been so supportive and accommodating to the new players. We’re doing our best behind the scenes to improve the game as well!
So I have to give my thanks to everyone who’s given Silent Heaven a try in the past week. Even if it didn’t hook you, I’m still appreciative that you gave it a try. And if you had a problem, my DMs are always open.
I was looking at the unread threads the other day, and I was amused that the other thread titles could be legitimate answers to this thread’s question.
Yes, all those things could definitely stop someone from running a game!
Wanna know all the features I’ve been working on for Silent Heaven?
There’s a lot. There’s so much that I’m almost done with coding! There are only 2 major systems left, plus a handful of odds and ends.
@Meg was excited about Cooking, so let’s start with that first!
Find a kitchen and type COOK. You’ll get to choose to cook from a recipe you’ve saved, or write a new recipe.
Let’s start by adding a new recipe.
First, you get to choose which ingredients you’re including in your recipe. There are lots of ingredients, so they’ve been sorted into 9 categories, for your convenience.
Your character’s cooking skill determines what ingredients they’re able to work with. More cooking skill = more ingredients to choose from.
Do kitchens run out of individual ingredients? Nope, we’re handwaving that.
Did I forget an ingredient you want? I’ll add it!
Once you’ve assembled all your ingredients, it’s time to choose your cooking method! Again, a higher Cooking skill means you unlock more advanced cooking techniques.
Now add some flavor, literally! Adding a flavor is just for flavor.
Almost done! Write a pretty description of your food!
Now that you’ve described it, how are you serving it? On a plate? In a glass? Maybe you’ve cut out a slice for someone…
Finally, give it a name!
Now you get to review and edit it and change anything if you spotted an error.
You good now? You like that recipe? Let’s get COOKING!
AMAZING.
Let’s EAT this masterpiece.
Your character will munch away in the background while you RP.
If you want to speed things along, you can STOP all that patient eating and finish it like a seagull.
There’s no penalty for doing this; it’s just flavor. If the cook’s skill is high enough, eating food will give your character a minor bonus for the rest of the day. It’s nothing crazy, just a little reward for chilling and RPing with your character’s friends who cooked this delicious food. Remember to say thank you!
You’re welcome to eat as much as you want, and you’ll get a little notification when your character is pleasantly stuffed. You can keep eating after that, but…
To keep your sensibilities quelled, I’ll only show the storyteller-side notification.
There’s a number of storyteller-side notifications like that so that any NPC witness can be animated and join in on the fun, if the scene calls for it.
That’s all there is for cooking!
As always, please feel free to join the Discord server, where I post regular updates and a ton of screenshots.
I would be ever so thankful for help with writing NPC, item, and room descs. It’s not at all necessary, but If you’re interested, there’s a channel on the Discord for writing requests. Give me a nudge and I’ll find a few things you can contribute to.
Stay spooky!
I want to congratulate all of us for our quick response to an unacceptable situation. In less than two weeks, we collectively rescued nearly everyone and set up our own shelter. Everyone who helped organize the exodus deserves praise.
In Silent Heaven, we have between 15 and 30 open scene requests at any given time. You go up to an NPC, say, “I want to talk to you about (thing I want to do).” That opens a scene request. It’s kind of like a job system, but it’s IC, so staff can pick one up and roll with it when the character is next around.
The order that I do them? Whichever I have the energy for.
There are no tokens, no queues, no priorities. Yes, it means some people will wait a while for their scenes, but it’s more important to not burn out Storytellers.
@Roadspike said in Player Ratios:
@Gashlycrumb The whole idea of share points might work for some games, but it feels like it is absolutely rife with the possibility of the perception of bias. Like, “X told me that it only cost them 3 share points to get spotlighted at a plot, but it cost me 5” or “how does Y always have so many share points?” or even just “I never get into a plot, even when I have share points, Staff must be manipulating event signups.”
Even if none of that is actually true, the perception can destroy trust in a game.
I don’t like these systems for this very reasoning. But I just now thought up a suggestion for games that do use these things. What if any spotlight cost half your points?
I don’t know how that would work in practice, but I suspect it would discourage absurd grinding of points. And over time, the spotlight-stealers would have to put in twice as much effort to not fall behind the little guys. Inevitably, though, the little guys would have their chance in the spotlight.
I’ve got a few examples!
First, for when players try to do roleplay that’s outside of what the game’s theme supports:
Right on the front page of the Silent Heaven website is a handful of things that can’t change about the town of Silent Heaven. One of them is, “Silent Heaven isn’t in any set location. Outside contact within Silent Heaven will never happen. For what it’s worth, consider the town to be on an entirely different plane of existence.”
This didn’t stop the playerbase from wanting their first major plot to be building a radio and attempting outside contact. I told them, “Hey, this will probably end in failure. Do you still want to go through with it?” And I love my players, because they went all-in on this plan. While they scavenged all the items to build a radio, I got to brainstorming what sort of effect this could leave on the town.
