Main Page
Welcome to the Lexicon Wiki
This is the main starting page for Malcolm Gin's Lexicon Wiki gaming platform.
To find out more about Lexicon games in general, see this article on Wikipedia.
Lexicon is a written, asynchronous role playing game for folks interested in writing a fictional, or at least partially fictional encyclopedia or dictionary (or lexicon). The idea is that a simple set of rules and the Wiki platform help you and a number of your peers put together a hyperlinked encyclopedia of knowledge about whatever world you derive or invent while you play. Each player plays as a scholar, and the scholar you play writes an article about at topic that is somehow related to all the other topics (present or future) already in the lexicon. Play proceeds over the course of days, weeks or months, each round in whatever frequency's decided by the game master(s)/misstress(es) and cycles through the alphabet. See House Rules below for more information on the particular mechanics for games on this Wiki.
House Rules
This Lexicon Wiki's house rules are as follows:
- Every player must know at the very least the Basics of writing and editing MediaWiki Articles
- Every players must know the Order of Play (below) (ref. [basic rules of Lexicon)
- Every player must create an account on this Wiki (contact MalAdmin or email him at malcolm.gin@gmail.com to create an account)
- Every player must know his/her/eir/zir Game Master and how to reach em
- Every player must know his/her/eir/zir Game Prefix (ask your Game Master for this)
- In every game, each player should consider volunteering to help the Game Master process the turn's submissions or help out it other ways
- Every player is responsible to know the particular game's turn sequence, frequency of turns, and responsible to submit his/her/eir/zir submissions on time
Order of Play
For every game of Lexicon, there is a particular order of play. After the turn sequence is hammered out (e.g. A letter per week through the entire alphabet. 100 - 200 words. Submissions due on Fridays.), the order of play is as follows:
- The first turn is always special. On the first turn, all articles' topics or titles start with the first letter of play (usually A). You write the article you want, the length specified and you link to two other yet-to-be-written articles. These articles are phantoms and will display as red links. That's okay. On this Wiki, be sure to use the game prefix in your links to other articles.
- On subsequent turns, you write the same length article, an article topic or title starting with the next letter in the sequence (usually B, C, D, etc.) and you link back to at least one existing, already written article (e.g. for a B article, you link at to at least one existing A article) and then you link to two more yet-to-be-written articles. Again, the ones that are yet-to-be-written are phantoms and should display in red until they're written.
- On any turn where there are yet-to-be-written articles for that letter, players MUST write articles on yet-to-be-written articles instead of writing their own topic. Players can only write their own topic if there are no more yet-to-be-written articles left for that letter.
- It's an academic sin to cite yourself. Players never cite their own articles.
- You must treat all your peers' (fellow players') articles as factual. You may argue the point and shade the interpretation, but if it's already written and in the Lexicon, you can't just deny it.
Getting started with MediaWiki
Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.
