A Brief Shout Out for the Microscope Explorer Kickstarter Campaign

BLOT: (02 Aug 2015 - 01:21:20 PM)

A Brief Shout Out for the Microscope Explorer Kickstarter Campaign

My primary reason for giving a shout out to the Microscope Explorer Kickstarter campaign is greed: the next stretch goal is something I want, and it is damned near to getting it. I have backed it, and look forward to whatever I get from it, but it is good to be greedy, as well.

This is not the only reason for my shout-out, though. I am also a fan of the sytem. I have not played it, much, but I want to play more of it, and it is unique enough in several key ways to be different. It doesn't need my love, I feel, but I gladly give it.

What makes Microscope (LGT: publisher's site) different is that you are not roleplaying characters, but collectively roleplaying a history shared between all players. This is its main difference. Another crucial difference is that you start with the opening and closing chapters already decided, so all you are doing is adding in details, meaning that campaigns can take a couple of hours or they could take dozens, and whenever you walk way, it will be complete.

To give an example. Let's say you start with a campaign about some fantasy world that collects all of its books of magic into a single library. The opening period might be, "The Great Library of Thomas is founded on the Island of Abrexis," and the closing one might be, "The Library is found to have vanished one night." Then, in the first pass, you might add in that there was a mage war over the library, a long and bloody conflict, and that a school of esoteric magic was formed on Abrexis to try and find the rules of magic out. As you keep going around, you add more periods (broad eras), events (more specific moments that fit under the periods), and scenes (played out or narrative bits that fit under events) to flesh out the world and history. A plague across the world isolates the Library. A great king runs his kingdom with anti-magic laws and forbids his people to visit the Library. A great university opens up on an archipelago near Abrexis, and considers itself a rival organization.

To me, this is when it gets cool. Even with that much detail, one group might decide to focus on scenes related specifically to the Library. Others might focus in on the anti-magic kingdom. As you play out scenes, and ask and answer key questions to the world, the vibrant moments of history start bubbling up. Wherever any group ends their campaign, you know the history of the Library from start to finish. In real history, you never know all the details, it is only the details you want to focus on that ends up mattering to you.

In this way, you could have only a few major periods with lots of events in them. Or you can have lots of periods with only a scattering of events, and then have some events with lots of scenes. You can play out all of the scenes, are make them more narrative. Each group can play to its strengths and weaknesses.

There are a couple of basic rules. You play to various focuses, as dictated by a rotating lens (sort of like a first player, kind of a rough GM type for a round). You avoid collaboration as a player is creating a historical element, except scenes were everyone plays out characters as needed. Once added to the table, an element becomes canon. You start out with a palette that says things you want to add that might not normally be found or things you want to avoid that might normally be assumed as a given for a genre (in the case of the Library, maybe magic can only effect the four classical elements, and not humans directly).

A lot of people use their Microscope campaigns to collectively create a game world where they play. I have not done this yet, but I can see it working nicely. That's kind of why I want the stretch goal, which will focus on world-ending elements, so that we can better blend it in with Apocalypse World or horror RPGs.

It has a couple of days left, and I would highly recommend you back it at something like the $20 level, so you can get Microscope and Microscope Explorer. And even if you don't, I'd say to try Microscope itself out. I have burned out on Kickstarter a good deal, but this one of the rare ones I am enjoying getting behind.

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: August 2015