Making Characters

I spent a part of my afternoon today tracking down character sheets for some of my games for a project I'm starting to work on, and it reminded me of how much I love character generation.

One of my greatest joys was always taking a pencil, some scratch paper, a character sheet, and the necessary books and creating something out of nothing.

Did I say something? I'm sorry. I meant someone.

It was always fascinating to me how many different ways there were to create characters, too. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition was strict die-rolling. FASA's Star Trek was a free-choice lifepath. Cyberpunk had a lifepath, too, but you had to roll on it - and it was more of an add-on to provide post-generation flavor to your character.

Over time, I grew to appreciate systems that gave me more control over my character. At the same time, it's easy to see why those systems were the most frustrating to GMs (I was young enough that the concept of a GM limiting our character generation in some way was an alien concept).

The first time I saw GURPS, my head about exploded. It was the first point-buy system I'd seen where everything came out of the same pool of points. And there were so many options! I spent close to 60 points on skills for my first character. I could have achieved the same results by spending more points on my attributes and fewer of those points on my attributes - and long-term, it would have been a more powerful character.

In fact, looking back, I see a lot of "mistakes" on my older characters. Optimizations that experienced players would have taken that a beginner to the game could easily miss. Character options that are more important than they appear to be - or that are worth more points than you spend on them.

And I'm curious in some cases: How will a total beginner to a given system handle character generation? Can I catch some of these "mistakes" on my own? How about my readers?

Thankfully, I live with someone who is a fairly inexperienced roleplayer. My beautiful wife, Stephanie. While she is a boardgamer, her roleplaying experience is limited (another reason I keep doing the one-shots). When I asked her if she'd be willing to participate, she was excited. And I'm excited to have her involved.

Don't look for this to be a regular series - we have a lot of games we're going to work through, but we need to schedule character generation into our (severely limited) free time, and then I need to write about the results (and scan the sheet, and so on and so forth).

I hope you enjoy reading about our experiences.

Bringing My "A" Game

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the differences between my two one-shots - that is, why was one of them an A Game, and one a B-Minus Game?

Wade (as usual) does an excellent job of breaking it down for us.

I agree with his points, and have a few more to add. Here is what I'll be doing differently in future one-shots:

Setting Familiarity
Wade is right: The FUDGE Deryni game flopped in part because the players didn't know the setting and there was no one-sentence description to summarize it easily.

Even though Cthulhutech was an unfamiliar setting, it drew on a number of familiar elements. I was able to easily describe it: "It's like a cross between Neon Genesis: Evangelion and Cyberpunk, with Cthulhu added."

In the future, I will try to run games that are either familiar to the players or for which it is easy to create said familiarity with relatively few brush strokes.

Characters
For FUDGE, I did all the character generation according to what I thought the players wanted. I didn't pay much attention to what I needed to move the story along. I also had the characters 100% complete before the players ever saw them. I failed to provide any hints as to character personality.

For Cthulhutech, I made more characters than players, and allowed them to choose which character they wanted as their own. As I had four players, I made six characters and made sure that each critical skill was covered by at least three characters. I also left the characters partially incomplete, allowing the players to customize slightly. Part of the Framewerk system involves giving each character a character virtue and a character flaw, so they had an idea of who these collections of numbers were, too.

In the future, I'll do what I did with Cthulhutech. I know which players will gravitate to which character type, so I can make sure that the players will like who they wind up with. I'll also make sure there are some personality hints somewhere on the page. And I'll leave a few things unfinished so that the players have some personal touches added to their characters.

Plot
My weakness is endings. It always has been. They completed the major objectives in the FUDGE game, but I left too many hooks dangling - and it's a genre that doesn't seem to like dangling hooks. The "climax" was also unsatisfying - most players like a good solid combat at some point, and I did my best to dodge it for FUDGE.

I left plots hanging in Cthulhutech, too, but they were plots that felt like they were supposed to dangle. Sure, they caught the bad guy, but the mastermind got away. It's like that mid-point on TV Crime Dramas, when you know who the real bad guy is, but you don't have enough proof to get him. There was a good dust-up, too, before things returned to "Business as Usual."

