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!
@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:
- Ordinarily, character death requires consent. Your character can get into serious fights and someone can even try to assassinate them in theory, but the setting’s magic prevents them from falling into the red without prior staff discussion/approval from both parties.
I think this should be the standard. Non-consensual character death is the least fun and most toxic outcome.
- Players can permanently toggle a setting that makes their characters killable when they roll in; the flag is publicly visible and is intended as an “I’m up for anything do your worst” signal. In exchange they enjoy slightly accelerated XP gains (think in the realm of 10%), but obviously it means staff won’t rescue them from open PK unless there’s a very obvious/overt sign of OOC-motivated abuse.
I think that’s a setting I’d only be comfortable turning on some months in to my character when I feel like I’ve played out their story completely. I also think it should only be allowable by other characters who have also turned the flag on, for fairness. Turning it on during character creation sounds like a recipe for toxic players to be predators.
Early on in Silent Heaven’s development, I played with the concept of allowing only specific characters to kill your character. Ultimately, I scrapped it and decided that character death can only happen in dangerous zones that are only accessible through Storyteller involvement.
People have brought up plenty of great points. Here are a couple others.
Make factions that have a pre-defined level of conflict, along with the types of conflict they’ll most likely engage in, and alliances they may have. Some examples…
Another thing that you need to have zero tolerance for is what I’ll call the pacifist. The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict. Then, when they get backed into a position where they’re called upon to resolve a conflict by fighting it out, they’ll agree to the fight but refuse to fight back, letting the opposing side win, in order to give the other players the most unsatisfying resolution possible. The two most notable offenders on Silent Heaven had to be removed from the game for their un-collaborative behavior.
Lastly, if someone is bringing down the mood of the game but isn’t violating any specific policy, you can still ask them to take a break from the game. Sometimes someone’s just not a good fit, and it’s best to wish them the best finding a game that’s right for them.
What surprises me is that they say they use AI in their code development process, and their code is over 120,000 lines. As a direct comparison, the code for Silent Heaven is only 44,625 lines, including comments. Both projects use Evennia. Something feels off, like their AI character that has a hand coming out of its leg as it rides a hotdog that has a second skin.
I’m not calling them out or anything. It just doesn’t line up with my experience.
@bear_necessities said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
@Jumpscare said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
Ah, Gemstone IV, where people would abruptly leave the scene when their RPXP ran out.
Was that the one on AOL along with Modeus Operandi that went pay-to-play? Modeus Operandi was my first game, I miss it
I’m afraid I don’t know. A few years ago, a friend who is into MUDs told me to check it out for inspiration. It was so very strange and not in a fun way, haha.
Imagine you’re sitting down to dinner at a restaurant and having a great conversation with someone. You’re engaged and chatting for a good 30 minutes. But then he finishes his meal, says, “My time is up,” and immediately leaves in the middle of the discussion. Then someone else comes in, gets a meal, sits down in front of you, and expects you to start a new conversation from the beginning.
@MisterBoring said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I’ve thought up a new pacing style:
Tedium game pacing. The MU will be connected to a generic incremental idle game (like Cookie Clicker), and each player will be given a number of pose tokens. Each pose will cost a number of tokens based on length, and if you run out of tokens, you must play the idle game to generate more tokens, which can also be spent to make the idle game work faster. Scenes will progress at a speed decided by the various players progression in the idle game generating the tokens.
Ah, Gemstone IV, where people would abruptly leave the scene when their RPXP ran out.
@bear_necessities said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
@Jumpscare if you’re doing that all in 4 poses, how are you reacting to the other person?
Each pose follows the Acknowledge-Respond-Prompt method. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear enough. I’ll add it to my previous post.
For async (and some live scenes), I try to aim for RP that ends after 4 posts. Granted, these posts can be 1,000 words long, but my goal is 4 posts, following the Acknowledge-Respond-Prompt method.
That is:
It doesn’t work for all scenes, but it’s great for social scenes and 7-11 robbery scenes.
That’s perfectly understandable! And thanks for expounding, it really helps me to understand where Silent Heaven stands in the MU ecosystem, haha.
Here are some responses to your points. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to convince you to play. I’m just providing clarifications.
1- I understand the frustration with mobile closing the connection the instant you tab out. I’ve recently learned about split screen being a feature for Android phones to help with web connections. It’s still not ideal, but maybe someone reading this doesn’t know about split screen and could benefit from it. (Tap the button that lets you switch apps, then tap the icon at the top, and choose “Split Screen.”)
2- The Discord server is absolutely not necessary. It’s just for OOC chatter. I’ve seen a number of issues for when public OOC is on the same medium as IC, involving people blurring the lines between the two. And for a game like Silent Heaven that could carry higher bleed than usual, I felt it prudent to separate the two. Everything else, such as event scheduling and notifications about OOC updates, are available in-game.
3- I worked hard on making an intro sequence that sets the tone while teaching the most necessary commands, so there are no worries there, haha. The first 30 minutes of any new player’s experience are the most important minutes, because those are when they’re most likely to bail if they can’t figure something out.
4- I fully understand that the “crunchiness” of the game mechanics is a dealbreaker. I did my best to make it support RP, not supplant it. For example, the automated NPC responses are to help when PCs or Storytellers aren’t available, with teaching commands, providing basic setting information, and suggesting safe places to explore. While it helps with some of the cognitive offload of initiating new players into a setting, as well as standardizing rules around certain aspects of the game, it is ultimately gamier, and I accept that that reduces freedom.
Thank you again for responding!
@KarmaBum said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Jumpscare Thanks, the offer is very much appreciated.
The theme/setting/whatever always seemed exactly up my alley, and it’s one of those things I’m sure I’d enjoy if I took the time to get into it. But Evennia and me just don’t jive.
Thank you! If I may be curious, what about Evennia don’t you jive with? If it’s about the syntax, I’ve removed a lot of the default commands and made them much more user-friendly. For example, there’s none of that desc/brains=“Very smart.” syntax. Now you just type desc, choose the thing you want to edit, and start typing. Much of the game follows the principle of “just start typing; it’ll likely know what you want to do.”
@KarmaBum said in MU Peeves Thread:
I don’t feel like I’m missing anything right now. If another game like Horror or LA came along, where every scene felt like it was building toward a comprehensive story, I’d absolutely be down to clown.
I’ve been having a blast running Silent Heaven for nearly 3 years. The players constantly surprise me with the things they come up with. I don’t know if I ever played with you (I missed out on Horror and I was too busy with SH to play LA). But I’ve heard you’re a legendary player, and you’re welcome to play!
You may have checked it out in the past. I know there were a few people who weren’t a fan of the spatially-consistent grid, nor the real-time public RP. I admittedly cribbed from Arx on that matter, haha. So, no worries if it’s not your thing.
