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FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.


Microscope is a very odd RPG. You don't control the usual group of murderhobos slaughtering their way through a dungeon/high-rise/nightclub/space station. In fact, you barely control characters at all. Instead, you build a history, and one on a grand scale. Think of creating the story of a game of Civilization, or everything J. R. R. Tolkien ever wrote, or the history of a space-faring civilization from its first rocket launch to its inevitable collapse. That's what Microscope does.

It's billed as a fractal role-playing game, and for good reason. You start by creating the Big Picture, a very brief description of everything the history entails. Within that Big Picture are Periods, big hunks of history described very generally, and within those Periods are Events, specific events of interest. Within Events are Scenes, which is where more traditional roleplay happens; everyone makes characters and acts out the scene. But there are no dice, and the only rule for resolving conflict is the vote. It's not a competition of the players against the GM. Indeed, there is no GM; everyone at the table is equal.

I'm looking to get three people who'd be interested in playing this with me. I'll keep this pretty simple. If you're interested, say so, and provide a Big Picture you'd like to use. The rulebook provides the following examples:
  • An ancient empire rises and falls.
  • Cavemen at the dawn of time found the first civilization.
  • Mankind leaves the sick Earth behind and spreads out to the stars.
I'll leave recruiting open for 48 hours, then pick the three Big Pictures I like best and use the players that suggested them. I hope to see plenty of interest, and I welcome those who aren't chosen to get a game or two of their own going!


EDIT: the IC thread, which contains the overall history and the Scenes we roleplay out, is here.

FredMSloniker fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Dec 5, 2014

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Error 404
Jul 17, 2009


MAGE CURES PLOT
Posting to say gently caress yeah, and also that I'll do a more official app later, after reading the rules a bit.

That said, I'm feeling something space opera sci-fi, and my app will probably be along those lines.

QuantumNinja
Mar 8, 2013

Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.
The transformation of a civilization from feudal rule to full-on democracy.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Nov 24, 2014

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

QuantumNinja posted:

To flesh it out some more

Don't do that. Restrict yourself to a very general concept. Fleshing out will take place communally.

EDIT: to clarify, I'm not yelling at you. Avoiding committee and consensus is one of the more important concepts in the rules. You don't want to be shaping other players' ideas of how the history should turn out.

FredMSloniker fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Nov 24, 2014

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."
The lives and times of Great King Ragnor and the Dark Wizard Elwin. How they rose from obscurity best friends, made history as bitter enemies, and faded into legend friends once more.

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

EclecticTastes posted:

The lives and times of Great King Ragnor and the Dark Wizard Elwin. How they rose from obscurity best friends, made history as bitter enemies, and faded into legend friends once more.

There are two problems with this. One is that again it's way too specific; look at the examples I gave in the first post, how brief and, importantly, how vague they are.

The other is that you're not thinking big enough. Microscope looks to cover hundreds of years and an entire continent at a bare minimum. Something like 'the story of two immortal rivals across millennia' is more the scope we're talking about, and even then we can expect large chunks of story to be not about them specifically but the effect they have on empires and ages.

I realize this is kind of a hard thing to conceptualize, which is why I'm jumping to correct anyone who doesn't get it right. Don't think of it as me bashing your ideas, but as me using your mistakes to help clarify what's needed here.

Abyssal Squid
Jul 24, 2003

I dunno if I really have time for this but I want to see what happens and I have a Big Picture that I love already: A primordial floating continent's figurative rise and literal fall

Abyssal Squid fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Nov 24, 2014

rakovsky maybe
Nov 4, 2008
I've always wanted to play this game, there have been some played on this forum that I never got a chance to join.

My suggestion would be the beginning, life, and death of the city at the bottom of the World Torrent, where the accumulated detritus and debris of a thousand worlds finds itself lost with nowhere else to go.

Error 404
Jul 17, 2009


MAGE CURES PLOT
How about :
The discovery, exploration, and exploitation of multi-versal travel.

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

Abyssal Squid posted:

A primordial floating continent's literal and figurative rise and fall.

rakovsky maybe posted:

The history of the city at the bottom of the World Torrent.

I've trimmed these two suggestions down to appropriate lengths. Note particularly in the latter that I've omitted the description of what the World Torrent is.

Error 404 posted:

How about :
The discovery, exploration, and exploitation of multi-versal travel.
Perfect! In honor of its perfectness, I'm starting the 48-hour clock now. (I was holding off until at least someone got the idea.)

