I've come up with an idea for something new we can add to the Arcana Wiki, and I hope you will get a kick out of it - the Essays section. Essays are intended for gaming ideas and topics which don't really fit into the bullet points below normal entries - but also not into the main text entries themselves, because these are too specific and are not intended to include explicit gaming ideas. Above all, essays should link to plenty of other Arcana Wiki entries to showcase what you can do with the wiki. I hope I have accomplished this with the Using the Random Nations Generator essay, and other essays on the other tools are certainly possible. But these are not the only possibilities - here are some more:
- An essay explaining how you can use a specific historical period (such as the American Revolution) as a campaign framework. The "normal" entries explain the factual information, while this essay would give an example on the situation the PCs might start out in this period, and how they might get involved in particular historic turning point and meet noteworthy individuals (including numerous links to the Arcana Wiki entries talking about these incidents and people in more detail).
- A detailed campaign frame using all the dooms and problems California is facing and will be facing (and which are linked in the California entry).
- An essay tying many of the "weird phenomena" listed in the news section together and using them as "proof" of… something. A world-wide conspiracy? An imminent alien invasion? Who knows - be creative!
Or to sum it up, essays should basically be the Arcana Wiki equivalent of the Suppressed Transmissions columns by Kenneth Hite - a piecing together of the dissociated knowledge that can be found on the Wiki to open up new vistas of gaming.
At least, that's my vision. However, I think before we give the Essays Section more prominence on the Start Page, we should write up a few more essays so that future contributors will understand better what they are supposed to be about…
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