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Lonely TTRPG EP 40 - Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery
Episode 40 • 13th March 2023 • Lonely TTRPG • Black Dragon Dungeon Company
00:00:00 00:24:31

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VOID 1680 AM includes rules for single-session and ongoing play, instructions to have your show broadcast on the airwaves as an Affiliate, and even a way to add your voice to a library of Callers that other DJs can use in their own games.

Thoughts: This is a unique game that uses music and prompts to build a classic late night radio style feel.

You can find Void 1680 AM at https://bannerlessgames.itch.io/void-1680-am?ac=pEV55vHqdvG

Find our merch at https://my-store-d24802.creator-spring.com/

Find our games here at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/20990/Black-Dragon-Dungeon-Company.php?affiliate_id=3362048

BDDC logo by https://www.instagram.com/craftyteapotfox/

You can find us on Twitter @bddc_pod or Tumblr @bddc-pod

You can support us on Patreon https://patreon.com/blackdragondungeoncompany for early releases and exclusive content.

Songs in the episode:

Frost in the Northern Winter - Music by <a

href="https://pixabay.com/users/elias_weber-6810638/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=music&amp;utm_content=127704">elias_weber</a>

from <a

href="https://pixabay.com/music//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=music&amp;utm_content=127704">Pixabay</a>

Ambition by Dungeon Glitch at https://dungeonglitch.com/background-music/

Energetic Rock Trailer - Music by <a

href="https://pixabay.com/users/playsound-24686998/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=music&amp;utm_content=140906">Playsound</a>

from <a

href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=music&amp;utm_content=140906">Pixabay</a>

Hard Work Music by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/litesaturation-17654080/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=music&amp;utm_content=109942">LiteSaturation</a>

from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=music&amp;utm_content=109942">Pixabay</a>



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Transcripts

SteelStash:

Greetings, weary wanderer and welcome back to Lonely T T R P G,

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the Solo Actual Play and Review podcast.

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This week we are playing void 1680 am by Ken Lowry.

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Welcome to the exciting world of Radio.

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Let us be the first to say congratulations on your acquisition

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of an AM transmitter and mast Tower.

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With this simple but powerful technology, you can stake your

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claim on the dial and share a little bit of yourself with the whole.

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But why am radio in these modern times.

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It's true.

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FM has the son of your reputation.

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It's powerful.

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It's clear.

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It goes from miles and miles, but the FM band is narrow and highly competitive.

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And inevitably what airs on it is more commercial.

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There is no one author on the FM dial.

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Each playlist, each task segment is carefully focused to appeal to anyone

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who tunes in, not am on the AM band.

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You can find voices expressing what they must express at any cost, sharing what

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they love or dislike because that is the end point of their revelatory process.

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There are no committees on am there are only lone voices in the

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darkness saying what they cannot contain seeking connection with

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like minds, voices like yours.

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So void 1680 am is a single player tabletop role playing game.

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In it.

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You take on the persona of a radio broadcaster and use the tools of chance

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to build your playlist and sketch out the identities and concerns of the

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people who call in to talk to you.

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The game can be played in about two hours.

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We're gonna go a little bit shorter as we normally do.

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If you decide you want to continue and see how the stories of your callers

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evolve over time, there are rules provided to continue over multiple broadcasts.

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Unlike many RPGs Void 1680 am does not have levels, classes,

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powers, or even other players.

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This game is essentially an engine to build playlists that are equal parts

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familiar and surprising, and to help you construct the personalities, desires,

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and fears of the lonesome souls who call in to connect with you, put simply

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the rules of play, provide prompts upon which you build a playlist and connect

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with the extension of your own imagin.

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Now grab your records and some coffee.

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Tonight's gonna be a long one.

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You can just feel it.

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All right.

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So what you're gonna need to play is you're going to need a deck of cards.

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And with that deck of cards, you're gonna remove the jokers.

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You're gonna separate out the face cards and you are going to separate it by suit.

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You're also gonna need a voice recorder, cuz after all this is

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radio, you have to talk for radio.

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And in addition, you're going to need some type of playlist builder.

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Now if you want a more analog approach, you can pull out your cassettes, your

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CDs, if you're really old school.

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Otherwise, just go to your streaming service, pull up

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your library and use that.

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And finally, you will need a six-sided dice to help make up who is calling you.

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Now again, for us, we're not gonna be using a regular playlist

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builder cause I do release this.

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So I have to take into consideration things like licensing and the

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legalities of doing so.

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So I'm gonna be using stuff that I know is license and royalty free.

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and I will have links for all of the artists in the notes below.

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All right.

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When you're starting off, you need to consider two things.

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First of all, find your wavelength a.

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All right, and what that means is every radio show has some sort of theme.

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What is your theme gonna be?

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And then you want to consider your station.

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Where are you broadcasting from, or where are you claiming to broadcast from?

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Now, after you know your wavelength and your broadcast location,

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We move on to a typical night's programming.

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So a turn in this game is you're gonna draw three cards from the song block suit.

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You're gonna pick songs for each of those cards.

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Cue them up.

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In your player of choice, you are going to introduce the first

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song, stop your recorder, play the songs, listen through 'em.

