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Quake-pocalypse: But A Very Dignified Squeal

Quake-pocalypse, game 4. The survivors of the shattered Earth escape to a new world, but it’s not what they expect. There’s a welcoming committee. From Earth! But not human. It gets a little complicated. In other news, the so-called scientists of the post-Quake golden age are accused being little more than “junkyard scavengers,” not inventors. […]

Ben Robbins | June 21st, 2011 | ,

Actual Play Roundup: You Banned Humans?

A flurry of game designers put Microscope to the test, sparked by the RPG Book Club. Will they enjoy themselves or burn Microscope at the stake like the witch it is? Let’s seeā€¦ War of the Beast-Men! — Jason Morningstar’s posse sets the bar: “You can’t call me a Nazi just because I refuse to […]

Ben Robbins | June 15th, 2011 | , , | 2 comments

Quake-pocalypse: Don’t Mess With Gravity

Sometimes coming up with Questions in Microscope can be harder than you expect. But a lot of the time there are perfectly good Questions — critical Questions — staring you right in the face. Questions you never consciously considered, but once they hit you they’re blindingly central to understanding your history. Case in point: Quake-pocalypse, […]

Ben Robbins | June 1st, 2011 | , | 1 comment

Quake-pocalypse: Techno-priests & Infinity Boxes

Game two of our Quake-pocalypse Microscope history. Science is the big theme of this session, but as everybody knows, there’s good science and there’s bad science. Yay, Science! It brings us the wondrous Infinity Box, capable of preserving something indefinitely (one could even say infinitely). We play a scene with the Question: What does humanity […]

Ben Robbins | May 22nd, 2011 | ,

Quake-pocalypse: A Flower for Ulysses

Some of the awesome folks from our weekly pickup games had never gotten the chance to play a multi-session Microscope history. Which is a crime, because multi-session games let you really dig into your history. So we assembled a crack squad (there’s still some debate whether it’s Team Boomstick, Team Thunderbunny, or Team Something Else […]

Ben Robbins | May 9th, 2011 | ,

Actual Play Roundup: We don’t need no stinkin’ capes!

Why is it never a good thing when superheroes take over the world? Don’t ask why, ask Weillach (yes, the Supers take over) The Fleet Departs: A Microscope RPG Campaign Set-Up In other news, Microscope has landed on the beaches of Europe. Books are sitting on the shelves of Leisure Games in the UK, right […]

Ben Robbins | April 26th, 2011 | , ,

Actual Play Roundup: Microscope Online

New challengers enter! I’ve never tried playing Microscope online, but during the playtest there were some fairly massive Wave games. Now that Microscope is out, some brave souls are trying out different tools to play online and graphically represent their histories: Magical Apocalypse — overview of the game, plus a post-it style history graphic using […]

Ben Robbins | April 5th, 2011 | , | 3 comments

Actual Play Roundup: You had me at Biolords

I’ve been so busy since Microscope came out that I’ve fallen behind on cheering about the lovely actual play reports. Let’s fix that, shall we? Age of the Dragon Kings Rodent Monarchy Fission Biolords & Planet Cancer Slaves, Privateers & Hashish AIs: Stop Aggregating Yourself I also have unofficial reports of an entire Microscope game […]

Ben Robbins | March 25th, 2011 | , , , | 7 comments

We have always been at war with Eurasia

The big question: now that Man’s lust for war has consumed Earth in a nuclear holocaust, do the handful of survivors in their nations moon bases beat their swords into ploughshares, or do they finish what their missiles started and continue their tiny, bitter Cold War on the Moon? Answer: bang! bang! bang! We have […]

Ben Robbins | November 30th, 2010 | , , | 2 comments

Trick or Treat

For Halloween, we tried doing some Microscope games with a horror theme. Microscope is kind of an odd fit for suspense or horror, because you usually know how things are going to turn out before you drill down and roleplay the details: you know the explorers are going to vanish mysteriously, before you play the […]

Ben Robbins | November 4th, 2010 | , ,

Insane Clown Planet

Most of the Microscope playtest reports were emailed to me directly, so only my greedy eyes get to see them, but here’s one from our elite playtesters north of the border. Ye older stellar empire with a rather large twist: Juggalos in Space Got your own Microscope actual play posted somewhere? Let me know and […]

Ben Robbins | October 21st, 2010 | ,

Rex Populi

“I am your king!” “Well I didn’t vote for you…” “You don’t vote for kings!” — oh my god, it’s a Monty Python quote The thing I always really enjoy about Microscope is the unforeseen creation. Someone introduces a simple idea, then someone else explores it a little more, then someone else takes it even […]

Ben Robbins | September 13th, 2010 | , ,

Expect the Unexpected: Microscope at GPNW 2010

In the build up to Go Play NW, I braced myself to facilitate pickup games every waking moment. As organizers we embraced the idea that there were going to be a lot more pickup games than scheduled games, but that’s also risky: you never know until the slot begins just how many people will be […]

Ben Robbins | July 23rd, 2010 | , ,

Doom of the Gods

We just played the second session of our “Doom of the Gods” Microscope game. It’s an age of myth stretching from the creation of the World of Men to the very death of the Gods. Very Ragnarok, very Norse. We probably would have played it again sooner, but we couldn’t get the right four players […]

Ben Robbins | December 7th, 2009 | , | 1 comment

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Game two of our excellent StarCraft-analog Microscope game. In the first game we established that along with the humans and the Swarm, the third race were the mysterious Wan, sometimes called the Voi. In keeping with StarCraft tradition, while the Swarm are a horde of monsters, the Wan are a highly advanced species, technology far […]

Ben Robbins | November 19th, 2009 | ,