Oracles for Everyone

Don’t you hate it when you sit down to play Microscope and then fumble about trying to pick a topic for your history? So many possibilities. Not quite infinite but really really big. And each minute of brainstorming and discussion is one less minute of play. As I’ve said many times, you don’t need need an amazing idea to start a Microscope game, you just need something simple that everyone agrees on. Play is what makes your history interesting.

In Microscope Explorer, I introduced Oracles so you could quickly generate ideas for your history. Just throw some dice and boom, you’re ready to play. One of the stretch goals of the kickstarter was to not just put them in the book, but to put the Oracles online so everyone could use them. Even if you have the book in front of you, it can save you a little time rolling dice and looking up results and what-see time = precious gaming treasure.

So guess what? A present for you: the Oracles are online, right now.

There are five Oracles to chose from: Swords & Sorcery, To the Stars, Cradle of Civilization, Apocalypse and Lurking Darkness. Each has about forty-six thousand possible results, so that’s about 250,000 possible histories. No joke. Some will be great, some might seem weird, but if you don’t like what you get just hit “I will roll again” and give it another shot.

Each result can be interpreted in two different ways. The online Oracle shows you both options and lets you choose. As I say in the book, you might not even use what you roll but it might inspire your group to an even better idea. That’s a-okay.

Next time you sit down to play, whip out your phone and see what you get…