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9 votes
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Short Story - Segment from a Microscope RPG
For context, Microscope is an RPG system where you collaboratively write the history of a world. It's focused entirely on collaborative storytelling, rather than dice-rolling (there are no dice)....
For context, Microscope is an RPG system where you collaboratively write the history of a world. It's focused entirely on collaborative storytelling, rather than dice-rolling (there are no dice).
- Homepage : http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/
- PDF Manual
So I wrote a Dictated Scene for our world, and I was rather proud of it, so I thought I'd post it here since it almost stands on it's own. I'm curious what other people think and what kinds of questions it provokes about the world it inhabits.
Meris had played in the clearing all her life. Every time she went to play by herself the little Jima would come out and sit on it’s rock to watch her. She always talked to it, though it never talked back. It just liked to watch with it’s tiny eyes, wary of approaching shadows that might scoop it up.
Under the Jima’s rock was where Meris kept her treasures. Well some of them where the Jima’s treasures. Meris had found all of the treasures, but she let the Jima watch them so it seemed only fair that she let him keep some of them. Her favorite treasures were the small crystals no longer than her finger, though her fingers weren’t very big since she wasn’t very big yet. They were probably half as big as Momma’s fingers.
When the wind blew hard enough on some days, like right before Momma made her come inside before a storm, the crystals hummed. Dozens of little humming voices, like a choir singing a song just for her.On some mornings Meris went to the market with Momma. She liked listening to people in the market, especially when she heard them use new words. Sometimes when she repeated the new words, Momma would scowl at her, which usually just made Meris get the giggles.
The last day that Meris went to the meadow, she was repeating some new words she had heard an angry man yell at someone. As Meris looked through her treasures, she counted to make sure they were all still there. As she picked up her favorite treasure, it’s shiny crystal facets cast spots of rainbow light around her. Meris repeated her new words one final time, and then was silent.
When Momma found her, the sun was low and the last rays of light were still shining on Meris, sitting unnaturally still, looking down at the crystal she held in her hand. The last rays of sunlight were still striking the small crystal, sending a few small prisms of light across Meris’ motionless face, frozen perfectly in marble.
Momma took the crystal from her daughters hands, tears streaming down her cheeks as she asked the gods what she had done to deserve this, what her daughter could possibly have done to displease them. She pleaded with the gods to return Meris to her, gripping the crystal tightly in her fist. As her desperate Words reached toward the heavens, the crystal suddenly emitted a single clear Tone, and all the grass around became frozen and still.
She ran as fast as her legs could take her, the crystal still gripped tightly in one hand.
3 votes -
The science of user experience: How to use cognitive science in modern software development
3 votes -
The Last of Us Part 2 review
4 votes -
What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was...
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.
If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!
8 votes -
Seventeen-year-old in Tampa, Florida arrested and accused of "masterminding" the compromises of prominent Twitter accounts on July 15, charged with thirty felonies
34 votes -
questions - a site for identifying some (mostly tech related) things you don’t know
10 votes -
Melbourne placed under stage four coronavirus lockdown, stage three for rest of Victoria, as State of Disaster declared
17 votes -
A survival guide for living in the simulation
9 votes -
Scaled-down hajj begins in coronavirus era – in pictures
11 votes -
How the pandemic and a broken unemployment system are upending people’s lives
6 votes -
There's something about Casey
3 votes -
The mysterious case of man who can read letters—but not numbers—exposes roots of consciousness
15 votes -
Anti-Putin protest in Russia’s far east attracts thousands for a fourth weekend
9 votes -
NCAA football official: "We’re going to have positive cases on every single team in the SEC. That’s a given. And we can’t prevent it."
9 votes -
Germany has woken up to a problem of far-right extremism in its elite special forces. But the threat of neo-Nazi infiltration of state institutions is much broader
12 votes -
Digital Vintage Sound: Modeling Analog Synthesizers with the Wolfram Language and System Modeler
4 votes -
The fall of Netflix (Lack of comfort food TV)
9 votes -
Explaining the urban-rural political divide: Why do Democrats so often concentrate in cities?
