Ah, finally a short article; indeed, I hope this one will be more to the liking of many of you out there.

It's more annoying than anything else I know, and this is a very serious pet peave of mine, for me to be setting up my materials as a GamesMaster, and have the owner of the house pop in "Master of Puppets" by Metallica, whether on cassette or CD, and turn the volume up loud enough that I have to raise my voice to let the players know where their characters are and what is happening.

Although the music may belong to the scene, and may aid me in shaping how the scene comes out, and indeed may help me to run the game during the evening, I will tell you that, by the end of the evening, my head is splitting, I'm much more tired than if we had not listened to music at all, and I want nothing to do with tallying or distributing experience points to the players to spend on their characters.

The same has happened with movie music, and soundtracks from movies are certainly my favorite, but if it's too loud, it becomes a disruption.

You, as the GM, need to be strong enough to remind your players, including the owner of the dining room table at which you're playing, that although music can be very appropriate to situations, it should be kept to a minimum level. If your host is unwilling to turn it down, then you can always attempt to turn the evening into a party, or a short night, by getting up, grabbing another soda, and standing around waiting for them to get the loud music' bug out of their system and turn it down so you can play. Failing that, drink another soda or two and have a good time with your friends and then pack up and leave. When the host sees that you're leaving and no role-playing has been done, you simple tell them as nicely as possible that the music was too loud, and you can't wait to see them next time.

"If it's too loud, you're too old", although meant as a joke between younger people and older people, fails in this instance.

Learn more about this author, Paul Emerson.
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