Other Points
I did a better job of sensory engagement with Cthulhutech. Every GM Guide I've ever read has a reminder to GM's about this, too. Describe smells and sounds. If the air feels damp, tell them that. Just telling players that "the carpet squelches underfoot as you walk across it," goes a long ways towards setting the tone.

Part of that is because I'd just re-read Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering (which is well worth the $8 PDF price). I have several other excellent GM-ing books around that I've been refreshing myself on, too.

I should probably write about a few of them.

I'm also going to suggest that my players read Play Unsafe - there are a number of excellent books for GM's and not that many for players.

I'm currently reading Kobold's Guide to Game Design, Volume 1. It's for people who are writing an adventure, not necessarily for GM's who are in the thick of things, as it were - but it has some good information. I'll be writing more about this one later, too.

One-Shots Update

So ... one-shots. Remember last year, how I'd decided not to buy any new RPG books until I'd used my most recent purchase?

It's the New Year's Resolution I broke last year - and didn't renew this year.

But I did run a couple of one-shots. Well - one last year, and one earlier this year.

Last year's one-shot was FUDGE. I actually used The Deryni Adventure Game. I generated one PC per player and sent the characters out a few weeks in advance along with a description of the basics of the system.

Part of the reason I chose FUDGE is because FATE is a flavor of FUDGE, and the upcoming Dresden Files RPG is a FATE-based game. And one of my players is foaming at the mount with excitement. Since The Dresden Files Role-Playing Game was due by GenCon, I figured a quick FUDGE game would get him ready for FATE.

And, before anyone snarks about the game not being out yet, I suggest you grab your copy of this book, and read number 117. If you don't own it, yet, then go to IPR and buy it!

The game was ... okay. The players weren't as into it as I'd have liked, and my usual off-the-cuff GM-ing style didn't seem to work. I had fun, and (apparently) so did the players, but I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied. And I didn't get the enthusiastic vibe from the players that you can get after a good session. It showed a lot of potential - and I'd definitely be willing revisit the game for a sequel at some point - I deliberately left a few plot hooks dangling - but I suspect that, if the players were filling out a report card, it would have received a B-minus or C-plus grade.

For my second one-shot, I grabbed a game that I knew the players were more enthusiastic about - Cthulhutech. I made more characters than players, and I left them incomplete. Not "five hours of work later, I had a character" incomplete - those of you familiar with the game will know what I mean when I say, "I didn't spend the characters' cheats." I had an idea of where to go story-wise.

We had a blast. The game went well - I had a hint-dropping NPC available if needed (something I hadn't thought of - it was a player idea that was easy to insert into the game). And the Big Finish was fun.

My good friend Wade, who is one of the primary reasons I do these one-shots, wrote up his reaction to the game.

My next one-shot (yet to be scheduled) will be King Arthur Pendragon, a game I've wanted to play since the first edition came out - and a game from which I have frequently borrowed bits for use in other games. I'll have to write about that, sometime ...

Amber Diceless

As you may or may not know, I received a copy of Amber Diceless Role-Playing for Christmas.

I'd read through it once when it was still in print (when I was much younger than I am now). I'd started looking for it a few years ago, when I picked up Nobilis - I wanted to compare the systems. By then, of course, the price for Amber had skyrocketed, and I was unable to do any sort of comparison, even for myself.

So, now that I have (and have read thoroughly) Amber, what do I think?

Here's the thing you have to keep in mind: Amber kicked off diceless roleplaying. I'm sure there were diceless games before it came out, but none of them were as big as Amber was.

So why did Amber make it so big?

Good question.

Having read the game, I still can't tell you. I can tell you that it's phenomenal on several levels. The game is one where the demand for trust between GM and player is higher than most. This is in large part because - after character generation - players don't necessarily know what their stats are, or how they compare to the other PC's.

This, by the way, is brilliant.

Having players participate in an auction for their attributes is clever - but the brilliant part here is the ability to secretly increase your attributes after the auction.

