Adventure Ideas from Songs

[Psion]

Pink Floyd - Dogs of War. Makes me picture a scenario where secret masters (Yugoloths perhaps, or servants of Wrath from Book of Fiends) manipulate the world behind the scenes into war.

They Might Be Giants has a scad of evocative songs that make me thing of adventures or setting details:
Stomp Box - Makes me think of a Ravenloftesque game featuring demons.
Turn around - another horror scenario, in which the players are pursued by spirits of those they have wronged.
The Statue Made Me High - a mind controlling statue creates mayhem!
O Do Not Forsake Me - makes me imagine a *really* old NPC
Hall of Heads - a somewhat macabre setting

 

[Album Cover X]

No Led for our heads yet?

Well considering... I should have added that too

What I find interesting is whenever the subject of music is mentioned everyone rushes to the fringes. Meaning, nearly no one will ever say with pride they enjoy something current or mainstream. I just find that humorous on some level. It nearly always, "X band from the 70's, 80's or some country you've never been to like Iceland."

So where's the bold poster who will say I've mined songs ideas from Britney???

Elitism in music tastes... rock on

 

[XanthorDrathos]

Classical, classic rock, and mostly metal for most of my gaming adventure ideas and inspirations since I don't read as much as I listen.

Major Styx fan with the Wooden Nickel's too. Add in Yes, Doors, Led Zepplin etc.

Iced Earth, Savatage, Judas Priest, Queensryche, Dio/Rainbow, Black Sabbath, HammerFall, Godsmack, Axxis, Dream Theater, Evanescence, KISS, Metallica, KoRn, Alice In Chains, and Iron Maiden.

I recently ran a whole Hell Quest adventure around Iced Earth's take on the Spawn theme with Dark Saga adding in other bits like Dante's Inferno from Burnt Offerings.

Looking to wrap up another one based around Judas Priest's The Sentinel track mixed with some Queensryche inspired stuff from Warning.

The list goes on and on.

Iced Earth- Slave To The Dark...

A twisted state of mind, torn between two worlds
One of which the new me hates and the one that's coming true
The power is unleashed, they perish at my gaze
But am I really in control or am I just a slave

 

[Mr. Lobo]

Well considering... I should have added that too

What I find interesting is whenever the subject of music is mentioned everyone rushes to the fringes. Meaning, nearly no one will ever say with pride they enjoy something current or mainstream. I just find that humorous on some level. It nearly always, "X band from the 70's, 80's or some country you've never been to like Iceland."

So where's the bold poster who will say I've mined songs ideas from Britney???

Elitism in music tastes... rock on

Well, for me its not so much as elitism (I hope) as the fact that I am just old. Old and bitter!

Turn on the radio and listen to maybe 15-18 minutes of contemporary mainstream music per hour and the rest is just stuff I'm not interested in. I don't give a dang about what the DJ had for dinner last night, what parties they're going to or promoting, or their stupid, inane, and vapid attempts at humor. Plus all the dang commercials of people trying to sell me stuff that I don't want or need with their stupid, inane, and vapid attempts at humor.

It's just like the TeeVee!

As a result I'm more like my Dad these days. I rarely watch TeeVee, and listen to talk radio or NPR and am hell bent on getting rid of my phone so idiots stop calling me trying to sell me their dang stuff I don't need.

I just cornered myself into not keeping current with the latest music that's going on, hence my gaming inspiration comes from older stuff with which I'm more familiar. Because I'm old. Old and Bitter! dang it.

But elitist? No way. Not me.

Mr. Lobo

added text is bolded

 

[Album Cover X]

Well, for me its not so much as elitism (I hope) as the fact that I am just old. Old and bitter!

[/I]. Old and Bitter! dang it.

But elitist? No way. Not me.

Mr. Lobo

Sorry Mr. Lobo... I wasn't saying you or anyone specific... more of just a general comment. I only quoted you because of the Zeppelin reference and considering my avatar and all...

It's just I used to work for a music and video distributor and someone is buying all that stuff or crap (depending one your viewpoint). But no one ever admits to it. Just a phenomenon I'm intrigued by.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

I'm a bit surprised that nobody's mentioned Jefferson Starship(?)'s "White Rabbit" as it's littered with campaign elements, polymorphing effects and the like.

Collide has a cover of White Rabbit on their Chasing the Ghost album that I'm quite partial to, esp "Wings of Steel" ("Chasing the wings of steel/Chasing the ghost of time/Chasing the taste of life..."), "Frpzen" and "Halo". Their album "Some Kind of Strange" is less so, but still quite good with "Shimmer" and "Tempted" ("Though your hunger feels the same/I am wanting, give me breath/I am truth you can't explain/I am treasure, I am dust/.../Some light, some rain flows through me")

Also, though much more hit-or-miss, Faith & the Muse's "Annwyn Beneath the Waves" album has some good watery-grave related sorts of songs.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Mr. Lobo, I must also confess to have becoming an absolute hater of contemporary radio. I even worked in radio for over 10 years as an overnight jock, and the reasons you mentioned for not listening are the reasons I got out of it. I listen to NPR almost exclusively, and for music I listen to a lot of net radio (still commercials, but no annoying dumb-a** jocks). www.icebergradio.com is a great source for music (when it's working). A few commercials, but not so many it'll turn you off.

 

[Mr. Lobo]

Sorry Mr. Lobo... I wasn't saying you or anyone specific... more of just a general comment. I only quoted you because of the Zeppelin reference and considering my avatar and all...

It's just I used to work for a music and video distributor and someone is buying all that stuff or crap (depending one your viewpoint). But no one ever admits to it. Just a phenomenon I'm intrigued by.

No offense taken at all. Believe it or not I was trying to be funny. And sarcastic. Maybe I didn't pull it off well enough.

More seriously though, most of the contemporary music seems to me to be more about interpersonal relationships and conflicts. Of course this is just the radio stuff I'm hearing so I don't seem to be hearing songs that are more abstract and contain more thematic ideas. But these concepts were explored a lot in the 60's and 70's with bands like Pink Floyd, Rush, Zeppelin, and others. Maybe the course has been run with concept albums?

But these days it seems that I hear more stuff like (parapharasing):
Yeah, you're my girlfriend but I hate you and don't know why or
Just because I go out with you doesn't me you're going to get to first base (or even get to swing your bat for that matter) or
I went to school today and instead of takin' a test I took two to the chest or
All I wanna do is have some fun...

Yadda, yadda, yadda

I just don't get inspired for gaming (back on topic) by the stuff that's played on the radio these days. And what's played on the radio is not necessarily the artist's fault. How much of their art do they have to sell out on just get their art "out there"? Thankfully in Baltimore we have some radio stations that play non-mainstream, but still contemporary, music. Oh, the days of album rock and open programming. How I lament them!

But seeing what has inspired other people in gaming is pretty cool and I'll have to check some of their stuff out. When I first starting playing back in the late 70's Zeppelin was our background music. Also Foreigner and Molly Hatchet when the OTHER guys DM'd.

Whatever.

Mr. Lobo

 

[Wraith Form]

It's from "Nerves", by Bauhaus.

What do I win?

Johnny, what do we have for our contestant?

Why, look, you've won my respect!

(Now, did you just use Google to search against the quote, or did you really know? If you used Google, you won my respect for knowing how to quickly find song quotes! hee hee hee)

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Johnny, what do we have for our contestant?

Why, look, you've won my respect!

(Now, did you just use Google to search against the quote, or did you really know? If you used Google, you won my respect for knowing how to quickly find song quotes! hee hee hee)

I suspected Bauhaus (it sounded familiar) but I used Google to verify. I'm all about verification.