Microscope (Inactive)

Game Master Pirate Rob

Just waiting on Kiradia/Hawkwen to add a period or scene.

Heya all!

Here's my period idea:

(Dark) The V’rek Dominion collapses from an inability to control its borderlands combined with terrorist cells messing with barely understood magic. While some of the core cities of the Dominion are able to maintain law and order within their own county borders, the rest of the continent becomes lawless wild lands. Magic runs wild and uncontrolled from the ley lines, bandits and monsters roam freely, and wastelands cover much of the once prosperous continent.

Ohhh, that also sounds awesome, and way to build on PF's thingy too.

I think you've got 2 periods mashed into one there though.

You've got the V’rek Dominion collapses and Things run wild after their collapse.

Do you want your period to be the collapse or after the collapse, or am I misreading/understanding?

I envisioned the period to be a century or two that starts with the collapse. I guess that kind of would be two periods but considering the rules said that periods are supposed to span centuries I thought of the collapse as something happening over less than a decade or two and then we spend hundreds of years inside the aftermath of that living like savages before rebuilding. Or maybe things get worse! I didn't specify if the period ends on an upswing or downswing. We could go more grimdark certainly. >:)

Makes more sense to me now, I think I was just reading in a split that wasn't there.

Ahhh I see. I was doing the same thing Pirate Rob was doing :) Awesome!!!

Sorry guys, I have been traveling with the fam, for spring break

I can't seem to edit the doc right now, but I was thinking of maybe having a "light" period in between the two dark periods.

Something like: With magic all but forgotten, technology rises to dominance. The general populace thrives and expands in the techno-centric cities.

Sounds good, I presume you wanted it between the 2 newly created dark periods and not the opening dark.

Now that setup is done, we're ready to start play. We already know more about our history than we did when we came up with the single sentance idea, and as we play we'll find out more and more.

The basic structure of the game is that we keep going around the table adding to history, making either a Period, an Event or a Scene. For each rotation there's going to be a player called the Lens, and that player is going to pick a particular focus that everything we create has to relate to. So if the focus is a city each player is going to get to add something to the history that somehow relates to that city. It's a topic to keep us all on the same page.

If you make a period or event, just describe what happens as though we're seeing it from a birds-eye view. You're in charge, and the rest of us are eagerly listening to hear what you have to say. If you make a Scene, we all pick characters and role-play to find out what really happened in that moment of history.

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I'll go first to show how it works, so I'll be the first Lens and I'll pick the first Focus for our history.

The way play works is the Lens chooses a focus and then creates 2 history items, then going around the table each player gets to add an item to the history. Finally the lens gets to choose 1 more item and then we have a short legacy phase, which I'll explain when we get to. I "sat" us around the table in order of first post in the discussion thread.
Pirate Rob
Kirada
Pendin Fust
Hawken

Focus:

Ja'Mek, Cyborg War Commander of the V’rek Dominion. Ja'Mek is a tall but skinny red skinned humanoid who's brain and middle eye have been replaced by robotics.

I have added a Dark Event to the "The V’rek Dominion collapses" period.

(Dark) Ma’rakah, the V’rek dominion’s largest Western city and home to their most dangerous munitions factory is obliterated while Ja'Mek is visiting to oversee construction of a new doomsday weapon, when a terrorist cell loses control of a weather spell and repeated lightning bolts rain down on the city.

I still need to add my second item, it's going to be a scene inside this period so we can go through the scene rules as well. Once we complete the Scene (which will take a bit), Kirada will get to add an item to the history, remembering the focus.

Step 1: The Question
Why does Ja'Mek not flee Ma’rakah once things start going wrong, even though he knows he'll be killed?

Step 2: Set the Stage
Lightning and fires rage throughout Ma’rakah, clearly out of control. Ja'Mek and his Crimson Executioners have just stopped the terrorists and must decide what to do next. Ja'Mek doesn't yet know city is going to be destroyed even though we do, and he will by the end of the scene.

