Idea: Database of Fictional Worlds

[Mageant]

We are currently developing the Mysticora (www.cjgames.com) world and would like to publish the setting soon for playing. Currently, we are planning on developing a dynamic world presentation system. We came up with the idea of developing this in a universal fashion so that basically anyone could create their own world in a collaborative fashion.
Basically, this would mean a kind of Wikipedia for a game world. But not only would people write simple texts about the world, but they would also create maps, define races, enter stats for characters, create dungeons, towns etc., etc. A single person would be the original creator and administrator of his/her world and could give editing and viewing rights in a flexible fashion to anybody.
The final effect of this would not only be an extensive database about the world not only for browsing but it would also be *playable* under our PBeM/Living World-System. Let me also mention that the PBeM/Living-World system is a unique combination game of play-by-email and role-playing-game using Fudge rules (similar to the Living Cities/Greyhawk concept).

My specific questions about this I would like to put forward for discussion are:

1) Do you think people would be willing to upload/enter their game worlds into this system? It's a bit more complex than just writing texts because you also have create locations, characters, etc.

2) Do you think people could collaborate on making worlds in a meaningful way? Would be easier to build a world together this way? Could vandalism be prevented?

3) Would it be an interesting alternative way to browse a fictional world as compared to, say, reading a sourcebook?

4) Would you find it interesting to not only read game worlds in this way but also play them (using either the PBeM or a standard P&P game)?

5) Do you know of any other project that is closely similar to this idea?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Welcome to the Forge, Mageant. Do you have a real name we can call you by?

Vincent Baker does this some with his Directory of Towns, though the number of Towns is big enough now that they're easier to find in Actual Play and on the Lumpley forum, both here on the Forge.

Traveller did something like this with the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, didn't it?

In any event, I think this is interesting, given the following:

• All locations are generated from play, not from making up, then not being used. They shouldn't be created instead of being played.
• "Locations" are really points of drama: something's happening here that will be just terrible if the PCs don't intervene, given their motivations, not just that it's a place. (See Town Creation from Dogs in the Vineyard to get an idea of what I'm talking about).
• Actual Play changes the situation every time someone goes there. How it changes it has to do with the moral standing of the protagonists, of course, but having an objective world means that other people can come and change stuff later. If that's through metaplot whim, I'm not interested. If it's through Actual Play, I am.

Now, I don't know how much that conflicts with your vision, but it's what I would want.

[Arcadian]

Hello Mageant,

I like the idea of a database of searchable worlds. There is a book called Encyclopedia of Mythical places which does this with fictional worlds from literature and some games.  They'reknowledge of game worlds (especially with the boom in videogames and RPG worlds) is far from extensive. 

I like the thought of a wiki style offerring.  Set things that need to be included, thus if you don't have a map you start thinking about making one, if you don't have a set monetary system then you start to brainstorm on how that should work. 

[Josh Roby]

1) Yes, I think you'd find a great deal of interest, especially if you could figure out a way to append ratings to individual worlds and individual writers (you could also let original creators of worlds specify a minimum writer rating in order to participate).  This is what we like to call a reward system round these parts.

2) If you're going with vanilla wikipedia, vandalism is actually easier to fix than it is to do.  If you're not going with a real wikipedia, go look at how they work and emulate/copy/steal.  As far as collaboration goes, this will probably be a snowball phenomenon -- once you hit a threshold of enough people, it will go crazy.  Until you reach that threshold, you yourself will need to be setting a strong example, adding content to every world you possibly can.  Other people will fall into step behind your example.

3) Interesting?  For some, yes.  For a rather large audience, in fact.  Especially if the content is free and accessible through the web, there's some strong benefits over print sourcebooks.

4) For the reasons that the other Joshua (glyphmonkey) laid out, this sort of thing isn't my bag, personally.  I suspect that a large contingent of regular Forge posters would find it pretty unfun as well, because it sounds very prescriptive and done before roleplay, rather than being a product of roleplay.  BUT.  That's us.  And that's not all of us.  There's some guys here who are slavering for provided content, too.  The gross bulk of RPGnet would also find this sort of thing right up their alley.

5) Way back in the day, bordering on ten years ago now -- do you remember webrings?  Man, they were the bizzomb.  In any case, there were a few fictional worlds for gaming webrings.  Some of them were incredibly popular, so I'm sure a flashy new glitzy interactive model would attract a similar audience.

6) Josh's appended idea, that when people play in a given setting they then go update that setting to reflect their actions sounds absolutely awesome.  My only concern is what happens when two playgroups on opposite sides of the globe happen to play on the same weekend, do massively different things, and then both try to 'update' the setting to reflect their actions.  There would need to be something to moderate this -- perhaps AP additions are submitted instead of straight-up added, existing in potentia until they receive enough positive votes that they are ratified?  If you keep open the opportunity for the 'losing' group to open up their own alternate history as a parallel page, you wouldn't even have that many bruised feelings.

