Philadelphia by Night

Hey all. I've been building a Vampire: The Masquerade (20th) MUSH/Living World set in Philadelphia and it's at the point where I want more people kicking the tires and getting involved.

What it is: A persistent-world multiplayer text RPG in your browser. No downloads, no apps, no scheduling conflicts. Play from your PC or your phone. The city runs 24/7 with dynamic weather, a ticking masquerade heat system, and political systems that keep moving whether you're logged in or not.

This started initially as a small project to mess around with web sockets and run games for my friends. We realized it could be something more so now I'm opening up an early alpha to the general public. The focus is heavy role-play, deep immersion and collaborative storytelling set within 1996 Philadelphia.

URL: https://philadelphiabynight.net/

The V20 stuff that's actually in and working:

20+ clans and bloodlines, each with their mechanical banes. All the classics along with bloodlines like Gargoyles, Kiasyd, Baali, True Brujah, Daughters of Cacophony, Salubri (both branches), Samedi, and more

15+ disciplines implemented at various states Auspex, Presence, Protean, Obfuscate, Dominate, Animalism, Dementation, Thanatosis, Visceratika, Melpominee, Mytherceria, Daimoinon, Temporis, and others. These are full V20 mechanics with contested rolls, blood costs, masquerade consequences, and cross-discipline interactions

Round-based combat with initiative, maneuvers, dodge/block/parry, soak pools, weapons, armor, Celerity extra actions, and frenzy triggers (this sorta kinda works, it needs a lot of love and more testing)

10 Paths of Enlightenment with full sin hierarchies and mechanical consequences. Your Humanity is a number and it goes down

Feeding with multi-stage hunting, hunger frenzy escalation, clan-specific banes (Giovanni painful kiss, Ventrue restrictive diet, Assamite blood curse, Salubri third eye)

Herd management where each dot is a trackable mortal with their own blood pool

Boon economy, coterie/pack formation, Elysium enforcement, domain control, status traits, monomacy duels, vaulderie with vinculum tracking

A maze like sewer system that is obfuscated from those outside of clan Nosferatu unless they are willing to use certain disciplines.

Player haven system with locking, guests, and a Celerity-gated rush-home teleport

Blood bonding/vaulderie systems.

XP from role-playing

Madness Network

All 3 sects are available and playable. The Sabbat grow like a cancer in Kensington, the Anarchs run wild in University City and the Camarilla looks down from their seat of power in Center City. For now, the regions are each an island. In the coming weeks they will connect via train once players have had a chance to congeal and form groups.

Much more to discover within!

For new players: There's a tutorial that plays out as your Embrace night. It teaches you the basic commands through a short narrative before dropping you into the city at a spawn point based on your sect.

For MUSH/MUD veterans: The backend is all web socket based with a custom frontend, so you get the persistent-world feel with a modern UI. Sound profiles per room, ambient weather audio, a compass rose, mini-map, room descriptions/images. All the QoL stuff that makes you not miss your favorite telnet client. It's a completely custom engine I've been tinkering with on weekends for a little over a year now. It's probably a bit beyond a MUSH in terms of actual codified mechanics and interactions but I have no idea what the modern term would be.

The game is free, the code is actively developed, and there are storyteller tools built in for running scenes and managing NPCs. I'm looking for players who want to actually inhabit a World of Darkness city and truly immerse themselves in a game of Vampire.

I have no doubt there will be bugs, goofy behaviors and lots (LOTS) of unfinished mechanics. I have a literal lifetime of todos but the foundation is pretty strong and role-play amongst friends has been pretty great.

Happy to answer any questions about the mechanics, the tech stack, or how the game handles whatever you're curious about