Music For Player Characters

Last week, I mentioned how my second Apocalypse World character, Midnight Storm, was inspired by music (specifically the song Juke Box Hero by Foreigner). I think players in general can use music for player characters both as a tool for character creation and for maintaining thematic and tonal consistency in a character over the course of a campaign.

Using music in my games is a common thread for me. I use ambient music in play. I create soundtracks for my campaigns to inspire me while I write-up adventures. Finally I create soundtracks for characters and occasionally base a character on a song.

Music in Character Creation

As I researched how other players use music, I found inspiration for character creation was the common theme. This can take many different forms and impact different parts of the character.

The music can define a character's theme, like Midnight Storm's quest to become a postapocalyptic rock star. You might use some the lyrics to flesh out the character's life story. For example, Midnight Storm's signature instrument is a beat up guitar he found in an old crate. Now he's got to keep rocking. It can also serve as their theme music. Dark brooding music could fit a anti-hero or tragic figure while bubbly pop might give you ideas for more innocent character.

Music can also inspire the style for musically inclined characters. In D&D this of course means bards. Given the interests of the people I questioned, I shouldn't be surprised at the number of bards sing the blues or rocking metal. My initial example, Midnight Storm, is explicitly a rock star.

My friend Chuck provided me several other specific examples. In D&D he based a bard around the lyrics to The Gods Made Heavy Metal by Manowar. The character preached the gospel of metal as he wandered the land. In a Mage game, his character Big Ben leaned into the clichés of rap music and drew a lot of his inspiration for the Moros (or Necromancer to the layperson) from Life's a Bitch and Then You Die. He's based vampires on song lyrics as well.

You also can find many other examples of using music to inspire characters over at Matt McFarland's blog.

Character Soundtracks

Just as I give campaigns soundtracks to establish and maintain the game's themes, you can use a character soundtrack to keep your character's personality and mood consistent session to session. You might listen to it on the way over the game or when you have a chance to reflect on your plans for next session.

The length of such a soundtrack is entirely up to you but in my experience, an album or two's worth of songs tends to keep the soundtrack diverse enough yet focused. Try to keep it under an hour.

Here examples I've used in the past.

My first Apocalypse World character relied on a single album, Skillet's Comatose. Our game focused a psychic darkness devouring the world. Specter, my character, was a techie who liked to experiment with the Darkness and who had lost her family to it when she was a child. The album kept me on track with Specter's struggles with her obsession, survivor's guilt, and slow slide in madness.

In my friend's Vampire: the Requiem Elder's game, I played the Rat-King. This manipulator was a multilayered mystery: a vampire cloaked in illusions, hiding her gender, her clan, and her dark past from the rest of the city. At the same time, she had ambitions: to put the Carthian faction in power, to bring equality to even the weakest vampires, to learn another Elder's secrets, and possibly to become Prince. My soundtrack included many songs by Digital Daggers and Icon for Hire, reinforcing the core themes of the character: loneliness, a desire for revenge (on her sire), and the stresses of a public persona.

Other Uses of Music for Player Characters

I have a couple other (untested) ideas of how you might use music as a player in your games.

Assuming your gamemaster also incorporates music into their game, you might suggest some theme music for your character. The gamemaster could play this when your character is the focus of a scene or action, such as when you rush in to rescue the rest of party or face off against a personal challenge (or when you emerge triumphant).

You can also just pick music that your character would like. This might be referenced in-game to add flavor ("you enter Jane's apartment, the Cure blaring out of the sound system"), used to your advantage ("He's a fan of big band music? Well we know Chester has a large collection of vintage albums..."), or just to get into the character's mental head space.

What do you think? How have you used music as a player?