So in preparation for our Scum and Villainy game, my friends and I played a couple of sessions of Microscope to build out our world. The GM, Tom, suggested it but I had the game in my other RPG’s folder for some time and was excited to give this game a go. And oh, was my excitement worth it.
We had a rough idea of what we wanted to play. A more hard science fiction game set in our solar system only. The start of the history was the first colony ship launch. The end, was the United Earth Republic governments collapse and a technological dark age. This was the GM’s baby and we were all on board with it.
Next, the palette. Possibly one of the coolest features of Microscope. I wanted androids (my character is an android in the actual game) and an A.I. that had been able to break free of any kind of human control. My cousin, Brendan, said no to fantastical magic, which was awesome as well. We wanted a less science fantasy game and this was pretty key to achieving that.
First pass saw us mainly filling out some time periods we wanted to see. Again, just everyone’s different ideas was fantastic. How one person would bounce off another. We were hooked.
The main game had a such a great flow to it. There were calls of “omg! when is it my turn” as an idea threatened to be blurted out. There was so much excitement about what we were building and the way that ideas flow out of the focus for the round, building on each other’s creativity. It was a splendid gaming experience. So much so that I have organised another game to play with a different set of friends.
If I could play that specific game again, I think I would try and encourage more scenes. We only really played one scene together. The other four or so scenes were all dictated by the Lens (chairperson for the round) who gets a double up bonus for contributions while their topic is being explored. My scene was about the relationship between Earth and Mars and ultra mining profits that the Martian Extractive Industries had produced. It was really refreshing how my idea of what would happen was shifted and built on by the other players in that quick role play scene. We also added a few dressing items in a quick time that felt quite natural. Don’t shy away from playing out scenes.
I wonder if trying to flesh out periods and not pile them on could be a good thing as well. It seemed like some of the ideas we had could have been explored so much deeper than what we eventually were able to. We’ll see in the next game, who knows what our big picture will be.
I’m hoping for Cowboys and Aliens.
If your interested, here’s a link to Microscope.
RPG Downtime 