[UA] Music for my Unknown Armies

[stuartanderson at uswest.net]

    An episode of Millenium was laced with a Dean Martin tune. I rushed
immediately out to get a DM CD and use it frequently. In an In Nomine/Call of
Cthulhu campaign I ran last year, I had a recurring GM character who manifested
only as corrupted verses of the Cat Stevens song Moonshadow. Time would stop
and they would hear a distorted snatch of the song and time would resume. I did
it initially to just kind of screw with them. I'd heard the song on the way to
the game and had never caught the kind of ominous undercurrent of the otherwise
comforting lyrics and frothy melody. Cthulhu immersion is great for increasing
awareness of ominous undercurrents. It drove them so nuts that I was able to
parley the cute but short-term idea into a mysterious and effective means for
guiding the characters.
    I use TV themes, bizarre Muzak (the Sandpipers version of Louie, Louie is a
good example) Hawaiian music--all kinds of stuff. I get some pretty good
mileage from running the music counter to the mood I'm evoking, sometimes. And
I love to play wierd, disorienting stuff, just low enough that it's not
terribly distracting, but the players are asking themselves, "What the hell is
this? Does he like this stuff?" when they aren't in character. At any rate, I
don't just use music as a soundtrack for the campaign. I wanted to point that
out because of the recent thread on the line about movies and their value as
inspiration.
    I agree to a point with the comment someone made about not confining games
to literary or cinematic genres. That's a great technique for getting everyone
together on the same page, but unless you want to take a movie and just kind of
move into it (which can be fun), it's limiting. Miles Davis has a great quote
somewhere about how making a movie about jazz is like making a ballet about
archetecture. The same is true about running a game based on a book or movie.
Take your ideas from wherever you want--look everywhere. There's much
creepiness to be gleaned from James and the Giant Peach or Charlie and the
Great Glass Elevator. Or Dr. Doolittle. What if you could talk to the animals,
and all they wanted to talk about was how good your eyes would taste if they
ever got the slightest chance. . .
    Just remember that despite great design and NPCs and plot hooks and clever
clues, a game just doesn't live and breathe without the wierd little trolls
congregated in your living room. You have to take your leads from them and run
with what works. Evidently, going by all the recent, disturbing attention given
to listers' favorite injuries, a brief introductory exposition about the
exquisite agony of picking at a scab would hook your players as effectively as
a movie or piece of music. Go figure. Sick little monkeys.
    Oh--I also like Screaming Jay Hawkins, the Cramps, Iron Maiden, and Merle
Haggard for establishing unsettling, apocalyptic mood.
--love, Stu.

Trent Redfield wrote:

> Unknown Armies requires a certain mood.  Music is definitely an element
> that can set that mood.  Here is a few CDs I am going to use for my
> campaign:
> What about all of you?  What do you use?
>
> - Trent Redfield
>
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