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Dress For the Job You Want

People have had a long week, everyone’s tired, but we still want to do a little gaming-something-something. This looks like a job for… IN THIS WORLD! Our topic: Clothing! We were doing the normal brainstorming and we had some good topics (but also “trains!!!”) but when Caroline threw out Clothing I knew that was the […]

Ben Robbins | March 12th, 2024 | ,

Cathy Grant is Captain Danger’s Sister (part 2)

During our long-running superhero campaign I introduced a new character, Cathy Grant. But I didn’t tell the players she wasn’t really a new character at all, she was an existing character, Captain Danger’s sister Felicity, using a fake name to get a job and get out on her own in the big city. Did you […]

Ben Robbins | February 25th, 2024 | , , , | 5 comments

Cathy Grant is Captain Danger’s Sister

“Your female characters all sound alike” -the irony, oh the irony I’ve mentioned before how, when I used to GM a lot, I had a tendency to keep secrets. Deep secrets. Long secrets. Sometimes for years. Longer than most people would consider sensible. Like back in the old Doven campaigns, it was almost ten years […]

Ben Robbins | February 19th, 2024 | , , , | 1 comment

In This Murder

“Let’s pick a light topic, like Holidays. Or maybe… MURRRRDEERRR????” The Thursday night hobbits have a knack for In This World that is by now well-documented: sparrow bodhisattvas, mech wars, reimagining the Aliens movies… oh right, I never posted about the Aliens game. Someone remind me to do that. So when we sat down to […]

Ben Robbins | January 18th, 2024 | ,

What’s Making This Downfall So Good?

We’re playing a game of Downfall that has rapidly become my favorite. I was going to say it’s up there, but by now there is no question: this is the best Downfall game I’ve ever played. But because I am a game scientist, complete with lab coat and goggles, I cannot leave well enough alone. […]

Ben Robbins | December 20th, 2023 | ,

Gameplay Video: Wild Worlds of Dating

We’re back at the table, playing more In This World. What could top our Vacations game? How about Dating..??? We recorded this game a while back, shortly after the Vacations session, but technical problems prevented me from editing and posting it when I first intended. Now that In This World is done, I circled back […]

Ben Robbins | November 30th, 2023 | , ,

Summerween

You had me at watermelon jack-o-lanterns…

Ben Robbins | October 30th, 2023 | , ,

My Mom’s a Mech Merc on Mars

I’ve been GMing a very hacked version of Lancer. Our setting has kind of a Cowboy Bebop meets Hammers Slammers meets professional sports vibe: pilots are professionals but it’s just a job. It’s not personal. And because they’re in mighty mighty mecha, even if they get wrecked in combat they are likely to walk away […]

Ben Robbins | August 16th, 2023 | ,

Do you remember Remember Tomorrow?

Remember Tomorrow by Gregor Hutton is a weird little game that you probably never heard of. It came out back in 2010, and it’s possible that it made less of an impact because on the surface it doesn’t look weird at all. You play a character with a goal, fighting bad guys to get what […]

Ben Robbins | July 31st, 2023 | , , , | 1 comment

Beware False Prophets

A digital Fahrenheit 451 meets Twitter. Censorship, online connectivity (or the lack thereof), and everyone winding up miserable. That’s the history I got to play with some folks who had never tried Microscope before, or hardly any story games for that matter. Playing with new folks is — let’s not mince words — always a […]

Ben Robbins | July 24th, 2023 | ,

Barbie x Microscope

Yes, that’s Barbie Microscope. There are close ups of the timeline in the thread which are just loaded with golden moments: “Ken is good at taking orders.” “Why does Ken have big feelings???” I can *see* the story arc unfolding. I have… no words. Just infinite love and respect.

