Overview
Humanity spreads to the stars and forges a galactic civilization…
Fledgling nations arise from the ruins of the empire…
An ancient line of dragon-kings dies out as magic fades from the realm…
These are all examples of Microscope games. Want to explore an epic history of your own creation, hundreds or thousands of years long, all in an afternoon? That's Microscope.
You won't play the game in chronological order. You can defy the limits of time and space, jumping backward or forward to explore the parts of the history that interest you. Want to leap a thousand years into the future and see how an institution shaped society? Want to jump back to the childhood of the king you just saw assassinated and find out what made him such a hated ruler? That’s normal in Microscope.
You have vast power to create... and to destroy. Build beautiful, tranquil jewels of civilization and then consume them with nuclear fire. Zoom out to watch the majestic tide of history wash across empires, then zoom in and explore the lives of the people who endured it.
Mock chronological order.
Defy time and space.
Build worlds and destroy them.
-Ben Robbins, the creator of Microscope.
I came across this game a week back:
lamemage.com/microscope
And decided it could make a interesting format for which a forum NRP could be built. The rules I use are based on Microscope and blatantly so, with modifications made mainly in a attempt to better fit a online format where there is less communication.
The chosen genre is sci-fi with the following seed.
Humankind colonizes the galaxy- and happens upon disturbing revelations about the nature of existence.
I have left this deliberately vague, for this is just the seed for which the history shall sprout.
Every player has god power in this NRP as it's more a history making game than a actual NRP. However, the more world building oriented NRPers I figure will enjoy this. You can make everything up as you go without any order- you can go to the end times and the beginning and everything in-between. You can focus on one era in particular or make tons of separate events. There is no linearity in this game, the history can be built in any order.
I have made the starting and ending periods along with my contributions to the palette in the character section.
Concepts
This NRP is based on the game Microscope, which is a game that spans a entire history that is created by player contributions with a fractal approach. There are a several concepts associated with microscope you must understand.
1- The Focus & Lens
Every pass, there is one player who takes on the role of the Lens. The Lens can during their turn either pick a event or period everyone for the whole pass builds on until the pass is over or make a new period/event that everyone builds upon on until the pass is over. The lens makes the first event/period and the last event/scene respectively. The Lens has no real control over what other players do with the focus period/event outside of being the last person to build on their chosen event/period of focus.
The Lens cycles by the order which players join this RP. People who expressed interest in the interest check inherit their order of play to the RP. Which means at the start, I am the Lens and will pick a period as my first focus.
2- Passes
Passes are just another was of saying the order which everyone goes. Passes in the context of forum RP are done as follows-
Post 1: The current Lens picks the Focus (which is a Period or Event)
Post 2-6: Other players build on said focus. The general pattern is if the focus picked a period, everyone makes events, if the focus picked a event, everyone makes scenes.
Post 7: Lens makes last event/scene (Which has to be within the Period or Event the focus him/herself has made)
Post 8: A legacy is made by the player who was lens last. (a legacy is essentially the consequences of an event)
Post 9: A new lens selected. (The next player becomes the new Lens)
Post 10: The new lens picks the Focus for the next pass.
Etc.
I would prefer that everyone is around for a pass. If everyone is online, I recommended using the [@mention] feature to notify everyone who is playing. Long posts are not a must for this NRP!
UPDATE: In light of the need to keep some flow, passes can be played in order of who makes their post. However, you may only create a scene/event once per pass and the focus still must post last before the legacy makes their post and the turn cycle continues.
3- Periods, Events and Tones.
The three units that are typically added each turn as Periods, Events and Scenes. You can add as many periods, events or scenes as you want- this is a very open ended game after all, but there is the constraint that you can only add a period when you are the lens and at the start of the game. Given that this is in a forum, textual format you can afford to be a bit more detailed with period/event/scene descriptions, but not by too much. I'd say keep it to a few sentences at most. Elaboration comes with legacies and scenes.
If a Period is selected as the focus, everyone that turn makes events.
If a Event is selected as the focus, everyone that turn makes a scene.
Periods are large chunks of time that consist of multiple events. The Vietnam War, for instance, would be considered a "Period" in the historiography of Microscope. Periods are added at the start of the game and (optionally) by the Lens at the start of their turn.
Events are single occurrences in history, like a war or battle that happened within a time period. The My Lai Massacre or the Tet Offensive would be considered events for instance.
All scenes, periods and events have a tone to them. They can come in light or dark only. You can make any period/scene/event either tone, but you must justify the tone like this at the bottom of your post:
DARK - The Tet Offensive would further demoralize the US in their war against the communists.
Within events are the units of type most important of Microscope, the scene.
4- Scenes
Microscope essentially acts like a large series of miniature RPs in many places and times within the same world. These miniature RPs seek to answer a question more or less about an event. "What drove US soldiers in My Lai to massacre villagers in Vietnam?" for instance, would be how you start a scene.
You can dictate a (and answer your own question about an event), make a question that the next player answers or more interestingly, allow the scene to be collaboratively answered. Within Events are the most interest part of this RP- the Scene.
The first type of scene as mentioned already is dictated either by the person who asked the question or by the next player in the cycle (who once he/she answers the question can ask their own question. (TO ANYONE WHO GOES WITH THIS APPROACH: ANSWER THE QUESTION, EVEN YOUR OWN WITH RESPECT- MAKE CHARACTERS AND TREAT IT LIKE A SCENE, DON'T GIVE A ONE-LINER ANSWER.)
