[Microscope] PbP Game On!

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

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angelfromanotherpin
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[Microscope] PbP Game On!

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

edit: Link to the history thread.

Okay, trying this again.

Ever since I first picked up Microscope, I thought it would be ideal for a play-by-post game. It's a very nontraditional game, closer to Munchhausen than most any other game. It tells the story of a great sweep of history. There's no MC, and no player characters, just a shared world built collaboratively. There are a few guidelines, for that little bit of restriction that sparks creativity, but it's very free-form otherwise.

The process goes like this: first everyone decides on the kind of story they're going to tell, and lay down some ground rules. Then, people take turns adding elements to the story. The elements can be Periods (larger clumps of time), Events (specific happenings on the historical level within a Period), and scenes (specific happenings on the personal level within an Event). To use a familiar example, The War of the Ring would be a Period, the Siege of Minas Tirith would be an Event, and the Defeat of the Witch-King would be a Scene.

If there's any interest, I'll put up some more details.
Last edited by angelfromanotherpin on Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:37 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Nebuchadnezzar »

I'll check out Microscope more closely presently, but would be interested in a PbP. Off the top of my head, it could be interesting to map out events surrounding a singularity. Dying Earth, as a genre, is well suited for focus on brief periods in an otherwise vast scope.
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Post by Laertes »

This looks very interesting. I'll have to pick up a copy of the rules, but put me down as a signup as I am generally a sucker for story games. More details would be very interesting.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Game setup is done in four steps.

1. Big Picture – Everyone throws out one-sentence pitches for the history, then we decide on which pitch we're doing.
2. Beginning and End – The first and last Periods are named and put into play. Usually these are pretty obvious from the pitch.
3. The Palette – Players take turns adding things to the 'allowed' and 'banned' lists for the game. So, 'no returning from death,' or 'there are ninjas.' Things on the allowed list can be included even if they are out-of-genre or otherwise inappropriate, things on the banned list are banned. This is probably the most important part to discuss, everyone should be at least content with the list.
4. First Pass – Each player comes up with an initial Period or Event.

I think there are a couple of other things that are worth nailing down ahead of time, but those four are the official setup procedure.

After that, the game proceeds in rounds. Each round, one player is the Lens, who decides on the Focus (a theme for the round like 'the price of magic' or 'the Shining City'), gets to go first as well as last, and can make two elements on their turn as long as they are nested (a Period with an Event in it, or an Event with a Scene in it). Everyone else makes one element on their turn. Elements must relate to the focus, and must not contradict anything that's already been established.

Finally, one of the non-Focus players chooses something that appeared in the round to become a Legacy (something to be explored further later on); then they create an Event or Scene that relates to one of the Legacies.

Between rounds there's a discussion period so everyone can express how they think the game is going so far.

That's basically it, except for the details of Scene generation, which are probably the most involved since they can involve direct interaction between players and voting and such. I'll get to them later.
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Longes
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Post by Longes »

I have a copy. Interested to play!
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Okay, let's hear some pitches. One brief sentence, please. Examples include:
• An ancient line of dragon-kings dies out as magic fades from the realm.
• A new force changes society, wiping away the old values.
• Earth, Mars, Neptune, and the moons of Jupiter wage war for the solar system.
• The greatest superhero on earth is gone and lesser heroes struggle to fill the void.
Pitches are not mandatory, nor must they be accepted or rejected fully. If one person posits a Romance of the Three Kingdoms and another person posits the Stonepunk Revolution, we might end up with a Stonepunk Three Kingdoms scenario. These are just a starting point for the discussion.

Here's mine:
Early modern period nations attempt to colonize Hell.
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Post by Laertes »

The p-zombie apocalypse arrives.
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Post by Nebuchadnezzar »

Localized modification of the Planck length becomes possible.
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Post by Longes »

Devil starts offering immortality to people in the near-future society.
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Post by Laertes »

Widespread availability of demon-summoning magics in a technological society brings about the Infernipunk Revolution.

Also, Nebuchadnezzar: That broke my brain. Thank you. I shall be sure to send you my therapist bill.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Okay, let's get some discussion going about what's on the table, see if we can approach a consensus.

Apart from my own submission, I'm most attracted to Longes' idea. It's got that single-element spec-fic energy, and set my creative motor running.

Neb's idea certainly sounds cool, but I don't think I have the physics to participate in that story. Like, I have no idea what might or might not result from that premise.

Laertes' p-zombie thing confuses me, because I'm not sure what the hook is supposed to be. Isn't the point of p-zombies that they're basically indistinguishable from humans anyway?

The Infernipunk thing would be my third choice. It's a bit elaborate, but I'll bite because I already have one or two cool ideas for it.
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Post by Laertes »

My favourite is angelfromanotherpin's initial pitch about the colonisation of hell. It's better than either of mine and to quote Pratchett, I want to write that so badly I can taste it.

My second favourite, my own ones excepted, is probably Neb's because while it excludes non-physicists, it hurts my brain in a good way.
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Post by Longes »

My favorite submission is, of course, my own :) What new gladiatorial combat comes out of immortality? How is it used for space exploration? Does the Devil have an insidious agenda, or is he really a nice guy? Is there a hidden price which people can't immediately notice?

My problem with angelfromanotherpin's idea is that we need a more concretely defined hell. Are there souls of the sinners in it, with the Devil poking them with a pitchfork, or is this an alternate dimension with ugly aliens?

Neb's idea confuses me. How localized are we talking about? Which part of "Universe unravels into a different universe" do we tackle?

P-zombies. Meh.

