A Brace of Bards: Steely Dan and Currents

Two more Bard genres for Lexi's Bard! These have languished in my drafts for over half a year now, and now I can finally evangelize some of my favorite music to all of you!

 🎵🔫
(This also happily overlaps with Tame Impala announcing their fourth LP, mostly! Yay!! Thanks to my dad, the OSR Discord, and my friends for helping fill some songs out.)

Steely Dan

To quote a small exchange with my dad;
Me: "Yeah, she and I were just hanging out and listening to Steely Dan vinyls."
Dad: "Oh gotcha, and you did Cocaine too, right?"

Perk

You're especially resistant to addiction. If you roll to become addicted to a substance, you can ignore the first failure. This is on a per drug basis. If your system does it different, you can blunt the negative penalties of substances. You always detect the presence of drugs in food and drink.

Songs

1. Reelin' In The Years: You can age something up to 15 years over the course of this song. The effects last (Ints 1: until the song ends, Ints 2: 1 minute after the song ends, Ints 3: 1 hour after the song ends, Ints 4: Permanently.) Once you reach an Intensity, even if it would be decreased, that becomes the duration of the effects.

2. Do It Again: While playing this song, you can see other potential outcomes of an action you took today. If you are able to reach [Ints] 4 while playing this song, you are able to choose another outcome for said event than the one that has actually occurred.

3. Dirty Work: While this song is played, the listeners must Save each round or perform a task that you assign to them. One successful save makes them immune to this rendition of the song. This task cannot be changed once assigned. The task can be, at most, (Ints 1: Menial, Ints 2: Standard Labor, Ints 3: Risky, Ints 4: Life Threatening.)

4. Rikki Don't Lose That Number: A small version of your head appears on the back of each listener, and lasts for [Ints] days after the song ends. Once you reach an Intensity, even if it would be decreased, that becomes the duration of the effects. You can communicate with each person psychically while this lasts, and can perceive through each head.

5. Hey Nineteen: You conjure forth a younger version of yourself and any willing party members. They'll try to listen to your suggestions, but you don't see eye to eye at all. You summon (Ints 1: you from a week ago, Ints 2: you from a year ago, Inst 3: You from 10 years ago, Ints 4: you as a child.)

6. Any Major Dude Will Tell You: While this song plays, dice results are inverted. Successes are failures, opposite positions on a table are selected, etc. This applies to (Ints 1: attack/defense rolls, Ints 2: all physical actions, Ints 3: all actions, Ints 4: literally any dice rolled at all.) 

7. Turn That Heartbeat Over Again: Every person in earshot of this song that you choose is under the effects of a drug you have consumed before at [Ints] doses.

8. Babylon Sisters: An ephemeral woman forms from the displaced air of this song, and will walk around the audience charmingly. Each round, she will whisper into your mind [Ints] secrets from the audience. This can be divided among any number of listeners, or drawn from the collective consciousness of the audience. (Their guild, city, religion, etc.)

9. Peg: You can select someone to make the audience of this song infatuated with, as though they were a major celebrity. They will do the types of things die-hard kpop fans would do, including all the worst bits, for (Ints 1: the duration of this song, Ints 2: 1 hour after the song, Ints 3: 1 day after the song, Ints 4: for one week.)

10. My Old School: The (Ints 1: local law enforcement, Ints 2: country's military, Ints 3: largest power in the world, Ints 4: supernatural authority.) appears and investigates the audience for something illegal that you determine. Drug possession, murder, dissenting thoughts, etc.

Currents

Maybe this is a little self indulgent, but its my favorite album from my favorite band soshutup.

Perk

You gain a bonus to seduction/persuasion equal to your Bard Level. You can expend Music Dice to gain a [sum] bonus to the roll, in addition to your Level.

Songs

1. Let It Happen: The audience of this song has difficulty resisting actions taken against them. This applies to (Ints 1: being persuaded, Ints 2: being persuaded and moved, Ints 3: being persuaded, moved, and hurt, Ints: being affected by anything.) They take a penalty to their resistance equal to your bard level.

