Making a new Microscope, AMA!

[u/benrobbins]

Hi, I'm Ben Robbins, I made the original Microscope and after many, many years I'm working on a new edition.

It's a bit intimidating revising a game that's been out a long time and that lots of people love. My goal is to keep the magic of the original, not water it down in any way, but also make the on-ramp even smoother. I want anyone to be able to just pick up the book, without knowing anything about Microscope or reading in advance, and just sit down and follow the instructions step-by-step and make a great world together.

I'm also making fine adjustments to a some of the steps that can slow down the fun:

• One is played scenes. People skip them all the time, which means they miss out on the full experience. So I'm both streamlining them but also making it clear they are a whole new skill set.
• Another is legacies. They make sense on paper, for longer games, but really the cognitive cost is higher than the reward. So I'm replacing them with a simpler "free roam" move that has all the benefits of a micro-focus without the overhead.

I've been tinkering and testing these changes for a few years, but I'm finally at the point where I think a new edition is a clear upgrade. I'm launching crowdfunding for M2 in a week.

And if this whole time you've been muttering "what the hell is Microscope???", totally fair! It's a game where you create an epic history / world together and then explore it from the outside in, jumping back and forth in history and expanding the timeline without having to follow chronological order.

You can blow up a city but then next turn jump back a thousand years and explore how it was founded. Nothing is ever truly removed from the game, because you can always go back to when it existed. The past is never closed.

The whole point is making big things together, and giving each person vast creative freedom but still arriving at a unified whole. To get people with very different opinions on the same page, and to have a lot of fun doing it.

I hear there are serious game designers here, so I'm happy to talk about how and why Microscope is changing, the kind of game design decisions that went into it. Or really any game design issues. GMless is my particular wheelhouse, but yeah, I also made West Marches.

Ask Me, as they say, Anything.

(FYI I checked with the mods before posting this and they gave the thumbs up)

UPDATE: Here's more details about how the rules are changing

M2: What’s Changing in the New Microscope

[u/SerpentineRPG]

Hi Ben! Have you considered adding advice for people who want to use their Microscope game to create their ongoing game’s campaign world/country/city?

[u/benrobbins → u/SerpentineRPG]

Yes, using Microscope as a tool for building worlds for other games really became more popular than I expected when I wrote the original. I talked about it in Microscope Explorer, but I'm going to put in a section about it in the new main book.

[u/OvenBakee]

Hi Ben! I assume you have tried other world-building games and systems. What do you look for in those games that maybe you decided were not a good fit for Microscope, but still enjoy, and what did you decide to explicitely do differently in Microscope?

[u/benrobbins → u/OvenBakee]

Hello! Shock is a great one, and I'll also throw in an example that isn't intended as a world-building game per se: Polaris. Because you can use "but only if" statements in Polaris to spontaneously make facts true about the world in the middle of conflicts ("but only if all starlight swords are made from the souls of slain demons"). Same with Shock: conflicts can establish world facts.

I love both of those games and really enjoy playing them. But when you frame something as a conflict, that's how people see their contributions. It's always a little adversarial.

Microscope on the other hand gives you even more power, but says "we're building something together, what do you think belongs", which puts the player in the mindset of being a fellow steward of what we're creating. We moderate ourselves.

[u/benrobbins]

I'll be back to responses in a bit. Right now I'm playing some Microscope!

[u/Bawafafa]

Hi Ben - have there been any games in the years since Microscope was first released that have changed your perspective game design?

[u/benrobbins → u/Bawafafa]

I'll be honest: I'm much less inspired by game texts nowadays than by experiences in play. Seeing how people behave playing, frankly any game, is what changes my perspective on design.

Sometimes the very best is playing a *bad* game with people. That's when you really learn how things work (or don't work). Disasters are treasures.

But if I cheat and go before Microscope, there were a bunch of really mind-blowing texts that hit me when I first tried GMless games (Shock, Polaris, Geiger Counter, etc). But part of that was specifically because I was changing my whole point-of-view and playing a totally different style of play. Shaking off decades of D&D took a look of brain power.

[u/benrobbins → u/benrobbins]

A big part of that was eight years of Story Games Seattle. Playing random games with total strangers every week exposes you to a huge range of human reactions. You see every flaw in a game.

[u/Bawafafa → u/benrobbins]

Thanks for the thoughtful response! Best wishes with the new edition. Looking forward to it

[u/benrobbins → u/Bawafafa]

But if we scale back from "changed my perspective of game design" to just "some games I've seen recently I think are interesting", I'll throw out the original one-page version of A Perfect Rock and also Dawn of the Orcs.

A Perfect Rock is a very light exploration and discovery game, and Dawn of the Orcs does some interesting things with making even the setup of the game part of the play.