Laertes. Do liek. It's basically Heinlein's "Magic, Inc.", which is one of my favorite books.


Now, potential mash-ups.
My idea doesn't gel very well with any, other than p-zombies. People lose something when they accept immortality, but what is it, and how does it affect them?

Angel's idea obviously connects with Infernipunk. One side is the exploration of Hell, the other is effects of such exploration on our world.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Longes wrote:My problem with angelfromanotherpin's idea is that we need a more concretely defined hell.
We really don't. Details like that are added in through play, and to a lesser extent through the Palette.
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Post by Nebuchadnezzar »

Yeah, consider that suggestion largely withdrawn, insofar as it was offered while intoxicated, and it's an unwieldy theme. Particles almost immediately become impossibly large and collapse when fiddling with h, and while there's something narratively interesting in a partial refutation of the creationist formulation of a fine-tuned universe vis-à-vis portals to hell operating similarly to how one enters Marvel's Microverse, messing with specifics is time which could be better spent. As far as it being a local effect, I was considering the ramifications of a dimensional portal's maximum size being, say, 1 meter across.

I'd be cool with starting in early modern period and detailing through near-future, since that would put some time between each discovery of methods for arguably becoming a p-zombie (using a portal, selling soul, becoming an infomorph), but I'm fine with anything.
Last edited by Nebuchadnezzar on Wed Jun 18, 2014 11:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Laertes »

We've got three ideas based around the collision of the infernal and the mundane. I think this is a pretty clear mandate to do something based around that.

Nebuchadnezzar's suggestion of running something which occurs over considerable time, from early modern to near future, would be pretty cool. Doing a sort of time-skip between generations, a la Accelerando, would be awesome.

Potentially we could even do a simultaneous past-present-future a la Day of the Tentacle.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Laertes wrote:Nebuchadnezzar's suggestion of running something which occurs over considerable time, from early modern to near future, would be pretty cool. Doing a sort of time-skip between generations, a la Accelerando, would be awesome.

Potentially we could even do a simultaneous past-present-future a la Day of the Tentacle.
Ah, this may not have been obvious: Microscope isn't linear. You can add things to any point in the timeline no matter where you or anyone else added something previously. So a lot of what you seem to be proposing is in fact the default.

As for 'considerable time,' my thought was to cover the Early Modern period, about 350 years. I don't have a problem with extending that by another 300 years to 2100 or so.
We've got three ideas based around the collision of the infernal and the mundane. I think this is a pretty clear mandate to do something based around that.
I think there's totally room for a mashup between hell-colony, infernipunk revolution, and devil-bargain-immortality. And if soul is a currency that you can spend, but running out it of has no measurable effect beyond lack of further hell-credit, that could at least include the p-zombies.
Last edited by angelfromanotherpin on Thu Jun 19, 2014 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Laertes »

Metal.

Edit: That's an exclamation of approval, a verbal "throwing up the horns" of sorts. I love nonlinearity and look forward to this.

I'm going to backseat for a little now, since I haven't read the rules and want to see how it should be done.
Last edited by Laertes on Thu Jun 19, 2014 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by JigokuBosatsu »

What the shit is "infernipunk" and how quickly can we all stop saying it?
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

JigokuBosatsu wrote:What the shit is "infernipunk" and how quickly can we all stop saying it?
It's a derivative of steampunk, or clockpunk. Basically, modern technological effects achieved earlier through alternate means. Only instead of wood, brass, and steam, it has pentagrams, skulls, and Boschean giants turning cranks.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

So, of the actual participants, any objections to the mashup concept?

If we go ahead with it, I'd propose for the starting era: 'The First Portals Open,' and for the ending era: 'The Last Portals Close.' So the period we'd be exploring is defined by the existence of direct connection between the two places.
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Post by Nebuchadnezzar »

I'm cool with that concept, and period bookends. As far as defining tone for periods, I'm more interested in the starting one being light, and the ending either light or dark.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

For those who don't have the rulebook, the game insists that each element (Era, Event, Scene), be categorized in tone as either Light (optimistic) or Dark (pessimistic). The reasons for this are... unclear, and the game itself says that the distinction is often entirely arbitrary. It seems to serve as a declaration of intent on the part of the player who creates the element. I find it hard to care, but I'll go through the motion.
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Post by Laertes »

Oh man, this sounds amazing.

I find it hard to categorise a period where portals are opening to hell and people are embracing the powers that lie beyond as anything but Dark, but that might just be the Call of Cthulhu residue in my veins. By contrast, the point where humans finally purge themselves of demons and infernal influences might be a Light era.

How are we characterising the infernal anyway? Is it an Ars Magica style "spiritual corruption in solid form", a D&D style "aliens from another dimension who are themed around immorality", a Wraith style "all the very worst parts of humanity given free rein" or what?
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Post by Longes »

Laertes wrote:Oh man, this sounds amazing.

I find it hard to categorise a period where portals are opening to hell and people are embracing the powers that lie beyond as anything but Dark, but that might just be the Call of Cthulhu residue in my veins. By contrast, the point where humans finally purge themselves of demons and infernal influences might be a Light era.

How are we characterising the infernal anyway? Is it an Ars Magica style "spiritual corruption in solid form", a D&D style "aliens from another dimension who are themed around immorality", a Wraith style "all the very worst parts of humanity given free rein" or what?
Alternatively, embracing hell leads to an insane social, spiritual and technological breakthrough, which leads to a new golden age makes the period Light. While destroying hell leaves humanity alone in the universe, without a source of new materials and technologies, and leads to countless deaths in process, and the period is Dark.
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