Use of Wiki and PBeMs . . .

From: "Ben Wilson" <dausha@gmail.com>

Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 13:29:31 +0000

I've lurked on this list off-and-on over the years. It seems I'm back
in lurk mode of late. Anyway, the recent FAQ brought me to this
question: do wikis fit into the category of PBM/PBEM, and if so, how
has this technology been incorporated?

Myself and a couple others have been doing the "lexicon game," which is
sort of a fictional wikipedia (http://www.gmtoolbox.org/espace), with
fairly decent results. Not typical role-play, _per se_, but fairly
creative nonetheless. This time we've added in a "scramble" element,
where each "scholar" is assigned a random selections of letters in his
"rack," as opposed to the traditional rule of writing entries in
straight alphabetic sequence.

The wiki we use is Pmwiki (http://www.pmwiki.org). I like this wiki
because it is fairly easy to customize.

The "rack" is created by the player adding in some wiki markup
[specifically (:lexiconrack:)] that, when saved, converts to the random
list. I could see this easily implemented in an environment where dice
rolling is involved. That is, when actions are required, the use of
similar markup (:dice:) could create a matrix of dice rolls that the GM
could use to determine the outcome. In the alternative, the markup
would roll the dice and email the GM, but not be displayed.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling for now.

Regards,
Ben Wilson