| Minamir, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
Many tabletop roleplaying gamers use recorded soundscapes to spice up their playing, but a somewhat less popular option is to have live music at the meeting. Here are a few tips for instrumentalists who would like to accompany an RPG session.
| Minamir, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
Who can do it?
Actually, quite a lot of us are able to play at the session. Sure, seasoned improvisers will just nail it right away, while beginners and intermediates will need to prepare a bit. If you'd like to participate in a TTRPG session, and the whole "verbal" part is not your favorite, accompanying might be just an activity for you.
Your preferred instruments and styles of playing will greatly influence the demands and possibilities for the idea. There is a basic genre fit — if your music sounds science-fiction (e.g. theremin is your main instrument), you may need to look for another group than your local medieval fantasy people. The second important matter is that you are going to be playing rather quietly, at the level that requires a lot of technique on some instruments.
The polish of your instant creativity is not crucial for the success. You can even attempt a predictable accompaniment by first learning tunes for different moods. Then the "improvisation" is in the timing of transitions, or maybe in some variations on repetitions, or in choosing the next tune according to the direction the story unfolds. It's impossible to have the music fixed up to a bar, as players and dice will bring surprises. However, the task is generally easier the more you know about the session.
GMs, scenarios, and players
The Game Masters may have diverse styles of leading a game. Some improvise a lot, some closely follow a scenario, others display emotional theatrics, while some give players math problems for min-maxing game parameters. The difficulty of playing will be connected to the GMing style, its emotional consistency or resulting length of scenes. Some aspects, like e.g. the length of the battles, depend also on the game system that will be in use, and GM-less games are often more difficult to accompany.
NPC — Non-player character
If you have a chance to learn the scenario beforehand, pay close attention to locations, especially repeating ones, also to crucial scenes, emotional moments like battles, or farewells, etc. It's great if you are familiar with many instruments, and bear in mind that low skill will suffice. One of the advantages of using many sound sources is achieving higher contrast between scenes, or adding consistency if you reserve specific timbres for recurring situations (hammered dulcimer always in a tavern? jaw harp on each appearance of a frog-man NPC?) Don't worry if your associations are cliche, it's comfortable that the music doesn't take the central focus at the session…
| adventure scenario cover by Beto Lima |
…unless it does. And the strongest factor for the importance of sound is when the planned adventure itself is music-themed. Expect "musical riddles", "musical weapons", "musical villains" — everything will give you opportunities. In regular stories, there might also be musical moments (a cantina band, a mermaid's song…) and some game systems also allow for musical player characters, of which the most common will be the bard.
Bards are a type of characters that may greatly influence your musical participation. They increase the chance of in-game musical performance, one that you may need to illustrate from player's prompts. Or maybe there will be player's performance with your accompaniment? In such a case experience from improv would be of great use. Another challenge from bards is that they have so many associated stereotypes, that they provide "comic relief" even in otherwise grave moments, frequently disrupting the tone of the game.
Practical principles
1. Prepare. Prepare as much as you can, but if your time is scarce, there are three answers that are especially useful to get from the GM:
- About how long is the session? — Two hours is a typical quick one-shot, 8-hour sittings also happen. This makes quite a difference;
- Will there be battles and are they long? — These usually need a more precise pacing;
- What is a starting mood of the story? — (Well begun is half done)
2. Play quietly. As mentioned, your output volume is important. Players will need to have smooth conversations, and bear in mind that there are also people who naturally talk very low.
3. Rest. Using more than one instrument is good for avoiding muscle tensions. Percussion for battles and a pitched instrument otherwise is usually a good combination, but having more options is even better. Consider also extended techniques, like using a brush on strings; or pointed moments of silence. Any diversity of movement and posture will be of use.
Further potential
There are also a few options that have not been covered in this article — if you gain experience with them, please consider adding a few words:
- playing in duets, trios…,
- having scenarios that are crafted specifically for having live music with them (a work in progress currently),
- more RPG systems that use live music, e.g. Scherzando works with instrumental improvising to 'situation prompts', similarly to default accompaniment,
- playing together with prerecorded soundtracks,
- using live sampling or other electronic-music techniques.
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