Microscope (2nd Edition)

A new edition of the award-winning game of epic fractal histories

Humanity spreads to the stars. An invention changes society. The dragon-kings rise and fall.

These are all examples of Microscope games. Want to explore an epic history of your own creation, hundreds or thousands of years long, all in an afternoon? That's Microscope.

But you won't make the history in chronological order. You'll explore from the outside in, jumping back and forth in history, zooming in and out to explore the parts of the story that interest you. Watch a city be destroyed and then jump back a thousand years to see how it was founded.

A tabletop role-playing game of big creativity. We all contribute equally. We all build on each other's ideas. For two to four players. No game master. No prep.

Create. Explore. Destroy. And then create some more…

What Do People Think About Microscope?

This is a brand new edition, but what do people think about the original Microscope?

Winner of the Hack the Planet Award, Golden Fez Awards
Winner of the Most Innovative New Product, Gaming Genius Awards
And Finalist for RPG Game of the Year, Golden Geek Awards

"Microscope is incredible! A truly brilliant design."
   –John Harper, designer of Blades In The Dark

"Ben Robbins' Microscope may be the clearest-written game text I've ever read - which is helpful, because it is also one of the most innovative games I've come across in a long time."
   –Jason Morningstar, designer of Fiasco

"If you play just one role playing game this century, make Microscope that game.  …  It's a unique storytelling engine that sweeps away blinders of limits we enforce on the medium…"
   –Emily Care Boss, designer of Shooting the Moon & Breaking the Ice

"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."
   –Katherine Cross, scholar and gaming critic

"I have a short list of RPGs I wish I'd designed, and Microscope is at number two. Dungeons & Dragons is number one, but the difference is that I think I'd have done a better job on D&D. I couldn't improve Microscope. It's a masterpiece."
   –James Wallis, designer of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen

And the Dungeon Master's Guide (2014) recommends Microscope as inspirational reading, the only game to make that list.

Why Make a New Edition?

I waited a long time to revise Microscope because I only wanted to do it if I was absolutely sure I could deliver a distinct upgrade for people playing the game. And now after years of tinkering and testing, I am confident I can do exactly that.

My goal is simple: keep the magic of the original but make it even easier for players to get there. Fix the small bits that get in the way, but also rewrite the entire text from the ground up to make the on-ramp even smoother.

I want to be able to hand the book to someone who has never heard of Microscope and say, “Just follow these instructions,” and be confident they could sit down and play. Because I think there has never been a better time to sit down with other humans and make things together.

How Does Microscope Work?

       In our swords-and-sorcery history, a player makes a period where the priest-kings rule the sacred city from their great ziggurat, embracing dark rituals and oppressing the people.

       The next player jumps back centuries earlier, describing weary exiles arriving in this wilderness and founding the city. They erect a humble shrine to thank the gods for delivering them, a shrine that is the base of the future ziggurat.

       Another player jumps forward again and makes an event where that ziggurat is shattered by red-lightning falling from the heavens. The gods have had enough of these priest-kings…

At its heart, Microscope is deceptively simple. All you do is take turns adding periods, events, and scenes to explore and expand your history. Everything you create builds on what other players have made.

But unlike most games, you have the freedom to explore whatever part of the history interests you, whether that means going forward to see an outcome or going back to see what caused it. And when you already know what happens, you can focus on how and why it happened. You can explore the reasons behind the events, the real meaning.

You can play Microscope as a one-shot game or keep coming back and digging deeper and deeper. The history only ends when you decide to stop playing.

It looks like just a bunch of index cards on the table, but for the players, it's a unique, creative experience. Microscope has no dice to surprise us because it doesn't need them. We surprise each other, constantly.

Build Any World Together

Microscope is designed to be played all by itself, but for years people have also used it as a launching point for other games. Want to play a D&D campaign where the players really care about the world? Build that world together with Microscope. Start your first adventure with everyone at the table fully invested. Tons of groups have done exactly that because it makes your game better.

Teachers have used it in classrooms, and video game studios and writer's rooms have used it to brainstorm settings. It's a game but it's also a method for collaborative creation. It's a tool to create together and get the people on the same page.

       We're building a near-future history, and a player makes a period where bacteria brought back from Mars forms the basis of new medical breakthrus. It's a golden age of progress.

       The next player nods and pushes the cards apart, making a period just before that where the same bacteria caused a pandemic that swept the world. The Martian Plague almost killed us before we tamed and learned from it.

Yes to Humans, No to AI

Hello, I'm Ben Robbins. I made Microscope and other games like Kingdom, Follow, and In This World. I ran Story Games Seattle for 8 years to spread the love of games where total strangers can play and create together, and I've been talking about games and how they work for even longer. And yes, I'm the same Ben Robbins who made West Marches. Go figure.

My whole deal is making games that help us sit down with other people and be creative together. Games that help us see into each other's brains and appreciate each other more as human beings.

In an age of encroaching AI, I think creating together is a very precious thing. It is the anti-AI.

I don't use AI in any aspect of my work, and one of the reasons I'm putting out a new Microscope now is because I think there is no more important time for people to be sitting down and making things together.