Gamegrene Multiplayer Game: Ghyll
This is a very special announcement here on Gamegrene. Would the owner of the car with registration plate T15 RQX please come immediately to the parking lot? Oh, and we're also starting up a new multiplayer wiki-based world-creation game for everyone to play. It's called Ghyll. Ghyll is only defined by entries in an encyclopedia, and it's the players' responsibilities to write that encyclopedia. There are four rules.
This is a very special announcement here on Gamegrene. Would the owner of the car with registration plate T15 RQX please come immediately to the parking lot? Oh, and we're also starting up a new multiplayer wiki-based world-creation game for everyone to play.
It's called Ghyll. I should probably tell those of you stuck on the word "wiki" just what that means though. A wiki is a kind of website that anyone can edit. Yep, anyone can come along and post whatever the crap they like. In theory, you'd think that this would cause absolute carnage, but in practice it's proving to be a highly effective means of communication and documentation.
So the Ghyll world is being developed on our Gamegrene Wiki which you can visit right now for further details. I know, though, that if you're as lazy as me you can't really be bothered to click, and aren't going to give it any more than a five second look over anyway, so you'd rather have it explained to you here. Fine, fine...
Ghyll is only defined by entries in an encyclopedia, and it's the players' responsibilities to write that encyclopedia. It's turn based, so on each turn you have to define a new entry under a particular letter in the encyclopedia. We start defining the "A" terms, have a leisurely excursion all the way up to Z, and then go back to A again as is our wont.
To encourage linking between entries (and thus, the creation of a cohesive world defined by an ever-changing player base), we have a couple of further rules to foster that interdependence. Each new entry must reference one existing entry and two not-yet-existent entries (which we call "phantoms"). You're not allowed to define phantoms that you yourself were the first to reference.
Chaotically, the entries that players create must be accepted as "truth". No matter how strained their interpretations are, their facts are as accurate as historical research can make them. So if you cite an entry, you have to treat its factual content as true! (Though you can argue vociferously with the interpretation and introduce new facts that shade the interpretation...)
There are also some other picky rules about dibbing entries and such, but all of these are crystalised into four very terse rules on the homepage. All you have to do is read them, adhere to them, and have fun.
Existing entries for the first turn include "Agony uncle" and "Andelphracian Lights". Deadline for this first turn (letter A) is September 17th, which is longer than our (planned) one week turn schedule, so that players can ask questions, get adjusted, and be ready. We'll reevaluate the "one week per turn" around turn three (C) or four (D).
Interested?
- Login to post comments
Hmmm. This is something new to me. If I had the time I would participate. Looks interesting, I hope it works out and can be done more in the future.
Welp, you can certainly join in at any time you'd like. Even one round of the game takes 26 or more weeks (one week per letter), so there's a wide window of opportunity to play for a bit (the current plan is to keep Ghyll going as long as interest is there, with different Rounds conceptualizing certain parts of the world - this first Round is simply "Discovery"). The biggest downside is evident in any tabletop campaign: join in at the middle, and you've got a potential boatload of catching up to do, storywise. We've tried to summarize the current turns, in-game, with Encyclopedants (the people who prompted the encyclopedia) Progress Report (per turn reviews). You see the current state of play here: Encyclopedants Progress Report 1.