QuantumNinja
Mar 8, 2013

Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.
I trimmed mine down to something I think more suitable.

Abyssal Squid
Jul 24, 2003

FredMSloniker posted:

I've trimmed these two suggestions down to appropriate lengths. Note particularly in the latter that I've omitted the description of what the World Torrent is.

Yeah, I looked back on the examples and realized how bloated that was. I'd change it slightly still, to "A primordial floating continent's figurative rise and literal fall." I could edit my other post if you'd like.

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

Abyssal Squid posted:

Yeah, I looked back on the examples and realized how bloated that was. I'd change it slightly still, to "A primordial floating continent's figurative rise and literal fall." I could edit my other post if you'd like.

Go ahead!

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

FredMSloniker posted:

There are two problems with this. One is that again it's way too specific; look at the examples I gave in the first post, how brief and, importantly, how vague they are.

The other is that you're not thinking big enough. Microscope looks to cover hundreds of years and an entire continent at a bare minimum. Something like 'the story of two immortal rivals across millennia' is more the scope we're talking about, and even then we can expect large chunks of story to be not about them specifically but the effect they have on empires and ages.

Having played Microscope before, I can say with confidence that any time scale is compatible with the system, as long as it feels all epoch-y. The record of a great war, the life of someone who changed the course of history, etc. That's the beauty of Microscope, is that it can stretch to cover the entire life of a universe, or the life of one man. And, obviously, there would be events, scenes, and so on involving non-central players. I'd compare stories like that to the legend of King Arthur, and how scores of tales were told not just about him, but about the many knights who served him, as well.

To give an example from my own experience, I played a game of Microscope where the big picture was about an alien invasion and the resulting war, the twist eventually being that the aliens were microscopic and invading human bodies as a sort of virus, and they had to be fought using power armor, shrunk down Fantastic Voyage-style. The story obviously included the prelude and aftermath of the actual armed conflict, but even then, all told it was probably less than fifty years, but it still maintained the grandiosity of scale that defines Microscope.

But, if you don't like that premise, that's cool, I got plenty more. Though, a theme that runs through them all is that they all have a sort of focal point, one thing the rest of the history hinges upon, even if nobody in the world we build remembers it. I find it to be a fun challenge to answer the question of what, precisely, that focal point was, why it was so important, and how it resonates (possibly without even being noticed) throughout the ages. Like so: One word, spoken one day, by one otherwise unimportant individual, leads to one thousand years of war.

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

EclecticTastes posted:

Having played Microscope before, I can say with confidence that any time scale is compatible with the system, as long as it feels all epoch-y.

I invite you to offer further insight, then! I'm just going by having read the rulebook thoroughly; I haven't had a chance to actually play this.

(So why am I doing the recruitment thread? Because I love mad, beautiful ideas, and because no one else volunteered.)

EDIT: I'm also going to encourage people to throw out multiple ideas! Just don't rehash one someone else has done.

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

FredMSloniker posted:

I invite you to offer further insight, then! I'm just going by having read the rulebook thoroughly; I haven't had a chance to actually play this.

(So why am I doing the recruitment thread? Because I love mad, beautiful ideas, and because no one else volunteered.)

EDIT: I'm also going to encourage people to throw out multiple ideas! Just don't rehash one someone else has done.

Well, you have the right idea, but you don't need to span millennia. In theory, you could pull a Ulysses and have it cover just one days, but more practically, anything you can describe as a significant period of time is great material, which can include even political campaigns or a single semester of high school, it all depends on how personal you want it to be. The grand history of a country isn't likely to give you as much insight into any individuals as a story about just one war, plague, invasion, or so on taking place within that country would. On the other hand, those grander, more long-view stories let you explore the world and its underpinnings more thoroughly by seeing how things changed, and how they stayed the same.

