My application:
I own Microscope and have played it a few times. I love it. It's great to use alone or in conjunction with other roleplaying games.
1. Otherkind by Vincent Baker. A game about the fae gradually retreating from the World of Men and Iron. It really hits hard on the idea of a fantasy world that is slowly retreating before the inexorable forces of modernity. Tolkein and many other fantasy authors have used this trope as well. I've always liked the feeling of sadness and loss that evokes, and if we use Microscope, we'd be able to zoom in on the high fantasy era, the period when magic is in retreat, and the period when magic is all but gone from the world.
2. The Earthsea series by Ursula LeGuin. Like , I like the fact that the stories of ordinary people can be very important. I also like the idea that there are different schools of magic, including folk magic or hedge magic, that is less powerful but that forms an important part of people's everyday lives. The Runequest RPG has something similar, with low-powered "battle magic" in addition to the higher-powered "rune magic. (Or at least it used to, I haven't played the most recent version much.)
3. Runequest. What I like about Runequest is that your religion, culture, or ideology has as great an impact on who you are as your species or occupation. People are defined by what they believe. A lot of the ideas in the game came from Joseph Campbell, who wrote numerous books on mythology. The book 4000 Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby was also a big influence on the game.
4. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. This is a set of far-future, dying Earth books where empires have risen and fallen many times since our era. "Urth" is now in a degenerate era where medieval technology and societies mingle with ancient tech that seems like magic and strange creatures and beings that might have evolved or been genetically engineered. I like the tone of these books, of someone struggling to be a good person in a world that makes that very, very difficult, and the deep weirdness that the setting represents.
I would also be interested in a science fiction game, and I'd have somewhat different inspirations for that, probably Blade Runner, The Expanse, and A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.
I find conventional zombies kind of boring, so if we have zombies, I'd like them to be somewhat different than mindless undead that eat human brains. Maybe mindless undead that stare blindly into the sun and follow it until they are injured, at which point they explode, shooting out spores that turn all neighboring animals into sun zombies. Or something like that.
I don't want any rape. I ask that we veil explicit sex. (It's okay to have sex in the story, just don't describe it in detail.)
I've loved worldbuilding since I was a kid and devoured every science fiction book and story I could find. I loved drawing hex maps in middle school and high school. I enjoy imagining other worlds, their cultures and peoples, how they lived, what they suffered through, and what their hopes and dreams were.
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