2. Nangs: You can project your soul out of your body out to a certain range. Your body goes completely catatonic (except for continuing the song) as your soul walks about. You are treated as a ghost, if that's ever relevant. If your soul dies, your body is liable to become possessed. Your soul can travel (Ints 1: In the immediate area, Ints 2: In the country, Ints 3: On the planet, Ints 4: Into an adjacent dimension.)

3. The Moment: Anything you choose in earshot is stricken with waves of intense anxiety. This increases their fumble range by 2, and may prompt a morale check. This song can affect up to (Ints 1: 5 beings, Ints 2: 10 beings, Ints 3: 50 beings, Ints 4: 200 beings.)

4. Yes I'm Changing: You can prompt a reroll of the listeners Reaction/Morale. You can affect [Ints] listeners, with a bonus to the roll equal to your Bard level.

5. Eventually: As the Slow spell, at [Dice] = [Ints]. The duration is however long the song lasts for. If sum needs to come up for the Slow spell you use, each [Ints] is 2.

6. Gossip: As Nangs, except this only affects people apart from you. This can be used offensively, and the target gets a penalty to Save equal to [Ints.]

7. The Less I Know the Better: You can delete a memory from a person's mind, which will evaporate into smoke in the following minutes. This takes all of the memory's effects with it (if Memory Slots or Sanity are in use.) You can affect up to [Ints] persons, and unwilling people get a Save.

8. Past Life: You call forth the spirit of an ancestor, previous life, or genetic predecessor. They can gift you and up to bard level others (Ints 1: advice, Ints 2: a skillset, Ints 3: a minor trait of theirs, Ints 4: all previous entries while physically manifesting to assist.)

9. Disciples: You summon [Ints] tamed impala antelopes, and they will follow your commands to the T. (as well as antelopes can be expected to.) These antelopes revive if they die while this song is played.

10. Cause I'm a Man: Each round, you deal [Ints]d4 Psychic damage to a target of your choice. These d4s become d8s if the target felt proud about themselves when you began this song. This damage is not lethal. They gibber to themselves about their insecurities while taking damage from this song.

11. Reality in Motion: While this song is played, you can mentally control the environment around you, causing hills to appear, walls to distort, stuff like that. This applies only to what is non-living environment. The effect extends (Ints 1: 20 feet, Ints 2: 50 feet, Ints 3: 100 feet, Ints 4: earshot.) around you.

12. Love/Paranoia: Everyone in earshot no longer has any emotional feeling or attachment to (Ints 1: their closest love, Ints 2: their family, Ints 3: their friends, Ints 4: everyone they know.)

13. New Person, Same Old Mistakes: You can select one person in earshot to grant another Class Template in a class of your choice. This can become a 5th if they already have 4. At the end of the song, the target must Save or fall unconscious for 3 days at an [Ints] penalty.

14. List of People (To Try and Forget About): The audience of this song has no recollection or memory of [Ints] entities that you determine.

15. Powerlines: For the duration of the song, as many people as you like in earshot get [Ints] Magic Dice to spend as they like. These do not return once spent, no matter the sum, and if the listener has no spells, they can channel the MD into a rough and amorphous effect, which is very likely to backfire in any way the GM likes.

16. Taxi's Here: While this song is playing, time stops. You and your party are able to (Ints 1: talk to each other, Ints 2: move around, Ints 3: interact with non-living objects, Ints 4: affect anything.), the effects of which will be felt after the song ends. Think The World from JoJo

Bard Genre: Vaporwave

Running a Science-Fantasy game where this is appropriate, and also not giving a shit about anachronisms, I have decided to make this genre for Lexi's GLOG Bard! More to come, most definitely.

Robert Beatty

Vaporwave

We can just explain the editing and ghostly voices as magic.

Perk

Cheap Editing Software: Anything you could reasonably make pleasant noise with counts as an instrument for you. Additionally, you can choose not to have the effects of a song happen as you play, and instead store them inside of an instrument. Expend MD as normal, and they do not refresh until the song is played. You may release the song at any time, and it will play exactly as you played it. Intensities change at the same times over the song's duration, and any Bad Vibes occur when they did. You may store [bard level] songs at a time.