Step 3: Choose Characters
I get to choose up to two characters that must be played, and up to two characters that cannot be played. Categories rather than individual people are acceptable as well.
Ex. "I require the king and a secret heretic, and I ban the King's son and anyone from the neighboring kingdom."

I require a captured terrorist.
I forbid anyone higher ranked than Ja'Mek in the V’rek Dominion.

You can invent a completely new person on the spot, or pick someone who has already appeared in the game, even if it's a character someone else played previously. All you need is a few words to describe the character, including and relationships they have to other characters.

Ex. A down-and-out miner, the king's lover, the lieutenant to the commander of the invasion force; each of those is all the detail you need to create a character.

Your goal is to answer the Question, so pick a character that helps you do that. With some Questions certain characters may have a lot more power to decide the answer than others. Even if you can't pick a character who decides the answer, your choice may tell the other players where you want the Scene to go.

Picking characters is done in reverse order so:

Hawken
Pendin Fust
Kirada
Pirate Rob

Once that's done I'll explain the next step.

As always, if anything is unclear or you have any questions, feel free to ask, and remember not to give away too much of you plans in advance.

Ok, so I think understand what to do.

I pick a character: a thin, wiry, technologically enhanced man, who is a captured terrorist.

It that correct? I assume we wait until everyone has picked a character before trying to answer the question?

Yup, after picking character we have a reveal thoughts bits, where we get to help set the scene and then we go over to the gameplay thread and roleplay the scene until the question is answered, at which point the scene ends.

Ooooo Fun!!

I pick St'Rang Ashtong. Portly man with a strange left arm and half cybernetic right side of his head. He is a Climeomancer...combining inherent magical talent and technological weather understanding to control localized weather. He is part of the terrorist cell.

Those both sound awesome btw.

Quick note: I'll be out of town for a Convention from Thursday Night (3/27) - Sunday Night (3/30)

Hey guys, I'm still here. I'm thinking through some options and I'll put up an idea tomorrow.

Thanks for the note Kiradia, I'm looking forward to whatever you come up with.

Okies! Here's my character:

Ke'lac, second-in-command to Ja'mek. Lost her legs in a previous battle years ago, and got them replaced with hock-jointed cyberlegs.

Quick question, I know we agreed to a "no sexual reproduction" for our intelligent races, but does that mean they don't have distinct secondary characteristics? Is everyone androgynous or are there differences based on say emotion/temperament or just random variations in physical form to give rise to a bi-gender-ed language? Or are we all just going to be indistinct creatures in that regard? :)

Quick note #2: I will be leaving around lunch time to head to a small con that I'm the PFS organizer for. I will gone all evening and all day tomorrow, but will resume posting on Sun. If I have an opportunity to post from my mobile, I will.

I would envision that just because they don't reproduce (we haven't explored WHY they don't) they would still have an identity in a masculine or feminine type.

That sounds awesome Kiradia. I seemed to have picked up some con crud this weekend, so I may not get to this until tomorrow.

As a note, since I required a terrorist, if nobody has picked one yet I would have to.

I shall pick Ka'nek, an overweight, balding local guard. He's currently bleeding from his shoulder, but it doesn't appear to be lethal.

Next up is reveal thoughts:

Once again in reverse order so:

Hawken Agricola
Pendin Fust
Kirada
Pirate Rob

Each player states one thing their character is thinking about the opening Scene. 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.

"The navigator wonders why they're really being sent to Korvis IV. He can't believe they'd send a ship all the way out here just to take spectrographic readings."

Your thoughts can be about other players' characters, but you're only saying what your character thinks or believes. The other player gets to say what their character really did or is doing.

"The navigator thinks the Lieutenant sold them out to the Hegemony." Did the Lieutenant do it, or is the navigator barking up the wrong tree? The lieutenant's player gets to decide. We'll see in play, or maybe when the Lieutenant reveals his thoughts.

Jo'neth sits in his holding cell, reflecting on the series of events that put him in his current predicament.