[u/apassador]

Hi! I don't have a background or formal training in game design, but I have an idea for an RPG that I think is cool/strong. Where should I start? What are the essentials for a playable prototype and for the final product?

[u/benrobbins → u/apassador]

I think the key is putting yourself in the shoes of the people playing the game and asking yourself, what experiences do you want them to have? What contributions and decisions are they making that are essential to that experience?

Make a big header called MAXIMS and write that down. As you design, keep looking back and asking yourself if what you're designing is making your maxims happen.

[u/BeGosu]

How do you think Microscope was able to carve out a niche and be noticeable and remembered, when there are just so many games out there now?

[u/benrobbins → u/BeGosu]

When it came out it was just plain weird. People debated if it was even a game, let alone an RPG (and some still do). It did something -- successfully, I would argue -- that people would have said was impossible, which is throwing chronological order out the window. I wasn't even sure it would work until the first time we played. It seemed like a bridge too far. Now that Microscope exists, it seems easy.

But the real appeal is that it delivers on your time. You sit down to make something together and the rules work. And it's flexible rather than genre-specific. Your table can make any kind of setting you want. It's not for me to say what you should make, just how to make it.

[u/SerpentineRPG]

In the original game, what did you like best? What would you have changed? Have you seen design tradeoffs when designing this new edition?

[u/benrobbins → u/SerpentineRPG]

The core of the game has always been rock solid. But so many words. I need less words! As a designer I am constantly chasing brevity, because I've seen how players at the table have to fumble through pages trying to find the next step. It just distracts from the fun of play.

[u/kellymakesgames]

Kia ora Ben, I just wanted to say thank you for making Microscope, I believe it was the first non-D&D ttrpg I'd played and it's been an influence on my own work. You made something really awesome.

For a question, what's the impact Microscope has had that you're most proud of or makes you feel happiest?

[u/JaskoGomad]

I've had Microscope for ages - but never actually gotten it to the table.

I would like to point out that In This World, which I did get folks to try, produced 4 worlds out of 5 that I would have been happy to run or play in the next week. Amazing.

Your games have brought so much to our hobby and community, thanks so much!

[u/Randolpho]

Hey, this is great news. Microscope is an old fav of mine.

So much so that I many many years ago wrote an extremely minor hack of it to add geography tracking. I won't bother you with the details of that silly document, but I do wonder if you've considered adding something like geography/mapping to Microscope. Now seems to be the right time to do so. :)

Additionally, have you ever considered building an online tool for playing and tracking a Microscope world as it's built?

[u/benrobbins → u/Randolpho]

Thanks!

Geography / mapping adds a whole different aspect to the game. Doing both a-chronological time and space at the same time is a lot. It would really be a whole different beast.

That said, I know people have taken stabs at it from time to time. One of our players at Story Games Seattle tested a "maproscope" hack way back when (and no, they didn't call it that, I just made that up right now and it is terrible)

As far as online tools, maybe I introduce you to Utgar's Chronicles? I know there are other tools too, but that's an easy one to use. That or any whiteboard app like Miro.

[u/nerobrigg]

You spoke of a phrase that I've heard about my game as well. "Is it even a game?" Do you feel like that feedback affected your development at all?

[u/benrobbins → u/nerobrigg]

It certainly made me think about what "game" meant, and what "role-playing" meant, which helped me sharpen my thinking about what was the point of these activities. I knew all along that Microscope was a game, but I think understanding and articulating why I was sure of that made me a better designer:

Defining Games, But In A Useful Way

[u/ljmiller62]

One thing I would like to add is a way to resolve competing proposals. For example one player wants a dragon to attack the capital and another wants a spaceship to crash into it.

I also wanted a way to enforce genre. For example a player says everyone in the pseudo medieval setting is vegan. That would mean there are no food animals and horse riding, the plow, and the ox cart probably never develop. This wrecks many of the basic supports of the genre. Or in the above the spaceship might be out of genre.

Cheers!

[u/YVNGxDXTR]

So stoked for this, "if it aint broke dont fix it" is not the mantra of TTRPGs lol.

[u/benrobbins → u/YVNGxDXTR]

Honestly I waited a loooong time precisely because I wasn't certain a new version would be a distinct upgrade. I revised Microscope: Chronicle instead as a way to tinker and experiment, and it was only after that that I could clearly see how to make Microscope better.

And now I can't unsee it.

[u/Blizzic1]

Hi! Here's a simple fun one: What are some of your favorite fictional worlds?

[u/benrobbins → u/Blizzic1]

You mean that I made in games or from books and movies? Because I am a big of both Lord of the Rings and Dune. I know, so original! They're classics for a reason.

But also Gene Wolfe the Torturer/Whorl/Sun series. Amazing stuff.