Choose Your Own GASM

[Cramulus]

I was thinking of starting a wiki in a "choose your own adventure" style. If we publicized it as a GASM, we could even get a bunch of Discordians telling the same story.

Back in the Olden Times (circa 1996) there used to be a game called addventure, which was basically a choose-your-own-adventure wiki, located here: http://www.addventure.com/cgi-bin/read.pl/addventure/game1/game1.db3/page/1.html

Some of it was hilarious, some was awful, some deadended, but I spent dozens of hours navigating through, exploring it, and adding my own paths and storylines.

One of my complaints was that at parts, it just got weird. Or an editor would make 30 choices in his room, and then would only write out one or two of those paths. But in wiki format, where anyone can edit each other's posts, we could really fine tune it a bit.

I thought "There's gotta be other people on the web doing this", and did a cursory search. I found this wikia community http://cyoa.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page , which is about Choose Your Own Adventures, but also about creating them. I think it doesn't have enough people active to really make it work, though.




SO HOW IS THIS A GASM?

I view this as an opportunity to write a fun game that we can get outsiders to participate in, but also a way to subtly sneak our memes, jokes, and attitudes into some written output. Being a GASM, it'd be fun to see how big we could make it.

We'd need some volunteers to step up as moderator/administrators. Adminning a wiki is pretty easy - you've just gotta periodically check up on Recent Changes, and roll back any vandalism. And if you've never worked in wiki format, wikicode is only a little more complicated than BBCode (which we're all obviously familliar with). (actually, Chloe just learned wikicode and she thinks it's easier than posting on a forum)



SO WHAT IS THE STORY ABOUT?

Or rather - what does it start OUT about? It'll take off in its own directions once we've got some editors working on it. (that is - IF people think this is a cool idea and are willing to run with it and take ownership of it)

We might want to pick a theme for the story, like the Illuminati. Or if we want a short-term, hot-topic wiki, we could pick something topical like the Election 2008.

I think it starts off like any choose your own adventure novel. The main character, you, (a 9 or 10 year old boy) wake in the morning. AND THEN...



what do you guys think?

[Verbal Mike]

mittens in many colors, covered in furry little kittens!
ingenious idea!

I'm so in. I can moderate it, gladly. I know quite a bit of wikicode and I administrate a small wiki so it should be nothing new. I wouldn't do it alone, because I have some busy times ahead of me, but otherwise I can do it.

I'll also write some pages, of course.

I'd say Page 1 should be generally entirely banal, with some small strange detail leading to a couple of choices... Then the following pages can progressively go in all different directions. There needn't be a single comprehensive plot, as long as you don't cross-link different story lines too much. (It would be funny even if you *do*.)

[Cramulus]

I agree that the first page should be rather banal. I suggest the theme "First day of fifth grade" or something like that, as it'll anchor us around a theme, but still leave a lot of room for creativity. I think I'll be writing my first section about going outside and SWEET MERCIFUL FUCK, PTERODACTYLS!!!

What we need to get this launched:

• At least three moderators. So we need one more.
• According to the founders of wikipedia, to get a wiki kicked off properly, all you need is five people who are dedicated to it. If we lead by example, it's not hard to make other people see that there's stuff going on. (Luckily, the Choose Your Own Adventure format leads to a lot of lulz and possible creative directions). So we need at least five people to say HELL YEAH I'll write pages!
• We need some graphics. We need a banner, a logo (like the one at the top-left corner of any wiki), a sig image, and a splash page image. Any ideas?

[Verbal Mike]

I nobody more qualified volunteers for the gfx, I'll do them, but I'm totally out of practice and was never more than an amateur, and mediocre at that. Still, I *can* do those things, and make it look okay. It just won't look as good as some of the artists here could make it.

[Cramulus]

We also need a catchy title.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

OSHI Awesome.

I'm in. Actual ideas forthcoming when I'm not on a conference call...

[Cainad (dec.)]

And here I thought my days (okay, months) at Uncyclopedia were wasted. Well, they were wasted, but at least I'm familiar with wikicode.

[Verbal Mike]

We should cross-link with Uncyclopedia and Encyclopedia Dramatics for extra lulz. I think we can set them up as special wikilinks, like Wikipedia has [wiktionary:..] links etc.

[Triple Zero]

i like this. fantasy + pterodactyls

[Rumckle]

And here I thought my days (okay, months) at Uncyclopedia were wasted. Well, they were wasted, but at least I'm familiar with wikicode.

I seem to remember Uncyclopedia having a small CYOA, except pretty much every choice ended with you being eaten by a grue.

Anyways, I would be up for a bit writing, though the quality may be questionable.

[Voodoo]

choose-your-own ______________

fucking ROCK! 

I am in for whatever needs be done...

[Cainad (dec.)]

And here I thought my days (okay, months) at Uncyclopedia were wasted. Well, they were wasted, but at least I'm familiar with wikicode.

I seem to remember Uncyclopedia having a small CYOA, except pretty much every choice ended with you being eaten by a grue.

Well, last I saw they had several CYOAs, some quite large, and only half of the endings involved being eaten by a Grue. Not that I ever really participated in those.

[AFK]

I could contribute some writing.  Or I could help to edit writings.  Whatever is useful. 

[Cramulus]

drumroll please...............

Faust has set us up a wiki!

check it out:

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/Adventure


I think the working title is "Choose Your Own Misadventure" (unless someone suggests something cooler)


TO DO:

-we need graphics. We need a banner, a logo (like the one at the top-left corner of any wiki), a sig image, and a front page image. Any ideas?
-Are there any guidelines we should put in place before we get started? Like how to name new pages? How did they handle this at Uncyclopedia, Cainad?




-Cainad - in general - do you have any advice based on your experience with these things?

[Verbal Mike]

To be a sysop, should I sign up myself or will you guys sign me up?