So last week we got a chance to playtest Microscope. Present were Jonathon, a long-term D&D GM and FATE 3.0 fan; Maude, a relative newbie to tabletop RPGs, but one of my valiant go-to playtesters; my wife Jill, who is a deep immersionist; and myself, a 30-year veteran RPGer who fell into the indie movement a few years ago and never looked back.
What follows is the transcript of our game's timeline, broken across several posts, because it's loooong.
High Concept: The Rise & Fall of an Interstellar Empire Palette: YES: Ruins of pre-human civilizations, really alien aliens NO: Supernatural or unexplainable powers, biological starships, Interstellar religious wars, shipboard FTL, "Greys"
Armstrong Steps On The Moon (L) Mars Colony Established (L) Destabilizes Earth currencies, leads to the Trademark Wars. The Trademark Wars (L) Standard Currency (the 'Planet') Devalued (D) Regional currencies (franc, mark, etc.) re-established The Oort Cloud Colonies Default (D) Colonists decline to pay on loans from the Bank of Mars. Scene: How do they get away with defaulting? Setting: Government fact-finding tour near the Cloud Miner's ice-asteroid impact on Mars Compulsory: Administrators, Scientists Banned: Soldiers, Rebels Characters: Head of the Bank of Mars, Ex-CFO of the Martian Colonial Corp., now Governor, a refugee from the impact zone, a Xeno-Climatologist Action: The representative of the Bank of Mars and the Colonial Governor converse, waffling over how to duck responsibility for the Oort Cloud Miner's attack on Mars. The Xeno-Climatologist makes a speech, explaining that although there have been many deaths, and will likely be many more, the long term (multi-decade) outlook of the effect of the ice asteroid strike might be positive. The refugee in the audience has had enough of this insensitive ivory-tower type, and rushes forward, punching him! He demands answers from the others, pointing fingers and laying blame. The Governor explains that without Earth's currency to provide economic stability, there's no way to collect on the Oort Cloud debts. Certainly Earth Gov can't enforce the law out there, the attack proves that definitively. The head of the Bank of Mars denies responsibility for any of this. The refugee becomes enraged, and grabs the banker's respirator, tearing it free! She begins to asphyxiate as he is restrained by members of the Governor's entourage. As the banker dies, the Climatologist's predictions are shown to be true: Rain begins to fall on Mars, for the first time. Result: The loan contract is unenforceable due to the currency collapse. Tone: (D) Mars Secedes from the Earth Union (D)
Founding of the Generation Ship Colonies (L) First Generation Ship Sails (L) The 'Gaea' The Loss of the UESS 'Marie Celestial' (D) Scene: Where did the Crew go? Setting: Aboard the 'Marie Celestial' at it's destination Compulsory: Banned: Aliens, Crew members Characters: uplifted dolphin, lead scientist of the colony of New New Amsterdam, Editor & Lead Reporter of the New New Amsterdam Herald-Tribune, Colonel Vance, N.N.A.M.C. Action: Colonel Vance leads the way, entering the airlock at the hub of the colony vessel, a huge L-5 cylinder floating two-thirds submerged in the oceans of New New Amsterdam. It is established that the generation ship was leap-frogged by faster vessels, and the colony is well established, years before the anticipated arrival of the 'Marie Celestial'. Vance reports that the interior of the cylinder is scoured clean of all organic material. Even the soil that lined the three main living-panels is missing. The uplifted dolphin enters through one of the submerged airlocks. He reports that the same is true underwater -- there is nothing left except hullmetal and structural-diamond. Comm traffic between the advance party and the science-and-media team establish a plan. Vance and the dolphin will head for the bridge, at the head of the aft hub of the cylinder, and attempt to download any logs or information about what happened aboard the colony ship. Arriving there, the dolphin-tech determines that the electronic systems aboard are no longer intact. There is literally nothing but diamond and hullmetal left of the vessel. It is theorized by the scientist that if there had been some sort of encounter or emergency, someone might have left a message. Colonel Vance and the dolphin-tech search for such a thing… It would have to have been left etched on the hull itself. Diamond tools can scratch hullmetal, and an engineer might have such a tool, so Vance starts by searching Engineering… Tools and hand-held devices are also missing. The dolphin reports finding a