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[personal profile] athelind
Songs and song titles make great adventure seeds. In the past, I've had GMs who constructed entire campaigns around albums by Jethro Tull or King Crimson.

It's especially appropriate for comic book games -- Stan Lee loved to play on pop music for his story titles. The right combination of words and the songs they describe can suggest entire, baroque scenarios. It's kind of like the way Silver Age DC (and Golden Age Pulp SF) editors would commission a cover, hand it to a writer, and say, "I need a story to go with this."

The questions to ask when you try this:

  • What kind of scenario does the title suggest?
  • Does it describe an event? An adversary? An ally or a victim? Just a general mood or theme?
  • How much of the song itself can I lift to help flesh out the adventure?


So, LiveJournal HiveMind, Your Obedient Serpent has the request lines open: give me song titles that you think would make good adventures, particularly superhero adventures.

Don't feel like you have to be obvious, but don't feel like you have to be obscure, either. "Eve of Destruction" is obvious; "Winds of Change", a bit less; "I Don't Like Mondays" sounds like a Garfield punchline unless you know the song and the story behind it.

Give me titles; if you feel like it, give me the scenarios that come to mind when YOU hear them -- or just toss them down as a challenge.

My players all read this, so I'm screening replies!


*"But that trick never works!"

Date: 2012-03-09 02:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ebony14.livejournal.com
I'm about to start a Deadlands adventure that I have titled "Drivin' Steel." It's a reversed title, because if I call it "Steel Drivin' Man" then someone will figure it out before they open the McGuffin box. Which, as you know, spoils the fun.

"New Kid in Town" by the Eagles was the start of an idea for a campaign where the first-string heroes had all perished under sinister circumstances, and the PCs had to fill their shoes. I haven't run it, but it's shaping some fiction ideas I'm kicking around.

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