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“I asked the other 13 yr old what he liked best? Freedom.”

If you guessed that I simply could not get enough tales of kids playing Microscope, you would be right. Here are Ryan and his friend Duncan rocking the Anipocalypse while Ryan’s sister schemes and watches… Having trouble visualizing Aquacology, the underwater city-state that the dolphins ultimately wipe out? No problem. Ryan has you covered: And […]

Ben Robbins | November 11th, 2014 | , , ,

Actual Play Roundup: The 53rd Focus

Tons of great Microscope game reports recently. I can’t even keep up. Here’s just a handful: “I’m involved in a months-long, remote-play, 2-person Microscope game (in its 53rd Focus).” Shadow of the Titan: Campaign Creation for 13th Age Parallel Lives Podcast: “The masses rejoice as the World Spell is completed” Invasions: Earth! A Microscope Supers […]

Ben Robbins | September 9th, 2014 | ,

Actual Play Roundup: Unicorn vs Death (GPNW 2014)

Got to play two great games of Microscope Union at Go Play NW: Revolutionary Zero — Bringing down society as we know it. Let she who is without sin throw the first plague.? Oathbreaker — Magi, faerie courts and unicorns (well, one unicorn) fighting Death for the soul of a mortal.? Pat, Feiya and Tim […]

Ben Robbins | July 5th, 2014 | , ,

You’re no White Knight (aka kids being awesome gamers)

We were at Emerald City Comic Con, manning the story games table, when a kid comes up with his Dad. He’s maybe 10 years old and he’s curious about these games even though he’s never played a role-playing game before. And I mean intensely curious, not just idly asking. He’s heard of Dungeons & Dragons […]

Ben Robbins | March 18th, 2013 | , , , , | 5 comments

Actual Play Roundup: Is anything more epic than a psionic scream heard across the stars?

There are more great Microscope game write-ups out there than I can keep up with, but these are a few of my recent favorites: Psionic scream heard across the stars — Easily the most epic Microscope play report I’ve seen in quite a while. After the first session the story continues with the Retreat, the […]

Ben Robbins | November 26th, 2012 | , ,

Moments in the Cold War

Microscope. A Cold War history. Lots of serious drama that left us craving even more Cold War Microscope. Mockingbird The British agents on operation “Mockingbird” are set up in a flat in a ghetto of emigrants who got out of the Eastern bloc and came to the West. The agents have been hunkered there for […]

Ben Robbins | November 7th, 2012 | , , , | 4 comments

I ♥ Unicorns

The best Microscope game ever might have happened at GeekGirlCon this weekend. I wasn’t even in the game. Didn’t even see it. But from what I’ve heard it’s now my favorite session ever. Two sessions, actually. A very small and very brave girl came up to our table. One of our expert facilitators leaned down […]

Ben Robbins | August 15th, 2012 | , , | 4 comments

Actual Play Roundup: Something Fractal in the State of Denmark

One of the marvelous things about the modern world is that when you publish a game electronically, people around the world can buy and download it instantly. Microscope games have popped up all over the globe, but now Denmark seems to be the latest nation to get the fractal history bug… Utopia The Second Coming […]

Ben Robbins | June 26th, 2012 | , , , | 4 comments

Once and Future Zombie

It’s Emerald City Comic Con, late Friday night at the indie RPG tables, and I sit down with some awesome new folks (Hi, Daniel! Hi, Gabi!) to play some Microscope. “What kind of history should we make?” “Let’s do a zombie apocalypse!” “Cool, zombies! Well wait, do we want to do modern times or something […]

Ben Robbins | April 12th, 2012 | , , ,

“Why would they do that?!? Let’s go and find out…”

It’s always fascinating to me when people who’ve never played Microscope before–or anything like it for that matter–really dig in and talk about the experience. Into The Gamescape is a podcast in the UK that normally covers board and card games, but they took Microscope for a spin and spent a good chunk of their […]

Ben Robbins | March 19th, 2012 |

Actual Play Roundup: Day in the Live(s)

Remember how I said we played a mess of birthday Microscope at Story Games Seattle, all without realizing it was Microscope’s birthday? Here they are, plus a few more stragglers from the weeks before and after. Beware: several of these are experimental “short form” Microscope, where the whole history is actually a very short period […]

Ben Robbins | March 4th, 2012 | , ,

Fugit Omnis

“…and they flee to the colonies to escape oppression.” “This family is always fleeing things. That should be their family crest: Fugit Omnis!” I think because you have so much freedom to create in Microscope, there’s an initial urge to invent really far-out settings. Personally I think the real payoff comes when you zoom in […]

Ben Robbins | February 9th, 2012 | , ,

Second Class Clones: PAX Microscope

Late Saturday night at PAX, some folks drifted into the Indie Games On Demand room and were checking out all the books on the display table. Like a good host, I pitched a couple of games but they didn’t seem terribly interested. I asked what kind of games they were used to. Party adventure stuff? […]

Ben Robbins | December 6th, 2011 | , , | 2 comments

Actual Play Roundup: PvP (Plant-versus-Plant)

You probably thought I was kidding when I said there was a Microscope game with nothing but plant-on-plant action. I never bluff when it comes to Microscope. Or plants. Plants of Arbre — The long-awaited plant history (thanks, Dominic!). Yep, plants. Just plants. Star Wars Rebooted — Using Microscope to re-write canon the way it […]

Ben Robbins | August 8th, 2011 | , , ,

Quake-pocalypse: That’s no moon! Oh wait, it is.

After six games, we’ve drawn our Quake-pocalypse Microscope history to an epic close. It wasn’t all easy. After game 4, it looked like we were going to have a hard time explaining how it all fit together. But in game 5, we jumped back and revealed that even before the first UFO was shot down, […]

Ben Robbins | July 6th, 2011 | ,