We’re on the verge of a breakthrough that will change society. We’ve deciphered the genetic code and can bend it to our will. But… the only genetic trait we’ve mastered is beauty. Physical beauty. We can’t make you smarter or healthier, just more attractive. We’ve isolated beauty to a mathematical equation and can engineer facial […]

“We created the Citizen Kane of spaceship stories…” –Timothy Young Sometimes the excellent games sneak up on you. They disguise themselves with trenchcoats and fake moustaches and then, when you least expect it, they pounce! I played two games of Microscope Chronicle at PAX last year. The first was the story of a mechwarrior-style mercenary […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Sometimes characters surprise you. One minute they’re complete strangers, and the next you are knee-deep into the most important moment of their lives. Haskell, Kevin and I sat down to play a game of Microscope. The one-line summary we came up with for the history is that a massive colony ship crashes on a planet […]

“You are members of a shadowy government conspiracy to assassinate the President and derail the proceedings to have the US join the League of Allied Nations. To do this you have tracked down and taken control of an experimental weapon created by a secret government project.” “Due to a glitch this device believes it is […]

The DAUNTLESS flies again! This was literally a “just finishing breakfast, sitting around in our pajamas, saying hey we could play a quick game of InSpace” kind of deal. As usual in less than two hours we had crafted an entire gripping story arc out of nothing and then sat back and admired the game’s […]

I’ve said it before: bad games are often more educational than successful games, and if that’s the case it stands to reason that catastrophic failures can be downright enlightening. Games like the Battle of Chuck E. Cheese. I wasn’t the GM this time just a player, and not even a regular player, just a one-time […]

Our first InSpectres in Spaaaace! game turned out to be a great way to do cerebral “mysteries of the universe” adventures. But is InSpectres really a winner for this kind of game or did we just luck out? Science demands more data points! Recognizing that GMing is easy street, Jem steps up to the plate […]

After our last excellent InSpectres game (the Matter of the Missing Mummy -or- the Case of the Peripatetic Pharaoh) we decided to take it out for another spin and see what else we could do with it. If you’re unfamiliar with InSpectres, the idea is that it takes traditional game structure and flips it on […]

As far as grand experiments go this one was pretty short: one game session in the middle of an ongoing campaign. Even though the experimental part was over pretty quickly it became a sounding board for the characters for years to come. Like swinging a hammer at a vase, it all happens pretty fast but […]