Microscope RPG: Worldbuilding as a game!

[loogie]

Hey all, long time since I've been around.. I guess it's my pattern to show up after a ton of inactivity. I'm glad to see the guild is continuing to prosper in my absence.

I've recently found an RPG game I'm interested in trying out. It's called Microscope, it recently had a Kickstarter for an expansion I funded, but the core game is out now. The game basically defines a set of rules for creating a world, or setting. You basically create the setting using a "fractal" method of cooperation. You start broad, and continue to zoom in to events and time you find interesting. It's different than your average RPG since you don't create a character, or control any given object, instead you create histories and people/places/things by setting up a series of periods, events, and scenes. Everyone gets a turn and has a chance to build on the parts they are interested most in, all in all it sounds very fun.

I am running a game of Micoscope through play by post, meaning for it to be a casual affair, read/post maybe once a day or so. The setting is going to be either cyberpunk or apocalyptic in nature, at this point cyberpunk has more votes. I figured as many of us guildies are interested in world building, microscope could be a lot of fun for us. If anyone is interested, give me a shout through PM or by posting here!

Microscopes recent kickstarted has several extensions as well I'd like to take a look at when they are released (which could possibly be mixed in to the current game I'm running) They focus on different aspects of the world. One builds bloodlines and family histories, one fleshes out places or things in their own specific focused events, and a third gives rules to go back in time and explore what would have happened if history itself changed.

Here are some links for those interested.

Blog Post about a new expansion from the KS-- the story of an epic and unique history of a spaceship the "Madamas"
Creator's Website
The Expansion Kickstarter (nice video detailing the new features)

[Chashio]

That sounds really neat, and even gives me some new ideas to try out at some point. Thanks for sharing it loogie!

[loogie]

I know right?

It's kind of a one-stop shop for creating campaign info. Especially the expansions, you pretty much have a way to create unique and interesting histories for so many things.

Want to develop a backstory for a character and their family? Break out Union.
Want to flesh out the origins of a City or unique item in the world? Chronicle has that
Want to just come up with the worlds history? Microscope core...

[legendaryheart]

Please don't shout at me for advertising, off topic, spamming, etc. It's hard to browser-search on 'Microscope being played online,' getting results: this was a result, here on Cartographers, ok? Surely, Roll20 (https://roll20.net/) is a go-to first thought for finding maybe some people somewhere playing Microscope online, right? As far as I can see, late November 2017, I'm the host of the only Microscope group/game on Roll20. Roll20 doesn't have 'Microscope' in its pulldown list of games, you have to search on 'Other,' the 'Other' results, tho, are only 3 pages, you'll see it, our game/group's listing, Microscope, by Keith J. Please! join! If there are other ways than Roll20 obvious to y'all but not to us, where thousands already happily are playing Microscope online, omg please tell us! Come onto Roll20, & tell us, there. We have 2 games going currently, using Trello free version, a turn-based, closed-roll concept, & an anyone-can-make-a-move-at-anytime open concept. Find us on Roll20, we'll hook you up with Discord & Trello etc ... If logging onto Roll20 & searching in Other doesn't work, I guess email me, I'm k.d.jowett@gmail.com.

[Redrobes]

I am not sure I understand what the Microscope thing is all about. How about starting a new thread in the games part of the forum and saying what it is and how the maps are useful for it. I used to write a VTT and I know RollD20 is something like that but I would confess to not keeping up with the VTTs now. Now I think if I recall that Trello is a VOIP like skype but maybe its also chat based too. We used to use some dice website where you rolled and it logged it so that the whole party could see it. Cant remember what that was called now tho.

[Naen]

My favorite projects are the ones I work on alone, but I also really enjoy collaborative world-building and I have done it off and on for years. I'm actually participating in three different collaborative writing and world building projects right now with three different people. This sounds like an interesting resource. I hope this kind of thing catches on more.

[Jaxilon]

This sounds pretty awesome but I'm not sure because I tend to enjoy designing stuff myself even though I don't ever seem to have enough time to put into it...hmm.