"You don't put your grocery list on a prophecy gem."

The game was a hack of Microscope which I am going to insist on calling Bicroscope.

The players were myself, Drew, and JC, who made the suggestion.

The world was one of high fantasy, complete with dragons, elves, and dwarves, but it also happened to be a world which was almost consumed by a single massive city (picture a vaguely medieval Coruscant) with, among other strange twists, a complete absence of written language, and a guaranteed 100-year lifespan for all humanoids. That is to say, exactly 100 years, not a day more, no matter what damage your body might suffer.

Oh, and a point of divergence. Here's how Bicroscope works: when you are bookending history, start with a single event on the left side, at the beginning of the timeline, and TWO end points; in our case, we began with the Age of Prophecy, and ended with either the Construction of the Senate or the Rise of the Godking. Somewhere over the course of the ages, the timeline splits, and two very different end points are created. When you're tucking in new periods, you can put them in prior to that point of divergence, where there is only a single timeline, or after, in which case you put it one one of the two timelines.

Heady, high concept stuff! So what happened?

Prophecies are what happened. Prophecies recorded in songs and stories and, for the most important, on magic gems... without written language, recording gems are pretty valuable you see, which is why the elvish mafia would go on to steal a bunch during the great fire... but I get beyond myself. One prophecy detailed that there would be two brothers, Romulus and Remus, one of whom would lead the kingdom to destruction. How delightfully vague, and scary enough that it got hidden away.

Life went on and people lived in accordance with the prophecies, at least until the great fire threw things into chaos. The great fire was a period, not an event... in a single world-sized city, keeping that crap under control is no easy task. Afterwards, the government of the prophets broke down, and the city descended into myriad petty fiefdoms, until King Herc drove the dragons out and strongarmed all the other fiefdoms into his rule.

And then the king had two sons, Romulus and Remus. Or possibly the king had two sons, Remus and Romulus. It's a little unclear. You see, in this world, all humans are named in accordance with prophecy: they are taken on a pilgrimage to the naming gems, which spit out that person's name when they walk in the room, so when twin brothers walk into the room, there's a measure of confusion, and the timeline splits over which son gets which name.

So in one timeline, Romulus and Remus go stag hunting with their father. Romulus does not respect the stag, and is disinherited. In the other, Romulus shows compassion, and his brother is disinherited.

And in both timelines, Romulus stumbles across the prophecy naming himself, although he is in very different moods when that happens.

(Asture readers might note that, technically, the Romulus in one timeline is the Remus of the other timeline... it's the same son who gets the inheritance, but a different one who finds the gem. Because timelines.)

And in one timeline, there's a lot of political wrangling, upheaval from the non-humans, and eventually a senate is formed. Glorious.

And in the other, there's a lot of warfare, plagues visited upon the non-humans, and a fellow named 49,380 (because the name gems are so hard to come across, folks just get serial numbers now) slays a dragon, performs a ritual, and eats its heart, becoming an mad, immortal godking. Less politics, more pain.

This? This was an awesome game. Last week, I complained mighty hard about a Fiasco set which did weird things with time. This week, I am going to be overwhelmingly positive to a Microscope hack which does weird things with time. I think this is an important note, because there are a lot of similarities: it both cases some table talk was required to make sure the rules made sense, both are messing with some basic assumptions about the system. But Bicroscope worked, and I think part of that is because the underlying hack is very minor: somewhere we go from one universe to two, but within each universe, the rules are the SAME. No time travel, no jumping between timelines, no funny business, and if you don't like it, well, there's a fractally-infinite period of time before the point of divergence to play with, and we made good use of that too (half of our time was spent bopping between the Age of Prophecy and the Great Fire, both of which were amazing and entirely predated Romulus and Remus). It's a simple matter of having one line of events become two.

Ultimately, we also decided to create a point where events diverged as well; during the Reign of Herc period events bifurcate with the simultaneous Naming of Romulus and Remus and the Naming of Remus and Romulus (although we never established which let to which timeline in any official capacity). So that period starts with one track of events and ends with two, which worked just fine for us.

