Hisa's Microscope

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Y5tZIJSdP4JPyB_0iFBS9vpiLUEQ91ziATYBN24RTVo/edit?usp=sharing

Hisa's Microscope is an Arc 0 world building exercise where we construct the world that came before whose shadows extend into the new virtual reality that the PC characters will be trapped in. (We might look back at this and go well that was pointless but hopefully we won't.) Aside from engine limitations, every other preconception about that game is hereby thrown out the window. Afterwards, anyone can keep their old character, make a new one or modify freely.

Rules

The Golden Rule
When it is your turn you cannot ask for help or input and other players must not give suggestions or ideas. Do not negotiate, discuss or poll. Other players can and should ask questions for detail and clarification and point out potential ramifications or contradictions but can never make suggestions, even small ones.

The Silver Rule
No one owns anything. Nothing is sacred. Once it's on the table, it can be destroyed, torn apart, warped, corrupted or whatever. However, nothing is removed from history. Just like Squenix, you can always go back and release something else involving Sephiroth.

Flow of Play

1) Declare Focus
One player, called the Lens, declares the Focus. The Focus is the unifying theme for the round and can be practically anything from a specific person to a group, an event or even an idea. Anything anyone creates for the rest of the round must be related, even if tangentially, to the Focus.

2) Open the Focus
The Lens creates a Period, Event or Scene or one of those things nested in another - up to two items. This lets the Lens get the Focus going for everyone.

3) Play the Focus
The other players go in order, (going down our list) each creating a single item revolving around the Focus.

4) Close the Focus
The Lens creates a Period, Event or Scene or one of those things nested in another - up to two items. This gives them the last word.

5) Choose Legacy
The person who was last during Step 3 (the person who was Lens previous round) chooses one thing that came up during Steps 2-4 and makes it their Legacy. Or they can keep their current one if they already have one.

6) Explore a Legacy
The same player creates an Event or dictated Scene relating to any Legacy in play (not necessarily the one just created).

7) -intermission- -repeat-

Guidelines

• Give a full description of the Period or Event before writing in the box - the box is tiny so what you describe is more important. Be detailed and vivid and speak with authority because you are the GM for the moment. The more interested other people are in the thing, the more likely they will build on it.
• Everything is light or dark in Tone. You are never wrong about Tone but you must explain your judgement. Items of differing tone are frequently nested within one another. When in doubt, an item should be the opposite Tone of the item it is nested in (since it has not clearly lived up to the Tone of its container).
• Lower level items must be nested inside existing higher level items.

Foci

• When in doubt, pick a small and concrete one like a particular person or incident. Even narrow Foci expand naturally when players create tangential items.
• Don't worry if you have no idea why anyone would care about your Focus.

Legacies

• There can only be as many Legacies as there are players. In order to pick a new one (during Step 5) you must drop your existing one if you already have one. Having your name attached to a Legacy gives no other authority over it.
• Whenever one is dropped, another player may immediately adopt it by dropping their own.
• Legacies will linger into the next game to a deeper degree.*

Periods

• There is room between Periods for another Period so long as no established facts are contradicted. When doing such insertions, make sure it is very clear how this Period differs from its neighbours.
• If a Period feels like it must follow another Period, it is probably an Event within said Period.

Events

• Paint a clear picture. It is particularly important in Events to be concrete about what is physically happening.
• Even if you leave room for exploration in the middle (through Scenes) the outcome of the Event must be clear.
• If an Event feels like it must follow another Event, it is probably a Scene within said Event.

Scenes

• All Scenes have a Setting and are framed by a Question that must be answered. The Question can be as leading, incriminating and stacked as you like.
• A Scene can be Dictated or Played.
  • A Dictated Scene is fully created and described by an author with absolute control, just like an Event.
  • A Played Scene invites other players to roleplay and decide what happens together (because it'll be more interesting that way). The author gives up absolute control.

Beware of OOC information during Played Scenes.**

Played Scenes

• Everyone should be trying to answer the Question.
• In many cases, the answer to the Question is almost entirely in the hands of one character who may only need to say or think something.
• A Played Scene is over as soon as the Question has been answered.
• You cannot change the future.