St'rang looks over the note in his pocket once more. He hopes he can get the lightning back under control...

Those are both awesome, Kirada is next.

Ke'lac stands in a meeting room with her Commander, silently going over the report she is about to give, troop orders, expected outcome of the terrorist attack, damages, what to do with the prisoners...

Sweat drips from Ka'nek's forehead, mixing on the ground with the blood slowly oozing from his shoulder. He's worried about what Ja'mek's next move will be, knowing he is not afraid of collateral damage.

Playing Scenes:

Each player controls a character in the Scene and uses that character to try to answer the Question. There is no GM. During a scene you can:

• Role-play what your character does and thinks. If someone tries to do something to your character, you describe the outcome.
  
• Shape the world by describing what your character perceives and how they react to it.
  
• Introduce and play secondary characters, as needed.

During the Scene, everyone should be trying to answer the Question.

Keep looking at the Question as you play. The Scene ends when the players know the answer to the question. After the Scene is over you will look at what happened and decide whether it was Light or Dark.

Answering the Question
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 on 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.

You Can't Change the Future
Playing Microscope is different than many games because we often know what is going to happen in the future: we know the kingdom is going to lose the war, we know the colony is going to be overrun. The Question may even declare that certain things are going to happen. The action within a Scene cannot change the facts that have been established, but they can change our assumptions about how or why things happened. Seeing exactly how things happened is the interesting part of the story.

Shaping the World: What You See is What You Get
If you want to describe something about the world outside your character during the Scene, just describe your character perceiving it. You can make up anything you want this way, so long as it obeys the usual rules for making history (don't contradict what we already know, don't use anything banned by the Palette). You can make new things happen or reveal facts about the environment or world.

You want an alien fleet to appear, so you describe your character watching a sensor array and seeing the blips appear as they warp in. It's an alien fleet!

You want the President (a character no one is playing) to be an android, so right after another player shoots him you describe examining the body and seeing sparking circuits and wires in the wound. Boom! He's an android.[/b]

[i]You describe your character noticing strange runes on the floor of the tomb, then ask another player "Doc, do you think that writing explains what happened here? I can't make heads or tails of it. Can you read it?

Speaking Truth & Hearsay
Sometimes you'll just have your character say things about the world to establish that they're true. Generally this isn't any different than describing what you perceive: you're just describing something that your character knows because they perceived it in the past.

"The soldier says 'No one is coming to save you. The 7th Legion was slaughtered in the passes. We're on our own.' He looks out over the parapet, grimly ready for the final battle."

Sometimes the opposite is true: you're not trying to establish a fact, you're just havcing your character express an opinion. You may even ecpect your character to turn out to be totally wrong. A character can be extremely confident but still be incorrect, because they're basing their beliefs on rumors, hearsay, or bad info. It's critical to communicate to the other players whether you are establishing facts or just expressing your character's opinion.

If you can't explain how your character perceived what you're describing you can't establish it as true. It can only be opinion.

There's some more details on the following options if people need more, but I'm getting tired of all this typing

Think out loud liberally and feel free to create secondary characters as necessary, but try to avoid talking to yourself. Get somebody else to RP the secondary character.

If you want to do something to another character, describe what you're doing and the intended effect. The person who's character it is decides the result.

If you want to do something to a secondary character feel free. If you want secondary characters to do things to you ask the player controlling them, or if you're controlling them do it yourself.

I have opened the gameplay thread. If people could repost their character and starting thoughts there we can roleplay away! As always any questions feel free to ask.

Just sticking my nose back. Here's the TLDR version of the scene rules: If you do things to other characters they get to decide the result. Think out out and add secondary characters as necessary. Stop playing once the question is answered.

Sorry, sort of spaced this with the Gameday and it not being on my Campaign page.

*whistles while he works*

I'll be out today, possibly posting later tonight. Taking the fiance to a doctor appointment in Thousand Oaks, CA and then we are hiking to see a waterfall.