Of course, we could just as easily have not picked a specific point of divergence, leaving the split in the timeline a mystery. What would have been cool too.

(And indeed, it would have been cool even without the twin timelines. Ours was a promising palette, and among other things the suggestion that everyone lives 100 years exactly lead to a lot of interesting challenges... what do you do with warfare when the other side won't die? How threatening can a person be if they can't actually kill you? One of the best moments in the game was the realization of the godking's power: he can't kill you early, but he CAN make you live out the rest of your 100 years in an instant, which is the best kind of loopholery. There was a lot of fun in this crazy world.)

As an experimental hack, I don't think it's beyond the pale for me to suggest one further tweak. We had a tendency to make the periods happening in the two different timelines relate to one another... in one instance the elves expand politically, are driven back, and then dwarves appear in force to take over the city, driving out the humans, and a senate is formed. In the other dwarves appear in force early on, then the elves fight back, leaving both weakened, and a human is able to seize power. This was something that was natural for us, and the hack really invites that sort of parallelism, so it might be neat if one could add a period to both timelines at once, to show off two separate iterations of the same idea. I don't think everybody should be able to do so, but it might be something the focus could do if they wanted. Could be interesting!

Anyway, props all around for a fascinating game, and a heavy recommendation that you try it out.

So sexy!

How did you lay out the cards to show the split timeline? I was working on a "mirror universe" hack of Microscope for >REDACTED< and my plan was to create a second complete timeline above (and reflecting) the main timeline: draw an imaginary line along the top of your row of periods, then make a second game of Microscope mirrored above that. Each period would have a mirror period (potentially quite different), with mirror events, etc.

But that was for complete alternate timelines, not a split. I like this even more.

But Bicroscope worked, and I think part of that is because the underlying hack is very minor: somewhere we go from one universe to two, but within each universe, the rules are the SAME. No time travel, no jumping between timelines, no funny business, and if you don't like it, well, there's a fractally-infinite period of time before the point of divergence to play with

Dead on. The characters are not interacting with the weird universe. The weirdness is a level above them, only seen by the players. And Microscope is built to tackle timelines, right out of the box.

For the period that the split occurred, we had two parallel columns for the events after the split. Then we just had a top row and bottom row for the periods after the split. It was a little confusing at first glance, but still pretty clear for the players.

This was probably my favorite game of Microscope I've played. Like Ed said, the palette was really strong which helped. Also I think the game was less focused on scenes (I don't think we had two scenes in any one event) which I think also helped as it meant there was more focus on exploring more of the grand story. The scenes were still cool to have (especially the parallel stag hunt) but ultimately they didn't stand out as much as they have in past microscope games and I think the game was better for it.

Here's an image that should also be helpful. With little arrows and everything!

As an experimental hack, I don't think it's beyond the pale for me to suggest one further tweak. We had a tendency to make the periods happening in the two different timelines relate to one another... in one instance the elves expand politically, are driven back, and then dwarves appear in force to take over the city, driving out the humans, and a senate is formed. In the other dwarves appear in force early on, then the elves fight back, leaving both weakened, and a human is able to seize power. This was something that was natural for us, and the hack really invites that sort of parallelism, so it might be neat if one could add a period to both timelines at once, to show off two separate iterations of the same idea. I don't think everybody should be able to do so, but it might be something the focus could do if they wanted. Could be interesting!

I love this idea and next time I pitch Bicroscope (i.e. next time there are mostly veterans around) this is totally happening. How are you envisioning this? I see something like "So the dwarves… Well up here they come and gently integrate with society even if they became an overnight plurality. Down here they start a race war with the elves" with two periods, one in each timeline. Does there get to be nesting in both (if parallel) just putting one event in either period? Or does the parallel periods count as the Lens superpower for that go? I can see benefits of all three though I like doing two events least, it's just too much narrative power for one instance of making history.

I was working on a "mirror universe" hack of Microscope for >REDACTED< and my plan was to create a second complete timeline above (and reflecting) the main timeline: draw an imaginary line along the top of your row of periods, then make a second game of Microscope mirrored above that. Each period would have a mirror period (potentially quite different), with mirror events, etc.