Now, to be fair, smaller time frames will generally have fewer Periods added, Events will take place over smaller stretches of time, and Scenes will be more plentiful, whereas longer time frames will generally have more Periods and Events may take place over a span of time that dwarfs the entire timeline of a smaller game. So, it comes down to a question of preference and taste. Also, while I wouldn't recommend much detail in a seed normally, due to the fact that it sounds like we're going to be playing each of the big pictures proposed by the accepted applicants, adding some small predetermined detail, or giving a vague arc, can help out if one of the players isn't particularly inspired by someone else's idea. It gives a sort of jumping-off point that the entire group knows ahead of time, and can work around. It also introduces a bit of a challenge, building history around what's known by the description, adding details to those predefined aspects, possibly subverting their assumed meaning. Referring to the first story seed I posted, it begs questions like: When did any of these things happen in the two men's lives? How did they become friends? How did they become a Great King and Dark Wizard if they came from obscurity? Why did they become enemies? What effects did any of this have on the world at large? Did they engage in all-out warfare, or did they only fight each other in direct combat? Which of them was in the right, if either of them was? Did they have allies, or did they act alone? Did they survive their reconciliation, or did they only make up as they lay dying from the wounds of their final battle? Was that truly the last the world saw of them?

By getting players thinking about these kinds of things with the story seed, you give them a valuable resource for coming up with ideas, in case they run short. Further, expressing their thoughts on said questions definitively would require a Scene, which is good, as I find that sometimes, players can get a little preoccupied adding Periods and Events, and can forget to do Scenes now and then.

If you want a more visual example of how a small-scale Microscope game would play out, try this video. Imagine the instances of aging as the breaks between Periods, and each big thing the two characters do as Events, with the specifics of those things being the Scenes. Or you could watch any vignette-based slice-of-life film/series, like the critically-acclaimed new film, Boyhood.

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.
Cool beanies! I look forward to suggestions folks offer with that advice in hand.

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.
If there's anyone who wants to get involved in this game but hasn't posted for one reason or another, speak up! Maybe we can help.

Error 404
Jul 17, 2009


MAGE CURES PLOT
Semi-related to my application idea, but zoomed in if we do a smaller time scale: Me, myself, and I: a multi-versal love story.

Likewise,
Big Idea: Down and out in a Post-Scarcity society.
Zoomed in variation of same: Soylent Green: The high cost of low prices. :v:

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.
Less than six hours to go until I close applications! If you're dithering, get your ideas in now!

QuantumNinja
Mar 8, 2013

Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.
Some more ideas:

Society collapsing and reverting to a series of tribal colonies.
Humans developing psychic powers and forming group-minds mental collectives.
The rise and fall of real-life superheroes.
A pantheon of deities creating the world and eventually vanishing.
The sudden and unexpected collapse of the Milky Way.
A species who live in quantum superposition go to war with humanity.

rakovsky maybe
Nov 4, 2008
Still interested in this, if I had some other ideas I'd say:

The discovery and exploitation of magic that tears at the walls of reality.
A nomadic group wandering through a (literally) endless desert.
Two secret societies wage an underground war that spans all of history.
The Fae Folk watch humanity grow and develop.

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."
I've got some random musings.

Angels and Demons switch jobs for a Celestial Day (10,000 years for Earth), to see who has it easier.
The campaign and administration of President Jim Lewis, who had no experience or qualifications.
A world where viral videos are literally transmitted through airborne vectors, vermin, etc.
The rise and fall of the rock star who brought about world peace.
An alien spaceship crashes into international waters, and the world scrambles to exploit the technology held within.
A world based on Neil Gaiman's essay from SimCity 2000, when the cities wake up.
A doomsday cult summons forth the Elder Gods, and it turns out they're not so bad.
A civilization was truly convinced, for thousands of years, that the world would end on a given date. Then, it didn't, and they realized that their society had a whole future to deal with.
Fast Times at Hogwarts High.
Red Hand of Doom: The Microscope Perspective.
A time when humanity finds that the only way they can communicate effectively with each other anymore is over social media, and language must adapt.
Boyhood, a Michael Bay film.
What if Hollywood's studio system hadn't collapsed?

A RICH WHITE MAN
Jul 30, 2010

See them other chickenheads? They don't never leave the coop.
I want to play! How about :

  • A Generation Ship carries the last survivors of an apocalyptic event through vast and open expanse of space, its navigation systems locked on a distant homeland.
  • The rise and fall of the Imperial House of Ovidius.
  • The colonization of KOI-3010.01.
  • The Gods' War rages, pitting the mortal races against themselves, and threatening to rend existence to tatters.

A RICH WHITE MAN fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Nov 26, 2014

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.
RL's gotten in the way, so I won't be reviewing the entries just yet. Sometime this evening, though!