The game is based on Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. If you aren't familiar with them, I suggest buying this book and reading them. PC's are the children of Corwin's generation - grandchildren of Oberon.

Obviously, there are probably other siblings and cousins around, but the PC's are the key players.

The mechanics of play themselves are honestly nothing special: Highest number wins. Yes, it's that simple.

The key is to maneuver circumstances to your advantage before comparing numbers. Are you the best wrestler of your generation? Make sure your opponent is unarmed before engaging.

Where this book shines, however, is when it gives advice to the GM. Some of the advice is specific to Amber, but there is a fair amount that can be used in any game. I'd suggest that the majority of the advice is usable in most games.

The book has numerous examples of the various types of conflict players tend to get into, complete with multiple examples, ranging from melee combat when the player is significantly better than their opponent to psychic conflict when weak-willed PC's face stronger NPC's.

It's a fascinating read, and well worth looking for.

You can still, by the way, order a PDF version of the game, and its lone supplement, Shadow Knight.

A lot of fans of Amber disliked Shadow Knight. While I have Shadow Knight, I haven't read it, yet, so I can't comment on whether it's worth the $12. I can tell you that print copies of Shadow Knight are usually available for less than $15, including shipping (I got it for $11 including shipping from Troll and Toad).

And all of this reminds me: I need to write sometime about the importance of GM-player trust and how to use (and abuse) that trust.

Next week, however, I'm planning to talk about Dungeon Twister a bit more - players have been asking me for help with items, and I plan to talk about items and characters and combinations next week (Planned future posts are, of course, subject to sudden change without warning).

System Still Matters

Here's what we've covered so far:
System Matters because it sets up the expectations of the players.
System Matters because it provides a reward system, impacting the style of play.

Here's today's discussion:
System Matters because the system chosen restricts player choice.

This restriction begins at character generation:

If I tell you "Make a character for a game," you will probably first ask me what game it will be. After all, if we're playing D&D and you show up with a GURPS Traveller character, we have a problem.

If I'm more specific with my request - "Make a GURPS Swashbucklers character," then you have more information, but still not enough to get started. At this point, you need to know what power level the character should be, if there are any off-limits Advantages or Disadvantages, and so on.

Every choice that I, as a GM, give to my players modifies their available choices. "Make me a 150 point GURPS Swashbucklers character. Some GURPS Steampunk and GURPS Space skills and Advantages are available. Disadvantages worth more than 5 points require specific approval. Humans only, unless you have a really cool concept you want me to work in. No magic-users."

I've just told my players what I want - and have given them a clue about the game we'll be playing. I slammed a lot of doors shut - I won't be seeing a party of Elves, for example. But they know to expect Steampunk Swashbucklers in Space. Since magic is not a default in any of these settings, my mention of magic-users hints that magic does exist in the setting. It also suggests that it's rare - or problematic in some way. And non-humans do exist - that is made explicitly clear in my instructions.

System Matters because it can support the setting.

In Dungeons and Dragons, you very rarely see Wizards on the front lines going toe-to-toe with monsters. Instead, Wizards tend to stand back and fire spells from a safe distance.

The setting¹ says, "Wizards are not melee fighters - they are support characters." In response, the rules give wizards fewer hit points and it's harder for them to wear armor.

Many games have system "tweaks" to respond to specific setting differences. The Fuzion system is an excellent example of this: Even with the same rules, a Champions: New Millennium character would not fit into a Bubblegum Crisis campaign - even if you ignored the setting clash.

Why? Because Bubblegum Crisis is a fairly gritty setting where guns are a thing to be feared. Superheroes, by contrast, don't usually use guns (or fear guns). Because of this, the Champions character will eat most Bubblegum Crisis adventures for breakfast. And a Dragonball Z character will overpower a Champions character without breaking a sweat.

In general, I'm not fond of universal systems in part because people will inevitably try crossovers between two very different settings, and then get upset when it doesn't 'Work.' This is partly because of publishers who get lazy and don't tweak their engine for different settings - In my Fuzion example above, the system is tweaked for each setting.

