Music Platform Blues & Mythic Con
Plus Kelsey Dionne, Diogo Nogueira, The Ramones, & Forgotten Ballad
On our drive to Charlotte, North Carolina for Mythic Con this past weekend, I discovered that Sirius XM has removed their Deep Tracks channel. This was my favorite satellite radio station, and its cancelation represents another nail in the coffin for human-curated music on the radio.
This continues a trend of technology companies making business decisions that harm artists and fans. Spotify is changing their royalty policy to require a song to achieve 1,000 streams before paying any money to the artist, which furthers the damage Spotify does to independent artists. That news followed Bandcamp laying off half their staff after their acquisition by music licensing firm Songtradr. This one really hurt as Bandcamp had been a successful musician-first platform and was my favorite alternative to Spotify and other mega-streaming platforms. I’d like to complain via my wallet, so if anyone has recommendations for musician-friendly platforms I can support, please leave a comment.
Amidst this gloom, I’m happy to report I had a blast at Mythic Con. It was a manageably-sized, very well-run gaming con. I attended a total of four seminars/workshops conducted by Baron de Ropp from Dungeon Masterpiece and Hankerin Ferinale from Runehammer. They were both entertaining presenters and generous in sharing their knowledge. Thank you Baron and Hank for schoolin’ me!
I also got to play in an outrageously fun game of EZD6 that was GM’d by none other than the creator of the game, DM Scotty. Scotty is a crafting master, so it was exciting every time he reached down to bring out a new piece of terrain or miniatures.
Kelsey Dionne, Diogo Nogueira, and the Ramones
I enjoyed the Kelsey Dionne interview that Diogo Nogueira recently conducted on his Weird Games and Weirder People podcast. Diogo is a game designer and artist whose releases include Sharp Swords and Sinister Spells, Primal Quest, and the ENNIE-winning Halls of the Blood King. Kelsey is the mastermind behind the Arcane Library, and she is the designer of the super-successful Shadowdark.
From a music perspective, Diogo talked about the Ramones starting at 36:44 and mentions the Beatles within the context of psychedelics at 1:33:48. You can listen to the whole interview here:
Forgotten Ballard Expansion
Bloat Games just launched a Kickstarter for Cries of the Overworld, a “A Retro Video Game-Inspired Creature Guide” for the Forgotten Ballad TTRPG.
Forgotten Ballad was written by Fellipe da Silva, and music plays a thematic role in the game as you can see from this excerpt from the rulebook.
The players are adventuring musicians in search of power in the form of the Knowledge of the Ancients. Pieces of music, history, and magic artifacts are lost inside old ruins deep in the wild.
You can buy the original Forgotten Ballad PDF, zine, and/or hardcover as add-ons to the current Cries of the Overworld crowdfunding campaign. Check it out!