Time shares in an entire universe

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I've been thinking over the weekend, and I've had an idea which you may like. Or hate with gut wrenching intensity. One or the other.

Alex, Ed and my self all have our own little worlds in which we live where we run our games, but I was thinking that it might be fun to put together a shared world, using the wiki to help. Anyone who wanted could join in, not just the three who currently run things.

Each participant would be responsible for putting together one aspect of the world, which we could then assemble into a whole and trim the edges a bit to make things fit. Before begining we would have to decide upon a few global parameter, such as technology, but other than that each participant could do what they wanted with their section(s).

I think we should take it in turns to do a bit, starting perhaps with religion/create myth for a fantasy setting or technology for a sci-fi games, depending on which we choice. Once that is done we asign a second part, say common races, and someone else puts that together. Each section doesn't have to be long - in certain cases "Their is none." would be an exceptable answer.

Once it is finished we could all run games in this setting, perhaps with the same group of adventurers but taking turns on the GMing front.

Anyway, what do people think? Good idea or not? Andy 10:40, 15 October 2007 (BST)

Lexicon is a game designed for exactly this sort of thing; you go through the alphabet each writing an article that links to two other (unwritten) articles, and let other people write those future ones. I ran one a few years ago, which was fun before it tailed off - theming it around time-travel paradoxes was probably a bad idea, in retrospect.

Actually, wait, you were playing it as well for a while, weren't you, Alex? --Kevan 00:37, 16 October 2007 (BST)

This looks very much like the exact inverse of what I was thinking about. It is very a a top down afair, starting with references to people/places/events and then filling in the world around them. I was more thinking of a bottom up approach, creating the world in a more linear fashion, starting with the most basic features that define it and then adding each layer at a time.

In a fantasy setting it would run a bit like this:

1. The gods. They created the world, and so define its features.
2. The races that inhabit the world, and if they are associated with any perticular gods. Or Geography might come next, if we were planning on some something wierd.
3. Political layout/major historical events.

...and so on. I think this would create something easier to work with afterwards, but I'd be interested in hearing what other people think. Andy 11:16, 17 October 2007 (BST)

To Kevan. Yes, you're right. I was involved in the Orbital Wars (which I think you still have a link to on the main page of your website), which was a crazy attempt to describe a sci-fi war where it was all being made up as we went along, but where someone would describe the end before the beginning got written. Fun stuff, and I recently found the print-outs of some of it that I had lying around (I still think the Icarus People one I did was good, because it managed to ret-con some of the contradictory pieces people had started to put in).

To Andrew. I like the idea. But I would start with a discussion on basic principles first. High or low levels of magic? Realistic or incredible? Active or inactive gods? Ninjas or no ninjas? Is it a world created by gods or one where gods are created by the beliefs of worshippers? How many dinosaurs am I allowed to include? That sort of thing...--Alex 20:42, 17 October 2007 (BST)

Yeah, I said a few global parameters would have to be asigned. I take it from your questions that you would like a fantasy world best?

• In terms of magic, I think I would like on extreme or the other! Mid level magic worlds are fairly common. High magic doesn't nessesery mean the game has to include Hogworts anywhere. A world with impossible geometries geography could fit neatly into this idea. Actually, I quite like that idea. I have an idea for some very strange geometry!

• Realistic or incredible... Did you mean the world itself or the game play? I'm keen on an incredible world... but happiest with realistic game play.

• Active or inactive gods - the starting point I have in mind dictates inactive gods, but that assumes that I write the first section. Otherwise it might turn out to be totally different.

• Ninjas or No ninjas. Not part of the first 'layer'. Ninjas may appear later. Or they may not, depending on how things evolve.

• Belief... I'd rather the gods were the gods. Shaping gods through belief is an idea that has been used so many times it is boardering on the cliqued.

• Dinosaurs. At this stage there is no limit on the number of dinosaurs that can be included! Like ninjas, this is really one layer up, and so not specified yet. It may become specified, if someone made up a "God of Dinosaurs" because that would indicate their existence.

I don't mind starting this project off, if people are interested. Once I've written up an opening section we can see what would suggest itself as the next logical layer. Then some one else can take over and go that in its entirity, or split it up and let anyone who feels like it do a bit. So if the next section was 'kingdom', anybody who felt like it could make up a region or two and describe them. At this point your ninjas and dinosaurs might appear.

Sound good? Andy 14:31, 18 October 2007 (BST)

Must remember in future, in cyberspace no can hear the silliness in your voice...

I wasn't actually suggesting those as questions to be answered now, but as the sorts of things that would have to be discussed before we started on any details, even something as simple as the shape of the world. And two of them weren't serious at all. I'll leave it up to you to decide which...

As for which sort of one to go with, well I'd actually suggest steering clear of fantasy all together. We aleady have two fantasy campaigns on the go, with no sign of either slowing down any time soon. If we have to do a fantasy world I'd suggest doing it seriously magic-heavy to distinguish it from Ed's (medium level magic) and mine (very low levels of magic; seriously, can you think of another campaign where a fifth level party only has two magic items between them and both of those are fairly low level...) which sounds like what you'd pefer anyway.

Hmm. One idea that just occurred to me. Why not do what Kev was suggesting, then follow that up with what you were proposing. Run a Lexicon type deal where we ceate a world almost at random and then follow that up by writing it up in a more detailed gaming style, filling in the gaps that were left out during the Lexicon stage. Thoughts?

Of course one poblem with this entire poject is when would we have time to un it? We currently have three campaigns. Ed's has been running for over a decade now and if all the participants finishing school, splitting up to travel to several seperate parts of the country and only seeing each other about three times a year can't kill it off then I don't think anything will. It's even picked up two new members since then. I have long term plans for my campaign. There are five phases planned and you're still only on phase one. And Craig has at times said he would like to run a superpowers game. At the rate we manage to meet up I doubt we could manage another world. While I quite like the idea of creating a world I would suggest it might work better as a site we put up on the web and then just leave for other people to use in their campaigns. If we wanted we could then just amend it now and again to give a sense of change and progress, but apart from occasional one-off games I don't think we would get the chance to game in it that often.

Hmm. We could try creating a superpowers game world for Craig to run Mutants & Masterminds in?

Anyway, let's hear some feedback.--Alex 12:52, 19 October 2007 (BST)

I don't think the lexicon idea will work because I doubt we will get further than C or D! Besides, how many players would we have? I'm not sure if anyone else would be very interested in putting in all that much time to the project. One of the advantages of what I was thinking was that it wouldn't matter if some players were more active than others. If it turned out that I did 50% and you 30%, while Craig, Ed, Geoff and Kev all put 5% in each then that would be fine.

Anyway, if we are not going to use it, then I find that my enthusiasm atrophies. Andy 10:36, 22 October 2007 (BST)

Let's discuss this on Saturday Ed 17:10, 23 October 2007 (BST)