Microscope: Narnia done right
Jan. 8th, 2019 01:46 pmI hosted a game of Microscope (collaborative history-building roleplaying-ish game) at Heffer's board games. I'm hoping to run some more traditional one-shots as well, but I thought this was a good introduction. I ended up with three others who all had great ideas but a spread of experience.
Everyone else was excited by acted scenes, which produced some of the most memorable ideas, but I still prefer microscope when you just don't do that and everything is events and periods.
It took some time to get going, I'd thought we were all on the same page with what the Narnia prompt, but when it came to choose the bookends (which in this case were inevitably the beginning and end of the world), we already got widely divergent ideas which told me we needed more discussion of tone and theme (i.e. what if anything goes into the palette) than I'd expected. Like, someone wanted "world created by gods", someone else suggested "accident in a multiverse laboratory", someone wanted religious allegory but different, someone else wanted no religious allegory, it was hard to reach consensus, even though once we started playing we quickly converged on a fairly consistent vision.
We did negotiate some of the restrictions well: a discussion of what we didn't want eventually ended up as "no post-18th century technology" and "no planned expeditions to other world" because we had an intuition for what was out of place (we didn't want the Narnia equivalent of "we go and change history by importing earth technology" even though I like that story in other settings) but it took some time to agree what counted and what didn't. And that discussion delayed actually getting into positive ideas.
I think we were just unlucky we ended up with a premise that took different people in different directions, I'd hoped that would be a lot simpler to agree the ground rules, because that means all the actual gameplay is put on hold. But I don't think we could have done better, I think if we'd tried to curtail it we'd just have ended up with the same debate later on. I might try to be more specific in future prompts, I deliberately left it somewhat open ended to pique people's interest, but if I'd chosen something more unambiguous, we'd probably have taken our cue from them.
It's hard to describe the history so it sounds interesting to people who aren't playing, a lot of the magic is in the little characterisations about people or characters felt about particular events, but I did write up a summary:
World formed on back of sleeping titan Mythios, and birth of first heraldic beasts.
Mara, from earth, sacrifices herself to create the orb of dreaming in the dreaming depths, in the hopes of keeeping Mythios asleep as long as possible and possibly preserving the people from Mythia after their physical existence ends.
War between the Rider Artolian and the Eagle Simnos. The unicorn temple is nearly destroyed.
Lenora, a girl from earth, is tutored by Karthas, the inheritor of the eagle archetype, and founds an empire, despite accusations of tyranny and opposition from artolians.
Irena, a woman on her deathbed, arrives in Mythia, and is imprisoned by Lenora, but with the aid of the "Plucky Companions" steals the Sceptre of Grandeur and escapes, fulfilling the three prophecies and destroying the myth of Lenora's uniqueness as a destined one.
Irena eventually inherits Lenora's mantle and unifies the empire with the rest of the world in an age of peace.
Artolian's old lieutenant, Lannios the unicorn, chafes under the new peace and launches an expedition to seek the orb in the dreaming depths. Opposed by the two-headed lion Alura who long considered those her own domain, Lamnios' treacherous companion Etios the great frog evades them both to claim it.
Irene stores her soul in a dream orb to allow her to fulfil her prophecied destiny in the closing days of the world.
Additional humans appear, but this causes Mythios to begin stirring, presaging his awakening and the end of the world.
Two destined humans together wake three heraldic beasts into new gods with a shared desire of preventing Mythios' wakening, but otherwise unfortunately divergent goals and intentions. Further gods follow, including Lannios the unicorn.
One of first gods is Etios, the new frog god of dreaming. Lannios cultists, in culmination of long but obscure plans, destroy Etios, returning the orb of dreaming to the physical world.
Lannios struggles with the first three gods, and the struggle awakens Mythios who washes the world away. Anyone's survival is unclear.
Everyone else was excited by acted scenes, which produced some of the most memorable ideas, but I still prefer microscope when you just don't do that and everything is events and periods.
It took some time to get going, I'd thought we were all on the same page with what the Narnia prompt, but when it came to choose the bookends (which in this case were inevitably the beginning and end of the world), we already got widely divergent ideas which told me we needed more discussion of tone and theme (i.e. what if anything goes into the palette) than I'd expected. Like, someone wanted "world created by gods", someone else suggested "accident in a multiverse laboratory", someone wanted religious allegory but different, someone else wanted no religious allegory, it was hard to reach consensus, even though once we started playing we quickly converged on a fairly consistent vision.
We did negotiate some of the restrictions well: a discussion of what we didn't want eventually ended up as "no post-18th century technology" and "no planned expeditions to other world" because we had an intuition for what was out of place (we didn't want the Narnia equivalent of "we go and change history by importing earth technology" even though I like that story in other settings) but it took some time to agree what counted and what didn't. And that discussion delayed actually getting into positive ideas.
I think we were just unlucky we ended up with a premise that took different people in different directions, I'd hoped that would be a lot simpler to agree the ground rules, because that means all the actual gameplay is put on hold. But I don't think we could have done better, I think if we'd tried to curtail it we'd just have ended up with the same debate later on. I might try to be more specific in future prompts, I deliberately left it somewhat open ended to pique people's interest, but if I'd chosen something more unambiguous, we'd probably have taken our cue from them.
It's hard to describe the history so it sounds interesting to people who aren't playing, a lot of the magic is in the little characterisations about people or characters felt about particular events, but I did write up a summary:
World formed on back of sleeping titan Mythios, and birth of first heraldic beasts.
Mara, from earth, sacrifices herself to create the orb of dreaming in the dreaming depths, in the hopes of keeeping Mythios asleep as long as possible and possibly preserving the people from Mythia after their physical existence ends.
War between the Rider Artolian and the Eagle Simnos. The unicorn temple is nearly destroyed.
Lenora, a girl from earth, is tutored by Karthas, the inheritor of the eagle archetype, and founds an empire, despite accusations of tyranny and opposition from artolians.
Irena, a woman on her deathbed, arrives in Mythia, and is imprisoned by Lenora, but with the aid of the "Plucky Companions" steals the Sceptre of Grandeur and escapes, fulfilling the three prophecies and destroying the myth of Lenora's uniqueness as a destined one.
Irena eventually inherits Lenora's mantle and unifies the empire with the rest of the world in an age of peace.
Artolian's old lieutenant, Lannios the unicorn, chafes under the new peace and launches an expedition to seek the orb in the dreaming depths. Opposed by the two-headed lion Alura who long considered those her own domain, Lamnios' treacherous companion Etios the great frog evades them both to claim it.
Irene stores her soul in a dream orb to allow her to fulfil her prophecied destiny in the closing days of the world.
Additional humans appear, but this causes Mythios to begin stirring, presaging his awakening and the end of the world.
Two destined humans together wake three heraldic beasts into new gods with a shared desire of preventing Mythios' wakening, but otherwise unfortunately divergent goals and intentions. Further gods follow, including Lannios the unicorn.
One of first gods is Etios, the new frog god of dreaming. Lannios cultists, in culmination of long but obscure plans, destroy Etios, returning the orb of dreaming to the physical world.
Lannios struggles with the first three gods, and the struggle awakens Mythios who washes the world away. Anyone's survival is unclear.