Jumbucks Lexicon Wiki



This Page is OOC (quoted from http://www.20by20room.com/2003/11/lexicon_an_rpg.html )

Here's a little roleplaying game that I've been toying with. I call it the Lexicon rpg, in honor of its inspiration, Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars.

The basic idea is that each player takes on the role of a scholar, from before scholarly pursuits became professionalized (or possibly after they ceased to be). You are cranky, opinionated, prejudiced and eccentric. You are also collaborating with a number of your peers -- the other players -- on the construction of an encyclopedia describing some historical period (possibly of a fantastic world).

The game is played in 26 turns, one for each letter of the alphabet.

1. On the first turn, each player writes an entry for the letter 'A'. You come up with the name of the entry, and you write 100-200 words on the subject. At the end of the article, you sign your name, and make two citations to other entries in the encyclopedia. These citations will be phantoms -- their names exist, but their content will get filled in only on the appropriate turn. No letter can have more entries than the number of players, either, so all citations made on the first turn have to start with non-A letters.

2. On the second and subsequent turns, you continue to write entries for B, C, D and so on. However, you need to make three citations. One must be a reference to an already-written entry, and two must be to unwritten entries. (On the 25th and 26th turns, you only need to cite one and zero phantom entries, respectively, because there won't be enough phantom entries, otherwise.)

It's an academic sin to cite yourself, you can never cite an entry you've written. (OOC, this forces the players to intertwingle their entries, so that everybody depends on everyone else's facts.) Incidentally, once you run out of empty slots, obviously you can only cite the phantom slots.

3. Despite the fact that your peers are self-important, narrow-minded dunderheads, they are honest scholars. No matter how strained their interpretations are, their facts are accurate as historical research can make them. So if you cite an entry, you have to treat its factual content as true! (Though you can argue vociferously with the interpretation and introduce new facts that shade the interpretation.)

4. This little game will probably play best on a wiki, and it should take a month or so to play to completion. At the end of it, you'll have a highly-hyperlinked document that details a nice little piece of collaborative world-building.

The owner of the wiki should set the general subject of the Lexicon. I suggest that he or she make use of the technique of "open reference" when describing the historical period: "You are all revisionist scholars from the Paleotechnic Era arguing about how the Void Ghost Rebellion led to the overthrow of the cyber-gnostic theocracy and the establishment of the Third Republic." What a cyber-gnostic theocracy is, or what happened to the first two republics, or what the Paleotechnic Era is are all unknown -- they are named to specifically to evoke a mood and inspire the other players' creativity. (This is an idea which I've first seen in fully articulated form in the character creation rules for Robin Laws's Hero Wars game.)

Current Game State
(UPDATING THIS AS OF 9/25/2013 - HOLY CRAP)

Round C
NOTE: This is a warmup round, and as such is totally optional. I figure this is a good way to get everyone back into character while we figure out exactly who's gonna play this time around.

Scholar Honor Roll (Feel free to fill in any info I missed):

Character - Owner - Article for this round - Interested in restarting?

Frederick Von Messerschmidt - crovax1234 - Currencies, Lesser-Used - Yes

Rifflesby - Riff - ? - Yes

Lubya Vasilevna - gdyetrauda - ? - Yes

Euphonius G. Emelicker - Gemelli - Clockwork Crusade - Yes

Maribel le Cire-Tetard - lycrashampoo - ? - Yes

Dr. Magnifico - Mr. Magnifico - ? - ?

Andronicus Paulicus - ? - ? - ?

Malaclypse the Elder - Baron Mind - ? - Yes

Other people interested in playing:

Whyman

Anyone else?

One cite to an article written in a previous round, one cite to a phantom created in a previous round, one cite to a new phantom of your devising. Extra cites to already-written articles are okay. Don't cite your own articles or phantoms, or write an article for a phantom you created. Note: When filling in a previously-created phantom, the link back to the article that originated that phantom does not count for your cite of a previously-written article.

Phantoms that need to be written this round:
 * Chitin (Subculture) Dibs - Johann-Antonio Steinborg 08:45, August 5, 2010 (UTC)

Please edit the list and tag one of these with your sig if you're down for writing it. All of these should be written (or at least dibs'd with strong intent) before non-phantoms are written. If someone dibs an article you really really want, talk it out between you and come to an arrangement. None of us are assholes, so I don't imagine there'll be any drama.

