My gaming group did most of a round of Microscope today.

Microscope, for those who don’t remember, is what the publishers call a ‘ fractal role-playing game of epic histories.’ Basically, people work out a theme, work out a timeline, then go into individual scenes and roleplay out said scenes. It’s highly collaborative, and kind of lends itself to serial GMing: the people who create the individual scenes tend to direct them.

It’s also very friendly to interesting ideas.  For example, in this one we ended up creating a Dark Steampunk world with Space Elves, a literal God in the Machine, and a Catholic Church holed up in the moons of Jupiter and directing the resistance to said God.  That last bit featured Sister Doctor Virginia Magdalene Smith, Two-Fisted Jesuit(ess) Archeologist and her sidekick Larry the Wonder Boy.  I also at one point got to shout “I’ll show them! I’ll SHOW THEM ALL!”… and, really, it’s hard to call a roleplaying session a failure when you get to say that in-character, and without breaking the narrative flow.