The second type is the collaborative scene, which involves all players.
The player who initiates this scene sets up the location of the scene and has power over which characters are involved. From Ben Robbins:
You can require or ban categories of people (like police, nobles, or children), instead of specific individuals. You cannot ban groups by what they are not (such as banning anyone who is not a soldier), since that would create a requirement for all characters.
After the desired/undesired characters are banned/required, the other players pick a character in the same order they normally play within the limitations and requirements of the scene. You can make up a character on the spot as you only need a few words to describe a character.
Once the characters are set up, each player than reveals the thoughts of the character/group of characters they have chosen for the upcoming scene. Optionally you may take on the role of a bystander or a force of time within the scene. You can introduce secondary characters for a scene as needed.
With everything set up, the scene is that RP'd with the characters you play as until the question is answered. There is no GM for these scenes (beyond common RP ethic, of course). Format-wise these scenes would work best being written out in Pirate Pad and transported to a single IC post once complete.
Once everyone picks their roles, the scene is than played out in a large single collaborative post using Pirate Pad.
The scene must end once the question is answered- but do not fret, you can pick up where the last scene left off in your turn by asking a new question relating to the focus event. If the question proves unanswerable, the scene can be automatically ended with a declaration of failure.
After the scene is complete, the tone is judged by everyone in a brief debate on the matter in the Piratepad's chatbox.
5- Legacies
Legacies are made at the end of a pass and essentially act as a summary of what the events of a period or scenes within a event have caused. The legacy is made by the player who was lens last turn.
Legacies are common threads that may stretch through time and influence history. A Legacy can take many forms–an object, a person, a place, a blood line, an organization, or even a philosophical ideal. The ideals of the founding fathers, a code of laws, a noble order of knights, an ancestral curse, or a sword fallen from the heavens–these are all Legacies. You make Legacies to identify things you think are interesting and want to keep in the spotlight. Legacies are explored during a special phase of play between one Focus and the next. Because you aren’t restricted by a Focus during the Legacy phase, it is a broad opportunity to explore something that interests you. Just like anything in the history, a Legacy can also be brought into play or explored during normal play.
-Ben Robbins
6- Pushes/Proposals
If a creative dispute occurs, a player may initiate a push out of turn in the OOC using the [@Mention] Feature and propose a alternative event/scene if the current event/scene conflicts too much with your own ideas. You must propose your own alternative however, and other players may propose their own alternatives as well. The scene/event/period that gets the most approval is the alternative that is picked.
7- Chronology & Epochs
This is a forum unique concept that has arisen out of a need to address the order of events in the grand history we shall be making.
To handle this, just assign your scenes/periods/events numbers with a time stamp. Year 0 is the starting period, no defined year is given for the ending period. The rules for how chronology works for events in a period is inherited by the period, same with scenes.
In the character section of this RP, a chronologically accurate archive of posts will link the posts in order of time.
8 - Anatomy of a post
[Parent Event/Period]
[Scene/Period/Event Description]
[Timestamp][Tone]
The Bronze Age Collapse
The Sacking of Knossos
1000 BC DARK- Knossos was one of the most prosperous cities of the Minoan Empire.
Style of Play: Getting in the Microscope
Mindset
The history will not turn out the way you expected. Abandon your preconceptions. What other players add will surprise you, but what you add will probably surprise them too. That’s good. The history you arrive at will be far more interesting than if you planned it out by committee and consensus.
No player owns anything in the history. Another player can take a beautiful metropolis you lovingly introduced and destroy it with nuclear hellfire, but they can’t change what’s already happened. Even if something is destroyed, it is never removed from play because you can always jump back in time and explore when it was still around. The past is never closed.
When it’s your turn to add to the history, don’t negotiate or discuss what you are making. Don’t take a poll. It’s your decision. You have absolute power. Likewise, do not ask a player to change something just because you don’t like it. Outside Scenes, you have no power to veto or reject what other players create (unless their addition breaks the rules). Inside Scenes, you can Push you own ideas, but you can’t change theirs.
Speak first, then write. The cards will help you remember your history, but what the other players hear and remember is more important than what you write down.
When someone else is making something and you don’t have a clear picture or you don’t understand how it into the history, ask questions. Ask for clarification. Everyone must have a clear picture of what is being added to the history so that they can build on it later.
-Ben Robbins
Joining
Your order of interest shown from the interest check transfers to the OOC in terms of turn order. However, the order of players accepted depends on the OOC. Please make sure you understand the turn pattern, what a Push is, what a Period, Event and Scene are, what Lens and Focus means along with reading the mindset and promise to be active enough that a pass can be finished within a few days of play (ideally less).
In order to join, all you need is to answer the following.
Preferred activity times?
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Palette: What must exist?
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Palette: What cannot exist?
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Now make a period of time.
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Epoch years of your time period?
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Guidelines
There's a several rules Microscope follows I should warn of off the bat-
1. Do not give suggestions to other players on what to add or collaborate out of turn. Build on what other players establish.
2. Do not contradict established events.
3. Do not use anything that is expressed as something that cannot exist.
4. Common RP Ethics apply when roleplaying out scenes.
5. Do not attempt a dispute/push on any events, scenes or periods that have already been made earlier.
--------Outside Resources-----------
Piratepad for scene making:
piratepad.net/OmRguCmYzA
Discord for rapid discussion (has voice chat and doesn't delete old posts like Chatzy):
discord.gg/EvuWSBE
