Microscope
Apr. 14th, 2012 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terranaRowyn is a dangerous person. Last week, she put out a general call asking if there were any interested parties for a world-building game called Microscope. I was in the wrong timezone for that to really be practical, but I was interested enough to try it with some more local friends. Today, I managed to get a session of it going.
It. Was. Awesome.
We started with the idea of using it to generate a setting for another RPG, but it rapidly evolved into its own thing. Our starting premise was "the return of magic propels humanity to the stars," but it really didn't take us long to get way, way off message. What should have been the creation of an interstellar empire for Jaxeth to run a Traveller game in quickly turned into an examination of race politics and slavery on our very own planet Earth. Faster-than-light travel didn't even appear until half way through the timeline and... well, let's just say that the left hand side was much richer in events and scenes than the right.
It began with a meteorite. By some poorly-understood process (I suppose we could have explored it more, but we didn't), its impact spread some mystical energy all over the world, awakening magical power in a lucky few. This led, in turn, to the use of said magic, combined with the latest in bioengineering, to grant wolves the vital spark of intelligence thus far only known only to humankind.
They started life as a curiosity, moved on to becoming domestic servants, and eventually moved into the space programme as their adaptability became more prominent. The idea of a "manned" mission to Mars becomes a lot more palatable when you can roll disposable astronauts off the production line, especially if they want to do it.
Eventually, something changed. We didn't examine the events leading up to it, but at some point, a group of these wolves (referred to generally as the Canis, shorthand for Canis Sapiens) became organised enough, independent enough and sufficiently aware of their situation to rise up and drive the government of Kenya into exile, beginning a process of what can only be called "ethnic cleansing", declaring the country a human-free zone. True reconciliation between the two races would not occur for centuries.
Probably not much use as a campaign setting as we originally planned it, but it was interesting to see how it took on a life of its own and went in directions none of the players expected as a natural consequence of play.
If anyone's interested, there's a screenshot of the final timeline here (1364x654, 48.0KB).
Yes, we really did call it "unobtanium".
It. Was. Awesome.
We started with the idea of using it to generate a setting for another RPG, but it rapidly evolved into its own thing. Our starting premise was "the return of magic propels humanity to the stars," but it really didn't take us long to get way, way off message. What should have been the creation of an interstellar empire for Jaxeth to run a Traveller game in quickly turned into an examination of race politics and slavery on our very own planet Earth. Faster-than-light travel didn't even appear until half way through the timeline and... well, let's just say that the left hand side was much richer in events and scenes than the right.
It began with a meteorite. By some poorly-understood process (I suppose we could have explored it more, but we didn't), its impact spread some mystical energy all over the world, awakening magical power in a lucky few. This led, in turn, to the use of said magic, combined with the latest in bioengineering, to grant wolves the vital spark of intelligence thus far only known only to humankind.
They started life as a curiosity, moved on to becoming domestic servants, and eventually moved into the space programme as their adaptability became more prominent. The idea of a "manned" mission to Mars becomes a lot more palatable when you can roll disposable astronauts off the production line, especially if they want to do it.
Eventually, something changed. We didn't examine the events leading up to it, but at some point, a group of these wolves (referred to generally as the Canis, shorthand for Canis Sapiens) became organised enough, independent enough and sufficiently aware of their situation to rise up and drive the government of Kenya into exile, beginning a process of what can only be called "ethnic cleansing", declaring the country a human-free zone. True reconciliation between the two races would not occur for centuries.
Probably not much use as a campaign setting as we originally planned it, but it was interesting to see how it took on a life of its own and went in directions none of the players expected as a natural consequence of play.
If anyone's interested, there's a screenshot of the final timeline here (1364x654, 48.0KB).
Yes, we really did call it "unobtanium".
