Electronic support: Wikis

[Krensky]

There's also WikidPad. It's sort of like notepad with a lot of build it handling for wiki like linking and organization. I found it easier to use then TiddlyWiki, it also doesn't need a internet connection, and it also (my experience) is less resource intensive and stressful on your browser.

 

[Gilladian]

I use PBwiki and have been for several years. My campaign site is very useful to ME. I don't know if my players use it at all (I don't think so). I compose adventure outlines, etc... right there.

I find it very handy to compose at the computer, and then use the site at the game table. I also use the SRD online, and have a 2 monitor setup so I can keep both open and easily visible at once.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've had very good experiences with Wikidot.com. Here are some of the wikis I maintain there:

- Urbis Wiki
- Arcana Wiki
- Dungeons & Dragons Insider Wiki

The first two have some nifty customized themes I was able to create. The last one showcases how pages can be autolisted by their tags.

It's very easy to create a simple wiki with Wikidot.com, but if you want to put the effort into expanding your knowledge of the code, you can also come up with some fairly impressive results.

 

[amethal]

If you just need it for organizing your own data and don't expect to need anyone else to edit it, there is always Tiddly Wiki. It is a wiki in a file. You don't even need the internet to edit it. Just a web browser and access to the file.

I've just started using TiddlyWiki (been using it for about a week) and it is great.

I'm not very computer literate, but it is very easy to use once you get some idea of how to do basic formatting (help with which is widely available on the internet). I've even started using tables, and I'm psyching myself up to have a go at changing colour schemes.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I guess I should answer these questions in a bit more detail for Wikidot.com...

So - my questions: for those of you who use wikis, what service do you use to host? What sorts of organization of your data has turned out to be useful?

Apart from standard internal links, Wikidot.com offers two ways of organizing entries: Tags and breadcrumb navigation.

Tags are essentially the same as on ENWorld - you can add any tags you want to any page, and they also show up on the tag cloud in the navigation bar. Furthermore, they can be used for some nifty applications - for instance, my Random Nations Generator uses a large number of different tags to feed its random entries.

Breadcrumb Navigation allows you to set one page as the "parent page" of another. This is especially nifty when you are describing locations of a setting. For instance, for the Urbis Wiki I wrote up the Gentlemen Callers' Club, which is located in the District of Duriam of the City of Dartmouth in the Region of the Flannish Cities, and so forth. By setting parent pages, I can get the following navigation bar at the top of the page:

(EDIT: Gah, should have double-checked it after posting...)

Rothea » Known Lands » Flannish Cities » Dartmouth » City of Dartmouth » Duriam » Gentlemen Callers' Club

This makes it easy to jump around to other locations.

Do you use them mostly for yourself, or more as a tool to collaborate with your players?

I have one wiki for organizing my own campaigns, another wiki which the players use to submit their characters and where I add some relevant information for them. But most of the wikis are for the general gaming audience.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I have been thinking of using a wiki for my campaign setting for some time, but I don't even know where to begin.

Me, too.

Thus, I am bookmarking this thread.

 

[Haltherrion]

Breadcrumb Navigation allows you to set one page as the "parent page" of another. This is especially nifty when you are describing locations of a setting. For instance, for the Urbis Wiki I wrote up the Gentlemen Callers' Club, which is located in the District of Duriam of the City of Dartmouth in the Region of the Flannish Cities, and so forth. By setting parent pages, I can get the following navigation bar at the top of the page:

Rothea[url=http://urbis.wikidot.com » [url=http://urbis.wikidot.com/known-lands]Known Lands[url=http://urbis.wikidot.com » [url=http://urbis.wikidot.com/flannish-cities]Flannish Cities[url=http://urbis.wikidot.com » [url=http://urbis.wikidot.com/dartmouth]Dartmouth[url=http://urbis.wikidot.com » [url=http://urbis.wikidot.com/city-of-dartmouth]City of Dartmouth[url=http://urbis.wikidot.com » [url=http://urbis.wikidot.com/duriam]Duriam[url=http://urbis.wikidot.com » Gentlemen Callers' Club[/b]

As a wikidot user who loves it, just a little more to add to Jürgen's message. The wiki automatically generates the code above. All you the user do is enter the name of the parent page and it creates the breadcrumb code which is the title of the recursive parent page separated by the " » ". It's a very nice feature.

