Microscope – The Rise and Fall of the Monster King

In Microscope, Ben Robbins’ dice-less world building game from Lame Mage Productions, players take the reins of history in order to tell universe- and time-spanning stories, from the grandiose to the intensely minute and personal.

Come along on a journey to a mysterious realm of steampunk robots, underground fighting rings, and the life of a true champion.

12 Comments

  1. May the Banana Moon light your path.

    1. Author

      I am so glad that “No Grand Prophecies” came to fruition

  2. Jesus, this was good. I mean, you’re all some filthy anime watchers, but damn that was good.

    For further reading, if you ever fancy doing a game in this ‘verse, look into the PBTA systems ‘World Wide Wrestling’ for the Mec-Fighting era, or ‘Souls Of Steel’ if you want to touch on the actual wars and stuff.

    But yeah. Microscope. The game that makes you want to play more games.

    1. Author

      I will remind you it was Zach who added the steampunk robot thing

      1. Nobody’s hands were truly clean. The first step is admitting it.

  3. My second suspicion about Tabitha was that she would be the mechanic. My FIRST suspicion was that Jeremy would get assassinated by some hateful opponent who was a sore loser, and Tabitha would pick up her brother’s mantle and continue as the seemingly undying Monster King. “The Monster King will not Fall today!”

    Also, when Zach asked if bringing war back was like bringing sexy back, I HAD to laugh, as I had just hummed that myself.

    1. Author

      Ha, that would have been an interesting development.

  4. An interesting premise for a game. I look forward to when you guys actually run a game based on whatever comes of it

    1. Author

      Thanks for listening!

  5. I really enjoyed listening to this!

    About it being more of a “writing exercise,” I just wanted to point out that you glossed over a couple of rules that would have made it seem less like that. One big one is that when it’s someone’s turn to create, the other players are not supposed to offer input, and the creator is not supposed to ask for their approval. This means that each person’s contributions are both more distinct and more surprising. The other is that when setting up an all-play scene, the creator can only require or ban up to two characters. That opens up the scenes for more input from other players.

    1. Author

      Oh whoops. We were kind of going through the book as we were playing so we missed some details.

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