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.
It was drat hard for me to choose just three of you, but in the end I'm going with Abyssal Squid, EclecticTastes, and A RICH WHITE MAN as my three co-players. Congratulations to those who made it, and apologies to those who didn't! (And particular apologies to Error 404, who got a compliment from me only to not quite make it into the final three. I told you the choice was hard!) Now comes time for us to choose a Big Picture we're interested in doing.

For convenience, here are the Big Pictures you've suggested already that I really like, as well as a few of my own, in no particular order:
  • A civilization was truly convinced, for thousands of years, that the world would end on a given date. Then, it didn't, and they realized that their society had a whole future to deal with. (EclecticTastes)
  • The colonization of KOI-3010.01. (A RICH WHITE MAN)
  • A primordial floating continent's figurative rise and literal fall. (Abyssal Squid)
  • In the wake of the Event, monstrous fantasy races rise to rule the Earth. (FredMSloniker)
  • All video game worlds are real--and the walls between them can be broken. (FredMSloniker)
There are very few parts of the game that are straight-up collaboration and discussion, and this is one. We want to find a Big Picture we'd all be happy doing! You can pimp one of your existing ideas (even if I didn't specifically mention it above), throw a new one out, throw support behind an existing one, or the like, but don't start going into detail on any of the ideas; you don't want to influence the other players with how you think a Big Picture should turn out.

This thread is going to become the out-of-character thread, where we work out the Periods and Events and have nattering and grommishing. I'll make a separate thread that will have the History So Far (a chronological ordering of Periods, Events, and Scenes) and the in-character stuff that Scenes contain. I look forward to working with you all!

Edit: also, if you got into the game, check your PMs, please?

A RICH WHITE MAN
Jul 30, 2010

See them other chickenheads? They don't never leave the coop.
Of my own ideas, I'm most partial to:

  • A Generation Ship carries the last survivors of an apocalyptic event through vast and open expanse of space, its navigation systems locked on a distant homeland.

Of EclecticTastes':

  • An alien spaceship crashes into international waters, and the world scrambles to exploit the technology held within.

Of Abyssal Squid's:

  • A primordial floating continent's figurative rise and literal fall.

And, finally, of FredMSlonkier's:

  • In the wake of the Event, monstrous fantasy races rise to rule the Earth.

Also, I suggest the 3 other people start another game! Never enough Microscrope.

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."
Okay, here's my faves from each of you dudes:

Rich White Man:

The Gods' War rages, pitting the mortal races against themselves, and threatening to rend existence to tatters.

Abyssal Squid:

A primordial floating continent's figurative rise and literal fall. (Not much choice, there, though.)

Fred M. Sloniker:

All video game worlds are real--and the walls between them can be broken. (And I just got a friend of mine Project X Zone for Christmas, too!)

Moi:

Well, I'm cool with whichever of mine you guys like, but I'm partial to Angels and Demons switch jobs for a Celestial Day (10,000 years for Earth), to see who has it easier. because I like classic sitcom plots applied to unusual settings.

Abyssal Squid
Jul 24, 2003

I wasn't actually expecting to get picked, or I would have brainstormed more than just the floating continent :o: I'm guessing that means FredMSloniker really liked it. Here's another one if you'd like: A castle adapts, and at times fails to adapt, to the changing world around it.

The colonization of KOI-3010.01. (A RICH WHITE MAN) I really want this to be about literal koi.
In the wake of the Event, monstrous fantasy races rise to rule the Earth. (FredMSloniker) I'd love to see what kind of monstrous creatures show up, and who rises to the top.
Angels and Demons switch jobs for a Celestial Day (10,000 years for Earth), to see who has it easier. (EclecticTastes) I think this one speaks for itself.

I'm especially partial to the monster takeover and the Angels and Demons scenarios. It's late and tomorrow's Thanksgiving, so I'd better just throw this up here for now.

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.
These are the ideas that, at this point, have more than one person supporting them:
  • A primordial floating continent's figurative rise and literal fall. (Abyssal Squid)
    Supported by FredMSloniker, EclecticTastes, A RICH WHITE MAN.
  • In the wake of the Event, monstrous fantasy races rise to rule the Earth. (FredMSloniker)
    Supported by FredMSloniker, Abyssal Squid, A RICH WHITE MAN.
  • Angels and Demons switch jobs for a Celestial Day (10,000 years for Earth), to see who has it easier. (EclecticTastes)
    Supported by FredMSloniker, Abyssal Squid, EclecticTastes.
  • The colonization of KOI-3010.01. (A RICH WHITE MAN)
    Supported by FredMSloniker, Abyssal Squid.
  • All video game worlds are real--and the walls between them can be broken. (FredMSloniker)
    Supported by FredMSloniker, EclecticTastes.
I went ahead and threw my support behind EclecticTastes's idea as well. So now comes the part where we try to persuade the holdouts to sign off on the ideas we like, possibly modifying our suggestions as needed. You can go back and change your votes or add additional votes if you want; I certainly voted for more than four things! This isn't first to four either; I'd like to be sure we're all completely comfortable with our choice.