You can see both tags and breadcrumbs in action on my link in my sig. I make heavy use of both. Additional organization features:

Add [[toc]] to your text and you get a table of contents for the page.

There is also a trivial way to create a site map (using the breadcrumb parents). You can see that in the "other" menu item.

Creating your top and side menus/panels is trivial.

Online documentation is very good. Nearly all of what I need you can find on the link to doc popup at the bottom of every edit page and if you need more you can probably find it in the forums or just ask someone.

I have one wiki for organizing my own campaigns, another wiki which the players use to submit their characters and where I add some relevant information for them. But most of the wikis are for the general gaming audience.

So far, I'm going to try having the players edit the campaign wiki putting their characters in their own PC sub-pages. But I like having them edit the general pages because they can help clean it up.

I took a look at Obsidian Portal and it is a very different beast. As the creator of Obsidian Portal said on another thread, OP is probably more for gamers, ref and players, who want to track adventures, items, characters, time and so on in a campaign. A wiki like wikidot is probably better for presenting a campaign world. It's not to say you can't do the campaign world in OP or vice versa but the strengths of each play out differently.

I don't really see a need for our campaign, which is all face to face, to track all the items and such on line and I like throwing lots of world data out there so wikidot is the one for me.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Me, too.

Thus, I am bookmarking this thread.

Well, here are the very first steps to creating a Wikidot.com wiki, if anyone is interested.

First register at Wikidot.com itself - there is a "register" button at the upper right corner. Then return to the same page and enter the subdomain name of your wiki into the field. After clicking through another form where you can enter a few details, such as the actual name of the wiki, and whether you want it to public (anyone can view it) or private (only people who are members of the wiki can see it), you will be redirected to the start page of your new wiki.

At the bottom of the page is an "edit" button. Click on it, and you will be able to edit the wiki code of the page. A comprehensive list of wiki code examples can be found here and here, but the only thing you really need to know to get started is how to create internal links. To create such a link, you need to put the name of the target page into triple square brackets. For example, if you want to link to a city called "Dartmouth", you should write it like this:

[[Dartmouth]]]

Since you are just starting out, this page won't exist yet - the link will appear in red. But that's not a problem - just click on it, and then you will be redirected to a new page where you can click on a "create page" link to create it. Edit the code, save it, and the page will exist and the link will now appear in a darker color.

You can also chose a different text to appear as the link text. For example, if you want to write a sentence like:

"Mysterious phenomena have occurred in that city..."

then the code would be:

Mysterious phenomena have occurred in [[[Dartmouth | that city]]]...

That is to say, the name of the linked text and the text that will actually appear should be separated by a "|" symbol.


I hope that helps for starters. If you have any further questions about Wikidot.com, don't hesitate to ask!

 

[Connorsrpg]

Another user of wikidot. I have found it very useful. Especially having 5 free sites. I have used one as a central, drop-in site for all our games (where house rules etc are posted). Then I have a separate site for each setting.

I have developed mine as Player-focused sites thus far (and am debating how to go about DM Pages). New site or hidden pages within the campaigns?

Regarding your email list. I strongly recommend setting up a simple forum and that deals with player-dm communication if they get on board.

In my campaign wiki forums I have a separate forum for each player. B/w sessions I often post extra info that is relevant to that player only. Not all players are on board yet, but those that are love the extras.

Having a forum is also a good place to post when you are playing etc.

Anyway...I will follow this for other ideas. If anyone is interested...like others check out my sig (now adding central site - and from there you can visit any of our campaigns).
C

 

[cmrscorpio]

I think you'll likely find that the only players interested in editing the wiki or adding content are erstwhile DMs. In our group, only myself and the current DM have ever run games and he and I (not surprisingly) are the only ones providing content for the wiki.

Such is my experience as well. I maintain the who's who and what's what sections of the wiki and my players concern themselves with posting their character backstories and leaving them at that.

However, it serves as a good rallying point for me and my players to post metagame issues such as absenses and inquiries on DM rulings on issues that have come up during our games.

If you want to check out how I've organized previous campaigns, take a gander...

rompthroughplanes / FrontPage - a game I ran via openrpg

http://forgottenrealms4eygorl.pbworks.com/ - a face-to-face game that ended after a tpk and the decision to play something different