DJing for the Apocalypse

Hi all,

I've already MC'ed two sessions of my new AW campaign (nomads and water-despots in the now-subtropical Great Lakes region). As it turns out, playing to find out what happens is strangely much easier than pre-planning scenes. I thought I could accompany the campaign with some music. I haven't used music before when GMing, but I have played in a campaign with a GM who had done so, and quite successfully.

However, he used music in order to set the mood and atmosphere for each scene, something that might not mesh too well with the MC agenda in AW. So, does anyone have any tips for me? I'm not looking for particular tracks, just for some general advice: should I play music based on the mood of the scene? based on the NPCs present? the scenery? The PCs? the fronts? Should I share the responsibility of choosing music with the rest of the group?

I'd choose music for the setting I wanted, the mood I wished to create. Don't chose music for a certain scene, because it might not happen, or it might happen differently than you expect, and the interruption of turning on and off music isn't great for flow. If your players have particular music that goes with their PCs, go with that, but don't be ruled by it.

In our Windmills game, music plays a role. I don't have a soundtrack, but we do include music in the fiction, usually as modern or classic rock ballads churned through the Apocalypse and now sung as lullabies. It's weird, but it works.

I have always used music in my gaming, usually based on the feel of the situation. But for AW that just had the wrong feel to it. So I opted for a generic playlist. I put together some initial tracks and now both myself and my players add songs to at that we think works well with the setting.

Oh, and it's completely randomized, but we start every session with "God's gonna cut you down" with Johnny Cash.

Particular musical themes may be included In the "description and cast" of the threats you design.

I like the ideas of theme music for threats as well as the other in fiction uses.

So far whenever the driver has a scene in his car we play the only cassette tape he has, which is Led Zeppelin IV. There's also been some use of themes from Carnivale and Deadwood, but that music isn't happening in the game's fiction.

He should of ditched Zeppelin IV and stuck with II.  Nothing like running over waste mutants while listening to Moby Dick or Ramble On. 

...turning on and off music isn't great for flow.

Meg's right: put the music on that fits the GAME writ large and don't fiddle with it for themes or scenes or characters or whatever unless your session tends to have set downtime right before major scene shifts (never my experience, particularly with AW).  Either that, or you better be a damn good DJ as well as an MC, seamlessly cutting in the appropriate music at the appropriate times.

All that being said, I have a few favorite general background albums that convey an "apocalyptic" feel.  Since I'm an electronica junkie and not into all this "rock" that others appear to enjoy, well, that's just reflected in my album selection.  YMMV.

ARTIST - ALBUM
1. Evan Bartholomew – Secret Entries into Darkness
I classify it as "dark ambient." It was my background soundtrack while I ran The Journey (http://jeepen.org/games/thejourney/) at Fastaval 2010, and did the job.  Think of it as a soundtrack for the cold wastes.

2. The Sight Below - Glider
Lots of white noise mixed with wafty guitars and beats.

3. The Suicide of Western Culture (self-titled)
Put it on softly in the background, and random anthems will match up to your characters' actions.

This isn't really on point, but searching for "acoustic metal" on youtube, and "Metalica lullaby" on amazon gave me music that would be right on cue for the Windmills game. It might work for other combinations, too.

This isn't really on point, but searching for "acoustic metal" on youtube, and "Metalica lullaby" on amazon gave me music that would be right on cue for the Windmills game. It might work for other combinations, too.

FWIW, it's Tori Amos' version of Smells Like Teen Spirit that's always in my head when I talk about Hooch and his Trailjacks sitting around doing folk music versions of old rock standards.

http://youtube.com/wcHNZVrxEts

Hi all, and thanks for the tips. I'll take Margolotte's advice and stick to a randomized soundtrack.

As for the soundtrack itself, as non-Americans, my group agree that Americana is a huge part of the post-apocalyptic genre, so we'll probably stick to rockabilly, folk and country music.

I can only recomand 16 Horse Power's the black soul choir with songs such as Heel on the shovel.

As I mentioned on the ambient music thread (http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=1681.0) I think about this a lot. 

I really like to have music when I game, but I have trouble gaming if there's music with lyrics.  They distract me for some reason.  As such, I tend to agree with the above people that picking music with a sort of mood you want and then randomizing the playlist is a good way to do it.  It's real cool when it works. 

Having said that, the weird thing is that mood and music are very subjective things. 
A song that you think is sad someone else will think is happy, etc.  Likewise, one person might think that Apocalypse World should have ominous sounding music, another person might think it should have dusty sounding music.  It almost means you want to have a conversation at the beginning if this is something you think about.  What kind of mood are you going for, and what kind of music creates that mood? 

I'm running a game of Apocalypse World this summer and one thing I'm trying is creating a mix CD of songs that I gave out to the players prior to character creation that sort of speak to the moods and themes I'm trying to create.  Hopefully it be evocative with regard to what we all come up with.  We'll see how it works. 

One more:

http://hellcrawler.bandcamp.com/ 

Album is free.  Bonus.

A Slovenian Crust band who actually write songs about the post-apocalypse.  I wouldn't recommend playing it during sessions (a bit loud and distracting), but good to rock in the care or on your bike on the way to play.