Songs

Important Note: Imagine these spells look like cutting through the film of a tape, and then playing it. (The tape is reality.) Uncomfortable warping, strange colors, flares of light..

1. Enjoy Yourself: Everyone in earshot jives and enjoys the song you play. Creatures of Intensity HD or more get a save. You may also reroll reaction rolls for anyone you talk to while playing this song at a +Intensity bonus.

2. Buy Milk: You create Intensity*5 buyers, who emerge from cracks in the ground and from dark alleys while you play. They are ravenous for purchases, and will buy just about anything offered to them. Their wealth varies.

3. Snake Way: You conjure the spirits of those you once knew who have died, and they dance down from the Snake Way to speak with you while you play. They'll answer Intensity questions before departing. People in earshot (including you) must save vs sadness as they arrive.

4. 82.99 FM: For the duration of this song, you are transported up to a maximum of Intensity*10 years into the future or the past. When you choose to end this song (not when it is ended otherwise) you may return to the time you began in. If it is ended prematurely, you remain then until you can return with this song or some other means.

5. Monogon: Intensity inorganic objects near you become 2-dimensional, flat versions of themselves while you play. While playing, you can mentally move them anywhere in earshot of the song. They return to normal when you end the song.

6. リサフランク420: Reality bends around your music. Intensity of the following effects can be applied to anything or anyone in earshot. Creatures get a save. At 2 Intensity, you get to pick one of them: (d4) 1. The target is looped in time, repeating whatever they did before this effect was applied to them; 2. The target erupts into jagged, polygonal edges. Objects are dangerous, creatures are thorny and weighted down by the mass; 3. An object swaps uses with a nearby object (a chair becomes a weapon, or a weapon becomes a chair), a creature will switch minds with another nearby creature (except the party); 4. The target is slowed to an absolute crawl. If they move at all, 1/10 of the usual speed should suffice. Their reaction time adjusts accordingly.

7. Private Caller: For as long as you play this song, you enter a mental realm with one other person of your choice. You control the way this realm looks and behaves with just a thought. At 1 Intensity, the person must be visible and in earshot. At 2, they need only be in earshot of the song. At 3, so long as you know where they are, they will come. At 4, all you need to do is think of the person. Both you and the person you call are unaware of the actual world during this song.

8. Summer Night: Everyone near you must save vs reliving their most painful memories. They suffer Intensity d4 damage each round from the torment, unless someone tries to touch them while they sit silently, crying. Those touched will retaliate violently until the song is over, but they no longer suffer from the damage each round while attacking.

9. Selfish High Heels: After this song ends, you transform into a Magical Girl! The exact details are up to your GM, but you will likely be able to do cool magical attacks, feats of acrobatics/flight, etc. I recommend rolling for Intensity Advancements on that class. This form last for Intensity minutes.

10. Virtually Alone 20xx: You and Intensity other people are shunted to an embryonic world of gray stone, cyan seas and magenta skies for the duration of this song. The only other creature in this world is a hostile and insane construct resembling you with Intensity*3 HD. It hates you and will try to kill you and anyone else here. It may not be near you initially, but it senses your presence and will come.
11. 火野 レイ : Everyone in earshot of this song must save vs. having their inhibitions removed for Intensity(1 Intns. Minutes 2 Intns. Hours 3 Intns. Days 4 Intns. Weeks) or a smaller unit of time, at your desire. They will run through the streets nude, chasing after their lover, they will join you by banging rudimentary instruments, they will fly to the hills for wherever they have always wanted to go, etc.

Through the Stars Playlist

From the Spelljammer setting for 2e

Prepping for my games, I kinda get distracted by the music I listen to. So I decided it would be best to get distracted by music I think fits the games I'm running.

Currently, I run a science fantasy game in DCC inspired in many ways by Spelljammer, Treasure Planet, Star Wars, and the pop-culture fantasy of being a merry band of hobos. The tone is pretty light and relaxed, but there are moments of weird and fucked up stuff injected every so often for contrast.

My party before their funnel, basically.

Here is the playlist I made, in case anybody else is interested. Have any songs that you think would fit? Let me know!