Ben Robbins | July 16th, 2023 | , ,

Just Him and His Dad

From an email I’ve been meaning to post. Today seems like the right day: Just wanted to let you know – I introduced a friend of mine to Microscope with a 4-person game a few months back, and he enjoyed it so much that I bought him the rulebook. He texted me yesterday saying that […]

Ben Robbins | June 18th, 2023 | , , | 4 comments

In This Life

“I’m tired of characters who are just shallow stereotypes…” We had just finished a delightful session of In This World and were basking in the afterglow. Talk turned to different stripes of gaming, from story games to D&D. Which is when Ace said how tired they were of one-dimensional characters. Characters that were just cardboard […]

Ben Robbins | June 17th, 2023 | , | 1 comment

Combining Worlds: See You Space Cowboy…

We had an urge to play some space cowboys. But what does “space cowboys” even mean to us? There was one way to find out: play In This World and chew on our preconceptions. Our plan was to play In This World to prototype some worlds, and then pick one to use for another game […]

Ben Robbins | June 11th, 2023 | , | 3 comments

Gameplay Video: In This World

Trying something new! I’ve uploaded a gameplay video of one of our In This World sessions. The topic for our worlds: Vacations! I’ve never tried posting video of our sessions before, but a lot of people have asked to see what all my games look like in action, so we’ll see how this works! It […]

Ben Robbins | May 30th, 2023 | , ,

In This World, Story Games Are Joy

“We started by changing “Story games aren’t about winning,” to “well, actually they are…”” Caroline and Marc took In This World for a spin on a lovely and leisurely Sunday morning. Their topic? Something near and dear to us all: story games! Less Than Three Games: World of Story Games “But what I most appreciate […]

Ben Robbins | May 20th, 2023 | , ,

It’s Raining Mechs

Alien mechs fall from the sky like shooting stars. Their technology is so advanced that even after smashing into the Earth they still work. And just one is advanced enough to change the balance of power. Governments and militaries around the world race to be the first to secure each mech as it falls… For […]

Ben Robbins | May 18th, 2023 | ,

Where the Ball Lies

We play these games together to be surprised and satisfied by ideas we wouldn’t have created on our own. How all our contributions combine is something no one of us can predict. For that to happen, we have to let go what we individually *expect* or *want* and just see what *does* happen. We had […]

Ben Robbins | March 30th, 2023 | , , , , ,

Cars vs Clouds: A Tale of Two Kingdoms

In the far future, the world is a blasted hellscape. Car-tribes prowl the wastelands, feuding for turf and pride. But far above the dust and blood floats a city of splendor, a jewel in the sky whose citizens lounge in lush gardens and drink and sing and love, thinking nothing of the suffering of those […]

Ben Robbins | February 4th, 2023 | , , , ,

God Is the Algorithm

I blame Caroline, for making a world where God decides your social media feed based on your virtues or sins, but is also totally cool with virtue signaling.

Ben Robbins | January 17th, 2023 | , | 2 comments

Santa Walks Among Us…

The Sunday night crew took a break from Kingdom to playtest some In This World. Our topic? XMAS!!! So much fun! And only 50% dark! Check out this write-up by Caroline: less than three blog: In This Christmas And next xmas eve, remember to douse the holiday lights so Santa can’t find your house and […]

Ben Robbins | January 3rd, 2023 | ,

In This World, Two Things Collide

We playtested a slight variation on the rules for In This World: instead of just picking one topic, you pick two that relate or intersect, then make statements about one or both of those things. For example: family + nations war + technology food + ecology I think there are generally two cases you’d see. […]

Ben Robbins | December 31st, 2022 | ,

“the stories it lets me tell with my dearest friends”

Sometimes it’s very nice to check your email: As we’ve gotten to the end of the year, folks are reflecting on the tabletop we’ve gotten to play over the last 12 months, and the standout for me was an incredible four-session run at Kingdom 2e that I’m going to be thinking about for ages. That […]

Ben Robbins | December 7th, 2022 | , , ,

Uncanny Valley Androids & Secret Sacred Laws

Just played two fantastic games of In This World, back-to-back, with Story Games Seattle veterans Ace and Joe. Yes, we played one game, and then got so excited we jumped right back in and played another. Why? Because after the first game, which got us chatting a mile a minute, Ace made a comment which […]

Ben Robbins | November 4th, 2022 | ,