Part of my general dislike for universal systems is because of this lack of subtle setting reinforcement - a GURPS Swashbucklers character will be equally as effective against a sword-wielding medieval knight out of armor as against a WWII soldier in the trenches. In theory, any 100-point GURPS character is on par with any other 100-point GURPS character.

This is one of the few areas where I give credit to Palladium Books. If you look at the Rifts setting and all of the hundreds of thousands of available character options, it rapidly becomes clear that certain character options are dramatically more powerful than others. The various authors and designers involved don't even try to maintain balance. There are character races which are clearly better than others. I'd go so far as to guess that there are options that less than 1% of Rifts players take because they are so dramatically inferior. At the core of this inferiority is the Mega-Damage settings, where some character are 100x as tough as others just because they're from a different universe. There's actually a decent rant on this here.

I've got more to say on this, but this post is long enough already, I think. I'll be at GenCon next week and will be spending my normal writing time packing. This means a two-week disruption in posting here². In the meantime, feel free to watch my Twitter feed, which will be active next week.

I'll see you after GenCon.


¹ I say "The Setting" - the same applies to all published D&D settings I can think of, many of which are virtually identical.

² The Wednesday AFTER GenCon may just be an overview of my haul.

System: Player Expectations and Style of Play

Since I'm going to be talking about system and how it impacts games for a bit, I think that it would be good to start by defining system.

For role-playing, I define a system as follows:

System: A set of rules used to determine the success or failure of characters within a role-playing game.

There are other elements which nearly every system has, but they are all designed to support the core success/failure mechanism of the system. For example, most games have a character generation system of some sort.

The most common core mechanisms involve dice, and can be summed up in a single sentence - "Roll one die, add appropriate modifiers and compare to a target number." "Roll a number of dice. Count the number of those dice which equal or exceed a certain number."

Systems also provide reward systems. Most of the time, this takes the form of experience points which allow characters to change and grow.

Each system brings with it certain expectations, which can drastically color how players react to it.

Where do the expectations come from? A variety of sources.

The most important and influential piece of the player expectation puzzle is the game's reward system. In Dungeons & Dragons, defeating monsters¹ and disarming traps give you experience points which are added to your total. At certain threshholds, you gain more abilities which make you more effective at defeating monsters and disarming traps. The system doesn't spell out rewards for outwitting NPC's or avoiding combat. This leads to a specific style of play.

In the Tribe 8 (and other Silhouette-system games), you gain experience for being involved with the game, for advancing the story, for staying in character, and for working as a team. Yes, you can get experience for defeating enemies, but you can potentially obtain more experience for a dramatic act of self-sacrifice than for that defeat.

In other games, survival is its own reward. Call of Cthulhu is probably the most infamous game in this respect.

Other games provide additional rewards - King Arthur Pendragon, with its Winter Phase allows players to build dynasties, not just characters.

While it's the major contributor, a game's reward system is not the only element which impacts a game's style of play. So what else influences player expectations?

Rules focus. In Ars Magica, for example, devotes more than two-thirds of the rules to the magic system. Not surprisingly, the game focuses on magic. In fact, the combat system is almost underdeveloped by comparison.

Skill Lists. Tales From The Floating Vagabond had a skill list which included, "Swing Nasty Pointy Thing with Panache." With a list like that players knew from the outset that the game didn't take itself too seriously. It's worth noting that the game (and a number of its supplements) are now available at Drive Thru RPG.

Interior Art. CthulhuTech is illustrated throughout, and there are a number of images that make me think, "I wanna be that guy."

Game Fiction. I'm not talking about the Dragonlance novels, here. Nearly every game includes one or more bits of introductory fiction. These are frequently incomplete and end with a cliffhanger of sorts before introducing the rules elements demonstrated by that fiction. More importantly, they give you an idea what the setting is.

