Music and songs

[Snowbunny]

I know that there is a rather extensive help file on different folksongs and even some other player-based websites offering altered folk-songs and such for Zalanthas.. but my question is.. would some songs in real life, other than folk songs, be suitable? (I don't neccessarily mean current songs. By all means, I know that Britney Spears and 2 Pac are not Armageddon material) Rather, I mean songs like "This little light of mine"  or (for young children perhaps) "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands"

Do all songs in this world have to directly speak about the planet in some way, shape or form, or can some songs from real life be acceptable too?

[jstorrie]

I'd say one should avoid bringing works from reality into Arm whenever possible.  Why not just make up your own songs?  Since it's just text, you don't even have to come up with a tune for them.

[Larrath]

One important rule:  If people can recognize it, it is normally bad.

It simply distracts from the roleplay, and sometimes ruins the atmosphere completely.  No "End of the World" even if you do think it can fit...unless you can make it SO obscure that nobody will notice.

The occasional, rare, rare, rare vague reference to something can be cute and entertaining, but don't overuse this...especially not in large gatherings of people where getting distracted or overwhelmed is even easier.

Your lyrics don't have to be incredibly deeper nor do they have to rhyme...in fact, I have noticed that most of the better songs out there focus around describing the actual sound of the song rather than the verbal content.

You can even just have instrumental songs that can go really well, ugh, kinda derailed myself.

Not all songs have to be "I'm hot but that's okay 'cuz I'm in Zalanthas and everything is hot here because Suk-Krath is hot!", but keep in mind that Zalanthan culture and reality is different.

There is no "the moon", there are no rivers and even the word "cool" is used sparingly, let alone "cold" or "frozen".  One true love is also not a well advertised concept, and democracy does not exist.

The only 'god' you'll get to sing about in the city-states (unless you want to die, that is) is the appropriate Sorcerer-King of the region.

Oh, and "magic" or "reading someone like an open book" are both pretty bad things.

Okay, so that's all I have to say.  You CAN use a song from real life, but it has to be obscure and adapted so that it does not distract, and try to generally avoid doing it.  I also recommend that you emphasize the sounds over then lyrics, but maybe you do that already.