Why and How To Play By Wiki

Why?

Why play-by-wiki and not play by email, or play on the yog-sothoth forums set up for the purpose? Basically, because this allows for a more dynamic form of world-building in which players can freely contribute, and a more natural style of interaction. Playing on forums tends to result in chopped-up and disjointed conversations, actions, etc, as posts inevitably occur out of in-game chronological order. A Wiki's dynamic editing makes the game transcript much clearer to all participants.
The Wiki format also enables players to make their own contributions to the game world, which I encourage. Although I will supply what in a tv series would be called the metaplot, I envisage much of the plot of individual "episodes" as stemming from PCs own actions and goals, which the Wiki format should help flesh out. This is also a simple matter of practicality. I will be spending about 1/2 an hour to an hour per day, no more, GMing this game, and so PC involvement is essential to maintain momentum.

How?

As far as the rules of play-by-wiki go (as opposed to the Game System), I will be using Jedi Cops as a template.

That is:
The first appearance of something or someone significant in a scene should come with a wiki-link: e.g. each PC or NPC's entry should have a link to their page (if it exists).

Immediate threats will appear in bold text.

Out-of-character table-talk, game mechanics, comments, etc will appear in italics and should be prefaced by the player name. If you want to send a private message, do so through wikidot's message system.

Metagame disputed actions (e.g. if the Keeper describes something that violates something he said previously, or a PC does something that requires equipment he lost, etc) should be bulleted,

  • like this

and once the issue is resolved will be deleted.

If you want to, in-game, alter someone else's action, you should use strikethrough text and describe what happens instead immediately afterwards. An initiative contest will usually be called for.

Eg: Bob draws his sidearm and shoots the cultist informant Jim grabs his arm before he can shoot. Bob and Jim then have an initiative contest to see who succeeds

External links:

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License