When the event began a couple weeks later, they had assembled the radio at the highest point they could find in the town. With all that effort, I rewarded them with someone speaking on the other end. Someone who seemed to know exactly who they were. Someone who said they’d send some friends to their location to collect their bodies. After they dealt with that fallout, and the hostile monsters coming their way, it soon became apparent that they summoned a demon that loves putting on radio shows. And that there was likely a radio station somewhere in town!
That event set a precedent that attempting to go against the unchangeable boundaries of what the game can support will have unintended (and fun) consequences.
However, when someone wants to do something that tests the boundaries of what I’m comfortable roleplaying, I’ve had to say, “Unfortunately, we don’t have support for that kind of roleplay.” Someone here taught me that line a couple years ago and I’d encourage everyone to have that line in your repertoire when your players are going very far in the wrong direction.
In the realm of smaller changes, last year, the PCs successfully banished the campy lust demon from the town. They then proceeded to vandalize and desecrate his den of opulence, which was situated across a river that characters could only reach via raft or kayak. Given that nobody was there to stop them, we gave them a free-for-all and updated the room descriptions afterwards to reflect their destruction. One character even stole a king-size bed, but the player roleplayed the mattress slipping off their raft and sinking into the turbulent waters. There was no reason to do this other than the player thought it would be fun and realistic. I love rewarding self-induced losses, so now there’s a king-size mattress in the description of an underwater room, complete with bedsheets and pillows, that any character who can swim can see.
It doesn’t take much to give a player a sense that their character matters in the world. If they can point to something in-game and say “I made that happen,” that makes most players happy.
What makes them unhappy is if you undo what they’ve done. If a well-enjoyed Big Bad Evil Guy is assuredly dead, it makes players feel like they don’t matter if her hand rises out of the rubble sometime later. Recently, someone performed a ritual on what remained of a BBEG, causing echoes of the past to be broadcast briefly. Some characters interpreted this as the return of the BBEG and got really miffed about how their efforts didn’t matter, to the point that I had to tell folks that that wasn’t what had happened, and that’s she’s absolutely dead dead.
I hope this helps!
@Trashcan said in AI Megathread:
What most people are expressing is the desire for transparency, to know if AI was used to create the content they are engaging with in the MU* space, and if there was more of that, I expect there would be less false accusations to go along with it.
There’s even a real-world example of this! That one Ares L&L game that used AI and was quickly called out for not disclosing it.
@RedRocket said in The 3-Month Players:
The kind of people who log in to a world of darkness game just to sit in a bar and make small talk are baffling to me.
Just go join a discord or a forum.
The same thing is true of people who hang out in bars just to hook up for TS. Why are you on a roleplay game with a complicated combat and stat system when you could just go to one of many games where you can literally be anything and bang anything you can imagine.
If they’re having fun and not harming anyone, is that a problem?
In Last One Standing and LA2043, I know it was because the lead storyteller burnt out. In those early months, you need to give your players lots of story opportunities, and actionable and tangible things to do when you’re not around. And you need to be there practically day in and day out.
Launching a game is the easy part.
@Jumpscare said in Why MUSH?:
Yeah, at least with Ares games, it takes 3 months for the story to be abandoned.
I kid, but I really have played so many Ares games that fizzle our within 3 months.
Sure, but I’ve played on so many PennMUSH games, TinyMUX games, etc. that fizzle out within 3 months too. For as long as the hobby has existed, the vast majority of MUs have never really taken flight. Ares just helps more at least get to the “open” phase.
That’s a good point! And I think Ares does a great job of it.
The trailing off without resolution is why I don’t RP on forums anymore. At least in a MUSH people don’t start and abandon a story a week.
Yeah, at least with Ares games, it takes 3 months for the story to be abandoned.
I kid, but I really have played so many Ares games that fizzle our within 3 months.
I think what draws me most to MUSHes is the amount of effort that goes into making the world. It feels like you’re playing in the world, instead of other methods of storytelling where you’re writing the world. It’s more rigid than a sandbox, but less rigid than a linear story-based video game.
I prefer roleplaying where what matters most is the interactions between characters, and MUSHes are right in that sweet spot.
I love writing, and MUSHes are my favorite medium.
I haven’t played anywhere since I started running Silent Heaven in June 2023. But maybe you’ve seen me before.
Last One Standing - Claire, whose plot to bomb their captors during a ceremonial performance was prevented because another PC damaged a book she was reading.
Arx - Lilia’s third player, who tried hard to hide her dark secret while teasing it around, and was told OOCly that people knew already.
This is a Glitch - Katlin, who was ready to leave a huffy negative review about how thoroughly glitchy the resort was.
The Free Zone - Prim, the doctor who got savagely eaten by zombies and was never the same after she was rescued.
Minor appearances - I was only in one or two scenes and I don’t remember my character name: Gray Harbor, Spirit Lake, Liberation, Sindome, Haven, Concordia, LA2043, and that one short-lived Canadian zombie apocalypse Ares game from 2023.
@Ominous said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:
@Jumpscare I get a Coup (the card game) vibe from this.
Halfway through writing it, I thought, “This is coming together a lot like Coup. But with more emphasis on roleplay.”