When I start building out a world for a tabletop game, if there’s a particular feeling that I’m trying to achieve as part of that build, I will usually create a playlist to help me zero in on it. I’ll do the same thing for villains, sometimes, though I tend to avoid it since I generally want my villains to be a framework with some goals and ideals that will be given greater detail and a final shape through their interactions with my player characters (however remote or limited those interactions are). I make playlists a lot more as a player, usually one for every major step along the path of my character’s journey that go from being vague ideas to solid, smaller playlists as I hit those major beats and see what shape they’ll take, but the practice that started as a player in a D&D game has grown far beyond that point. I’ve relied on it as a part of my worldbuilding and NPC development more heavily in recent years, as I’ve moved away from standard fantasy worlds and instead built worlds to reflect past failures (from when my weekly Sunday game had a Total Party Kill and we decided to start a new game in the distant future of the world they failed to save) or to reflect specific themes (like the one I built and adapted to first a Heroic Tragedy D&D campaign and then to a game of Heart: The City Beneath). For these more thematically focused worlds, the playlists have been super helpful in reminding me of the tone I’m supposed to be setting as I flesh out bits of the world my players are about to encounter or create things out of whole cloth on the spot as I run the sessions.

For this latest game I’m setting up, the modern fantasy game that will probably be played in Dungeons and Dragons 5e, I don’t have a setting playlist. Since we haven’t really figured out what tone we want or whether we’ll be going with a “the whole world is magic and has progressed to a level of modern technology” or “the world of magic lives alongside the modern world” type game, I can’t really create a playlist. Those two options feel incredibly different from each other and it’s also entirely possible that we’ll wind up playing a game built around some third idea. I don’t even want to build out a broad playlist since I don’t want to influence myself one way or another before I’ve had a chance to talk with my players. Plus, while I can absolutely think of some songs that lean one way or another for a worldbuilding playlist, I don’t think they would be terribly long playlists. These worlds are fairly modern-adjacent at furthest, so I don’t really need to do as much work to set a specific tone. I need to modulate the feeling of the “real” world a bit, but that’s fairly easy to do and won’t take too many songs other than a few that, perhaps, represent specific places or communities within the world.

What I’ve been working on instead is a villain playlist. I think this is probably the most fleshed-out a villain has been before I’ve even held session 0. I mean, I’ve run campaigns where the first thing I came up with was the central conflict, but I rarely flesh out characters this far in advance. This time, though, I’m leaning all the way in since I had an idea for a villain and can’t shake it. They might wind up being a minor or inconsequential villain and it’s also conceivable that either the party could turn them to heroism or that they could turn the party to villainy, but I’m super excited to put them in the world regardless. Since I’ve avoided too many specifics, they can still be adapted to just about any modern setting we decide to go with, so I’m not worried too much about having to throw away the work I’ve done. And, if I do have to throw it away, well, that’s the life of a GM. Sometimes you do a lot of work and get really excited about an idea that just doesn’t work out with where your players go or the things they want to explore as you all play together. I hope that doesn’t happen since this idea is the most I’ve been excited about an character in a long time, but I’ll find something else to be excited about if it does. Plus, it’s not like I won’t have a voice in the proceedings. I’ll be able to talk and pitch things and influence the kind of game we play, so I’m sure I’ll either be able to work this character in or find something I’m just as excited about.

Honestly, I’m probably only building this playlist since, as of writing this, there’s still thirteen days before the first session with this group (and six as of this being posted). I’m desperate for anything fun and engaging to do that is refreshing rather than draining and coming up with a world, villains, and thematically related music is about as refreshing as it gets for me. Since I can’t really dive deeply on any of this stuff right now and haven’t had enough other gaming sessions to fill my mind with while I wait, I’m working broadly instead. Doing a little bit of everything and having incredibly light, high-level conversations with my players. Avoiding the depths as much as possible while I splash around in the shallows. It’s not enough, mind you, but it’s still better than nothing. It also helps that I have a great new playlist to listen to, now, that I’ll probably keep around even if I wind up not using the character in this game. I can always use them in some other game instead, so it’s not like this will ever be effort wasted. All of which goes without even mentioning how much fun it has been during these last few dark and depressing weeks I’ve had. I wouldn’t say this stuff is the only thing keeping me going, but the few sparks of joy I have during my long, draining work days are when I let my mind wander from all the work I have to do and instead think about the stories I’ll tell and the games I’ll play in the near future. That’s worth a lot, even if it never goes anywhere.