Saw this today on Grognardia: GROGNARDIA: A Common Culture
Where I grew up Metal and D&D were hand in hand. My first DM was a fan of Iron Maiden and other NWOBHM bands like no other I have since and my next, more regular DM was a fan of all sorts of metal, but also Rush. The covers looked like D&D books, complete with swords, magical looking figures and monsters. It was hard to tell where one had influenced the other.
A quick look at some of the titles of game adventures I have written over the years also shows how deeply I felt this connection: "Veteran of the Psychic Wars", "All Along the Watchtower", "Rainbow in the Dark", I even built an entire series based on the premise that music and RPGs are a natural fit, "The Hex Girls".
I guess though it has a lot to do with where you grew up and when.
"I guess though it has a lot to do with where you grew up and when."
ReplyDeleteDefinitely, coming to D&D (and RPGs in general) in late 70s, early 80s Britain, there was no synergy with metal - or music in general - in our games.
This was the age of punk and New Romanticism over here - and really we were too young to really appreciate the depths and messages of punk for it to influence our role-playing.
The only band that ever intruded into my own RPGs was The Stranglers via their great Gospel According To The Men In Black album.
While there was a certain appreciation for metal among my gaming group, I think we were a couple of years too young to be really into the likes of Dio or Maiden--we were familiar with them, but weren't seen as the hip thing. Our bands were more of the LA metal sound (which had little influence on our gaming), or 70s groups like Zeppelin and Sabbath, which may have had a little more.
ReplyDeleteI think the foregoing is accurate; it's obviously a US/UK thing. I had to google Ronnie James Dio to find out who he was but then I was never into metal. Nor were any of the other gamers in our group. I don't think that music influenced our gaming style - I did like soundtracks of films like Raiders and Star Wars, and that was playing in my head when writing stuff but not when playing.
ReplyDeleteXTC's English Settlement, The Doors, late Beatles, Talking Heads were my tastes. One DM of my acquaintance was more into Prog Rock and then stuff like Foreigner and Dire Straits.
Yeah, a broad church there, for sure.
I so associate metal with role-playing that if I want to write something for a game I need to put on some metal.
ReplyDeleteFor example "Ghosts of Albion" was written on a steady diet of Mt. Dew and Black Sabbath.
Prog Rock.
ReplyDeleteWell if Metal is Old D&D, then Prog Rock was Traveler for me.