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!
@KarmaBum said in Missed Settings:
@Jumpscare The game-owner was Tek with a new handle on. The game went under a few weeks after they were outed for lying to everyone.
- Are you Tek? https://brandmu.day/topic/53/mu-peeves-thread/1490?_=1760278262487
- “I wasn’t lying; I just wasn’t telling the truth.” https://brandmu.day/topic/53/mu-peeves-thread/1512?_=1760278262489
Oh, thank you for finding that! It explains everything.
@InkGolem said in Missed Settings:
@Jennkryst said in Missed Settings:
There was that Legally Distinct Not-Really Zombies game set in Canada where people got infested with worms instead of your usual virus and/or Last of Us Fungus. But it was tricksy.
Tricksy how?
In my experience, the head ST disappeared at a critical time in player retention, and the rest of us had nearly nothing to RP about. If something was going on behind the scenes, I was oblivious to it.
I don’t remember its name, and it seems nobody else knows it either. The game closed in less than 2 months.
@dvoraen said in Re: Dies Irae:
@Jumpscare The
dbandndbattributes areAttributeHandlerobjects, to my recollection, and it’s my understanding that usingdbin particular will automatically handle the database-serialization and synchronization for you. Which is why I feel like I’m forgetting something ifmove_to()invocation is what fixed the DI problem in question.
Ah, yes, using db handles the serialization, usually. Lists and Dicts are automatically serialized, as are Object references. Strings and Integers are not. You can also intentionally not serialize things by adding .deserialize() to the end of a db request. That last thing is what was being done on Dies Irae, which has been fixed.
@MisterBoring said in Re: Dies Irae:
@Jumpscare said in Re: Dies Irae:
I wanted to see how so many coders become cynical reactionaries
From my time in IT, I can assure you that coder burnout exists across the entire realm of coding, not just MUs.
Oh, I would never want to code as a profession. That sounds like it would suck all the fun out of it.
I suppose the real reason ties back to the capitalistic feeling of a lack of ownership in one’s work.
@dvoraen said in Re: Dies Irae:
updating the database when you use the attribute handler
Using handlers is a topic that escapes a number of Evennia developers, including myself. My experience was that there wasn’t a clear enough tutorial on handlers back when I made Silent Heaven.
@Pavel said in Re: Dies Irae:
@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
Having Jumpscare dress me down is making a lot of this clear as to why things didn’t work!
I wouldn’t take it as a dressing down. She’s just a very tired teacher reaching for her third bottle of whiskey with one hand, pinching the bridge of her nose with the other, and staring at an assignment from that one child…
I’ve been there.
I disagree with that characterization. I’m fairly new, myself. Silent Heaven is my first coding project ever. It was supposed to be a short project during the 2020 quarantine that I’d throw away once I inevitably broke it. I wanted to see how so many coders become cynical reactionaries who despise the players, so I could have a better respect for the stuff they have to go through.
In the 5 years since then, I haven’t displayed any contempt for mankind, so I’m thinking it might not be the coding that makes coders that way. So much for that sociological hypothesis.
@dvoraen said in Re: Dies Irae:
@Jumpscare said in Re: Dies Irae:
@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
multiple deserialized calls to update self.db.location
I run a horror game, and that line is scarier than anything I’ve ever written.
I kind of need an ELI5 because I think I understand the scream-emoji worthy part, but I am not sure if I completely understand the nuance. Either way, WHY DESERIALIZED? (The all caps part is me going
)
When you look at your character sheet, you now have that information in your head. The DM says you lost 3 HP. You update the information in you head and you record it on your character sheet. The information in your head is serialized with the information on your character sheet.
The DM says your character has successfully moved from the LA Streets to the Corner Bakery. You update that information in your head but you don’t update it on your character sheet. You tell the DM that you want to say hello to the baker. The DM looks at your sheet and says that there’s no baker on the LA Streets. The information in your head is deserialized with the information on your character sheet.
The weirdest thing about this is that Evennia has a built-in method on objects called move_to(). It handles moving an object to another room. If you wanted to do more with movement, you could just extend that method.
@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
multiple deserialized calls to update self.db.location
I run a horror game, and that line is scarier than anything I’ve ever written.
@MisterBoring said in Character Death:
your PC sacrifice ties off an 18 month plot and removes one of the biggest antagonists in the game permanently
Someone did that in Silent Heaven. The character was absolutely outmatched, but their sacrifice gave the other PCs just enough time to recover and defeat the big bad.
After the event, I created the “Blaze of Glory” role in Discord just for them. It’s a special tag that has no effect, but it carries a lot of meaning.
@MisterBoring said in Factions:
@Jumpscare said in Factions:
There have been players who have agreed to fights but say they “won’t fight back.”
I’m curious if they only did this when they knew they were involved in a punitive conflict, like the one you described. If they’re fully up for it when they’re “in the right”, then it’s totally anti-fun.
If the character is trying to portray a complete pacifist who holds to that even when they are in the direct path of harm, then it’s a whole different thing that isn’t anti-fun if recognized early and embraced.
The character was part of a combat faction. When a fellow faction member called for help fighting off a monster, the character avoided the fight. So the NPC leader felt it necessary to test the character’s combat capabilities. If he lost, that could prompt the leader to tell him to get stronger. If he won, then the leader could relent and accept him. Either way, I wasn’t going to boot the character from the faction. It was less of a punitive fight and more of a restorative fight.
Sometimes an IC challenge can be a practical way of asking the player if they’re actually having fun in the role they’ve chosen.
In Silent Heaven, characters can’t die (for spoilery reasons). There are many ways to have a contest, but one of the fastest ways to defuse a situation is with a little violence. There aren’t many downsides to engaging in combat, although the downsides scale slightly higher for more experienced characters that have a greater chance of winning (longer recovery times, and so on). I often encourage players with combat-capable characters to resolve things by fighting out their differences and calling it a day. It really does reduce tensions to have a climactic beat in the story.
Conflicts aren’t supposed to fester passively. In the game’s policies, it’s a social contract of all players to ensure feuds are resolved in a timely manner that’s agreeable to all parties involved.
Additionally, there are factions for players who are into combat, and they can effectively throw hands whenever they please, for the fun of it.
It works, for the most part. The biggest flaw is one I never expected. There have been players who have agreed to fights but say they “won’t fight back.” This completely sucks the fun out of any conflict. You need to nip those anti-fun practices before they spread. Once, in a medium-combat faction, I had the boss NPC of the faction desire a spar with one of the PCs as a way of making up for the PC’s transgression against the faction. The idea being that they fight and all is made right in the end, regardless of who wins the fight. The PC decided to be a pacifist, passed all his combat turns, and said things like, “This won’t solve anything.” (It literally would have solved everything.)
That kind of play makes victories feel hollow, and losses inconsequential. It almost feels like metagaming.
In order for conflict resolution between players to be amicable through contests (strength, art, cooking, and so on), I feel like players have to agree to do a few things:
There are probably more things I’m forgetting. But it does feel pretty similar to playing a board game with friends.
