Play-by-Wiki

Players play by editing pages. Each page represents a SCENE and the editing has to further the action of the scene.

A scene is a specific time and place where something interesting is taking place.

(In the following examples Vance Albright is the captain of the freighter Silver Sphinx and he is played by Jon; Rob Alistar is the purser, played by Jim, and Rolf is a Vargr crewman NPC.)

Each page must start by listing the location and the time, thus:

SILVER SPHINX, CREW LOUNGE, 10:00 012-1120

The time is always Galactic Standard Time. When appropiate the local time can be added, thus:

KANALSTADT STERNSCHIFFHAFEN, 10:00, 012-1120 (Local time 14:00)

The body of the message contains as much or as little activity on the part of the player's character as the player wants to post, keeping in mind that later parts may have to be aborted and the effort wasted. So Jon might start thus:

SILVER SPHINX, CREW LOUNGE, 10:00 012-1120

Vance Albright says, "Good dog," and scratches Rolf between the ears. He then turns to Rob Alistar and lectures him for ten minutes on the importance of keeping the galley neat. After that he goes to his cabin and sleeps for eight hours.

At the end of the post place an estimated timestamp. Jon might estimate the time taken up by the activities he describes in the example above as 1 minute to scratch Rolf behind the ears, 10 minutes to lecture Rob Alistar, 5 minutes to get to his cabin and settle down to sleep and 8 hours of sleep and put the timestamp '18:16 012-1120' at the bottom of the page. (Or he might decide that the '8 hours' isn't to be taken quite literally, and that Vance would probably set his alarm for 18:00.)

Others should now insert their reaction to what Vance did. The GM might change the page to something like:

SILVER SPHINX, CREW LOUNGE, 10:00 012-1120

Vance Albright says, "Good dog," and scratches Rolf between the ears.

[Are you sure you want to do that? Vance knows that Vargr tend to react violently to patronizing gestures, especially something like this. GM]

He then turns to Rob Alistar and lectures him for 10 minutes on the importance of keeping the galley neat. After that he goes to his cabin and sleeps for 8 hours.

10:16 012-1120

(The scene ends when Vance leaves the crew lounge. A lot of things can happen in 8 hours.)

Jim might change that to:

SILVER SPHINX, CREW LOUNGE, 10:00 012-1120

Vance Albright says, "Good dog," and scratches Rolf between the ears.

[Are you sure you want to do that? Vance knows that Vargr tend to react violently to patronizing gestures, especially something like this. GM]

He then turns to Rob Alistar and lectures him for 10 minutes on the importance of keeping the galley neat.

After a minute Rob interrupts Vance and says: "I get it, it get it. Sheesh, you don't have to rub it in!"

10:03 012-1120

[After that he goes to his cabin and sleeps for 8 hours.

10:16 012-1120

(The scene ends when Vance leaves the crew lounge. A lot of things can happen in 8 hours.)]

Jon might then change it to:

SILVER SPHINX, CREW LOUNGE, 10:00 012-1120

Vance Albright says, "Well done," and smiles encouragingly to Rolf. He then turns to Rob Alistar and begins to lecture him on the importance of keeping the galley neat. After a minute Rob interrupts Vance and says: "I get it, it get it. Sheesh, you don't have to rub it in!"

"Don't get huffy with me, MR. Alistar," Vance snaps. "I'm not in the habit of letting anyone question my orders! While you're on MY ship, you'll do as I tell you, is that clear?"

10:04 012-1120

[Once Vance leaves the crew lounge he plans to go to his cabin and sleep for 8 hours].

The GM would then edit in Rolf's reaction and Jim would edit in Alistar's (Alistar resigns! ;-) and Jon would post again, etc. Eventually a point would be reached when the scene had played out and the participants can move on to another scene. At that point the GM edits out all meta comments (if any) and the events become set in stone.

It's possible to run scenes with different characters simultaneously, although the GM's time is a critical resource. It's even possible to run more than one scene with the same character simultaneously as long as everyone is aware that the second one is subject to change depending on what happens in the first, but that is probably something that must be attempted with great care.

Care should also be taken not to let scenes with one set of characters get too far ahead of the other characters.

The text should be held in third person.