IMPORTANT: Those of you who are following along but are too intimidated by the length of the articles to actually contribute, please don't be! A couple paragraphs is fine, people are just doing more because they get caught up in it and have more to say. It is totally appropriate that there would be some short articles in amongst the huge ones.

Note: Adding to this section so that people playing will actually be aware of it, but two new helpful pages have been added to the Useful Links section down below: What We Know About the Universe (a carefully sectioned bible of awesome crap you guys came up with. Like planets, dates and things) and People, Listed By Role (npcs listed by story role so far). Most of the stuff in there is unphantomed so far, and it might help if you're stuck for an idea or planet name or tech piece in your article (or if you're like me and don't want to conflict someone else's dates too badly). Someone give Jenni and cookie for kicking those pages off.


 * As we all know, the annual Festival of the Eleven Whiskeys traditionally marks a period of scholarly decline throughout the cosmos. So it was not entirely unexpected that this project would be interrupted, although some of the rumors circulating about the celebratory antics of my fellow researchers -- I'm looking at you, Frederick -- are still quite alarming. I am looking forward to the resumption of our Great Work after a respectable recovery period has elapsed. Euphonious G. Emelicker 14:38, August 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've created an entirely new species of pants! Malaclypse the Elder 16:49, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

Topic / Theme / Universe
Nobody Believed Him: The Travels, Tales, And Trials of Harrican Syldanade

Don't despair if your own favorite didn't get picked, as I expect Mr. Syldanade encountered a lot of strange places and events during his undoubtedly Gulliveresque travels, so it shouldn't be hard to tie in a concept that had particularly caught your imagination. I know a lot of us were sad that "The Dung Engine, and Other Horrible Ideas From Brilliant Minds" missed being in the running.

Links to the Harrican Syldanade page don't count against (or toward!) your number of available citations. I will add Known Facts about Mr. Syldanade to the page as they are revealed through our various articles, to serve as a single repository of information on this intriguing and enigmatic fellow. This should help keep errors and inconsistancies to a minimum. You may also wish to use his talk page for general discussion (but don't neglect the various article-specific talk pages when appropriate). Talk:Jumbucks Lexicon Wiki is OOC.

If you wish to do your writing directly into Wikia's editor (rather than, say, using Notepad and c/p'ing when finished), please leave a "Work In Progress" or similar note at the top of the page until you're finished, so that no-one takes your work as canon until you're done with it.

Also, please add links to your article and phantoms in the List of Articles as appropriate.

Rifflesby 09:06, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Archived Topic Suggestions

Players
Sign here if you're playing. For the sake of this not getting crazy huge, let's keep it on the down-low -- don't invite people you wouldn't invite to the Jumbucks Warcraft guild, basically. Devsters and The Rye and close associates. Any observers that may have arrived here due to our being listed on Wikia's front page: sorry, but it's a private game.

Rifflesby 00:18, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Crovax1234 00:32, June 17, 2010 (UTC) (IC Account: Frederick Von Messerschmidt)

Gdyetrauda 00:59, June 17, 2010 (UTC) (My hiding-from-the-law name: Lubya Vasilevna)

Nytmare 00:59, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Andronicus Paulicus 01:24, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Gemelli23 01:29, June 17, 2010 (UTC) (Also known as Euphonious G. Emelicker)

Lycrashampoo 10:23, June 17, 2010 (UTC) (IC: Marjorie le Cire-Têtard (deceased), Maribel le Cire-Têtard)

Dr. Magnifico 13:39, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Malaclypse the Elder 13:38, June 18, 2010 (UTC)

Echophantom 20:17, June 19, 2010 (UTC)

Erasmus Stufflesby 10:08, June 20, 2010 (UTC)

T. Coraghessan Guy 00:18, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

Papyrus Annelida 08:08, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

Lorenzo Jicksworth 17:04, June 24, 2010 (UTC)

Johann-Antonio Steinborg 03:30, July 11, 2010 (UTC) (smoove's brother)

(Latecomers: you haven't missed out, just add your name to the list and find out from someone where we're at in the proceedings.)

