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She/They
Game runner of 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!
Hi! I’ll continue to help keep the lights on and keep this community safe.
That’s about it. I don’t have any big speech, haha. There’s a lot to learn about the backend. You’d think it’d be a simple on/off switch, but it’s more like 500 switches.
The same is true more broadly. A kidnapping story where the hostage wants to be kidnapped is not really a kidnapping story. A horror story where the victim wants to be hunted is something else entirely. A dystopia where everyone genuinely enjoys being oppressed has lost the thing that made it dystopian.
I feel disgusted for even having to ask this, but let’s follow this to the conclusion you seem to be hinting at: Do you want players of your game to feel like they’re being r*ped?
If not, please describe the what you’re hoping players experience when someone r*pes their character.
@Wyrmsign Likely he finally upset the wrong subset of people.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a single event. It can be the culmination of many smaller incidents over time. It happens that way more often than we probably think it does.
There’s something to be said about the fact that we are more comfy with killing someone.
When someone is killed, they don’t have to live through the trauma.
Maybe the safest and most sensible way to enjoy story-rich CNC RP is to just do it on a game that forbids it, but behind a closed door, in a private room that can’t be spied on, and contrive a reason to never tell anybody IC or OOC.
I know you mean that as a joke, but please never do that. The amount of times I’ve had to review logs to fix bugs only to stumble upon policy violations is already more than I wish it was.
What if my five gfs are into that, who are you to tell us that sucks? Everyone consents!
Nobody consented to the hidden sexist game mechanics that apply to every character universally.
If your game allows sexual assault, then it’ll be known as the game that allows sexual assault.
EDIT: The above message was originally a part of the Paroxysm game thread, before the topic was forked. I didn’t create a topic just to say the above, nor did I write the title for this thread.
Guys what the HELL happened on this haven game and is this why you’re all vaguely fucked up regarding RP? I’m told there was a huge documented thread about this elsewhere but now it’s lost to the ether forever.
IIRC the documented thread was on MU Soapbox.
If only people hadn’t lied about plans to totally keep it around as an archive after kicking everyone out.
In an effort to repopulate the lost details, I have three stories from Haven.
The first is when I created a character. I knew of all the horrible stuff that went on in Haven, so my quest was to study it to ensure nothing of that sort could happen in Silent Heaven. (This was part of a larger goal to play every active RP game in order to identify what works and what doesn’t work, and then combine everything together, haha.)
So I went into Haven with the intention of taking notes.
I was immediately shocked when, during chargen, someone named Horsey Biscuit attempted to have unprotected sex with my partially-created character. My chargen experience was interrupted by a prompt to choose Yes or No to accept the unprotected sex attempt.
I made a note to block all possible actions during chargen (and to never have such a bizarre prompt, which I already wasn’t planning). I moved on and entered the game.
I found an inn, and did some RP with a few people who were there as well. Eventually , one character propositioned mine via RP. My character told him to buzz off and to go make out with a can opener.
This made him very angry, so he initiated combat code with my character. I asked him OOC for a tutorial on combat and he responded by telling me OOC to “just let it happen.”
He knocked out my character and woke her up in a hotel room, with her arms and legs bound. He then instructed me to say the phrase that allows non-consensual sexual acts to happen to my character. I refused. His character then said that mine wasn’t worth r*ping and he left. Still bound in the hotel room, I logged out. I made a note to disallow aggressive actions on new characters for their first week, and to make any detainment effects last for only an hour while requiring another character to be present and RPing.
…
The second time I logged into Haven, my character woke up in a completely different place, so I went exploring. I found a farm, a lighthouse, and a warehouse district bereft of characters. Then, unfortunately, I accidentally wandered onto the campus and found folks talking about a 12 year-old’s tentacle training, so I got out of there.