6 votes -
The main Invidious (YouTube frontend) instance is shutting down and Omar Roth is stepping down as project owner
22 votes -
Alanis Morissette: Ablaze (TV Debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon)
4 votes -
Facebook showed this ad to 95% women. Is that a problem?
15 votes -
Dispersion causes discohesion
2 votes -
D&D and racism 4: Arguments
6 votes -
Go team publishes draft design proposals for a new read-only filesystem interface and a standard way to embed files into Go binaries
2 votes -
Fleischer Studios taught Superman to quit leaping and fly
5 votes -
What have we learned about KSP 2 with the "Show and Tell" trailer?
4 votes -
Marble League 2020: 5M Sprint
4 votes -
New techniques are helping medical researchers develop new anti-cancer drugs and gain a better understanding of how existing ones work
5 votes -
Reconstructing ballroom history: Older generations vs. today
5 votes -
Why can’t we just hold classes outdoors instead?
11 votes -
UAE starts operations at Arab world's first nuclear power plant
4 votes -
Bitwarden review
11 votes -
Ratchet and Clank all 4 one OST; Friendship through Firepower
4 votes -
What did you do this week?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do...
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
5 votes -
Denmark is a liberal paradise for many people, but the reality is very different for immigrants
20 votes -
Microsoft Flight Simulator PC hands-on: A generational leap in graphical realism
16 votes -
What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
13 votes -
"We could see this tsunami of people coming": Inside the world of intensive care units
5 votes -
Logic
5 votes -
Onslaught TD / belated RIP
There was a flash game I used to really enjoy called Onslaught2 Tower Defense. http://onslaught.playr.co.uk/ I remember it had a unique combo-mechanic which I've never seen replicated since. Over...
There was a flash game I used to really enjoy called Onslaught2 Tower Defense.
I remember it had a unique combo-mechanic which I've never seen replicated since.
Over the years, I've often wondered about these games I used to spend so much time with, what their developers got involved in later and expected to eventually discover a developer who got started making a flash games that I used to enjoy.
Tonight, I was curious enough to revisit this game and decided to dig a little bit in order to learn about the developer's current work. I found his website linked on his newgrounds profile. The site references the game and a bunch of other services - it looks like a time capsule. Googling the name on that blog, I discovered that he passed away in 2011.
https://forstaff.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/2032/gabriel_gaby_vanhegan
RIP Gaby, I wish I could have seen what you might have done.
6 votes -
Apple surpasses Saudi Aramco to become world’s most valuable company
12 votes -
Mort Garson - This Is My Beloved (2020)
3 votes -
Do you (still) use IRC?
I'm just curious how many people still use IRC (Internet Relay Chat) here. And if you use it, what do you use it for? Is there anything (server/channels, etc) that you would recommend to others? I...
I'm just curious how many people still use IRC (Internet Relay Chat) here. And if you use it, what do you use it for? Is there anything (server/channels, etc) that you would recommend to others?
I use it a bit, mostly for casual chatting on tildeverse.org servers, the SDF server, or on Freenode. On Freenode, I also use it when I need to interact with FOSS developers who use IRC as one of their main forms of support.
29 votes -
Fear of depths
4 votes -
Is religion a flawed play-style for humans and if so, why did it arise in the first place? (Feat. TierZoo)
2 votes -
Google to remove Danish music from YouTube
12 votes -
What can we do to support voter turnout in the US elections this fall?
There is an important election in the United States this fall, and we've all heard a lot of concern expressed about efforts to suppress the vote. Under the shadow of all the other issues we're...
There is an important election in the United States this fall, and we've all heard a lot of concern expressed about efforts to suppress the vote. Under the shadow of all the other issues we're currently facing as a society, I know a lot of people who are asking "what concrete actions can I take to make a difference?" It seems like helping to get out the vote is one very important action.
So here's a question to the Tildes community: what suggestions do you have about how we (as individuals) can help get out the vote this fall? Big or small, donating money or doing physical work -- what can we do?
15 votes -
Spotify CEO talks Covid-19, artist incomes and podcasting
4 votes -
What dark matter is (probably) not
6 votes