The Character Playlist Challenge
Making playlists for your characters is, at worst, a really fun way to procrastinate actually writing, or whatever else you’re actually supposed to be doing right now. But, at its best, it’s a fun way to explore characters in a way you probably wouldn’t be able to with your standard character profile, and the tl;dr of this post is that you should totally try it and I came up with some rules and tips to help make sure you get something out of the experience.
If that sounds like fun, and you don't want to read about my own personal nonsense, just skip down to the “The Rules of Engagement.”
I was first exposed to character playlists by Critical Role back in the ye olden days of 2016, when the cast was putting out Spotify playlists for their characters, and I basically immediately fell in love with the concept for a dozen reasons. I loved getting insights into how the players saw their characters, I loved getting exposed to all kinds of music I’d never heard before, and I immediately wanted to do it myself.
Eventually, the well of personal D&D characters I was invested enough in to justify the effort sort of dried up, and I retired the process for a while. But then, through a series of chance events, I ended up listening to the song "Don't Threaten Me with a Good Time" by Panic! At the Disco, and almost immediately, I had a character in my head. That character reminded me of another song, and another, and before I knew it I had another character playlist for a character I hadn't even played yet.
Eventually, that character spun himself into his own book, and that's how both Brass and They Met in a Tavern were born.
Since then, I've started making more playlists for all the characters in the book, and it has been equal parts fun and educational. Not just in exposing myself to new music to find songs to fit the characters, but in learning more about the characters as I built the playlists.
And let me tell you, that magic of hearing a song and thinking to yourself, "Oh my God. I know who this is for," is something else. And once you start doing this, I don't think you'll ever listen to music the same way again. I certainly don't.
The Rules of Engagement
I devised my own rules for making character playlists which helped me get a lot out of the experience. That said, if you don’t like mine, ignore them or make your own. I’m not your dad.
CR’s cast used Spotify for their playlists, but I’ve used both Spotify and YouTube at different times, and quite frankly, use whatever you want to actually compile the songs to suit whatever your music consuming/sharing habits are.
1. One song per artist.
This was the very first rule I nailed down, and I think it’s the most important. If you only follow one rule in this challenge, make it this one. It’s here principally to encourage variety, especially if you’re like me and before trying to make a playlist you only really listened to the same three bands on repeat.
But it can also help you really drill down into what makes a character tick. Me personally, if I didn’t follow this rule, Brass’s playlist would be 90% Panic!, since he was born from one of their songs and basically everything they put out reminds me at least a little of him. But because I can only pick one song from them, I had to really drill down on which specific song fit him the strongest, and to do that, I had to understand who Brass was.
2. One song per character aspect/event/relationship.
When you’re putting together the playlist, you’re going to find some songs that really sell a part of the character’s personality, and others that perfectly fit an experience they had. But it’s very easy to start just filling the playlist with songs treading the same ground. Especially if they’ve got a romantic subplot.
Trust me, with the sheer volume of songs that have been written about love, you will find dozens of songs that make you think of the character and their own romantic entanglements. People can and do fill entire playlists just with songs that make them think of their favorite ship.
The playlist is supposed to encapsulate the whole character. Don’t let them be defined by one relationship! Or one anything for that matter.
3. Minimum of eight songs.
This ties nicely into rule two. Since you can only have one song for each aspect of your character, the song minimum ensures that you have to think of at least eight different things that define the character.
If you’re having trouble figuring out eight things to find songs for, I’ve sort of come up with a handy checklist you can run through to help fill out the tracklist:
Their theme song
How they view themselves
How they view rest of the world
A song about their relationship with another character
A song about what they want
A song about what’s important to them
A song about what they hate
Their Ass-Kicking Song™
A song about an event in their life
Their “origins” song
Their end credits song
This list checklist has helped focus my efforts and narrow things down whenever my playlists start meandering or whenever I don’t know what else to put on it, so hopefully it’ll help you in your endeavors.
And that’s it. That’s the challenge. Now go forth, and be creative.
Happy curating!
If you’re interested in seeing more examples of character playlists, you can find all the ones I’ve done here.
If you actually go through with this challenge, please let me know on socials or even just in an email. I’d love to listen to the stuff you put together. Also, maybe while you’re here consider checking out some of the other stuff I do?