Rules
(swiped from http://www.gamegrene.com/wiki/Main_Page )
 * 1) Scholars shall dib (reserve), and then write, one entry per turn. Turns loop from A to Z back to A.
 * 2) Entries shall cite two phantom (unwritten) entries and, after the first turn, one existing entry.
 * 3) Scholars shall neither cite themselves, nor write phantoms they were the first to cite.
 * 4) After the first turn, all phantoms for a letter shall be written before new entries are created.
 * 5) Of your required two phantom citations, only one cited phantom can be newly defined.
 * 6) The required per-turn citations must not be to entries or phantoms created in the current turn.
 * 7) Rule of A: During turn A, scholars may write new A entries instead of defining an existing A phantom.
 * 8) Rule of X: If no turn X phantoms remain, you may write a previous letter's phantom instead.

Example of Play (first turn)

 * 1) On the first turn, Sean B. Palmer defines his one entry for the letter A: Andelphracian Lights (Rule 1).
 * 2) In Andelphracian Lights, he creates two phantoms: Bysted Timperton and Quester and Phorrus (Rule 2).
 * 3) Sean B. Palmer may never define Bysted Timperton and Quester and Phorrus now. (Rule 3).
 * 4) On the next turn, all phantoms for the letter B (like Bysted Timperton) must be defined (Rule 4).

Example of Play (all other turns)

 * 1) It's turn 2, letter B, and scholars must first define all phantoms starting with that letter (Rule 4).
 * 2) Sean B. Palmer wants the Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge and commits an edit saying so (Rule 1).
 * 3) He checks "What links here" on the Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge page to see what truths, if any, are known.
 * 4) He also searches for the expression/term in the "search" box to find any unlinked mention of his entry.
 * 5) He writes the entry, and cites two phantoms (existing or not) and one previously written entry. (Rule 2).
 * 6) His citations, however, must not be those he's previously created (Rule 3; see Ghyll Index and FAQ).
 * 7) His citations must also have been created or defined before the current turn of play. (Rule 5).

Tone

 * "...we're scholars from that world, or another one, but not this one -- e.g. no comparing Lawrence hla Trass III (Prime Lord Duke of Flamp-by-Updike) to Winston Churchill -- in character, we're not aware of Winston Churchill. (If need be, Talk pages can have a section at the bottom for OOC discussion of that article, but everything else should be IC.)


 * "Also I expect it goes without saying that this is gonna end up on the comedic side, just by the nature of who's playing -- but, we should aim toward a drier tone in our humor and avoid outright goofiness. More Look Around You and less Family Guy, if you see what I mean. And no pop-culture references unless they're of the fictional world's pop-culture, and probably not even then -- we are respected scholars, after all! Rifflesby 02:26, June 17, 2010 (UTC)"

Clarifications

 * Just to double-check: in later rounds, can we create new phantoms starting with letters earlier in the alphabet? In other words, during Round C, could someone create a phantom to Aquaboogie? (I assume the answer is no, but thought it'd be good to make sure.) Euphonious G. Emelicker 18:06, June 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Baron and I were discussing this, as well. On a related but different, if we get to the letter Y and 13 Z phantoms have already been created, we're to just skip that part and refer to past articles, correct? Lubya Vasilevna 18:09, June 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Since I'm assuming we'll go around the alphabet till we get sick of the whole thing, you can do phantoms back up the alphabet, yeah. So Y and Z won't really be different, despite the rules. I figure the more specific rules (bottom of the page) that I got from a site where they're actually playing take precedence over the less-specific rules (top of the page). Also (clarification because 'Stuff asked a moment ago), in later rounds you'll be doing one citation to an already-written article, one citation to an already-existing phantom, and one citation to a newly-created phantom. You can cite more written articles if you want, but only (and exactly) two phantoms. Rifflesby 21:48, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Useful links
New pages / Page formatting / Linking (And more can be had by scouting around in that vicinity.)

List of Articles

Requests for Further Scholarship

What We Know About the Universe (OOC): An out of character place for people/places/things made up in the articles.

People, Listed by Role (OOC): All the NPC's so far in a slightly easier-to-look at format.