D&D The Musical: A suggested story.
While I have a definite sense of rhythm and love music, I have little musical skill myself. Style wise I’ve been enjoying a couple of musicals that use inter-weaving narratives and songs with multiple vocal parts. Influential on how I’m thinking of this are the stage version of Sweeney Todd, Buffy: Once More With Feeling and the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. That last is because having watched a lot of it on youtube now; the staging is ingenious, using spotlights and solos to tell the story without showing us every excruciating word being spelled. (A sample clip can be found here but, be warned it does give spoilers from that show).
I’m endeavouring to get that across with the descriptions of the songs, a feel for the tempo of them, rather than melody. And the occasional suggested lyric to show how the story is being told. So here is the skeleton of the future Off-Off-Really-We’re-Not-Kidding-You’ll-Need-A-Telescope-To-See Off Broadway hit.
*****
Basic plot: 6 old friends reform their role playing club for a get together 10 years after they finished high school.
The reunion also brings back a love triangle between the Hero, the Heroine and the DM. As the game goes on, cracks begin to show.
Cast of Characters:
ALAN: Now working in an office job and living a perfectly ordinary life. But back in the day he played dashing fighter-hero Laragon Longblade
LISA: Also living a moderately successful normal life. There are vague feelings between her, him and the DM. She played the group’s ranger, Alita Alovliness
CRAIG/DM: Always had an unspoken rivalry with Alan and carried a well hidden torch for Lisa. Tonight he runs the show.
JEY: Tall, easygoing, a baritone and somewhat sexually ambiguous hid favourite character was Barbarian half-dwarf/ half-giant Borthemows Ironbooty. (This, by the way, is the only name that’s a lock).
ADDY: Plain, stocky and unassuming Addy lived out her thirst for adventure as tall, graceful Elven healer Lithia Langlewlan.
PODDY: (Basil Podington) Was socially awkward, borderline-Aspergers back then and his Halfling thief, Poddy, was exactly the same.
The set is a spotlight-illuminated table, covered in colorful maps, and chairs. Very basic and functional.
*****
Craig is singing THE OPENING, he tells of his excitement at seeing the old gang back together (especially Lisa).
As he sings the others begin to arrive and the opening morphs into ‘HOW YOU’VE CHANGED SINCE HIGH SCHOOL’. Here they sing about how good each other is looking and each gets a chance to give a little information bout their lives. Of note are Poddy, who gives little actual information, except for his acne clearing up (mostly), and Lisa still being single (At which Craig and Alan perk up).
The Game Begins: (And time for my second confession. I don’t really play RPGs. I have read them, sold them but seldom played them. Most of my knowledge comes from the webcomics such as 20 Sided Dice, Something Positive and the Order of the Stick).
The hard part of this is always going to be how to show the game without boring the heck out of the audience. For this sequence I imagine we have the actors rotating to the front to sing in duets while the others play out the game behind them. Their discussions are cut short as people yell from the back, say Addy and Alan are singing in front and then are interrupted by a yelled “We need a healer” and she returns to the scrum while, say Jey, comes to the front to sing with Alan to sing a verse about ‘the warriors’ life.
‘WHO NEEDS REAL LIFE ANYWAY?’ features two singing at a time, with the other characters forming a chorus. This is a good place to place snatches of songs to come such as ‘This Stupid Game’.
Interjections from the background serve to break up the songs and also to throw in the humour and gaming jargon.
For the story the character interaction shows as they get caught up in the game, they’re happy and the flirting between the DM, Lisa and Alan gets established.
Eventually all the cast have had turns and the final duet for Jey and Poddy. As their song reaches a crescendo there’s a cry “A Manticore!”
A brief panicky piece ensues as JEY MAKES A SAVING THROW. A comedy take on character CPR. Dialogue done in the style of ER but with
“Saving Throw against poison?”
“2. No good.”
“Saving throw against magic?”
“3, failed.”
“Saving throw against giant purple lesser spotted Manticore venom?”
“…minus 5.”
…And it fails. There is a flatlining sound effect and silence as Jey’s character is revealed to be really, truly, definitely dead.
Jey gets to sing the mournful reprise ‘GOOD-BYE OLD FRIEND’ where he lists the adventures he and Ironbooty had. The lights go down and we have an INTERMISSION.
*****
The show re-opens with the players still in disarray over his death.
But the DM has a surprise, from his folder he brings out a character sheet for Jey. He reminds him that Jey that Ironbooty had a twin sister.
Jey catches on and starts talking in a falsetto “Berthilda Ironbodice”
“Who was identical to him, right down to the stats.” Craig adds.
The group are overjoyed and Lisa gives Craig a peck on the cheek. As the game continues behind him he goes into a reverie of how he’s waited for that kiss and sings ‘FEELING GENEROUS’.
He’s ignoring the rolls of the dice and letting people have extra treasures, something like that, reckless bonhomie.
Alan is a bit put out by her affection towards Craig and starts flirting with Lisa in the game itself infectious and Lisa and Alan start a duet ‘WE MAKE A GOOD TEAM’ which brings down Craig’s mood immediately.
Craig and Alan face off over the game itself; their picking at each other becomes the duet ‘ROLEPLAYING’.
In a fit of pique, the next time they roll a throw Craig announces “Failed”.
Poddy, however, was watching and makes a fuss. Rules are important to him. Jey chimes in with “It’s disgraceful to throw the game, especially after what you did to my brother!” (In falsetto, of course)
The cast start arguing which leads into ‘THIS STUPID GAME’. As it gets worse the song morphs away from the subject of the game to the romantic one-upmanship between Alan and Craig.
Everyone starts yelling at each other and reprise their opening song to ‘YOU HAVEN’T CHANGED SINCE HIGH SCHOOL’ where they pick at each others remembered faults.
“Fine”, Craig says and sings out ‘ROCKS FALL, EVERYBODY DIES’. Every time someone tries to interrupt him he sings the same brief lines (to a crescendo of strings).
Finally Lisa gets what they’ve been fighting about. She sings ‘THIS STUPID GAME’ as a solo about their behaviour and asserts that she is her own woman.
Continuing to salve the troubled waters, Addy finally gets her solo in a song about ‘HEALING’.
The cast make up and decide that as late as it is they should get together again. As they sing ‘NEXT TIME, MAYBE’ it’s clear that while some of them want to fight dragons, Alan and Craig still have a little hope.
The cast exit one by one, revealing more of the lives they’re going back to. Addy has 6 internet boyfriends, Jey has 6 cats and Poddy is the CEO of a ‘boring multi-million dollar computer company’.
As he exits he wistfully sings a snatch of ‘WHO NEEDS REAL LIFE ANYWAY’.
*****
So, there it is. And, let’s face it this is probably as far as it’s going to get. I’ve tried to give a narrative and the ideas for songs that tell the story.
Some weaknesses are already visible to me; Alan isn’t well defined by what’s there and needs work. The names (except Ironbooty & Ironbodice) are placeholders and the drama is… well, it’s my attempt at a musical. I really couldn’t think of a more dramatic ending, though I think it needs one.
Addy was included to make up the numbers and her solo is pretty much a ‘song ex machina’ to end the thing. She could also use definition.
And working gaming tropes into it was hard, I would have liked to play with things like ‘rolling out the ones’ and maybe they could be folded into a later version.
Feel free to critique (usefully, I know I’m not a musician), tell me what worked and what needs fixing.
And anyone who is intrigued enough to work on it further, go for it! There are lyrics to a couple of the songs, but I haven’t included them mainly for space.
And Thank you muchly for reading.
