Bay 12 Games Forum

Microscope works differently than some other
role-playing games you might have played, so
let?s abandon some preconceptions:
You won?t have your own character.
You won?t play the game in chronological
order. You may know all about the future, but
be surprised by the past.
You?ll build the story from the outside in. You?ll
decide the big picture, the grand scheme of
history, and then burrow down and carve out
the details.
It?s fractal gaming.
So think big: you have a massive chunk of
history to play around in.
7
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.
In Microscope, you build an epic history as you play. Want to play a game
that spans the entire Dune series, the Silmarillion, or the rise and fall of
Rome in an afternoon? That?s Microscope.
But you don?t play the history from start to finish, marching along in
chronological order. Instead, you build your history from the outside in. You
start off knowing the big picture, the grand scheme of what happens, then
you dive in and explore what happened in between, the how and why that
shaped events.
You are free to jump backwards or forwards, zooming in or out to look at
whatever you want, defying limits of time and space. 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 creative authority. You can make whole empires rise and fall
at will. Dream up a utopia or destroy one with nuclear fire. You have that
power, but remember you?re not alone: everyone else at the table can do
it too.
You create independently, but not in isolation. Each facet you add to
history builds on what other players built before you. You expand on their
ideas, and they expand on yours. History might not turn out the way you
expected. Be prepared to think on your feet.
When you zoom all the way in to a particular moment in time, all the players
share the stage and role-play together to find out something we want to
learn about the history. Did the crew of the Icarus know the aliens were on
Titan? Did the rebels really fake the government crackdown? Do the knights
remember the original meaning of their ritual vows? We role-play and see.
The more you play, the more your once simple summary becomes a detailed
tapestry, full of meaning and surprises. History snowballs.

rules about the scenes. We play scene when there is a Question to be answered (such as "why did dwarves chose to go live in the forest" for an exemple)
[spoiler=rulebook]If another player makes something happen in the world outside their
character, but you have a different idea of where the Scene should go
or how the world should be, you can Push to change it: you suggest an
alternative, and all the players vote to decide which one happens.

The Scene ends when the players know the answer to the Question. It
doesn?t matter if the characters know the answer or not. If you think the
Question has been answered, just say ?Hey, I think that answered the
Question.? If the other players agree, you?re done with the Scene.
A player may answer the Question by having a character perceive
something, do something, say something, or even just think something?it
all depends what the Question was. Do you have an answer to the Question,
but can?t think of how to make your character blurt it out? Just say what
your character is thinking instead. An internal monologue that reveals the
answer to the players is good enough.

Each player has a main character they chose during Scene setup, but
any player can also introduce and play secondary characters, as needed.
Secondary characters might be people from previous Scenes or Events, or
they might be characters made up on the spot. They can be used to bring
background action to life or explore role-playing opportunities you didn?t
foresee during Scene setup. A secondary character isn?t necessarily less
important in the world; they?re just someone who wasn?t picked at the
beginning of the Scene.

Each player states one thing their character is thinking about the upcoming
Scene. Start to the right of the player making the Scene and continue to the
right (all players take turns, the same order as picking characters).
Your thought could reveal what your character is going to do or highlight
what your character expects to happen. Revealed thoughts are a powerful
tool for influencing the Scene. They let you give the other players hints
about where you want the Scene to go.
Don?t reveal thoughts that answer the Question before the Scene even
starts?you can hint or stack the deck, but don?t give a definite answer.

Instead of playing a normal character, one player in a Scene can choose to
play Time, a special type of character. Time represents forces or groups of
people who are pushing the situation to some conclusion, for good or ill.
The barbarians at the gates, the cavalry come to the rescue, the angry mob,
the black plague, the tanking economy?these could all be Time.
Time can be a required character, but the current player must define Time
as something specific (angry senators, the barbarians, etc.) instead of just
requiring ?Time.? When Time reveals thoughts, it should always be about
how or why it wants to hurry things along.

If you do something to a secondary character (anyone not picked during
Scene setup), you get to declare the outcome, no matter who is playing
the secondary character. That?s true even if you are controlling a secondary
character and having them do something to another secondary character:
the actor decides the result.

If while playing a scene someone describes something about the world outside their character and you have a different idea you like better, you can Push to substitute your idea for theirs. you cannot push to change a player's starting character, except to change something they perceive or to decide what happens to them

1)proposal
2) additional proposals (everyone can make one if they want)
3) vote : you can vote for any proposal, giving it 0 to 10 points, you can vote for two or more proposals but you only have ten points to share between them. Or you can vote with the Fist of Solidarity
(aka the Rock or ?those ideas all rock?)
4) determine the winner (If there?s
a tie, the player who went first during Scene setup wins)
5) play the results

after a tremendous battle
the gods sealed the demons
away starting an era of life
and struggle for survival

As the different races slowly started to organise themselves. A far older and stronger entity awoke from its dormant state. Mortorgoth, a megabeast which killed everything in in path, dwarfs, elfs, men, no one was spared. Entire villages were laid in ruins, despite many brave tries, the beast seemed impossible to kill.

As the first of their kind awake from the slumber of creation and start burrowing homes, assemble as tribes and range the deep forest, in the newly founded capital city of dwarvenkind, DeeperDug the miners start digging for mineral ressources, the fortress start creating wealth

In the forests of Aramul, far from the fortress-like protection of DeeperDug, a tribe of dwarves builds a forest village out of native trees. Some may call these wood-dwellers "elves", but they are no different than the miners in DeeperDug

Due to various disputes and infighting between the newly realised Goblins small tribes begin to break away, some settling within the deep mountains. There they founded the settlement of TemptFell, It's name shall come to be feared by all.

When the dwarven tribes came, a small insignificant tribe took cover near a magma vent, where they started metalwork and machinery.

 it is an age where no one had advantage on anyone, even though all kept fighting for various reasons, battlefields blossomed on the continent as many died for nothing but what seemed to be fleeting advantages in an age long war.

After a human siege of fifteen years, the volcano above deeperdug erupted and rivers of lava descended upon the land, burning dwarves and humans all the like, many dwarves were trapped out as the lava entered the halls of deeperdug seemingly sealing it for all eternity and scorching the land around, creating a barren wasteland that extended miles and miles away from deeperdug.

Demons and undeads freely roam the earth, all living beings hide in remote places cut from each other and slowly dying out