[Mageant]

1) Yes, I think you'd find a great deal of interest, especially if you could figure out a way to append ratings to individual worlds and individual writers (you could also let original creators of worlds specify a minimum writer rating in order to participate).  This is what we like to call a reward system round these parts.

Thanks, a rating system is great idea! I will have to include that feature in the system.

OK, other features that apparently need to be included:
- participation is free
- game world is playable, i.e. changes with play (this would be an option)

Are there any other features you think would be essential to have?
Maybe a customizable layout (i.e. skins)?

Also, I think we will make the system itself open-source (PHP/mySQL).
But authors would retain copyright of the texts/data they make available.




btw, since you asked my name is Channing

[Sydney Freedberg]

Welcome to the Forge, Channing. It's a cool idea. But there are two levels of potential coolness, and the cooler one is, naturally, way harder:

1) A bunch of people put a bunch of campaign material up on your website. Gamers around the world go "ooh, that's neat" and either take your material and play it straight, or riff off of it and play their own variants, but they don't bother updating the site, because they're just not that committed.

This is the level that's been done a lot already, of course, and it doesn't grab most of us hardcore types at the Forge because we mostly either (a) have huge binders of our own personal settings already (b) get a kick out of coming up with an entire universe on the fly based on five minutes' discussion at the beginning of the session (c) can recite every detail of every Star Wars (or Tolkein, or whatever) spin-off ever made (d) all of the above.

Then there's the next level, where you're being really innovative and ambitious:

2) A bunch of people create a world together online; game groups around the world play in it -- and then update the wiki, so that the next group along deals with the consequences of the first group's game, and so on endlessly.

Which is basically World of Warcraft et al except with human creativity rather than computerized constraints, where I, as an individual player, can change the world for other player around the world. That's very cool.

These are some of the hard things you have to think about before you figure out formats, skins/no skins, pay/free, etc.:

- Two groups playing the same place/adventure at the same time, as Josh said, and creating clashing realities. I personally would prefer a "please reserve Area X" so only one group is playing in an area at a time, everyone knows it, nobody else tries to do the same thing at the same time ("the winds of magic will not carry your sky-ship to the Pologian Isles this week! So sorry!"), and nobody ends up having their update cancelled out and having to tell the rest of their group "uh, darn, our last game was, uh, a dream." But whether you moderate this before or after or both (probably both is the most robust), you're going to have to spend a lot of effort moderating.

- Setting consistency. Personally, I'd say "screw it." You don't need a common monetary system or bestiary or set of cultures or conflicts or whatever; currencies and creatures vary from place to place in the real world, and maybe in your fantasy world magic works by different rules from place to place. ("Uh, if I go there, the local deities won't let me cast any of my spells, but I can do this other stuff if I sacrifice a goat....") Just set up some robust, simple common rules and justify the crazy variation from place to place (magical flying islands, different gods, whatever).

- My PC becoming your NPC. This is especially an issue if I spend a lot of time in one area, building my character up to a position of local prominence so I'm a big part of any adventure there, and then your wandering adventurer decides to sweep through that place and shake everything up. With play-by-email, I guess it's fairly simple to make sure we interact instead of trying to affect the other person's character without consulting the other person's player, but you still need really robust rules (not complex! just good!) for "PvP."

And here's the big thing. You're basing this off FUDGE, right? FUDGE is not going to do it for you. Nor is D&D, or Storyteller/WoD, or any traditional RPG system I know of. Those systems are very good at deciding questions like "do you hit the guard with your sword? Do you command the demon? Do you get the Prince to believe your lie?" but they are usually terrible at deciding questions like "so, now that he believes your lie, what does he do? Now that the demon serves you, does it know the answer to the mystic question you seek? Now that you've killed that one guard, are there a hundred more coming, or was that guy it?" Usually all this stuff gets resolved by the GM saying what's "realistic," but there are Forge games that use "conflict resolution" (instead of "task resolution") to resolve these kinds of things with arbitrary fiat.

[Sydney Freedberg]

"Without arbitrary fiat," I mean. Grrr. Vincent Baker explains it better, here among other places: http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=58.

Can someone with better search-engine skills than I point Channing to some good "conflict resolution vs. task resolution" threads?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Welcome, Channing!

Thanks, a rating system is great idea! I will have to include that feature in the system.

