This is a gm-less game where you are travelers that have reunited to talk about a recently deceased fellow traveler. Each one of the players will talk about their memories.

The players are playing a mourning rite in order to determine what kind of journey and which type of traveller the deceased was. But as travellers also are itinerant musicians that improvise, they will share their memories while playing their respective instrument.

So, for this first game design breakdown, I will talk about : 

Game design breakdown 1 - Music & Diegesis 

Firstly, what does diegesis mean ? It refers to all elements that are inherent to the fictional world. For example, in a movie, if the audience can hear the music that the character hears too, that music is part of the diegesis. 

And this is exactly the same for the game Journeys around a campfire.

So i've composed 1h+ of different improvisions for different instruments for this game, because actually the music itself is played by the characters. That means that all the other characters do hear the instrument and it is a tool for setting up ambience, mood, emotions or, simply put, storytelling. 

Because music as a mean of storytelling is in no way new : in operas, for example, leitmotives are melodies that define a character, or the character's theme if you prefer ! The movies have also mastered this art of story telling with music and video games too by goind further with adaptive music (will make an article about it one day!). 

So, of course, in TTRPG, music and ambience (including sound design) can be important ! For this game, designing the game experience and composing music was really interesting. 

However, the fact that the game is gm-less needed compromise : only one player will take care of setting up the music during the game. Of course, it is generally the role of the Game master that can prepare in advance a playlist and control the flow of the music and its balance. 

What about you ? Have you already tried to incorporate music with game design ? Or do you have a particular use of music and sounds when you run a game while being a GM ? 

Thanks for reading :)