Ben Robbins
Explorer
Wow, I haven't posted here in a whiiiiiile…
So recently we've been playing the new version of Microscope to re-imagine what D&D worlds would be like -- how the ordinary assumptions that feel baked in could be taken in much more interesting directions. It's a project we started with In This World, taking D&D ideas like classes and dungeons and seeing how they could be different, and then we used those starting points to dig deeper in Microscope and make an actual world.
It's been a ton of fun, and I know a lot of groups use Microscope to build settings for other games, so I thought folks here might be interested in trying out the new version of Microscope: Chronicle. It's a public playtest, which means you can download it right now and take it for spin.
The main difference from original Microscope is that you make the history of a single thing -- like a sword, a city, or a pantheon -- and you tell its story by introducing characters and seeing how it impacts their lives. I think that makes it even more suited for things like exploring particular aspects of other settings. Normally I do closed playtests, but I feel that, in the year 2025, people need a little more fun in their lives, so I have opened it up to everyone.
I'm happy to answer any questions. And yep, I'm the same Ben Robbins who made West Marches.
So recently we've been playing the new version of Microscope to re-imagine what D&D worlds would be like -- how the ordinary assumptions that feel baked in could be taken in much more interesting directions. It's a project we started with In This World, taking D&D ideas like classes and dungeons and seeing how they could be different, and then we used those starting points to dig deeper in Microscope and make an actual world.
It's been a ton of fun, and I know a lot of groups use Microscope to build settings for other games, so I thought folks here might be interested in trying out the new version of Microscope: Chronicle. It's a public playtest, which means you can download it right now and take it for spin.
The main difference from original Microscope is that you make the history of a single thing -- like a sword, a city, or a pantheon -- and you tell its story by introducing characters and seeing how it impacts their lives. I think that makes it even more suited for things like exploring particular aspects of other settings. Normally I do closed playtests, but I feel that, in the year 2025, people need a little more fun in their lives, so I have opened it up to everyone.
I'm happy to answer any questions. And yep, I'm the same Ben Robbins who made West Marches.
