Top Albums of 2023 & Rob Schwalb's Metal Listening
Plus Ask Michael Moorcock
I’ve been attending the Indie RPG Creator Summit. The panelists have been excellent. During one presentation, Rob Schwalb (game designer behind Shadow of the Demon Lord, who has written for Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Heresy, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and many, many more) answered my question about how music has influenced his RPG writing. Here is his response:
“I’m one of the weirdos that still buys physical music. I do it for a particular reason. When I started out in designing, I would use a little egg timer and I would work on a project for a period of time. When the timer went off, I would have to switch projects. Now I use albums to do that. I’ll listen to something and once it’s over, I’ll either get another slot of something to work on that project or shift to something else.”
“I’m a real big fan of black metal but also thrash, heavy metal, doom, grindcore. You name it, I’m a fan. The harder the better. The nastier the better. I got to see Mayhem last year. That was a big moment for me. Metal permeates everything I do in gaming.”
Top Albums of 2023
In last week’s newsletter, I published my three favorite songs of 2023 for fantasy RPG inspiration. In the following recent episode of the The Contrarians, I shared my top five albums of 2023:
A lot of great albums came out last year, so it was difficult (and somewhat arbitrary) to cut the list to five. To broaden the list, here are the ten albums that brought be the most pleasure in 2023:
Albert Bouchard - Imaginos III - Mutant Reformation
Baroness - Stone
Cirith Ungol - Dark Parade
Green Lung - This Heathen Land
Howling Giant - Glass Future
John Mellencamp - Orpheus Descending
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse
Paul Simon - Seven Psalms
Smoulder - Violent Creed of Vengeance
Wytch Hazel - IV: Sacrament
Ask Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock, patron saint of Critical Hit Parader, continues to be busy. Among other things, he recently released a new short story called “The Folk of the Forest” in New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine and appeared on an episode of the Sanctum Secorum show. Now, Uncut magazine is soliciting questions from readers. Mr. Moorcock will answer selected questions in an upcoming issue of the magazine. This article has more details including how to submit your questions.
That's awesome about the Indie RPG Creator Summit! Apparently my boss was part of a presentation about distribution yesterday, lol. Cooking up any sweet projects for this year?
My top two albums for 2023 are Riverside's ID.Entity and RPWL's Crime Scene, both or which I was able to see in concert last year, though neither have any obvious RPG ties. I will check out your top picks though: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard sounds intriguing!