number of small diamonds scattered in the lower reaches of the cylinder. The reporter theorizes that they might be the remains of jewelry "There was an archaic custom of monogamous-pairing in fashion when the ship was launched. People led short lives back then, so it made more sense as a custom. According to my research, rings with diamond settings were often exchanged as part of that custom." Colonel Vance calls in a team of N. N. A. Marines to scour the vessel from top to bottom. Finally, someone discovers symbols that might be construed as a date scratched into a bulkhead, possibly with a wedding ring. Converted from the old notation, it's a very recent date. Based on that date, and the complete loss of functional avionics aboard, the only way the ship would have made it to New New Amsterdam was if some intelligence made sure that it did so… Result: Abducted by aliens who left no sign of their own natures -- but who wanted it known that they existed. Tone: (D)
The Human Diaspora (D) Hive-Spire Cities discovered on Titan (L) Scene: Who were the beings who built the Hive-Spires? Setting: At the foot of one of the Hive-Spires, at an archaeological camp Compulsory: Archaeologist, Military Officer Banned: Aliens Characters: Captain of the Space Marines, "native" guide (Titan-born colonist), Ship's Cat, Archaeologist Action: The native remarks that some of the locals have been claiming that the Spires weren't natural outcroppings for years, but nobody ever believed those stories until now. The Archaeologist is uncertain, but discovers what appear to be doors… The ship's cat, mascot of the expedition, finds a hole in the base of one of the doors, and goes through. There is some confusion, as the Space Marine Captain orders some of her troops to search the area, and the Archaeologist rushes headlong to pry open the doors and find the cat. Inside the dark and cavernous interior of the Spire entry, the cat comes running out of the darkness. The Archaeologist turns to follow the cat with her helmet-lights. Outside, as the cat appears, the soldiers hear the Archaeologist scream! As the native picks his way carefully into the room, he can hear the soldiers outside fire their weapons, then scream and die. Out of the darkness looms a 9' tall insectile creature… The native speaks to it. "Will this be enough Master? We can bring more sacrifices, if you desire…" Result: 9' tall mantises, billions of them, who have secretly enslaved the Titan colonists. Tone: (D) The Discovery of the 'GateStar' (D) The Infocracy Period (L) The beginnings of the Information Economy First Intergalactic Travel (L)
(Whew!) Next comes some discussion of how we got what we got.
We only had time for two full rounds. The Foci were: Round 1 -- The fall of Capitalism (which led to the first roleplayed scene, on Mars) Round 2 -- Contact with aliens (which led to two roleplayed scenes, first the crashed generation ship, then the encounter on Titan)
Issues with the rules:
Tone Debt on Periods is difficult to get into play. Repeatedly, we had a Period with one tone, and multiple Events within that Period that were of the other tone. According to my reading of the rules, Period Tone Debt can only be used by moving it to an Event that matches the Period's tone-- then the debt can be used on Scenes within that Event. In our case, we were playing Scenes within the Events of opposite tone, so the Period Tone Debt could not be accessed. Have you considered or playtested a version of the rules where Period Tone Debt could be used to take control in any Scene within the Period?
We also had issues with roleplaying Scenes. This may be because we did not frame our questions strongly enough, but our analysis at the time was that we were all a bit diffident about 'railroading' everyone else. In the Scene aboard the crashed colony ship, we started with the question "What happened to the Colonists?" We each had the opportunity to establish facts about that, and we were all tending toward some version of the answer "They were abducted by aliens." We still wound up writing ourselves into a corner because no one wanted to just come out and force his or her version of the story on everyone else. Possibly we are all too polite; possibly we all felt that we were not 'buying' narration rights with some form of in-game currency, the way we do in Universalis.
Since we had such a struggle with the roleplayed Scenes, we discussed the idea of playing using only narrated Scenes. This brought up other rules questions: Can Tone Debt be used to interrupt during a narrated Scene? Can it be used to take control of a character in a narrated Scene?
