Writer’s Resource Review: Microscope

A Fractal Role-Playing Game of Epic Histories by Ben Robbins

There exist two kinds of games – the virtuosic kind and the social kind. The former serves as an expression of personal excellence, an outlet for competition, and an opportunity to watch performances by the best of the best – think chess, olympic swimming, or any other game that requires great mental or physical skill. The latter serves as a lubricant for social situations, a means to break the ice, and an opportunity compete regardless of skill level – think charades, pictionary, or any number of other party games. No game falls squarely either category – a skilled charades player can be a delight to watch, and roadside chess game regularly serve as centerpieces for informal social gatherings in places like New York and Nanjing. Many games we’re familiar with – poker comes to mind – could be played as a virtuosic game or a social game entirely based on who is playing.

source: lamemage.com/microscope

If were I to select one game to serve as my quintessential social game, my choice, without hesitation, would be the game Microscope, created by Ben Robbins and published by Lame Mage Productions in 2011. I discovered it when my friend Bobor, who introduced me to such other nerdy pursuits as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Starcraft, called me up one day to say he had found the perfect role-playing game. 

“There’s no game master though,” he said, “There’s no dice rolling. There’s no creating a character ahead of time. It’s all story-driven and the story is non-linear.”

The non-linear structure makes Microscope the perfect collaborative storytelling game. How many times have you played that pass-the-flashlight scary story game and how many times has it gone off the rails? Perhaps it would be better to ask, how many times hasn’t it gone off the rails? By eliminating the tedious “what happens next?” question, Microscope frees up the players to be a lot more creative.

I had to see how this game worked for myself so Bobor, myself, and our friend Eric set up our own game of Microscope. All we needed to play was a stack of notecards (or post-its), the three of us (two people is too few, five is too many), and the willingness to tell a story with an enormous scope.

The enormous scope is necessary because the game divides up time into periods, events, and scenes. We decided to tell the story of a family named Canéfex and began by identifying the opening and closing time periods of our story (which we called, “Canéfex family immigrates to a new land” and “Canéfex royals forced into exile”, respectively). From there, we filled in the space between with intervening time periods (e.g., “The Canéfex Family Rises to a position of power”) and nested each period with events (e.g., “Beatrice Canéfex communicates with the ghost of her late grandfather) and each event with scenes (e.g., “What transpired at the trial of the murderer of Alfred Canéfex?”). By the time the three of us decided that we were satisfied with our story, the table looked like the bizarre ramblings of some kind of conspiracy theorist, with period cards arranged in a row, event cards arranged in columns underneath, and scene cards tucked surreptitiously under the event cards. 

source: lamemage.com/microscope

While players work together to decide the theme of the story, the elements that can or cannot be included, and work together to act out each scene, during each round of play, players decide the contents of periods and events unilaterally. This is a huge strength of Microscope – there is no storytelling by committee, everyone just has to act and react as the story unfolds. And this is an added benefit of the non-linear style; if you don’t like the way the story is headed, just push all the cards an inch to the side and add a new intervening period or event.

One of the limitations, however, is that Microscope does not lend itself to telling small, personal, or intimate stories. A story may span up to a dozen periods, and it is a good rule of thumb that any named character in a period must die before the beginning of the next period. As a result, the lives of characters become subordinate to the epic march of history.

Microscope is a perfect game for writers. We’re normally a pretty reserved lot (yours truly notwithstanding) so we often need a social game to get us out of our shells. Moreover, Microscope provides a way for writers to interact while flexing their writerly skills. It’s a collaborative storytelling structure that encourages an fantastic level of imagination in all its players. If I have been vague about the mode of play, it’s because I want to encourage you to actually read Ben Robbin’s work which can be found at lamemage.com/microscope. Take a look, give it a try, and may it provide a social stimulus for you and your writerly group of friends.

Read more of Vernon's work on Floodmark.