Then someone offered to run a PRP scene for me, where my character had to get on a phantom ice cream truck to avoid a bear attack. That was some fun RP. I brought my spooked PC to a restaurant to ask about the ice cream truck and they had no idea what she was talking about. Then I mentioned the bear and they said that there are no coded encounters with bears so I must by lying. That was the most disheartening way to crush the only positive experience I had, so I left to continue my wanderings.
Then there was a broadcast of “wet t-shirt contest starting in 10 minutes” at some club. I would have preferred any other event, but I’m here to study this game, so why not.
They denied my character entry into the club because she had an appearance score of 1.5 out of 10. But they left the door open and I was able to watch the RP from the outside.
The next hour or so was just a bunch of boobs going everywhere. I couldn’t discern any coherent story progression. So I logged out, having learned nothing from the event.
…
The third story is not mine, but rather someone else posting about the time the admin logs were accidentally visible to all characters for about a day. I still have a portion of a log.
Sat Feb 6 13:12:30 2016 :: LOGONCOUNT: Jacob MinOff: 716, Esteem: 9057, RPXP 0+61000 XP 0+3200, Influence: 961, Karma: 5663, Cash: 0+380
Sat Feb 6 13:12:30 2016 :: LOGONINFLUENCE Jacob: Result: -70, Cost: -150, standpoints: 0, slut: 0, status 0, tier 30, prof 0, social 0, praise 0
Sat Feb 6 13:12:31 2016 :: LOGONCOUNT: Dani MinOff: 449, Esteem: 0, RPXP 0+510000 XP 0+102000, Influence: 12092, Karma: 24742, Cash: 0+119
Sat Feb 6 13:12:31 2016 :: LOGONINFLUENCE Dani: Result: -126, Cost: -150, standpoints: 0, slut: 0, status 0, tier 20, prof 0, social 0, praise -46
Sat Feb 6 13:12:40 2016 :: INFLUENCE BEHAVE: Dani gets given -1 for Habit logon…
Sat Feb 6 13:12:40 2016 :: INFLUENCE BEHAVE: Jacob gets given 2 for Habit logon…
Sat Feb 6 13:12:45 2016 :: ATTRACT: Kayly was given 10 for Showering.
Sat Feb 6 13:12:50 2016 :: ATTRACT: Kayly was given 10 for Showering.
There were also point gains for female characters putting on makeup, point losses for females eating too fast, and point losses to male characters for “banging an uggo.”
The implementation of hidden lust and attractiveness values is gross, doubly so for the misogyny present within the system which punishes women for their actions and qualities.
If it weren’t misogynistic, and if it covered actions for all sorts of vices (not just lust), then I imagined that would be an intriguing system for gaining the attention of demonic influences.
That was actually the inspiration for a system in Silent Heaven that the SH players have called “attunement,” where every system ties into a certain vice. For example, if your character KO’s another character in combat, that contributes to your character’s Wrath attunement, gaining the attention of a wrathful demon. Going idle contributes to Sloth. Overeating contributes to Gluttony. Having a character desc that’s longer than a single page contributes to Pride.
I made sure there are 3 or 4 actions that contribute to each of the 15 vices, in order to avoid repetition.
Ultimately, there were some good takeaways from my Haven experience. It had some particularly neat concepts buried behind a miasma of reprehensible content. The main drawback for Haven was that everything was executed in some of the worst ways imaginable, to empower abusers at every level of the hierarchy, both IC and OOC.
I found this on the character request page.
“Your reply email and any accessibility, communication, or content-boundary information are for private review by Auralae, Dante, and the supporting staff who need it. Never submit a password, server address, port, connection file, private credential, or medical diagnosis.”
What a strange final item on that list.
@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Yam said in MU Peeves Thread:
Peeve, the (bad) public chat comedian. Everything is a fumbled attempt at a joke and a convo killer. We are nothing but a captive audience to them, and they refuse to engage with players in any way that doesn’t center around them.
If you’re gonna’ go up there with a mic at least be funny, aaaaa.
what’s the deal with airplane food amirite
Said during a funeral scene
