Got it. Thanks!

Back where I started

1. Tamatoi - Tsuneyoshi Saito
2. Mission - Leahy
3. Rare Respite [Jib Jig] - Patrick Burns
4. Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118 No. 2 [Radu Lupu, 1976 Recording] - Johannes Brahms
5. Come On, Start the Adventure! [Opening] - Norihiko Hibino
6. Moment of Rest [Live Version] - Tomohito Nishiura
7. Piano Quintet No. 2, Scherzo: Molto vivace [Marc-André Hamelin and Leipzig Quartet] - Antonín Dvořák
8. Awake - Tycho
9. Untitled 1 - Sigur Rós

Youtube Playlist

If any of you have the time or inclination, I would highly recommend listening to this recording of Number 7 instead.
Rubinstein and the Guarneri Quartet put on a considerably better performance, but unfortunately the only version of it on Youtube has been uploaded as the entire piece.
I've opted for Hamelin's recording in the playlist since it's more concise, but it's very much inferior.

Great! I'll wait a day or so to see if anyone else wants to join. Otherwise, it seems like we're ready to go!

I would like to join but I'm not sure what kind of road trip you want my music taste to fit in with

Well, since the first randomly chosen playlist determines the style of the roadtrip and the characters, it's hard to say. Whatever your taste is, I'm sure the characters could work around it when your playlist comes up.

Okay, I'm gonna start the game tomorrow if no one is opposed. We can introduce new characters if someone wants to join later by picking someone up or something.

Sounds good to me.

By random selection, the starting playlist is Communication is the Key to the Soul.

Currently Playing: Raggamuffin by Selah Sue.

Everyone, please carefully listen to this song and come back to this topic with suggestions for the reason behind the road-trip and the characters' basic relationship. Feel free to read the ideas of others after listening to the song. This should be a collaborative process.

I'll start with some suggestions:

The song seems to be dedicated to a friend, "one of the friends", so we could be a group of friends going to visit a member (maybe former member) of the group. Maybe we all haven't connected in a while, with varying degrees of contact, and something happens that causes us to go visit this friend.

This friend "hasn't had it easy", is a "freedom fighter", and is "handling a choice".

Maybe we're going to make sure that this friend doesn't "shove [his or her] good sense underground" when making this choice.

The song isn't exactly sad, but I don't know how to place the mood. There's a lot of uncertainty, and perhaps some kind of tension. Maybe there's a reason that we haven't gotten together in a while. That's something that doesn't necessarily need to be defined at the outset.

At this point, I basically just want to establish:

Kind of group:
Starting location:
Ending location:
Group's reason for going:

Does anyone have any other ideas, or ways to build upon my basic framework? Feel free to suggest and change anything you'd like! Sorry, I know this would be easier in person, and that I'm not giving you all too much to work with.

I get the feel of maybe childhood/school friends who've reunited later on in life (high school reunion? planned meet up? just coincidence?) and found that one of the friend group is absent. After looking around, it's revealed they moved far away and went down some bad/ill-advised path, or they just separated and based on what the group knows they've got reason to be concerned. I think the framework works.

I agree with that sentiment in that there is a wayward friend who has taken an alternative path in life after having maybe a troubled youth. These people were close friends with this person formerly, and are now seeking them out.

The group would probably have closer ideals to one another than this wayward friend, which is why they're still close.

The vibe seems to give the sense of travelling on highways but not necessarily through cities, maybe leaving from a city?

Yeah, I'm on board with all of that.

So we were close friends in childhood, and one of us had it harder than the rest of us. Eventually, we grew apart from this friend and this friend fell into a darker place. We meet up again, maybe an intimate party or similar reunion for us, when we decide to reconnect with our old friend after hearing some bad news about how he or she is doing. I'd really like for this friend to be a woman, if that works for you all.

Maybe some of us went to college together, and some of us didn't. We remained close during that time, however. Maybe we were still geographically tied to our general hometown.

I was going to say that she moved after high school, but maybe we all moved and she didn't. We could be coming from some big city and returning to our old third-ring suburb across the country. Do you want to use the U.S., or another country? I'm most familiar with the states but it could be cool to try something unfamiliar.

That sounds pretty good!

Cool. Let's start character creation then.

Currently Playing: Get Down by James Arthur

At this time, we're going to take elements from this song to come up with the following characteristics:

Name:
Age:
Physical Description:
Relationship to other characters: Childhood friends
3 Traits:
2 Futures:

As a reminder, at least one of the traits or futures have to come from the lyrics of this song. When taking from the song, lyrics can be taken in or out of context. For example, the line "Outside there's a bird and it is singing" could be taken in its entirety as a trait, (with a meaning that is up to interpretation), or you could just take the word "outside" or the phrase "a bird". As you can see, these may end up being pretty abstract.

Again, from the OP, traits are details about our character that we hope will come to light over the course of the trip, and that might help us overcome obstacles that we encounter. They can be single words (like virtuous or alcoholic), short phrases (like loves classical music or graphic designer), or whole sentences (like I own a house in the Bahamas or I used to be famous). The traits we choose are important because they give us a starting point for playing our characters, and because we rely on them to overcome obstacles that come up over the course of our trip.

Futures are the other important part. These dictate what the character dreams about occurring in the future. Many of these will be resolved, either by coming true or by being abandoned, throughout the course of the game.

Sorry for taking so long! I went through all the lyrics and commented on them.


Outside is a place the character is not, either because they can't or don't want to be there. Birds can fly, humans can't fly; "outside" in this case is flight: somewhere the character can't be. There's a bird and it's singing. Perhaps the character looks up to their childhood friend, a friend who soars above them with a talent so practiced and brilliant that watching them do what they're good at is akin to listening to a bird sing.


Again, outside is a place that the character is not. Life isn't here, it's there. The grass is greener.


Perhaps the character feels or has felt suicidal, but someone (perhaps the childhood friend) gave them a reason to keep living. Someone made life worth it for the character.


This seems like an artistic inclination, whether it manifests as poetry or pictures. That being said, the subject matter of their art hardly seems to be sunshine and rainbows: tears, fears, grief.


They carry a lot on their shoulders. Carrying things weighs you down. When you're weighed down, you can't fly. Perhaps the burdens they carry are what keeps them from flying "outside".


They're an extremely determined person. They might think there are some immovable obstacles in their way, but they don't let themselves get knocked down. They definitely believe that they're going in the right direction and making progress; they believe that the day that they make it "outside" might be any day, perhaps today. That being said, they know that they're not "there" yet. Maybe they're simply misdirecting their motivation.


This can be interpreted pretty literally; their decisions are morally ambiguous, maybe they've had a few run-ins with the law. Maybe they do what they think is best, even though they know and/or think others won't approve.


Again, this seems like either the character lives for someone else or draws a large portion of their determined character from someone else. Perhaps the childhood friend, perhaps a mentor or parent figure.