Game Rules

The rules on Wikipedia, for reference, and two other examples.

Ruleset

• Every turn, each player writes one entry in the current letter. They may either claim a phantom (an entry which has been mentioned but not yet written), or come up with a new entry.
• If there are any extant phantoms for the letter, all must be claimed before a player may come up with a new entry. So if Alice, Bob, and Carl are playing, and the letter is B and the phantoms Banana Republic and Barista exist, Carl cannot write the entry Bistro unless Alice and Bob claim Banana Republic and Barista. If there were four phantoms, conversely, than everyone would have to choose one and there would still be one left over to be dealt with later.
  • Note that if there are no phantoms a player is allowed to write (see below), they are free to write a new entry. So if Carl had cited Banana Republic and Barista in previous articles, he is free to go work on Bistro if he wants.
• Entries must be signed. This may be achieved by writing ~~~~ beneath your entry.
• Entries must cite at least one existing article and exactly two phantoms, which may be pre-existing phantoms or ones originated in the entry.
• A player may not cite themselves in an entry. This means they may not cite any pre-existing article which they have written, and they may not write the article for any phantom they have cited.
• Players may not cite articles from the current round. So if Alice is doing Banana Republic and Carl is doing Bistro, and Alice finishes first, Carl may not cite her article in Bistro, but in the next round, when he is writing the entry for Cabbage, he is free to do so.

Order of Play

Our shuffled alphabet is as follows:

1. I
2. U
3. N
4. W
5. V
6. F
7. O
8. H
9. K
10. A
11. L
12. C
13. M
14. B
15. E
16. X
17. R
18. Z
19. Q
20. D
21. G
22. P
23. J
24. Y
25. T
26. S

Proposed Ruleset (Alianthus)

• We come up with a one-sentence or -phrase guiding idea over Discord, and put it here for reference
• Every round, a random letter of the alphabet not already written for is chosen, and players write one article either starting with that letter, or off of a red link that inspires them.
• The new articles should link to at least 2 unwritten articles and at least 1 written.
• Suggest edits to others' work in the discussion sections. (I'm not sure if this is how wikis usually work. Probably?). Idk if we need to put a number on that, just go wild. PvP enabled zone
• There needs to be an in-character editing rules page that gets edited a lot. The landing page should be a similar free for all

Proposed Ruleset (Youarenotthewalrus)

Based on the base rules given here:

• We first determine the subject of the encyclopedia, who is playing, and details such as turn length and the final ruleset. Following this, we all create character pages and the game begins.
• At the start of every turn, a random number generator is used to select a letter of the alphabet that has not previously been selected. Each player then writes an article starting with that letter.
• Each article must cite (link to) at least one existing article (save for the articles written on the first turn, which are exempt), and exactly two phantom articles (which do not yet exist). A player may not cite an article they themselves have written, and are barred from writing any of the phantom articles they cite.
• If there are any phantom articles for the turn's letter, players are obligated to write these rather than previously uncited articles. Ex. If players Alice, Bob, and Carl randomly roll the letter A, and there are two phantom articles starting with that letter, two players must claim these articles, and only the third may create a previously unnamed one. If there are three or more articles for that letter, each player must claim one of the outstanding articles rather than submitting a new one. The exception is if a player is ineligible to do so: if there are three phantom entries in the letter A, but all of them were cited by Carl, then Carl is free to submit a new article rather than claiming one of the phantom entries.
• A player may only claim one phantom article (in the current letter or the one immediately following) at a time.
• Players may not contradict each other's factual claims, but may challenge each other's interpretations of them and provide additional facts which suggest different interpretations.