So what about Universal Systems? That is: systems which don't tie to a specific setting or genre. Universal systems generally lack a specific rules focus, they have very diverse skill lists, and the interior art and game fiction are all over the map in terms of quality and flavor. GURPS, FUDGE, Silhouette, and d20 have all tried to be completely universal systems - how well do they succeed? I'll talk about universal systems next week.







¹ Until fairly recently, "Defeating" always meant "killing." Now, if you can force them to retreat or flee, you get credit for defeating them.

System Matters

Let's get to the meat of the discussion, shall we? I have two words for you - they are words that the large sections of the RPG publishing industry spent the better part of a decade trying to convince you were incorrect. Words that the rest of the industry spent the same amount of time trying to reinforce and remind you of.

These two words?

System Matters

In 2000, Dungeons & Dragons released its third edition. The game was a huge step forward for D&D - it transformed the game, and advanced the system so it was almost caught up to the rest of the industry¹. But it did one thing that advanced the entire industry - it opened its system up to third-party publishers, with a few restrictions. This meant that anyone could publish product that used the same system as the best-selling game in the industry. They were even allowed to claim compatiblity. Did I say allowed? I mean "required." Each book said on the front, "Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook." Sales exploded. For everyone. We saw d20 Superhero games, d20 Pulp Noir Detective games, d20 Cyberpunk games, d20 Horror games ...

For the first few months, all you needed to do in order to sell product to a distributor was slap that d20 logo onto the product.

And everyone that produced d20 product spent time telling you, "System doesn't matter. The flavor of the game comes from the Game Master (GM)." In essence, "The d20 Version of Game is just the same as the non-d20 Version of Game. If you are noticing a difference in your game, it's all your GM's fault." More on this later. And by "later," I mean, "Probably next week."

What these publishers forgot - and hoped you would forget - is that each system brings with it its own set of player expectations. Someone who enjoys GURPS is probably not going to enjoy a system with fewer rules, such as Vampire: The Masquerade, because each game has a completely different reward system. And yes, I know about the train wreck known as GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade. It took the Gothic Punk setting of the one and shoehorned it to the system of the other. The problem was that most GURPS players weren't interested in the setting, and most V:tM players preferred the system they already had. Steve Jackson Games published a few other World of Darkness adaptations

In fact, I suspect that GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade is a large part of why White Wolf and Steve Jackson both approached the d20 system the way they did - White Wolf published a series of settings and adventures that were completely unrelated to their World of Darkness setting (and didn't use the White Wolf name), and Steve Jackson Games waited a few years, and then began mocking d20 with The Munchkin Player's Guide.

Meanwhile, other games quietly started to take advantage of a growing d20 backlash. In 2001, Sorcerer (a game which had existed since the mid-90's) was a success in its print incarnation - not a huge success, but enough that smaller independent publishers started to take note. Discussion of game theory on the Forge took off. A few years later, the Indie Press Revolution took off. While they haven't billed themselves as such, these groups are to role-playing what the Punk movement was to music. But that's another subject for another time.

Is this to say there is no such thing as a functional universal system? No. Not at all. I'm also not saying d20 was a bad game - I thought some a few d20 versions were actually superior to the "original" versions of some games. I'll talk more about both of these later, as well.

I know it seems like I spend more time talking about what I'm going to talk about instead of just talking about it.

Here is why:
Every sentence I type spills fifteen more ideas into my notebook. Just in the last few paragraphs, I've realized that I have six different Cthulhu games (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Toon², Call of Cthulhu d20, GURPS Cthulhupunk, and CthulhuTech), that I have two different universal systems within arms reach (GURPS and FUDGE), and that I haven't played a White Wolf game in nearly a decade.

And, once I start to talk about one of those, they spill even more ideas. For example, it occurs to me that the Cthulhu games are a perfect example of how system matters. Each has their own way of dealing with sanity, and each has a different "feel" to it which is based in large part on the system. I am also aware that d20 tried to be a universal system, and it succeeded to a limited extent, but it still isn't as universal as FUDGE. I should write about universal systems and where they succeed and fail.

...

So join me next week, when I continue talking about system and how it matters. And, in a few weeks, I'll talk about setting and how it matters and how it interacts with system.

