Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Notes for a Playlist-based World Building Tool and Play System

I've been creating playlists on Spotify that function as tables for far-future sci-fi games / world-building.

I'll link to individual playlists below, or you can view all of them on my Spotify profile.

(Note that these are emphatically NOT "sci-fi soundtracks", they run a wide and crazy gamut of genres, so if you are trying to create a musical "space mood", this ain't your tool!)

First, how the playlists work (super simple):

  • Hit "shuffle", get an entry, just like rolling on a table
  • Like the entry? Use it! (Adapt and build on it as needed)
  • Don't like the entry? Hit "next"
Here's a recipe for quickly building out an interesting space ship:
  1. Use the Ships playlist to find a name for the ship
  2. Fire up the Spaces playlist to populate the ship with some unexpected areas; many of these are intentionally vague / strange / "impossible". Stick with them and find ways to bend the laws of reality in your world to make them possible.
    1. Within those spaces, check out the Atmos playlist to get a sense of what it looks and feels like
  3. Here's a Stuff playlist (aka loot table) for the ship; why are these things here? why are they valuable?
  4. Want some people/aliens/androids/cults/etc on the ship. Use the Souls playlist! 
    1. If you want to flesh out the Souls, give them some things from the Stuff playlist
    2. Use the Skills playlist to give those folks some stuff they're good at
    3. Use the Quirks playlist to make them a little more (un)real
Boom(?) ... now you have a very interesting space ship; start exploring!

Now, a few musings on why I find this sample-based table-building practice and resource particularly valuable:

  • The future is already here, seeded throughout the present; song titles are a great way to find those seeds and gather them into seed banks for future planting
  • Music activates different activity centers in my mind, opening different pathways, making new connections; pairing that mode of discovery with text and world-creation is exciting
  • The playlist is potentially infinite, nothing needs to be excluded because it doesn't fit in a neat d20 table or d100 or whatever
  • Shuffle = discovery; shuffle = creation
  • The variety of titles, genres, moods etc is a necessary counterpoint to sci-fi's tendency towards a kind of mono-culture / mono-atmosphere. I love me some Blade Runner (and Blade Runner 2049), but the overwhelming atmosphere seems to leave little room for the vast variety of experience and perspective. 
  • As with all things sample-based or remix-ready, the focus and power shifts from THE ARTIST as a singular near-mythic entity, to THE USER as a collector and activator of the elements; what will YOU discover while surfing through the playlists? What worlds will YOU create from the seeds and sparks (either in your mind, or at the table, or ???)
  • It encourages me to navigate music-space in a different way, leading to unexpected discoveries and new (to me, at least) territories of sound and thought

And a quick note on play systems (to be explored in a follow-up post).
I'm leaning more and more towards extremely rules light, narrative forward playstyles.
I imagine a system where someone uses the Souls playlist to find their character, the Skills playlist to give them 3(ish) skills, and the Stuff playlist to give them a couple things. Throw in some quirks and you are almost good to go.
As for stats? Blah blah blah, use 2d6 against static 8 challenge rating, give them +1 when using a relevant skill or stuff.

GO!



Here are those playlist links again:


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