Flow of Play

1) Pose the Question.

2) Set the Stage
Without creating anything new, the author reviews the established facts, including what we know will or won't happen and where the Scene sits relative to the timeline (explicit or implied) of the Event. (Other players can help if they remember some of the details but of course cannot suggest anything.) Describe the location, who is or isn't present, and the momentum of the situation - what just happened, what the characters are here for, etc.

3) Character Set
The player making the scene can specify one or two required characters that must be played and/or one or two characters that cannot be played. These can be specific characters, unintroduced but implied characters, or groups/categories of people.

4) Character Select
Players pick a Primary Character to play starting with the person to the right of the one making the scene and going in reverse turn order. The person making the scene picks last. All required characters must be played so the last one or two players may have no choice.

• Your objective is to answer the Question, so pick something that helps with that.
• You can make up a new person on the spot or pick up an existing character. Describe them and their relationships to others present.
• You can play someone minor and remain in the background, letting other players sort things out.
• You can play Time, which takes the form of some force pushing for a conclusion to the Scene. The author can also define and require Time.

5) Reveal Thoughts
In the same order as Character Select, each player reveals their Primary Character's perspective on the upcoming Scene and what they are thinking. This is prime time to establish the tenor of the scene and hint to other players what direction you are thinking of pushing things. Thoughts may reveal what they are planning to do or what they expect to happen but cannot answer the Question.

6) Play the Scene
During this step, everyone can:

• Roleplay what their Primary Character does and thinks. If someone tries to do something to their Primary Character, they describe the outcome.
• Shape the world by describing what their character perceives or thinks and how they react to it provided they are in a position to do so.
• Introduce and play secondary characters as needed.

Creative conflicts here are resolved via the Push rules.

7) Judge the Tone
The table discusses what just happened, what it all means and whether, in the end, the Scene was light or dark in Tone.

Push Rules

Pushing is always an act of substitution or addition, never negation. State your alternative to the active player's presented details simply and concisely without playing it out. Be clear what you want to replace. Don't negotiate or discuss. Other players can ask for clarification but not suggest anything. After that, the remaining players may each table their own alternatives to the original idea. Nobody may retract anything, including the original idea nor propose more than one (the person with the original idea is stuck). Everyone then votes or abstains.*** On ties, the person who went first during Scene setup wins. The winner of the vote can then either narrate temporarily or just have play continue with the understanding that the outcome must occur and the players will work together to make it happen. Pushing can only be done on something that was just described - never on past details.

You may push:

• When someone shapes the world with character perception. A Primary Character's player still decides how they react.
• To change the outcome of an action on a Primary Character.
• To change any aspect or outcome on a secondary character as it is described.
• To add in details as another player acts or perceives something.
• To add in details that nobody immediately perceives.

You must push:

• When describing something of significant import that another player's character would already know but that is surprising to the player. In that case, you must Push to make it true even if it would normally be within your narrative power.

Logs

1: Crowd Fund

HiSA was created by RosaRiO, a small and previously unknown Indie team with big plans. After coming up with the basic idea for a full VR MMO. Including several programmers for the new VR rigs, they wanted to make a game, but felt they needed more talent to do it. In order to get it, they recruited disgraced former triple A developer Hideo X, best known for ambitious and wildly over budget titles such as Patriot Battery and F the fantasy game Planes of the Fallen. For art and creativity, they looked outside the industry, and again to Amahara for creative talent. This ended up being the highly successful but utterly maverick wife/wife writer/artist team Jeweled Enamel (Yukimura Saki and Yukimura Sakura), most famous for their sweeping fantasy mangas.

While these three, combined with RosaRio's legendarily demanding leader Charles Doe, lead to a large personality conflict, they were enough to draw eyes and crowd funding. The development project also happened at a fortunate time, with the third great gaming crash causing waves of redundancies in the triple A world, and large numbers of programmers looking for employment. There was also a huge market for something new. It was from this environment which Altima would be born.