Quick summary: It was my scene so I get to decide it if it light or dark. I am going to go with light, since it shows Ja'Mek sacrificing himself for something he at least believes is the greater good.

(Light)Lightning and fires rage throughout Ma’rakah, clearly out of control. Ja'Mek and his Crimson Executioners have just stopped the terrorists and must decide what to do next. Ja'Mek doesn't yet know city is going to be destroyed even though we do, and he will by the end of the scene.

Why does Ja'Mek not flee Ma’rakah once things start going wrong, even though he knows he'll be killed?

Ja’Mek is the only one who can stop the storm, and he wants to save Gi'Selth.

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Kirada's turn to make history. Period, event or scene. Note that if you want to make a scene and don't want to RP it out you can instead just describe what happens.

Remember that our current focus is

Ja'Mek, Cyborg War Commander of the V’rek Dominion. Ja'Mek is a tall but skinny red skinned humanoid who's brain and middle eye have been replaced by robotics.

so your item must relate to him somehow.

Also yay, we finally finished our first scene. Lets see if we can get things going again.

Yeah, my apologies. The Gameday and work has had me stretched thin. Note: I'll be going to Chicago in the morning, returning home Sun. evening. Most likely with not have much time to post until Sunday evening.

Have a nice trip, we'll see you when we get back.

All, this week may be very scarce for me. I've just gotten a huge project dumped in my lap that needs to done by Friday.

I sent Kirada a PM on Tuesday letting her know she's up. I'm really hoping to get this back on track.

Hey all, sorry I became inactive so suddenly. Work has been sapping the extra time I usually have to deal with all my PBPs and unfortunately this one fell away. But I wanted to make sure I understood correctly Pirate Rob. I need to create a new history item inside the focus of Ja'Mek right?

Correct. You can create a new period, a new event or a new scene, anywhere in the history that you want.

However it must relate to Ja'Mek somehow.

Ok, I think I have a good idea. I'll be crafting a scene.

The Question
How and why did the magic terrorists pick Ma'rakah?

The Stage
A seedy bar called Electro-blue on the outskirts of Ma'rakah where travelers are not welcome. A local private dive with broken electro-lighting and shady characters of all descriptions frequent the bar. In a basement floor below the main bar, a game of Jemko is played among specially invited movers and shakers of the Ma'rakah underworld, discussing their plans.

The Characters
I require two desperate magic users.
I ban any law enforcement characters.

How's all that? :)

Is this taking place before the events of the last scene? If so, then I pick St'Rang Ashtong again ;)

Otherwise I pick Lebbett, a robotic Jemko dealer used by the leaders of various Ma'rakah underworldians to pass on orders and broker deals.

Looks good Kirada, couple of details: We've only got 1 event currently so it's obvious the scene goes in that event, but it should be clear if it goes before or after the existing event.

Also you've sort of got 2 questions: How and why did the magic terrorists pick Ma'rakah?

Although I think if the question is just why, the how will work itself out as we RP.

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Picking characters goes in reverse order, so

Pirate Rob
Hawken
Pendin
Kirada

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I have the slight urge to play St'Rang Ashtong, but only because Pendin wants to...

Instead I will play Mo'Habas, owner of Electro-blue, a former powerful warlock who's power has mostly faded and is desperate to hang on to what's left.

HAHAH! Go ahead and play him Rob!

Naw, I'm sticking with Mo'Habas, we'll see what Hawken does though.

Sorry again. I can say that my schedule will slacken after the first week of June.

I will pick Sh'ugnk, a mid-level underworld thug, smuggler, and hitman.

Alright, that leaves Kirada to pick.

Still wanting to know if this takes place before or after the last scene.

If before, then I pick St'rong Asthong again, if after then I pick Lebbett, a robotic Jemko dealer used by the leaders of various Ma'rakah underworldians to pass on orders and broker deals.

I imagine it has to happen before, but I could be wrong, Will need to hear from Kirada to be sure though.