I’m going to be starting a new Dungeon World campaign next week. For some reason, some of my players are wary of just starting with character generation and developing the setting during play, so they’ve requested that we play a session of Microscope to lay out the big picture of the world before starting the campaign. I know some other folks have done this before, and was looking for any advice or pitfalls to be wary of. So, tell me how your Microscope to DW experience went.
I’m going to be starting a new Dungeon World campaign next week. For some reason, some of my players are wary of…
I’m going to be starting a new Dungeon World campaign next week. For some reason, some of my players are wary of…
It’s fine to develop the big picture with Microscope. Think of it this way – let’s say you decide to play a game set in Krynn (Dragonlance, just in case!). Obviously, Krynn’s story is well established, including several locales. However, there are plenty of places theoretically in Krynn that have not been fleshed out, their stories untold.
Coming back to Microscope, you lay out the “history” of the world. You may name places, even provide some details. Even so, little is known on the ground level, particularly if you stay away from roleplaying Scenes and stick to Periods and Events. Let DW do the rest.
by odd coincidence, I ran a Microscope session on Saturday via Google+, and yesterday I tidied all the notes up (including round by round play report/summary, with a timeline shown at the end of each round and the final timeline with links to the individual rounds, and a bit of postmortem discussion).
http://www.kjd-imc.org/blog/seekers-of-lore-microscope-age-of-gods/
Systemless, so it’s not DungeonWorld specific, but it may be helpful.
I love microscope. I am currently
Running a sequel campaign with Numemera to a Mutants and Masteminds campaign that we concluded with a Microscope. The future events were laid out from campaign #1 and now I use it as backdrop/tie ins for campaign #2.
Stay away from fleshing out scenes too deeply. Let DW handle the “scope” while Microscope handles the setting.
we mostly stuck to periods and events, with a small number of scenes (and a few of the events probably could have been better cast as scenes)… and the scenes were dictated rather than played out.
Could someone share what “Microscope” is? I’m still reading the DW rulebook and I haven’t come across that term yet.
I played a session of microscope exactly in order to lay down the DW setting. Everything went fine. The only thing to keep in mind is that the playbooks of DW are very specific to a particular ideal d&d-ish fantasy, while with microscope you can obtain something different.
I just need to add that I started another campaign of DW without microscope and the worldbuilding has been really easier and more natural than with microscope. Nonetheless I liked the microscope experience
David Benson It’s not related to DW. It’s a game through which you build the fictional history of a world, galaxy, civilization or whatever. A lot of fun and a good way to build a game setting as a group. Google “Microscope RPG” and you’ll find info on it.
David Benson http://www.kjd-imc.org/blog/lexicon-and-microscope-microscope-overview/ describes Microscope as we did it.
(derp, forgot the Legacy. updating)
Thanks for the info. Looks promising!
It was. Between us we came up with something I would not have imagined.
I’d like to get some more practice with it and see what could happen with ten or twelve turns. This was four, and we had a few people who had to drop out as we went. I expect the depth we could get with six people and ten or twelve turns could be incredible.
Then again, that’s basically what we’re doing with Lexicon, so that may still come about.