For our particular play-style, narrated Scenes that can morph via Tone Debt spending into roleplayed Scenes might be the best method…
One other comment on something I think should be added to the rules:
Page 29 -- Spawning a Zoomed Game. I think it should also be mentioned that it is possible to zoom out from an existing game. If the game, for example, had been about the clan-politics during the rise and fall of a powerful city state, the players could in a later session decide to zoom out to look at the sweep of empires and religions across the entire continent. The entire city state game becomes a single Period (or two -- the rise of the city state, followed by it's fall) within the longer timeline.
You could even merge two or more existing games -- one about the rise and fall of a city state, one about the struggle of a group of horse-nomads for survival and dominance, one about the spreading influence of a charismatic religious leader -- into one epic sweep of time. Each becomes one or two Periods in the greater timeline. Those two need not be directly adjacent either: The Rise of the City State, the Birth of the Charismatic Leader, the Arrival of the Horse Lords, the Fall of the City State, the Founding of the Holy Empire, The Expansion of the Horse Lords, etc. Then, in the in-between spots, the interactions between these existing games could be developed. Stick in a war between the Horse Lords and the Holy Empire, The Charismatic Leader's visit to the City State in his youth, etc.
Summation:
We had a blast playing, except for those times during the roleplaying scenes where we bogged down.
The question that keeps coming to me is; is this a 'game', or is it a 'passtime'? I can see interesting things to do at every turn, but I can't see optimal things to do. To be a 'game' for me, it has to have some aspect of winning or losing, some way of determining how successful I am at playing it. Traditional RPGs have character advancement, or a sense of accomplishment at overcoming obstacles with one's character. Many indie games have some direct method of determining whether you are playing skillfully or not. With Microscope, I'm not sure. Then again, I'm not sure if it needs to be a 'game' -- it is an excellent and fun 'passtime'. (And as a setting-creation tool, the 'game' part comes later anyway...)
A suggestion, though, from the Gamist in me: On every card, note the originator (maybe by their initials in the corner of the card, or something). Every time someone else expands on that piece of history by referring to it, or creating something nested within it, put a tick mark by the initials. He who has the most tick marks by his initials is the most successful, in that he has added the most interesting and re-visited items to the history...
If anyone has any questions about our playtest, or needs clarification on something I posted, don't hesitate to ask!
"The question that keeps coming to me is; is this a 'game', or is it a 'passtime'? I can see interesting things to do at every turn, but I can't see optimal things to do."
I have to agree. This was bugging me during my group's playtest, but I can't decide if it's actually a bad thing or not. Maybe my mind would be set at ease if its less "gamey" nature was more specifically called out in the rules, but then maybe the fault is mine for obsessing over whether I'm having the "right kind of fun". Who can say?
There's some discussion of the "is it a game?" question over in Thanks GPNW thread.
Zooming out rather than in is a very good point.
Tone debt is one of things under examination, but I want people to play it more before making any decisions. In our own games it took getting used to, because it's a tool that the players can use but only does something if they exploit it. It's almost "advanced" Microscope.
re Dictated Scenes -- By the rules no other player can interfere in a Dictated Scene. If you compare it to making an Event or Period, the current player normally has complete authority, which they yield partially when they decide to roleplay a scene. Dictating is there to let the player keep that control if they want (or really if they already know what they want the answer to be).
Over-politeness (aka unwillingness to speak definitively) can be a killer in Microscope. Players often don't realize they can make very pointed questions that establish a lot about the scene (like "did the aliens leave anybody behind when they abducted the colonists" rather than "what happened to the colonists").
I'll be very interested to see how your group does if you play it again. There can definitely be a learning curve, adapting to just how much authority you have.
Ben, your example question is exactly the kind of thing we needed! I don't think we really had a handle on the power of asking 'leading questions' that at least suggest an interesting answer to themselves.
The problem we had with Tone Debt is best illustrated by the Titan scene: I was playing the 'native guide'. It was a Light Event in a Dark Period, which means that the 2 Period Tone Debt were unavailable. Maude suggested the 'Twilight Zone' ending to the scene -- and there should have been a way for her to take control of the guide and make that happen, instead of just suggesting it to me. It was never what I had in mind for the character when I created him, but it sure was cool. :)
I'm looking forward to the publication of this one!