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, an election will make a difference, but there will be another election after that. And another, and another, and another.

Things just keep happening. It’s never over.

When I talk to friends and family about … [read more]

He Needed His Anger

I forget how juicy family stories are in Union. Then I play it again and… wowzers.

The Crimson Knight was a vigilante who put on a mask because he was an angry, violent man, and fighting crime was the most positive outlet he could find to vent that anger.

But anger is not a bullet proof vest. And for all his fury and skills, Stephen Jones was just an ordinary man. And so one night, battered and bloody, he found himself in the hospital. Which is where he met … [read more]

Lockdown Level-Up: Mind Over Matter

I was chatting with Pat, part of the old school Story Games Seattle braintrust, about how the online games I’ve been in have gotten so much better since the lockdown.

And the logical thought is, yeah, practice makes perfect. We’re playing all our tabletop games online instead of at, y’know, a table, so we’re getting better at all the methods and techniques that are unique to being online (and also getting better headsets, natch).

Buuuuuut, I don’t think that’s the whole story. I think something more subtle is going on.… [read more]

Their Power to Oppress

Rules must always be evaluated for their power to oppress

Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs, by Dan Olson, 2022

The discussion is about community rules, economic rules, and even legal rules, but game rules are exactly the same kettle of fish. The community is that group of people, sitting at that table, playing the game. Does a rule inspire a healthy collaborative community, or does it give you a cudgel to lord over someone else?

Even if a system intends to be fair, if it’s badly … [read more]

Field Game: Tips & Strategies

As any true student of Field Game knows, there are many schools of thought about winning strategies. Debates among scholars have at times been heated, rivaling the action on the field. But even as the once-bucolic school sport outgrew the classroom and morphed into the modern Field Game we now see on national TV, fundamental questions of strategy remained.

An essential question confronting any team is how to assign positions. There are three rings each with two spots, and each player has two Kingdo monsters. Do you give each player … [read more]

Ring the Nug: the Kingdomon Field Game

We’re playing a scene during the Elspa Academy era of our Kingdom Legacy campaign, where students are learning a game to teach them about teamwork, handling wild Kingdo monsters… and maybe a little something about friendship.

We’re practicing for the championship match against our rival, Dorfin Academy, but it’s not going well. Spotsprints, Laardvarks, and Croaknkeys are sitting around, eating grass, entirely ignoring the orders the kids scream at them and each other.

It is, in fact, a total shit show. An absolute total fustercluck*. And that’s intentional, because the … [read more]

Microscope In the Classroom: Collaboration Is Not Easy

Along the way, the students learn and reinforce some valuable skills. Collaboration is not easy. Strong personalities have to tone it down to ensure everyone has a voice. Quieter personalities find themselves thrust into the spotlight, having to at least briefly take on a leadership role within the group. Attention must be paid to cause-effect in order to construct narratives that make sense.

The Knights of the Mightier Pen: Fractal Histories

The social dynamics of playing creative games together is a boon for human development. I love hearing about teachers … [read more]

The Designer Ouroboros

When you’re stumped on a project, what do you do? You can bang your head against a wall — and I usually do, for quite a while, because sometimes that does get results — or you can pivot to another project to clear your head.

And when you get stumped on that project, what do you do? Maybe more head-banging, or maybe you decide to pivot to yet another project to clear your head, again.

And when project number three stumps you, where do you turn? Right back to project … [read more]

What Made That Game Great?

“That game was amazing!!”

Ah yes, those games you played that you’re still talking about days, weeks or years later. But when someone says they played a really great game session, what does that mean? What actually makes a session great? It might seem like there should be a universal answer, a game theory definition of what makes a great play session, but I think the answer is entirely personal, not universal.

For some people, it might just be spending time with people they like. They had a good time … [read more]

2021: A Year of Legacy

Despite the pandemic — or more likely because of it — I played more role-playing games in 2021 than any other year since I started logging my games back in high school. It’s a fact.

Playing online via video chat used to seem like a pale imitation of face-to-face gaming, but for logistics it can’t be beat: distance doesn’t matter so you can game with anyone in the world, there’s no picking a venue, no travel time, etc. Even without a pandemic, it’s kind of a great fit for busy … [read more]

Does It Add Beauty to The World?

I’ve been working on a long post picking apart the movie Inception for ages, analyzing what I think are truths the movie hides in plain sight.

But looking at the finished essay, I decided it didn’t add to the beauty of the world. So I’m scrapping it.

An Item or Object to Be Processed

I urge you not to endorse this sinister measure. Humanity many times has had sad experience of superpowerful police forces… As soon as (the police) slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty of the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their

Three Kinds of Insight

When I’m noodling away, doing that thing we ostensibly call work, I bump into three kinds of insight.

There’s the kind of insight that you hurry to write down, so you don’t forget it.

Then there’s the kind of insight that changes the way you think, so you *know* you’ll never forget it, even if you don’t write it down.

And then, insidiously, there’s the third kind: the kind of insight you think will change your thinking and you’ll never forget, but instead you just keep forgetting and rediscovering it, … [read more]

Spot & Listen in 3e

We’ve been playing D&D 3e again recently, and here’s a tiny tip I don’t think I’ve mentioned before.

Instead of a single perception roll, D&D 3e had separate Spot and Listen checks, along with separate Move Silently and Hide skills. Which was kind of rubbish, because often it was really both happening at once. And if you roll once for each, you’re actually doubling the chance of failure (because two successes doesn’t help you, but one failure means you get caught). Or the GM was picking one randomly — yelling … [read more]

Kingdomon: Back to Kin Je’do

“Imagine if the Warlord had never conquered Kin Je’do hundreds of years ago. If their philosophy of living in harmony with nature had been what survived and prospered? How different would our world be now..?”

In game 9, the peaceful citizens of Kin Je’do struggle to find a way to deal with Pashelkata, visiting scholar and spy for the Warlord, who wants to use their knowledge to turn Kingdomon into beasts of war…

In game 71, the crew of the SS Melody from hundreds of years in the future … [read more]