... particularly if rating is done by actually submitting to a place; that is, play generates new stuff, which means that places that people use will get rated more highly and have more stuff to use. This should be a weight, not an absolute, so new places can get high ratings.

... and the higher the ratings of stuff you've created, the more highly your vote counts.

[Mageant]

Well, what I can offer because it's relatively doable (considering my limited resources and what we already have created)
are the following modes of use that the database of fictional worlds would allow:

a) Static
The author(s) just uploads his/her world. No changes allowed. Anybody can browse the world and read about it.

b) Continually Created
Additionally, the world is continuously being created and enlarged. But it still is static in the sense that it represents
one moment in time in the world and is not being changed by events in the world

c) Moderated Play
Additionally, the world is also being played, i.e.. event-driven. Groups can play in different parts of the world.
Inconsistencies and conflicts (PvP) are either self-regulated or resolved by a gamemaster (whatever the creators of
the world prefer). There may also be any set of rules how this is to be done but they not computer-implemented.
Basically, the player community of the specific world decides how it moves along.

d) PBeM Play (Mysticora engine)
Additionally, the events in the world are driven by the Mysticora play-by-email engine. I.e. player can play in the world
using our already completed play-by-email system. This gives a level playing field and clear set of rules for PvP.
Player can still optionally participate using pen & paper sessions though. This is moderated by a gamemaster at CJ Games.
Pbem-play would not be for free, though.
(Note this also not does prevent new content being added by authors since the game could also run on a
"copy" of the game world)



What I don't think is possible (at least not in the near future) is an entirely new system of non-arbitrary
conflict resolution as mentioned using some innovative rules system from the Forge.
This is simply because:
- I would have to develop an entirely new database model (a lot of work, believe me!).
- I would (at least partially) have to develop a new rules system that would also be relatively unknown to a wide audience
(i.e. even less than Fudge).
- There would be no synergistic play with the Mysticora PBeM engine, which would mean that the possibility of automated
play would not be given (or we would have to develop an entirely new engine which is out of the question with my current resources).
That means I lose my last commercial incentive for providing this system (unless I make it closed-source and charge for the use of the
system then).

Please tell me though if you think a different rule system (i.e. other than Mysticora/Fudge) would be essential to success.

[Josh Roby]

Please tell me though if you think a different rule system (i.e. other than Mysticora/Fudge) would be essential to success.

Can you explain how this PBeM system works, procedurally?  Who decides the consequences of player actions, specifically?

[Mageant]

Can you explain how this PBeM system works, procedurally?  Who decides the consequences of player actions, specifically?

The game engine is 99% automatized where you give your characters (and armies) daily orders that are more like general tasks to do that can take anything from a few hours to several days to complete.
Examples are:
Visit the local taverns.
Go find Master Rupert and talk to him about 'The Legendary Treasure'
Travel northwards 3 days and then go westwards 2 days.
Explore the 'Dungeon of Death'.
Steal 100 gold coins from Merchant Scrooge.
Conduct the magic ritual The Wild Transformation.
Attack Castle Falkenstein.


Although the language for submitting such order is more formalized than that.
The computer program then decides the success of the order according to a fixed set of rules (i.e. character skills and circumstances).

You send in your order sheet via e-mail. The game can be configured so that you send in orders and receive computer-generated reports on any kind of schedule (i.e. daily, weekly, bi-weekly, etc.).

[Mageant]

Also there is a complete economic simulation system. I.e. all the produce that farmers and manufacturers generate is brought to markets, traded and consumed. This means that players through their actions can disrupt or improve the economic situation or use it to their own advantage.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Now I'm confused, and intrigued. How on earth can this statement be true:

the world ...is static in the sense that it represents one moment in time in the world and is not being changed by events in the world

at the same time as this one:

you give your characters (and armies) daily orders that are more like general tasks to do that can take anything from a few hours to several days to complete. Examples are:
...
Steal 100 gold coins from Merchant Scrooge.
...
Attack Castle Falkenstein.
...

or this one:

Also there is a complete economic simulation system....players through their actions can disrupt or improve the economic situation or use it to their own advantage.

So I send my mighty army to storm Castle Falkenstein and burn it to the ground, I steal Scrooge's gold and leave him penniless, and I disrupt the local economy completely. Then what happens? Since the world is "static," unchanged by events in play, does that mean that, the next week, Castle Falkenstein is intact and untouched, Scrooge has all his gold, and the local economy is humming along? That would be insanely frustrating for me as a player. Or does the world change for me, just not for everyone else playing?

[Josh Roby]

Sydney, I think you're confusing her (b) and (d) options from a few posts above.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Aha. Thank you, Joshua. My mistake. So there is a level on which the game-world is being constantly updated, even though the base material remains available for use?