community, equality, GM-Less, Narrative, storygame, Story Rich, Tabletop, Tabletop role-playing game

So while these roles are fairly mechanical as it pertains to Actions Players take in the game, I also find that thinking of your Mover & Shaker NPCs in your D&D game - political games especially - in this way can help shape NPC function to the central tensions of your game. You essentially have the Oracle, the Voice of the People and the Establishment. And these are almost always in disagreement/conflict which is a great way to grease your central tension on an interpersonal level (and thus make it easier for your PCs to connect with what's happening). You have vast power to create... and to destroy. Build beautiful, tranquil jewels of civilization and then consume them with nuclear fire. Zoom out to watch the majestic tide of history wash across empires, then zoom in and explore the lives of the people who endured it.My first rule of role-playing games is to care more about the people at the table than the story. The players matter more than the fiction. The danger is getting caught up in the wonderful story and forgetting that. It also adds LEGACY mode, which turns your Kingdom into a whole interconnected campaign. Explore the past and future of your community to see how it changes across time. How long? We've played over 70 sessions of a single Kingdom setting, with no signs of stopping… If you play just one role playing game this century, make Microscope that game. Microscope is a game that takes many standard assumptions of a role-playing game and stands them on their head."

Say yes” is a fundamental principle of just about every shared creative process. “Yes and”, “yes but”— either way, say yes. And it is absolutely good advice for role-playing games. Accept what other people contribute. Embrace what’s been said as established truth and build on it. Don’t contradict it. But there’s a big caveat […] In the past few years I’ve had a lot more regular weekly games than one-shots. Mostly games with no GM, so no one is writing a story for us to follow. We are all just playing in the moment and seeing what happens. I love it. Except for one thing, which I’m doing to myself. […]It's been a long time that a game captures my attention like Microscope. Bypass the hype, it's a truly remarkable well-instruction'd game" This new edition is a complete rewrite of the original Kingdom rules to make the game easier to learn and play.It also adds LEGACY mode, which turns your Kingdom into a whole interconnected campaign. Explore the past and future of your community to see how it changes across time. How long? We've played over 70 sessions of a single Kingdom setting, with no signs of stopping. The Kingdom is in your hands. The question is: will you change the Kingdom or will the Kingdom change you? It does a number of things that are a little more familiar than Microscope: you have a (mostly) persistent character, this character has a role they play and certain information about them written onto a sheet, in a way they are kind of the main protagonists of the story.

Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth What will our Kingdom do? What will it become? The Kingdom's fate is in your hands. The question is: will you change the Kingdom or will the Kingdom change you? I THINK this is cool...but I don't feel like I came away with a good handle on it. This might be because of my current difficulty with focus? Whatever the case, unlike Microscope (also by Robbins), I didn't find myself immediately trying to recruit my wife into playing a game of it with me. Instead, I found myself hoping that at some point I'll be able to get into a game with at least one very experienced player. Sure, it's got a lot of explanations and examples, but I came away feeling too unsure of myself. Your Kingdom can be any group or organization that interests you. You could play a Wild West frontier town, a colony ship crawling to a distant star, or a sprawling Empire holding conquered peoples beneath its thumb.

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This is an excerpt from Kingdom, but it’s a good recipe for making scenes in just about any story game.) The secret to making a good scene isn’t coming up with an amazing or surprising idea. The secret is painting a clear picture so players know exactly what is going on. Being able to visualize […] The entire last half of the Kingdom book is full of really clever suggested seeds, how to customize them, the locations involved, the people who influence events, threats to status quo and the crossroad events they will face. There are sci-fi seeds, historical Earth, real world seeds and fantasy seeds. There's even a nod to D&D where you're in a popular 1980s Pencil & Paper RPG company facing some interesting threats and crossroads. Microscope is a model of minimalist complexity: with easy-to-learn tools you gain the power to create a believable history that will surprise you even as you're authoring it. Microscope excels as either a stand-alone game or a collaborative way to build a setting with your gaming group for another game entirely." This new edition is a complete rewrite of the original Kingdom rules to make the game easier to learn and play. In story games, a character can defy everyone else and succeed entirely on their own. A player cannot. Big, important distinction.

In Kingdom the group plays out the life of a community. The community can range from a family to an empire spanning a galaxy. The format and mechanics of the game allow a wide-range of possibilities and its very adaptable to different circumstances. Players play out not truly individual characters, but manifestations of forces within society and how they shape and determine things. So, while they may be a particular character, the King, for example, the King exists to represent the one who decides what direction the community goes. I’m the god of fire. I have fire powers”“Fire powers? What are you, a superhero?” We’re in the middle of a game and you need to make up a god. Because you know, we’re gamers, we have to create whole worlds, gods, civilizations on the fly. What do you do? The number one approach […]A lot of the game is down to just playing out your character and how they react to the other players, or even deciding to take a certain power away from another character (which is something you can do). Every role has their own sort of power, a very fine control over what direction the kingdom they're part of is going to ultimately take. Characters may change over time as they change roles or affect the kingdom, but the kingdom itself will change as well: characters will have to make decisions and deal with the consequences of them, popular opinion and the various stresses of rulership no matter what form it may take. What I like about this that Microscope did really well is that the randomness isn't down to dice, it's down to how people find ways to complicate things. There's a great deal of control every player has over their character and the world around them in Kingdom, but at the same time all of the factors that are out of the player's control make it seem, just from the way it's written, like the sort of game that could be very tense and very fun. If you play just one role playing game this century, make Microscope that game. Microscope is a game that takes many standard assumptions of a role-playing game and stands them on their head. Players share the creation of an over-arching storyline, like the rise and fall of an empire, the mythic beginnings of human culture, or a bloodthirsty war between interstellar species. It's a unique storytelling engine that sweeps away blinders of limits we enforce on the medium, which, I hope, will help us better realize the full potential of this form. There is so much more we could be doing. Microscope is a great start."