RPGs & Music - Adam Vass, La Dispute, Mike Evans
Weird Games & Weirder People & other podcasts plus new Loot the Body song
I’ve been binging Diogo Nogueira’s excellent Weird Games & Weirder People podcast. His guests are “creators and artists from the tabletop RPG scene,” and he describes the show as being “about role playing games and the weird wonderful people behind them.” He is an award-winning game designer and artist in his own right, and he often talks to guests about how music has influenced or inspired them. I wanted to highlight a couple of recent episodes in which music prominently figured into the conversation.
Adam Vass
Adam is both the bassist in the band La Dispute and an accomplished game designer, so the conversation was filled with insights on the overlap between music and games.
Adam publishes tabletop roleplaying game content through his World Champ Game Co. I first became exposed to his work when I bought the “split release” he published with Chris Bissette. It included Adam’s No Future, a TTRPG in which you play as “punks lamenting and celebrating the hardcore scene in your small town on one fervent night.”
He has released other games that have music tie-ins, including the following:
CyberMetal 2012 - “a tabletop roleplaying game of demons, metalheads, and weirdos surviving and thriving in an isolated city of warped technology in an alternate timeline featuring tons of analog ink illustrations, intuitive dice mechanics for fans of Mothership or Blades in the Dark, fascinatingly weird worldbuilding, and much more.”
Soul Burner - “a stand-alone tabletop roleplaying game for 2-6 players combining the death-metal dark-fantasy flavor and mechanics of MÖRK BORG with the themes of death, compulsion, and faulty memory from the stoner-metal science fantasy game NECRONAUTILUS.”
To (Scratched Out) For Everything - a storytelling game in zine format inspired by La Dispute’s 2011 album Wildlife.
One of the most compelling parts of the interview for me was when Adam talked about how games have influenced his music:
“Our music is very cinematic in that most of the songs are stories being told. With that, I’m studying story structure all the time with games and music. I can make sense of it through my lens of fiction. I can visualize scenes that are taking place, making a soundtrack with the music composition. So there’s a lot of parallels in how stories work from gaming (that) translates really well to how I convey narrative through music.”
“My ability to communicate with people in a creative shared language and also emotionally convey ideas has been assisted by the experience I have in gaming… I find myself so much more able to communicate on both an intellectual and emotional level with the other people in my band that is helping to get ideas across, helping to make sure everyone’s voice is getting heard, and helping make sure that we’re all getting along.”
You can listen to the full interview here:
Mike Evans
Mike Evans is the Ennie-award winning designer behind DIY RPG Productions. In his conversation with Diogo, he shared what he was listening to when he was working on the following projects:
Death is the New Pink - punk rock
Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure - thrash metal, Pantera, Metallica, old Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails
Barbarians of the Ruined Earth - grunge, hair metal
Here are some additional music-related quotes Mike said during the podcast:
“I listen to music constantly. If music isn’t playing I’m dead inside. When I write I listen to music, and I listen to music that generates a feeling, images, thoughts in my head that are appropriate.”
“When I listen to music, I try to picture what would be going on in the game world if this was my soundtrack.”
The full interview with Mike is here:
More RPG & Music Podcasts
As I hope you can see from the examples above, Diogo Nogueira’s Weird Games & Weirder People podcast is a must-listen for folks interested in the intersection music and TTRPGs. The following are other fantastic game podcasts I love that often have content that touches on music:
RPG Ramblings - hosted by Jeff Jones
The Vintage RPG Podcast - hosted by Stu Horvath and John McGuire
Tabletop Talk - Third Floor Wars - hosted by Craig Shipman
Lastly, I humbly offer my own Appendix LP podcast, which features interviews with game designers and musicians on the intersection of RPGs and music.
New Loot the Body Song
I was excited to see that Loot the Body just released a new song called “Shadows on the Wasteland.” Here’s a description from the Loot the Body Bandcamp website:
“This track is inspired by Goodman Games' Purple Planet setting for DCC. For those of you keeping score, this is my third DCC song. A flexi of this track will be available as a reward for the crowdfunding campaign that launches 2/5/2024.” www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/9678848f-4f03-4f67-ac21-79c207aa98ba/landing
Check out the cool new song below…
P.S. I had a great discussion with Levi Nunez from Loot the Body during an episode of the Appendix LP podcast.