Microscope In Spanish

El Refugio de Ryhope is bringing Microscope to Spanish speakers world-wide!

They did a great job with Follow, and it’s always exciting to see Microscope unleashed on a whole new community.

Emic vs Etic: Invent Words You Can Use

Way back in college, when I was taking anthropology courses instead of focusing on my major, I learned the idea of “emic vs etic”.

Anthropologists, being clever folks who have spent a lot of time studying cultures, recognized a distinction between terms and concepts that were part of the culture they were studying (emic), versus terms and concepts that they applied as outside observers, terms people in the culture would not use (etic). It’s a very fundamental concept once you think about it.

How does that relate to gaming? When … [ read more ]

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 below…

We decided to try an experiment in our long-running Witches Kingdom Legacy game. I know what you’re thinking: “An experiment?? You??? No way!!!” Because you know how much we love experiments.

Our experiment: Instead … [ read more ]

Two-Player Creativity Is Harder

Of course not every game of In This World has been magical, but when I hear about sessions that dragged, they often have one thing in common:

Only two players.

In a high creativity game, the difference between two and three players is bigger than it seems. When there’s only one other person in the game, you’re the only one listening to them and thinking of responses. It’s more like tennis, where you have to field every volley. It’s all on you. You never really have the option to kick … [ read more ]

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, but trust me, I am pouring over every one of your reports with a fine-toothed comb.

Keep it coming! If you’ve already played it and get to play again, I’d love to hear about it.

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.

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 are interested in trying it out but haven’t volunteered, now’s your chance.

My plan for this update was just to clarify some bits that tripped a few groups up, but then I dove in and … [ read more ]

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 the form again. You’ll get an email with the new version as soon as it’s ready.

Because in this world, we do more playtesting.

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 steal your toys!!!

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. One is where the two topics are pretty closely related, so by including both you’re getting a tighter focus on a particular subset of the subject matter (like war + technology). The other case is … [ read more ]

One Missing Corner

Game design metaphor time, because what game designer doesn’t like metaphors? Are not all our games metaphors??? Anyway.

When I’m stuck on a design, it almost always looks like this:

I’ve got a solid idea of what I want the game to be (it’s a square!) and I’ve got most of the procedures that create that thing (three corners are set!). But then… there’s a missing bit. The last corner. I know the exact size and shape of the gap, but I’m not quite happy with what I’m putting there … [ read more ]

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 World in your head, when you hear them you can’t help but ask “yes, but what if..???” Statements become questions. Simple observations become springboards for examination.

That’s what I’ve been doing for months and … [ read more ]

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.

Thanks playtesters, and keep it coming!

“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 alone is worth reaching out to you for… but that Kingdom game was the resolution of stories we told over the two years prior in a setting we all built together with Microscope!

Our little

Ghost of Astariole’s Wife

Old school D&D story time:

During an attack on the Wizard’s Guild, Astariole’s wife was caught in the magical crossfire and killed. But Trey (Astariole’s player) decided not to raise her from the dead because she was Druidic and therefore all about reincarnation instead.*

It was really a “meh” decision for all of us, an opportunity to write-out an uninteresting character. Despite being introduced years before, when we were all just kids, she had never been fleshed out as a person — which, as the DM, was all my fault. … [ read more ]