We tried Microscope and loved it
Aug. 30th, 2020 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkYesterday the DM of our current D&D campaign didn't have time, so I suggested that we try out Microscope, a game I recently discovered after darchildre recommended it. Microscope is a TTRPG without dice where you build an epic history in a non-linear fashion, and it's completely different from any other TTRPG I'd played before. We had so much fun! I'm definitely planning to play it again.
Our big picture story was "an enslaved prison continent in a fantasy world fights for freedom and independence." We were five people, which was fine though there's a reason why the game recommends 3-4 ideally, and we only had time for two foci.
The first was "Garrick the Explorer," who came to the continent (Auris) not long after it was conquered by the evil empire. He himself was from a different nation, an officially neutral one, and at first he was only focused on his own expedition. When he discovered a prison overseer trying to kill his wife and the slave he thought she had an affair with (she'd actually converted him to the heretical cult of the oracle, an underground religion in the evil empire), he only stood by to see what happened and after the overseer had killed the slave and the wife the overseer, he lied to the guards to keep the wife out of prison in exchange for resources for his expedition.
However, when he discovered a group of rich native people that the evil empire hadn't found yet he decided not to tell anyone at home about it because he was afraid that his nation and the evil empire would come into conflict about who gets to exploit these people.
Shortly afterwards his little brother Roderick, who was also part of his expedition and whose main ambition was to make a name for himself, hired an assassin to kill Garrick. The assassination failed because, as we discovered while playing, there was a second assassin who was also trying to kill Garrick (because they wanted to start conflict between his nation and the evil empire), and the two assassination plots interfered with each other and accidentally got Garrick's brother killed instead.
Near the end of his life Garrick regretted not doing more to help the people the evil empire enslaved and he gave most of his wealth to his brother's children. At the reading of the will Roderick's daughter, who suspected that Garrick had deliberately gotten her father killed, called him a murderer and was then almost burned by Garrick's son in return. Then they all got arrested. Later Roderick's other daughter founded an organization to try and help the enslaved natives.
The second focus was Orea, who during the time of the dragon invasion led the killer bunny colonies into battle against the dragons. We found out that she broke up with Danil, the love of her life, because they disagreed about whether or not the killer bunnies should get involved in the fight, and then Danil decided to challenge her to a duel to the death for leadership.
Shortly afterwards a few discontented colony members decided to poison Orea and asked Simon to do it, a healer apprentice who was Danil's best friend (and had been secretly in love with him.) However, Simon had only wanted to depose Orea and was not comfortable with an assassination plot, so even though he hated her for killing Danil he told her about the plot.
We also found out that Orea killed the last five dragons of the invasion by using herself and the last of her own colony as bait in a rock quarry, and when the trap sprung other killer bunny colonies killed the dragons.
So the killer bunnies succeeded in fighting back the invasion, but many of them died and it also brought them to the attention of many other groups and races, who suddenly realized that the killer bunny colonies were a) very dangerous, but b) currently weakened. Orea's daughter Merina succeeded her as colony leader, but overall opinions on whether Orea was a hero or a warmonger who'd damned her people in the long term were mixed.
And there was still one last lost dragon egg somewhere on the continent…
Among the nice things about Microscope is that you're constantly surprised by the things the other players come up with, and because you only play a handful of scenes many of them are very intense and you basically can get a "highlight" version of events/lives/etc. I wish we'd had more time to explore!
We probably won't continue this particular story, but I'm sure the next one will be fun too. One player is already talking about using Microscope for worldbuilding for his D&D campaigns, which I'm sure will work very well.
You can also play it with two people, so I'm definitely planning to play with DD. We could create original stories, or even AU fanfic: I got the idea from this Star Wars example, and I could also see it work extremely well for The Silmarillion, for example. Maybe even for sources spanning only one or two decades. So many possibilities!
darchildre recommended it. Microscope is a TTRPG without dice where you build an epic history in a non-linear fashion, and it's completely different from any other TTRPG I'd played before. We had so much fun! I'm definitely planning to play it again.Our big picture story was "an enslaved prison continent in a fantasy world fights for freedom and independence." We were five people, which was fine though there's a reason why the game recommends 3-4 ideally, and we only had time for two foci.