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Abyssal Squid posted:

A castle adapts, and at times fails to adapt, to the changing world around it.

Ooh, I like this one, I've always enjoyed stories about how the times are a-changin'.

Abyssal Squid
Jul 24, 2003

Yeah I feel kinda cheesy about having only one Big Picture to begin with, and I like the castle idea better than the floating continent one anyway. The castle, Angels and Demons, and monster-takeover all have a similar theme of an explicit shift in power that should give lots of opportunities for entertaining conflict.

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."
It'll be fun seeing our individual tones come through as we make the different periods, events, and scenes, especially when it comes to deciding whether a thing was Light or Dark. I'd tell you guys my style up-front, but I'd hate to spoil the surprise.

A RICH WHITE MAN
Jul 30, 2010

See them other chickenheads? They don't never leave the coop.

EclecticTastes posted:

Ooh, I like this one, I've always enjoyed stories about how the times are a-changin'.

I also like this one

FredMSloniker
Jan 2, 2008

Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.
While I do like Abyssal Squid's latest suggestion, I'm not entirely comfortable with the world 'castle'. It brings a certain feel to the Big Picture I don't like. Could we change the word? Maybe bring in some of my idea with 'lair' or 'dungeon'?

TheNabster
Apr 26, 2014

"Today I will cause problems on purpose"
Ignore meeeee.

Abyssal Squid
Jul 24, 2003

FredMSloniker posted:

While I do like Abyssal Squid's latest suggestion, I'm not entirely comfortable with the world 'castle'. It brings a certain feel to the Big Picture I don't like. Could we change the word? Maybe bring in some of my idea with 'lair' or 'dungeon'?

Yeah, I'm fine with changing it, I just want some sort of, let's say, insular community in a fortification. If you want it to be inhabited by monsters at some point, there's nothing about a castle that prevents that, just make sure you slap that in during step 3: the Palette. I do feel like those monster-specific communities imply substantially more aloofness from the rest of the world than a castle does, even if the castle is occupied by man-eating goblins.

A RICH WHITE MAN
Jul 30, 2010

See them other chickenheads? They don't never leave the coop.

FredMSloniker posted:

While I do like Abyssal Squid's latest suggestion, I'm not entirely comfortable with the world 'castle'. It brings a certain feel to the Big Picture I don't like. Could we change the word? Maybe bring in some of my idea with 'lair' or 'dungeon'?

How about kingdom?

quote:

A kingdom adapts, and at times fails to adapt, to the changing world around it.

This is likely my favorite Big Picture out of all of them.

Abyssal Squid
Jul 24, 2003

I'm a little hesitant to change it to a "kingdom" in particular, because I want to see a relatively small political entity react to political and social changes that it has no control over: changes imposed from above, changes from without, and changes rising from below. On the scale of a kingdom, the king is the one imposing the changes from above, he has an army to repel change from without, and changes from below happen more or less at the king's pleasure.

I'm not married to the idea of a "castle" exactly, but I think something like a "fiefdom" or a "village" is a more organic unit that has a stronger sense of continuity than a kingdom that shatters and is reassembled every time there's a succession. and would have a stronger sense of community with its neighbors. If barbarians sack the next country over, that's great, means they're not gonna invade next year. If barbarians sack the next village over, that's a disaster because you actually know people there.

All that said, "A kingdom adapts, and at times fails to adapt, to the changing world around it." is good enough that I'd be willing to roll with it if everybody else wants to work at that scale. There's plenty of time to shape the setting to my whims in the rest of the game. :allears:

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A RICH WHITE MAN
Jul 30, 2010

See them other chickenheads? They don't never leave the coop.
How about :

"A city adapts, and at times fails to adapt, to the changing world around it."

I think a city, as a polity, is good at expressing the insular dynamic you're going for. It's also broad enough to have a lot of fun with the situation within.

A RICH WHITE MAN fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Nov 29, 2014

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