Getting started

## Introduction

Lexicon is a creative writing game where the players are technically role playing as scholars writing an encyclopedia about a fictional period of time. The authors are given a "seed" event or prompt to start with. For example, *"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 players' creativity.

Each turn, an author creates a page based on an event, character, concept related to the story which is being built. The player then writes 100-200 words on the subject. When writing, the author must make a certain number of references to existing pages and a certain number of "phantom" references to pages which do not yet exist (in wiki lingo this is called a "dead link"). Future authors are encouraged to fill a phantom page for their turn. The exact turn rules are described in more detail on the homepage.

## Why Lexicon is a role playing game

Lexicon is technically categorized as a roleplaying game because this theoretically allows for interpretations, bias, and viewpoints in the resulting encyclopedia, as per the critical outlook of deconstruction:

> Deconstruction is a methodology associated with non-essentialist understandings, such as poststructuralism, which have in common the notion that there exists not one “truthful” account of the world, but rather many different accounts, often in conflict with each other and constantly undergoing change.
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> - Gomez, B., and J. P. Jones eds. 2010. *Research methods in geography: a critical introduction*. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K. ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
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Were the players to write the encyclopedia as "gods" (in that what they write is interpreted as absolute truth) the encyclopedia would not longer mirror a real-life encyclopedia because the real life encyclopedia is written by people, who according to philosophy are only capable of writing subjectively (see Solipsism, Solipsistic Epistemology, Complexity, and perhaps most importantly Deconstruction ).

All this isn't terribly important to the game. The take away is that technically you can contradict other pages *if you have a really good reason*.

## Phantom Pages

A phantom page is one which doesn't exist yet but has been cited from another page. On your turn you are allowed to fill a phantom page (bypassing the starting letter rule - see the homepage). Hyperlinks to phantom pages appear as red links on the wiki (non phantom links are blue).

The purpose of phantom pages is to allow other people to work from what you have written. See the example entry (below) for an example of what I mean by this.

To create a hyperlink of any kind, click highlight the page name in the text and click the hyperlink button in the editor toolbar (shown right). This will open an interface in which you name the page you

wish the hyperlink to go to. If the page does not exist (it is a phantom link), it will say "new page" in the interface above the new page's name.

To fill a phantom link, follow the link and click the create page button.

## Example Entry

The following is a phantom entry to the lexicon, for the page "The Snowman Massacre." It is assumed that "the second leaving of Todd" and the "mudmen of Katruk" are already existing pages.

> The Snowman Massacre (17th April 2032) was an event during the eighth day of second leaving of Todd in which the mudmen of Katruk attacked the fledgeling colony of Wabash. It was the first of a series of conflicts between the mudmen and the Gorus Ican. The event took the form of a raid by the Mudmen, mounted on traditional Gublobs, which swept through Wabash and caused the death of some 130 colonists. This eventually led to the abandonment of the colony during the great withdraw.
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This entry is a bit short (87 words), but in a real game you'll probably have a lot of material to build on. Several phantom pages were created here. Because they were referanced so vaguely, future authors may be inspired to answer:

* Why was Wabash founded? Where were the colonists from, and will there be repercussions from the homeland against the Mudmen?
* What is the Gorus Ican, and why did they clash with the mudmen?
* What is a Gublob? Is it a animal mount or a vehicle?
* What is the great withdraw?

It's a good idea to try to cover a variety of the standard page types in your phantom links - people / organizations, places, and events.

## Proper behavior and standards

Players of this lexicon are encouraged (though not forced) to adhere to the following standards in their posts:

* Treat the other authors' content as fact. If you must disagree with an entry, try to argue with the interpretation and not the facts themselves. Introduce new facts which shade the interpretation instead of changing it altogether.
* Try not to cite articles you have written yourself. Rely on other people's work as much as possible, as this makes for a more tightly connected setting.
* Don't write too much, and don't write too little. A good article should be between 100 and 200 words.