“A roleplaying musical? How does that work?” That was my main query throughout PAX West 2022 as I met with David Gaider, former lead author of the Dragon Age sequence, to debate his new venture. 

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical has a well-known format to followers of Gaider’s prior work, however the idea may be exhausting to wrap your head round at a look. A track, in spite of everything, is usually extra structured than most written dialogue. And that rigidity doesn’t lend itself to the spontaneity of participant participation.

So what does such an unconventional premise appear like in observe? It turned out that not solely was Stray Gods surprisingly purposeful, however it had some classes for different builders eager to mess around with the basic musical style.

An Idea is Born

The thought for Stray Gods got here whereas Gaider was nonetheless working at Bioware. At the time, he was fascinated about utilizing the format as a downloadable content material growth for the Dragon Age sequence. Though that musical-themed growth by no means got here to fruition, Gaider held on to the idea. He revisited it later when he and his collaborator, Summerfall Studios co-founder and managing director Liam Esler, started to construct their firm. “It was kind of on my bucket list,” Gaider explains. An interactive musical was enjoyable in concept, however execution was one other query. “It [was] like, ‘Oh, what are we doing? Well, gotta be an interactive musical, that should be easy, right? You’re in a song, you make choices like you do in dialogue.’ [But] figuring that out has been the big challenge.”

Traces of Gaider’s narrative design previous may be seen in Stray Gods’ format, which depends on choice-based dialogue construction. The sport stars the Greek Pantheon in a darkish, modern-day setting. It tells the story of Grace, a Muse who’s caught in the midst of a homicide thriller when her predecessor Calliope dies in her arms. Out to show her innocence to the opposite gods, Grace should examine the circumstances surrounding Calliope’s dying, her path main her by way of dialogue with many key legendary figures, lots of whom have interaction Grace in track.

At PAX West, Gaider and Esler chaperoned me by way of Stray God’s opening sequence and twice-through one among its musical numbers. Rather than lower scenes of static materials, the sport permits the participant to contribute strains to every track by way of its dialogue system, feeding their responses to maneuver the sequence alongside. 

This, in fact, requires timing, an element affected by the unpredictable nature of viewers participation. To tackle this, the sport makes use of a timer wheel that shows Grace’s out there responses, selecting one primarily based on her default character profile if the participant doesn’t choose one in time. 

These choices then inform not solely how a dialog between characters performs out, but additionally how the scene’s accompanying musical piece takes type, together with elements of the association, like instrumentation. Whatever they select can even have an impact each on the instant scene and the end-game, directing the course of Grace’s investigation.

As Gaider explains, the sport has a whole lot of permutations relying on gamers’ selections in dialogue. In play, the impact leans extra in direction of opera than Broadway musical, in that the songs play out like spoken-word ballads, with room for variance. The refrains, nevertheless, are highly effective and observe established style guidelines, with frequent callbacks weaving all through the sport. 

One of the composers is Austin Wintory (Flow, Journey), who elevated the sport’s core musical idea to incorporate a number of preparations of every track to raised accompany Grace’s three character profiles, Kick-Ass, Clever, and Charming. Pulling this off was a selected problem, because the tone of the track can change at any time in response to the participant’s selections. Says Gaider, “Normally, within the dialogue, for those who’re aware of RPG play, traits come up as necessities for sure choices. But in [Stray Gods’] songs, they type stylistic choices.” 

“You could make selections primarily based on how you’re feeling for the time being like, however the trait path modifications the fashion of the music itself. So for those who go to Kick-Ass, it is going to develop into extra aggressive, extra drums, extra percussive; for those who transfer to Charming, that is slightly bit sweeter, that goes much more into the strings. It can shuttle relying on the way you make your selections and Austin has been very intelligent in ensuring that for those who do this, it transitions regularly again into the opposite fashion in order that it looks like a cohesive complete.”

During my demo, a lot of the audio and artwork was bookmarked by placeholders. Nonetheless, even with a number of the vocals and preparations supplemented with non permanent stand-ins, the performances had been highly effective. And they’re strongly supported by the artwork route, a moody, graphic novel fashion that mirrors the darker tones of the musicals that impressed the sport, like Into the Woods, Wicked and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

The character designs themselves, supplementing this visible fashion, are additionally of word; piercings, asymmetrical haircuts and completely winged eyeliner abound. This tackle the pantheon look is a intentionally up to date reimagining. Says Gaider, “The eidolon–when an idol dies that their eidolon is passed on to somebody else– means they can be anyone, we don’t have to say, ‘Oh, they have to be Greek.’ Well, no, some of them have died like dozens of times. So this is some person down the line.” This deeply enhances the sport’s narrative themes of identification and destiny, as characters should come to phrases with inherited recollections that aren’t their very own. 

As they develop into beings which can be break up between their earthly and immortal selves, they grapple with not solely centuries of trauma however the harm of dropping their sense of self. “How do they deal with all the traumas from their past? If you never forget them, do you just…bring all that with you?”

The sport’s solid of Greek gods, and their new look, call to mind the equally trendy take depicted in 2018’s Hades, a comparability that Gaider and Esler don’t appear to thoughts. “Hades kind of put people in the mood for Greek gods again. I think it’s a plus if anything–it shows that there’s interest there. We’re taking familiar characters, the Greek gods, and we’re kind of subverting them a little bit,” Esler says, citing Persephone, whose in-game temperament and look are miles from most depictions of the goddess. 

In Stray Gods, she has killed Hades and brought over the Underworld, solely to have it usurped by different gods. “She’s angry because everybody only knows the story that she was kidnapped and forced to be his wife. And then what? They had to live together for a thousand years. She grew to hate him and finally killed him. Then other gods took the Underworld away from her. So she’s, she’s very angry and, and ruthless. This is a very different version than what we’ve seen.”

This divine makeover is becoming given Stray Gods’ penchant for reinvention. But the demo additionally reveals a sport mechanic that, for no matter dangers it takes, works properly in context. By eliminating the difficulty of timing with the dialogue wheel and autoselect characteristic, the participant’s participation is now not an impediment to every track’s circulate. 

And with that out of the best way, the sport is free to lean into broader experiential variances and deepen the influence of participant selections reasonably than sticking to floor components of the design. I look ahead to seeing how this narrative cohesion performs out on a micro and macro degree upon Stray Gods’ full launch.