(full review at http://briebeau.com/thoughty/a-slew-of-reviews, but the bulk of it is here!)

When the Music Stops is a GMless story game for 1-5 players designed to be played while listening to a mixtape and using the tape to travel through time by rewinding the music. The game only assumes that the characters can somehow travel through time, and that they’re trying to stop some disaster from coming to pass, and otherwise it is setting agnostic. The game uses 4 six-sided dice, a way to play music & prepared playlist (prepared by a player or using one of the provided lists), lyrics for the final song of the playlist, and a way to take notes.

The layout of this game is pretty with photographs of a lot of music-related objects and scenes (record players with quotes, cassette tapes, etc.) in a largely monotone (black, white, grey) color palette. the font is mostly monospace like typewriter font except for the serif quotes and sans serif thicker header fonts. The only part that’s a little challenging to read is really the music tracklists, which are white on black and smaller text, however, there’s a link to the Spotify playlists so that you can easily find the songs without having to read them!

When the Music Stops includes a safety section that’s well worded and encourages using safety tools as well as breaks and dialogue, primarily recommending lines & veils set up a few days before play to allow for time to prepare. I really appreciate setting safety expectations early, and putting this section before the Making the Mixtape section, because I personally know some music can even impact a person’s ability to play safely. (I feel like Script Change would suit this game well, also, if you’re looking for more structure.)

The Mixtape section is really great, giving guidelines on choosing a theme, timing the playlist well, including diversity, and the importance of having the lyrics (including a translation if it’s not in your native language) of the final song. As I mentioned, there’s also a sample playlist with a Spotify link, which makes this simpler for pickup play! In the section on playing the game, the instructions say to fast forward to the final song and look over the lyrics together, not talking but listening, and then flesh out the disastrous event when the music stops. There is a lot of useful guidance here on how much to detail, what to use to inform the narrative, and what it means to play towards resolving the disaster instead of trying to immediately fix it.

Character creation includes name, pronouns, and four traits for each character as well as any additional notes you desire to include or not. Traits are simple, descriptive phrases like “Single father,” “blessed by the gods,” and so on, with two being directly from the lyrics of the final song even if they overlap with others, just interpreted differently. This is really a cool and simple character creation that uses the game’s musical mechanics, which I love!

Each game also includes up to 7 Obstacles, and I like the flexibility in this section allowing you to stop when you feel it makes sense and say that whatever Obstacle you’re at is the final Obstacle. It is also is great that this section includes guidance to check in with quiet players and encourage them to, if they desire, be the next to introduce an Obstacle, since the last person who spoke in a given scene is given the right to introduce an Obstacle and some players are quieter or engage in different ways. You also don’t have to have Obstacles in scenes, which allows for more flexible storytelling.

Resolving obstacles uses die rolls against a 1-3 (makes it worse and causes you to use Chronicle points), 4-5 (timeline fights back, rewind your playlist), to 6 (overcome obstacle and gain a Chronicle point, more successes is more points) scale. You roll dice equal to the traits you’re using, which can be based on combined/team effort. I will say that it would be useful if Chronicle points were defined before this section, but it’s not too complicated to figure out or find since it’s a small document! The Chronicle points define how effectively you address the disaster at the end of the game, with more being better.

Finally, a great part of the game is the epilogue section on Rebuilding. This is after the confrontation of the disaster where you kind of unwind and thank each other & give positive feedback. It’s a great debriefing that includes a number of useful questions integrated into the structure, and I love a good opportunity to say nice things about each other and release tension or anxiety about the experience of play.