Perhaps this shows my inherent skepticism of mirror universes generally (I'm looking at you Star Trek and Sliders) but doesn't this have the underlying fact that the universes aren't THAT different despite being facially very different? If there's the same period – especially with the same tone – for both sets of history that says something about the potential impact of any part of history. That all said, this sounds super fun to try but I'll to wait until details about [Code Name: Perspective] come to light to inform it better.

How are you envisioning this? I see something like "So the dwarves… Well up here they come and gently integrate with society even if they became an overnight plurality. Down here they start a race war with the elves" with two periods, one in each timeline. Does there get to be nesting in both (if parallel) just putting one event in either period? Or does the parallel periods count as the Lens superpower for that go? I can see benefits of all three though I like doing two events least, it's just too much narrative power for one instance of making history.

Yeah, that's how I see it. I don't think there should be any nesting if you take that option though; if you're doing a period in both timelines, you're grabbing a lot of narrative power already.

The notion of working with two completely separate timelines is neat, and makes me wonder what else you could do with that structure in addition to mirror worlds. My first thought is some sort of, uh, Godcroscope, in which there's a standard Microscope timeline and some sort of pantheon timeline above it, detailing the realm of the gods (in the distracted and in-fighty Greek style), with periods mirroring one another because when gods get pissy, their followers are inclined to feel like going to war (and vice versa). That would be a pretty good justification for an underlying similarity despite surface differences.

If there's the same period – especially with the same tone – for both sets of history that says something about the potential impact of any part of history.

There's a separate row of periods for each timeline (in this hypothetical thing I pondered but never tried), but they're lined up with their doppelgängers. They might be quite different in each timeline (in one case it's the Great Depression, but in the other timeline it's a Golden Age, etc).

Thinking about it "mirror universe" is totally the wrong word, because that does invoke all sorts of Vulcans with goatees. I meant an alternate history, like what you guys did.

But again I think I like your approach better -- having the point of divergence within the history is pretty sweet.

JC, what made you think of this hack?

Right. I think part of what makes this works is that the timelines are divergent rather than parallel.

You can still have parallel scenes between the timelines, but it isn't "this is the same universe only things are slightly different" or "this is the same universe only backwards" its "this was the same universe until X happened and now some things are different". Maybe some things will go exactly the same. Maybe some things will go exactly opposite. And maybe some things will just diverge with no real relationship to anything happening in the other universe.

So yeah, giving the focus the ability to add corresponding pairs of periods or events in the two timelines seems like a cool move as long as its optional (so you can still have divergences if you desire)

Did you guys think having the divergence be in the middle rather than at the start was good or bad? The prophecy stuff worked because it was really talking about the future just doing it in the past. Everything else interesting was either in the period where the divergence happened or post divergence. Really the cool thing about this hack is that you aren't just exploring a world, your exploring what a single event did to a world. So it occurred to me that it might be better to just start with the divergence (but at the same time, the prophecy stuff worked really well so maybe its not necessary)

There's a separate row of periods for each timeline (in this hypothetical thing I pondered but never tried), but they're lined up with their doppelgängers. They might be quite different in each timeline (in one case it's the Great Depression, but in the other timeline it's a Golden Age, etc).

Thinking about it "mirror universe" is totally the wrong word, because that does invoke all sorts of Vulcans with goatees. I meant an alternate history, like what you guys did.

Got it! That makes way more sense.

But again I think I like your approach better -- having the point of divergence within the history is pretty sweet.

J.C., what made you think of this hack?

Thanks! Two weeks ago Jerome ran Micro-Microscope which played on a much smaller scale (weeks or months rather than centuries or millennia) and covered the arc of a political scandal. It showed just how hackable Microscope is. I think I even said "oh, this could be a thing" at the table after that game when we were talking about how one little thing could have made the whole scandal gone so differently.

I was actually kind of trepidatious about nailing down the point of divergence so specifically (but I love mystery boxes) but this worked out really well and I loved that it was something as simple and quiet as who got which name.