Argh, just about to post this AP and then a dozen things happened! be back in a bit!

Posted By: ziphtWhat ever we do with Microscope, it doesn't really feel game like.. it's more sitting around the camp side. So calling it a game feels odd.

Yeah, this was our experience too.

But anyway.

About a month ago, Roger and I sat down to play Microscope.

We brainstormed some ideas for settings (First contact, virtual reality, the consequences of the Singularity, return of magic to a high-tech world) and settled on the last one there. We made it dark.

We decided our world would start with the return of magic, in 2012 (because why not) and end with either the fading of magic, the ascension of humanity to godhood, or the extinction of mankind. We ended up picking Ascension. We made it light.

Our lists of YES and NO (mostly NO) were largely to steer things toward a more "Shadowrunny" world (nothing too anime, no outer-space aliens, yes to complex cybernetics) and also to rein in our problems with scifi and fantasy genre work (no time travel, no teleportation). These had the benefit of keeping things gritty. Only one thing surprised me, which was when Roger put "second coming of Jesus" on the YES list.

Remembering the exact play order is tricky, and I've recently been told that my APs are too long, so I'll just list off our various Eras, Events, and Scenes.

THE RETURN OF MAGIC (Dark)
-World Governments Collapse (Dark)
THE MECH WARS (Dark)
-Human-Machine Interface Developed (Light)
-Australian Massacre (Dark)
-The Battle for the Moon (Light)
--My God, it's full of Dragons!/How did the human mech army react to the sneak attack? (Dark)
UNDEAD HEGEMONY (Light)
-Rise of the Vampire Sultans (Light)
--Why did the people of Europe freely reject technology?
STRUGGLE WITH COMPATIBILITY (Dark)
-Integration Event (Light)
--What led Dr. Jones to first contemplate fusing magic and technology?
ASCENSION TO GODHOOD (Light)

We had two Legacies: Always Vigilant, which was created after the mech-dragon war thing, and had one Dark use, and The Virus Mutates, which was born Dark when the Europeans were bowing to their vampire overlords, and was used Light when it evolved to allow the first human-mech integration.

Overall, we found it worked pretty well with two players, although I think we both agreed that it would've been better with one or two more, just to spice it up.

My high points: seeing the random things come out of our heads, and trying to figure how it would all work together. Roger and I have very different approaches to this kind of genre, clearly (moon dragons vs. mechs is all Roger; pseudo-religious pacifist vampires is me). I loved how each little strange idea would cause something new to spiral out. If Roger added something, I would riff on it in ways he couldn't expect, and vice versa. I also liked how we started re-integrating our abandoned setting concepts. In the form of magic creatures, we used First Contact, and I planted the seeds of a magic/technological fusion that would serve the role of Singularity. I even think our risen Christ figure would've ended up being some kind of magic-cyborg thing.

My issues: I haven't read the new tone debt rules yet, but the old way was a bit buggy and confusing. I had no idea when it was really appropriate to "spend" it, and why you would need to anyway. It's a good bookkeeping tool I suppose (this scene is too light for this dark era, so let's jazz it up a bit), but I think player-consensus could achieve that goal just as easily. Also, as a lot of people have said, I didn't really get a "game" vibe from it. It seemed like a fun engine for creating amazingly detailed and surprising settings in which to play a game, or else some kind of framework for shared storytelling (which is a good thing in and of itself, but if that's the case, it doesn't need so many rules).

Also, during scenes, Roger and I found we didn't bother picking characters or setting up locations much. It might have been because there was only two of us, so there was no need to delineate responsibility that much, but after the first scene (Dr. Jones and his dabbling) we stopped doing it. During the scene where the vampires conquer Europe, I was Lens, so I just narrated broadly, and let Roger give his input, and then adopted it where appropriate. In the dragon sneak attack, we started as two distinct characters, but soon found ourselves narrating the dragons, the other mech pilots, the other people of the world, and not worrying too much about ownership or control.

Yeah, my approach would be to put MORE focus on Scenes, to make them matter. I like the individual snapshots, but I feel like they need to do something else besides just exist. I think adding more meat to the Scenes would solve both the vagueness of their current state and the "non-game"-nass that I get from Microscope.

And yes, a cast list would be nice. It would make it much easier to go back and draw characters from other Events if necessary.

Okay, this is driving me nuts, I've been reading APs of Microscope all over the place, yet, I can't seem to find out any more about it. Is there a place to download the rules? Is it for sale somewhere already?

Posted By: Ben RobbinsTechnically you should never collaborate once the game starts -- either one player is making history and has complete authority, or you are all together in a scene and each player only has control over their character. In fact you'll notice that scenes are the only part of the game where the players interact directly.

We tried this, specifically in the Dragons of the Moon scene, but the problem was, we didn't know how to propel the scene. With no GM, and no obvious objectives for our characters we basically sat around until we started sharing the story collaboratively. My character was the security commander signals guy, watching the radar screens for signs of attack, and Roger played the officer in charge of the base, and I just stared at the screen and he just read a book in his quarters, until we decided the shit had better hit the fan before we gave up.

Nick, I've sent you an email with the playtest guidelines. Welcome aboard!

That's one of my playtest notes: when you frame a scene with an implied moment in time (like the assassination of the King in "why was the King assassinated?") be clear about whether you are putting the scene before or after the incident.

Usually either one works, but it's important to think about it and make sure everyone is clear which it is, and you may get very different scenes depending on which you choose, just like you said.

I suspect Time won't come up that much with only two players -- picking Time often puts answering the question squarely on the shoulders of the other player (which may be your plan). It's more useful when there are lots of players, particularly if other players already picked characters that put them in a good position to answer the question. You can bow-out of the answering process, but still drive the drama.

Remember the moon dragons are just NPCs, so once per scene each of you can freely take control of them and narrate them swooping in and ravaging the planet, whatever, if that helps move the scene.