I'll get back to boardgaming, I promise. In fact, next week - despite what I've said here - I'll probably have an entry about Dungeon Twister. Or Ghost Stories: White Moon, which I've now seen the rules to. If, of course, I'm allowed to say anything about it.

It's also worth mentioning that Asmodee Editions and Repos Productions are sharing a booth at GenCon this year. I'm looking forward to meeting the Repos team.





¹ Care to see the history of the d20 system? Check out Talislanta sometime. Especially the 3rd edition, written by Jonathan Tweet and published by Wizards of the Coast.

² The Tooniversal Tour Guide has a section entitled "The Crawl of Catchoolu." It's a parody, but it's a functional parody.

My Role-Playing Qualifications

So, to qualifications:

What qualifications do I have to talk about Role-playing?

On paper? I'm a credited playtester for two different publishers. That's ... yep. That's it. I have a playtest credit for Paranoia XP, and a playtest credit for Bloode Island XPG, where I was a playtest GM.

I've also run RPG demos at game stores and conventions.

Yep. That's it. On paper.

That doesn't take into account my 23 years of role-playing experience or my 17 years of game-mastering experience.

It doesn't include the fact that I've played everything from Rolemaster to Toon. I've done diceless and free-form games. I've played LARPs. I've also played Shadowrun, and I had almost enough dice for myself¹. I could just make a list of games I've played (or run), but I honestly don't have time to type it up, and I'm guessing you wouldn't want to read a long list of games.

It doesn't consider the various books I've read on both playing and game-mastering. I have a large collection of games – but that's not important. What is important is that I've read them all, and could run nearly any of them with only a few minutes of review.

Even in 2002, when I made my transition from role-player to boardgamer, I continued buying and reading RPG's. That's not to say I no longer self-identify as a role-player, either – I just recognize that I'm more boardgame focused than RPG focused these days.

I have preferences. I won't deny this. In fact, that's what I plan to spend the next few weeks talking about – what I like and why I like it. I'm going to talk about systems, mechanisms, settings, and how they interact.




¹ This is meant to be funny. But it only works if you're familiar with the First and Second Editions of Shadowrun. Third Edition toned it down, and the Fourth Edition is a completely different animal.

LIDT Seeks Regional Managers

The LIDT posted this news item last week (click on the correct flag to change languages).

Go on. Read it. I'll wait.

There are two important things about this announcement:

1) I translated it. I used Google's translation page (which is improving) for a few parts, but I did it.

2) I'm the "Gamethyme" they mentioned for North America. I divided the US into six regions, and now I get to start looking for regional managers for those regions. I'm also looking for Canadians interested in pitching in. Please, if you're interested and have questions, e-mail me. My e-mail address is to the right - where it says "e-mail me." Much as I'd love to be the Regional Manager for the entire continent, there is no way I have the time for it. For the record: France, which is only a small bit larger than Texas, will have four Regional Managers. Of course, they have more DT players than we do at present, too.

That last, of course, is something I'm still working on.

I'm also working on a few posts for this blog that are more role-playing related. I'm not turning my back on Boardgaming (far from it!), but I'm gearing up to run a FUDGE one-shot, which means adjusting my mental gears towards roleplaying for a bit. I'll be (in the next few weeks) talking about what I like in a role-playing game and why not all systems are good for all situations.

Since one of my goals with this blog is to present myself as an expert, I'll start next week by listing my roleplaying credentials - games I've played and/or run and why I'm qualified to talk about roleplaying games in general. It's not like boardgaming, where I can point at my collection (as listed on BGG - I still don't have everything recorded, either. Not by a long shot) or the games I've played (since 2007, when I started keeping track) to establish that I know what I'm doing. Although I really should put up a post detailing my boardgaming credentials at some point.

Role-playing is a different animal from boardgaming (even if some games blur the line a bit at points), so I feel as though I have to establish my credentials on that front.

