Culture - On Music and Erasure

 Culture - On Music and Erasure

So normally when playing d&d in person, I score all my games.

Obviously, with covid and everyone playing remote now, I haven't been doing scoring because it's kind of a technical headache.

We played the other week though when Emry was in town in person, and I kicked on my old playlist.

And realized it didn't really fit though. Because it's mostly western fantasy music. A lot of European/American film scores and things like that.

Thinking I should source more Asian music, more Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, etc.

And then I realized I've never actually composed any Asian music really (I did a couple Japanese style tracks back in uni) but nothing since then.

I've composed a lot of Western music, studied Italian masters, German composers, messed around with modern rock styles and transitioned into instrumental and post-rock.

Only extremely rarely studying Japanese rock music. But my knowledge of their styles and work are mostly confined to video games or anime.

And I'm thinking a lot about that invisible erasure I didn't know existed until today.

And I grieved this missing piece of myself, stolen perhaps by colonialism and my own missing ignorance.

Design - On Common

 Design - On Common

Common as a language system in d&d is a simplification in order to facilitate design around getting people moving forwards more quickly.

But you should also be adept enough to recognize that it is rooted in a deeply colonialist idea.

Games - Language

Games - Language

I was asked during a game of Wire Run about how a player might instantly learn a language. There are provisos for it before. In Shadowrun, a player could download a langsoft, that is, a digital encyclopedic knowledge of a language (they are expensive) and in Matrix-esque "I know Kung Fu", simply immediately be aware. Heck, even in basic D&D a sorcerer or wizard can cast Comprehend Languages and simply be done with it.