Lexicon needs your help!

December 3, 2012 8:06 AM

I'm recruiting again for active players (not waitlisted players) for the ongoing Lexicon game, "What came after".

The great news is that if you play a turn at this point, you don't need to know the entire story. The basics are that you are a scholar writing articles in an encyclopedia for a future reality. Starting from the phrase "What came after" we are now playing in a world that is post-apocalyptic, where the events causing the apocalypse and indeed the apocalypse are not well understood (buildings and artifacts keep sort of dropping out of and appearing in our reality, and dimensions are sort of weaving in and out). The nature of the disaster is actually really well suited to both discrediting ideas you don't agree with and inserting new ones (from other, new dimensions).

Upon writing a new article in the Lexicon, you are encouraged to read all you can, but you don't NEED to. You really only need to pick a topic, read the article(s) that link to it, and maybe read another layer back if you feel like it. Then you would write a 100+ word article about it, link back to a suitable article (need not be the ones you already read as research) and link forward to two unwritten (either entirely new, or that some other scholar already linked forward to) articles (we call these unwritten article phantoms).

So each turn you're looking at around a minimum of an hour of play time a week. (Here's an example of my sort of no-play play.) But some players are putting far more into it, and you are welcome to play with either level of commitment. (Entry. Homework). Or something in between?

Anyone in? Please reply here or drop me an e-mail at [e-mail]. I will need:
- Your e-mail address (for easy comms and for sending the Google Group membership and Wiki character creation to)
- Your preferred character name on the Wiki

For further information:
- The game home page.
- The game discussion group.
- The game's article index. Green text indicates articles that are canon. Orange/Yellow indicates a submitted article. Red is either unwritten or unfinished. We are on Turn J with one Turn I straggler still to finish and submit.

posted by kalessin to MetaFilter-Related at 8:06 AM (23 comments total)

This is a really fun game so far. I encourage you to check it out. Here are a couple of my favorite entries to give you a little more flavor:

Adumbration of Byxs
Akademik Lomonsonov III
Brromley
Dinglebots!
Finkel, Fyvush

Also, if you were previously participating and dropped out? There's no shame in dropping back in!
posted by Rock Steady at 8:18 AM on December 3, 2012

That is absolutely true as well, if you are a former active player and are feeling like playing again, please do!
posted by kalessin at 8:19 AM on December 3, 2012

It is a weird and fun game! I regret getting distracted early on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:20 AM on December 3, 2012

I'm going to drop back in now that life is more controlled and I've seen the draft for a 'JX11 – 24 and Manperson' strip.
posted by Think_Long at 8:39 AM on December 3, 2012

Please do! cortex, you can come back too if you like!
posted by kalessin at 8:56 AM on December 3, 2012

I am having way too much fun with this (the "Homework" link is mine). Everyone brings something different. Dinglebots! was an early breakout, that, for me, showed what sorts of things that I'd never even considered were possible. Many of these articles are simultaneously funny, thought-provoking, and really, really imaginative.

I hesitate to link to individual pages (mainly because I can't pick just a few), but a good place to start to gain a feel for the game and the world is with the most-referenced and the most-popular pages. And there have been some really inspired contributions in other media, as well [last is a self-link, my own article].
posted by Eideteker at 9:00 AM on December 3, 2012

Wanted pages (those yet unwritten with the most inbound links) and the list of unofficial phantoms (pages that have not been officially linked to but are possible future articles) may also give you an idea for some of the flavor of the game. If Queensrÿchism, Left Noob, the Supranormal Activity Investigation Team, the Long Afternoon, or New Tampa sound like things you would like to either learn about or invent for yourself, THIS IS THE GAME FOR YOU.

Or the Rhythm War. Or the Ministry of Weights, Measures, and Moral Rectitude. The list goes on and on, and yes, gets more ridiculous with time (and with your participation). Even if you're looking at this and saying, "Wow, I can never be that unbelievably wacky," (which is how I feel), you can write straight up pseudoscientific articles (like I do) or bucolic Proustian reflections or something in a totally epistolary style or WHATEVER, and through the power of community, your ideas will become tweaked bit by bit until they are something unrecognizably awesome. So don't let that discourage you. (The beautiful things about creating new "phantoms" is that you can have an idea for an article and no idea how to execute it and you just put it out there and then weeks later someone surprises you with something wholly original.)
posted by Eideteker at 9:36 AM on December 3, 2012

Eideteker, I am REALLY glad that you are getting so much out of this game. This is why I wanted to get the game started. It's just a really amazing collaborative writing/worldbuilding experience.
posted by kalessin at 10:25 AM on December 3, 2012

If I can be honest, the research (and the fun I've had doing the research) for this game has me thinking more seriously about going to grad school than I have in a long, long time.

So yeah, good stuff, people! You might surprise yourself.
posted by Eideteker at 10:33 AM on December 3, 2012

I don't know what orbis you people are smoking, but you have certainly gone beyond your tertius.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 10:43 AM on December 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Tlön!
posted by kalessin at 11:08 AM on December 3, 2012

If I weren't completely overwhelmed with creative rpg type work, I would be all over it. Lexicons are awesome and I've always wanted to participate in one.
posted by immlass at 11:10 AM on December 3, 2012

I've finally figured out how to describe the game: It's like writing The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but without editors.
posted by BrashTech at 11:54 AM on December 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Cincinnati Experiment

The incorrect spelling of my hometown (in the URL) almost makes me want to sign up and play. I am definitely going to read this at length and decide if I have enough time for it. Lexica sound awesome.
posted by vkxmai at 12:52 PM on December 3, 2012

I addressed that on the Talk page...
posted by Eideteker at 1:39 PM on December 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

The various inaccuracies in spelling, sorting and other methods of organization and labelling can only fully be understood in the context of the constantly shifting realities of perspective in the Lexicon's narrative. In extreme cases of interlocution, the SAIT is sometimes invoked.
posted by kalessin at 1:43 PM on December 3, 2012

P.S. The whole feel of this game especially is for me, a bit Dhalgrenian, which I like. It's sort of baroque in a steampunky sort of Eastern European way, even though a lot of this is happening in North America, or things that seem very like North America.
posted by kalessin at 1:45 PM on December 3, 2012

Neat!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:48 PM on December 3, 2012

the Supranormal Activity Investigation Team

i see what u did there
posted by juv3nal at 5:26 PM on December 3, 2012

The game is rife with Metafiltter in-jokes and that's all right with me. :)
posted by kalessin at 5:43 PM on December 3, 2012

Yeah, I did Fyvush Finkel. Got distracted by real life stuff, hope to come back soon. Lots of creative stuff out there.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:57 PM on December 3, 2012

I've definitely been having a lot of fun playing, though I had to drop out for a bit due to real life commitments. Hopefully things have settled enough IRL that I can jump back in.
posted by jferg at 6:25 AM on December 4, 2012

The incorrect spelling of my hometown (in the URL) almost makes me want to sign up and play.

I addressed that on the Talk page...

Look that's how I found it, OKAY?
Man, I have got to get back in on this action.
In fact, going to write a J entry right now!
posted by Adridne at 12:09 PM on December 4, 2012