A Few More New Year's Resolution Notes

So I have another New Year's Resolution that will directly impact my blogging fodder: This year, I will not buy an RPG book that I will not use. Meaning that if I buy a book, I need to use it (either running a one-shot or playing in a game).

This is because I have probably three thousand RPG books in my apartment. No exaggeration. I even managed to get a copy of Last Unicorn's Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium at cover price (without being at GenCon that year). And these games aren't being used. They're just sitting and taking up space (with the exception of the 4E D&D books, which I'm using). So I need to use them.

Maybe using them for one-shots will spark further sales for the publishers. If you're not Wizards of the Coast, you need the sales. :)

The only exception to the "use it before buying more books" rule is books purchased through Indie Press Revolution, as those are purchased as much for their ideas as for actual use. I'm still not sure if Polaris is playable in my group.

I have a similar rule for boardgaming this year - I need to use each new game within a month of purchase. The exception here is the month following GenCon. I usually bring back a lot of new games and playing them all in one month is damn near impossible. That'll directly impact my games played.

Gaming Soundtracks

I was listening to the soundtrack to Last Night On Earth: The Zombie Game the other day. It's a beautiful soundtrack, and I love its sound.

It just doesn't sound like a B-movie horror soundtrack to me. It sounds like the kind of music I listen to while playing Engel or In Nomine.

As a role-player, I've been listening to soundtrack music for a very long time, with mixed results.

One GM used the score from Dune (I admit that I used Dune when I ran Blue Planet). It hung in the background without being too distracting.

One GM had a 200-disc CD changer, and it was all cued up. When we were heading into battle, he'd push three buttons, and the music would immediately let us know what we were in for.

One of my World of Darkness GM's had a soundtrack to describe the game to new players - he'd loan you the mix tape two weeks before you started play. It was supposed to give you an idea of what the world was like. He had one song for each Vampire Clan, one song for each of the other World of Darkness factions - and it gave you an idea of what to expect from them when you met them in-game.

There haven't been a lot of soundtracks released specifically for gaming - it's difficult to do, as every game feels different.

Midnight Syndicate has put out a batch of game-oriented CD's that work. They're listenable. But they don't describe my games very well. And that's the problem with most of the game soundtracks that have been released: They describe the artist's games, not your own.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets did an album for Call of Cthulhu d20 that I liked - but it wasn't very good as a game soundtrack, as it got in the way, and didn't fit non-Modern games.

Here are a couple of pointers to help you come up with a soundtrack for your game:

1) Don't choose music that will clash with the game. German Death Metal works just fine for a post-apocalyptic setting, but probably won't go well with your Golden Age of Piracy games. One GM I remember used the Conan soundtrack for his homebrewed Victorian Steampunk game.

2) Don't spend too much time nailing down "the perfect battle theme," and the like. Your music should describe the setting as a whole, not just situations PC's are likely to encounter.

3) Speaking of situations, you should assume that music will play at the wrong time. Will your "Zombies Attack" song destroy the feel of the King's Palace when the PC's are visiting? "Ride of the Valkyries" is not good music for the Netrunner's hacking attempt, but it works just fine when the Rigger is trying to clear a barricade.

4) Try to keep it to a single CD. The GM with the 200-disc changer sometimes spent more time looking for the right disc than he did running the game. It was frustrating more often than it worked. If you're using an iPod or similar, try setting up a playlist of ten to fifteen songs.

5) Avoid trying to change songs to give clues. If the PC's know a battle is coming, that's one thing, but you don't want to warn them that they're about to walk into an Orc ambush. Or that the Chancellor is secretly working for the Guild.

6) Your music should reflect how you think your world sounds to YOU. Not everyone will agree with you - I thought that Dune and Blue Planet shared a number of thematic elements, so I used the soundtrack as background music and totally confused my players.

7) Don't use music to cover up holes in your GMing or to create emotion that isn't already there. Music shouldn't be a crutch. If your players are climbing the Eternal Mountain of the Five Winds with the Horn of Truth to bring the Gods back, there should be enough depth there already. If you and your players have told the story well, you don't need the music to provide goosebumps.