Music, RP, characters, etc.

[camwyn]

Ages and ages ago, when I ran my first Mage tabletop game, I tried to assemble some music I thought appropriate to the events I had planned for the game. I got laughed at by my players for fumbling with the tape player, so I stopped before we even finished the first song, but that didn't stop me from mentally assigning music. I'd done it before, after all; the vast majority of characters I came up with for school writing assignments came out of listening to the radio, or at least had some kind of theme song. I was a little surprised when the application for one of my characters at an interactive story BBS garnered a response of 'you mean it was songs that inspired this guy? wow...' I thought everyone did that, really. Heck, most of my characters - game, story, MUSH, or otherwise - wind up spending a little time in my head as I listen to the radio on the way to work, because if nothing else it's at least a break from all the stuff I put them through. Sometimes it's because I can just about wedge them into singing along, and other times it's just because whatever is going on makes for good background material or imagery. "The Rising", for example, works very well with the pioneer of military aviation in VicMage.Asia. People are much more likely to accept weird new technologies if they're put to a visually impressive, socially acceptable use. Timed just right the Sky Litany towards the end of the song (Sky of blackness and sorrow, sky of love, sky of tears, sky of glory and sadness, sky of mercy, sky of fear, etc.) makes for a propaganda worthy image of returning prisoners and heroes...

Anyway. This morning I had looked through my copy of Golden Comeback before leaving the house, and I had it with me so as to give it a better look when I got to work. Now, I watch enough HK movies to choke the average horse, but I know jack-all about their music scene. It's one thing to watch movies in foreign languages, but I draw the line at buying vocal music I can't comprehend unless it's really impressive (the choral part of Beethoven's Ninth, Orff's Carmina Burana, Huun-Huur-Tu's throat singing recordings, and so on). It'd be thematically appropriate to select theme music for Feng Shui games and characters from the singers and performers of Hong Kong and the rest of the region, but I wouldn't know a Cantonese boy band ballad from a quietly hopeful funerary dirge. I got lucky, I think; I was sort of pondering Ping-ping, and considering trying to come up with another character just for practice with other archetypes, and Joan Jett came on. Okay, it was her version of Love Is All Around, but so what. When Joan Jett sings that song, Mary Tyler Moore's got nothin' to do with it. I got a reasonably interesting martial artist idea out of it, starting from the premise of 'regional wushu champion whose career got interrupted by overly enthusiastic Ascended recruiters and who now owes her life to the Dragons'.

I think the next song was Bon Jovi's It's My Life, which locked onto the Dragons as a faction pretty well, or at least I thought so. Spent the rest of the ride into work trying to match up the other factions with theme songs. I think Wrapped Around My Finger, by the Police, works fairly well for the Lotus (Mephistopheles is not your name / But I know what you're up to just the same / I will listen hard to your tuition / And you will see it come to its fruition... Devil on the deep blue sea behind me / Vanish in the air you'll never find me / I will turn your face to alabaster / When you find your servant is your master). That's about as far as I got before I got to work, though. I was wondering if any of you guys who play the game had any ideas for some of the other groups? Or, hell, for music that'd work well with the Feng Shui RPG in general?

Comments

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

Have you listened to Tibetan monks doing overtone chanting? The best recording of this in the universe is on Rykodisc, likely filed under "Gyuto Monks," and called "Freedom Chants from the Roof of the World." Mickey Hart produced it and another one on Rykodisc.

Re:

[camwyn]

I was looking at that very item on Amazon the other day, actually. I've been considering ordering it once I get paid again.

[ahmeemee.livejournal.com]

I haven't been keeping up with your Feng Shui RP stuff, but the theme songs for old HK kung fu shows sung by Frances Yip and Roman Tam (Lo Man) are pretty nifty. Try songs like...um... Hong Lau Mong (Dream of the Red Tower), Jien Tien Bu Hieu Jia (Not Going Home Today), or Siu Lei Fei Do (Little Lee's Flying Knife - a must have!). Really, if you find their old early 80s stuff you'd have a lot of inspirational wirefu music.

[camwyn]

Well, there hasn't been that much to follow, as I only recently got restarted on the whole affair. But I'll see if I can find these songs you suggest. Thanks!

[ahmeemee.livejournal.com]

You know, if you ever come to my neck of the woods again, I'm going to sit you down and make you watch old TVB kung fu series with me.