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In This World, Playtesters Are Awesome

“This was the first time someone said, ‘I wish this was our world.’” The playtest reports for In This World keep rolling in and I could not be happier with them. Playtesters, you’re doing a great job. I don’t respond to every email unless I have some questions or don’t understand some of the feedback, […]

Ben Robbins | January 30th, 2023 | | 2 comments

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

New Version of In This World Is Ready

Updated rules for In This World has gone out to playtesters! If you signed up and didn’t get an email, scream and shout! (Unless you just signed up in the last day or so, in which case you get a link when the next batch goes out in a day or two) And if you […]

Ben Robbins | January 15th, 2023 |

More Playtesters!

I’m preparing a new revision of the In This World rules. No major changes, mostly clarification and text tweaks. I’m also opening up the playtest for more volunteers. So if you want in, sign up! Playtest Sign-up for In This World If you signed up for the last round, you don’t need to fill in […]

Ben Robbins | January 12th, 2023 |

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 | ,

In This World, You Can’t Stop Thinking

I love how after you’ve played In This World, just hearing real world statements gets your brain juices churning: Pet owners outlive their pets Priests believe in god Food is made of plants and animals Space is mostly empty People apply for jobs Those are totally innocent, factual statements. But once you’ve got In This […]

Ben Robbins | December 14th, 2022 | | 1 comment

In This World, The Playtest Chugs Along

The playtest for In This World is chugging along nicely. We’ve got over a hundred volunteers, which should do very well, so I’ve closed the sign-up for now. I’ve already started getting great feedback. Some very interesting worlds being made, and also a few places where I clearly need to tighten up the game text. […]

Ben Robbins | December 13th, 2022 |

In This World, It’s Time to Game

In This World is out! For playtesters anyway. If you signed up to playtest you should have gotten an email with a download link Friday night. If you don’t see it, and it’s not in your spam, drop me a comment below to make sure you get hooked up. If you signed up after Friday, […]

Ben Robbins | November 19th, 2022 |

Playtest In This World

My new game, In This World, is ready for outside playtesting. I’ve played it a bunch, made some tweaks and refinements, and now it’s ready for you: Playtest Sign-up for In This World It’s a very accessible game, probably more than any other game I’ve made. I think it would work great even for people […]

Ben Robbins | November 13th, 2022 | | 2 comments

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 | ,

In This World

Police carry badges… Dragons breathe fire… Nations have borders… In our world, things are a certain way. Sometimes ways we don’t even question. But In This World — the world we make together — things can be different. We can see how the world would turn out if we examined our assumptions… and maybe turned […]

Ben Robbins | November 1st, 2022 | | 3 comments

“That sparrow has seen some shit”

I had this idea for a game. Been kicking it around for ages, but couldn’t figure out how to make it into something you could actually *play*… until I had a breakthrough a few weeks ago. With that new wrinkle the rules wrote themselves, so I recruited some brave souls to try it out: First […]

Ben Robbins | October 22nd, 2022 | ,

Metal of the Gods

Humanity steals metal from the Gods… HEAVY METAL… In a classic case of someone suggesting an idea, then someone else taking that idea a little further, than someone else going even farther, we decided to do a quick Microscope game that was pure cosmic metal, and discovered in the process that my friends are stone […]

Ben Robbins | August 28th, 2022 | , | 1 comment

It Never Ends

The most unrealistic thing about Microscope is that the history has an end. There’s a starting bookend and an ending bookend. Real history never ends. It just keeps going and going. Every victory sets the stage for the next battle, but so does every defeat. The next election will fix things! Or destroy things! Yes, […]

Ben Robbins | June 26th, 2022 | , | 2 comments