Game Master Can’t Wait to Turn Down this Music Playlist she’s Curating

Game Master Veronica Nguyen has spent the past several hours crafting a music playlist that she knows full well she’ll have to turn down once the group actually starts to play. “Putting together a good playlist takes a lot of work,” says Nguyen. “Not everyone can choose a song that sounds ambient at first, but then crescendos into too-loud percussion eight minutes in.” Even though the project adds several hours to her game prep each week, Nguyen enjoys the process of finding the right piece for the game moment. “The only real downside is that it really skews my Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year. I already know that I’m going to hit the top one percent of Wardruna listeners, tell me something interesting for once.”

Nguyen’s Players say they appreciate the effort she puts into their bi-weekly game. “One of my favorite parts of a session is when it’s getting hard to hear each other and Veronica has to apologize while she hunts for the volume control,” says Brian Wembley. “Not every game master takes the time to implement bathroom breaks into the session like that. Once I hear the music disappear I know it’s time to wipe up and come back to the table.”

Nguyen says that she used to take more care to find music that stayed at an even level, but has largely abandoned the endeavor. “I actually realized that ambient music kind of just disappears after a while. Really dynamic music, the kind that makes me jump because I forgot about the trumpet blast, is far more memorable. Where more chill music becomes white noise, you know that a Bear McCreary Battlestar Galactica track is going to give a huge boost to any session once the drums come in.