The first was "Garrick the Explorer," who came to the continent (Auris) not long after it was conquered by the evil empire. He himself was from a different nation, an officially neutral one, and at first he was only focused on his own expedition. When he discovered a prison overseer trying to kill his wife and the slave he thought she had an affair with (she'd actually converted him to the heretical cult of the oracle, an underground religion in the evil empire), he only stood by to see what happened and after the overseer had killed the slave and the wife the overseer, he lied to the guards to keep the wife out of prison in exchange for resources for his expedition.
However, when he discovered a group of rich native people that the evil empire hadn't found yet he decided not to tell anyone at home about it because he was afraid that his nation and the evil empire would come into conflict about who gets to exploit these people.
Shortly afterwards his little brother Roderick, who was also part of his expedition and whose main ambition was to make a name for himself, hired an assassin to kill Garrick. The assassination failed because, as we discovered while playing, there was a second assassin who was also trying to kill Garrick (because they wanted to start conflict between his nation and the evil empire), and the two assassination plots interfered with each other and accidentally got Garrick's brother killed instead.
Near the end of his life Garrick regretted not doing more to help the people the evil empire enslaved and he gave most of his wealth to his brother's children. At the reading of the will Roderick's daughter, who suspected that Garrick had deliberately gotten her father killed, called him a murderer and was then almost burned by Garrick's son in return. Then they all got arrested. Later Roderick's other daughter founded an organization to try and help the enslaved natives.
The second focus was Orea, who during the time of the dragon invasion led the killer bunny colonies into battle against the dragons. We found out that she broke up with Danil, the love of her life, because they disagreed about whether or not the killer bunnies should get involved in the fight, and then Danil decided to challenge her to a duel to the death for leadership.
Shortly afterwards a few discontented colony members decided to poison Orea and asked Simon to do it, a healer apprentice who was Danil's best friend (and had been secretly in love with him.) However, Simon had only wanted to depose Orea and was not comfortable with an assassination plot, so even though he hated her for killing Danil he told her about the plot.
We also found out that Orea killed the last five dragons of the invasion by using herself and the last of her own colony as bait in a rock quarry, and when the trap sprung other killer bunny colonies killed the dragons.
So the killer bunnies succeeded in fighting back the invasion, but many of them died and it also brought them to the attention of many other groups and races, who suddenly realized that the killer bunny colonies were a) very dangerous, but b) currently weakened. Orea's daughter Merina succeeded her as colony leader, but overall opinions on whether Orea was a hero or a warmonger who'd damned her people in the long term were mixed.
And there was still one last lost dragon egg somewhere on the continent…
Among the nice things about Microscope is that you're constantly surprised by the things the other players come up with, and because you only play a handful of scenes many of them are very intense and you basically can get a "highlight" version of events/lives/etc. I wish we'd had more time to explore!
We probably won't continue this particular story, but I'm sure the next one will be fun too. One player is already talking about using Microscope for worldbuilding for his D&D campaigns, which I'm sure will work very well.
You can also play it with two people, so I'm definitely planning to play with DD. We could create original stories, or even AU fanfic: I got the idea from this Star Wars example, and I could also see it work extremely well for The Silmarillion, for example. Maybe even for sources spanning only one or two decades. So many possibilities!
no subject
Date: 2020-08-30 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-30 03:42 pm (UTC)The expansion also sounds interesting, have you tried that?
no subject
Date: 2020-08-30 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-30 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-31 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-31 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-31 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-31 11:49 pm (UTC)And it occurs to me that one could also play it as a real-world alternate history game...
no subject
Date: 2020-09-09 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-09 08:34 pm (UTC)What have you been playing so far?