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Consider any questions posed by the cards as you're listening.

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And while you're doing that, you're going to draw your caller card.

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So your suits are gonna be your playlist cards or your song cards.

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And your face cards are gonna be your caller cards.

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That's gonna let you know what type of person's calling.

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And after you draw your caller card, you are going to consult when a stranger calls

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to sketch out the identity of your caller.

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When the song's finished, you're gonna restart your recording back, sell as

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much or as little as you'd like, and then talk about your conversation with the

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caller as much or little as you like.

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Then you are going to.

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Select your next block of songs and repeat in a typical night's

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performance, you're gonna do this four times, so that will be 12 total songs.

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So your first block of songs is going to come from clubs, and these are going to.

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Typically high energy, typically catchy songs.

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Remember, this is how you were starting your show, so this is what you want to be.

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Your attention grabbing songs.

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Make sure you introduce your radio station before you announce your first song.

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After all, everybody needs to know who they are Listening to

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Diamonds will be your next.

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And this should be increasing in intensity.

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Building towards an emotional climax.

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It doesn't mean the songs need to be faster or louder, just think

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of it as emotional intensity.

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Spades will be third, and this is gonna be a bit of a come down.

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You gotta get that emotional break in there.

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And then finally, a hearts is your fourth song block.

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And these are the conclusion of your broadcast.

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You wanna make sure that you have a nice, good ending

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where if your club cards are your thesis statement, your heart cards

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are your conclusion and making good on the promise that you started at the.

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Now, as we said, during each song block, someone is going to call in to talk with

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you, or at the very least, talk at you.

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People who call into radio shows to talk are acting on a strong, simple

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need to be heard, no matter by who.

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In that way, you are very alike.

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To begin the sketch of your conversation with the caller, draw a face.

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The face card is going to indicate what type of caller they are.

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Next, you're gonna determine if they're calling because of one of the songs

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you were playing or for a request.

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if your caller card is the same suit as your current song block, they're

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calling about something you've played.

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Pick whatever one is numerically closer to the face.

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If their suit matches the next song block, they're calling to make a request.

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It is up to you if you honor that request.

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If you do roll a D six and select something based on the table,

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the song should be outside your comfort zone, but it can still

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be on theme for the night.

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If the caller suit does not match the current or next song block, then

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they have no attachment to the music.

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They just wanted to talk to somebody.

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In addition, there are some common caller questions that you can

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roll based on the caller's suit,

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and with that table, it's simply look at the suit from the caller card, roll your D

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six and choose the question that came up.

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And finally continuing your broadcast.

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Sometimes one broadcast is not enough.

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That's understandable.

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The bonds you form with callers fleeting, as they may be, can be

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surprisingly powerful despite, or perhaps because of their anonymity.

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To continue the stories of your callers over multiple broadcasts,

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you'll need to either mark the caller cards as you draw them, a sharpie

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works well, or log them in a journal.

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Play your broadcast as normal when you draw a given caller card.

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For the first time, write a word or phrase to summarize your color card on

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top of the card and discard as usual.

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On subsequent broadcast, use the full caller card deck including marked cards.

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Mark any first time callers as above on their second, third, or fourth calls.

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Use additional tables to generate follow ups.

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Syndicating your show void.

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1680 am is real.

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This is not a metaphor.

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The author of this game has an AM transmitter in their garage connected

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to a range extender on the roof, and they use it to broadcast music and

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radio plays to their neighborhood.

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Yes.

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At 1680.

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They also stream the broadcast on YouTube, but thanks to copyright, very

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few of those broadcasts stay on YouTube.

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They're always happy to broadcast affiliates.

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If you have a playlist and banter you'd like to broadcast on the Real

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Void, 1680, they want to hear from you.

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Email, banner list games gmail.com with the following, inform or with

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your information, and please put Void AM broadcast in the subject.

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Good night and good luck.

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With that, we're gonna go ahead and get into our game.

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A couple things up front.

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First of all, I'm gonna be drawing one card per suit again, because I

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don't want this to take a long time.

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Yes, we will be playing music.

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I will not be playing the full song though.

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We'll be playing snippets and I apologize if I sound rough or if any

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coughing gets into the broadcast.

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I am just getting over some type of sickness and.

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I am doing my best to mitigate that, but the show must go on

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and hopefully I got all of the sounds of that off of the airways.

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Well, hey, there are all you Displacer beasts and wyverns this is Steel Stash

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coming to you from deep within the dungeons of the Black Dragon itself, once

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again, bringing you the late night tunes for all your dungeon crawling needs.

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So let's go ahead and start this evening off.

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With our three clubs,

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an old favorite of mine just right for getting any type of dungeon started.

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So you sit back and relax and watch out for them traps.

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Now, that was Frost in the Northern Winter by Elias Weber, a real

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great one when you're just trudging along, trying to get that adventure.

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Now?

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Old Ace, what did you have to think about that song?

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Oh, I quite liked it reminded me of the time I was struggling

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through the mountains.

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Its real cold.

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Got the frostbite, almost lost three of my toes.

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The brightside was the gold we found at the top bought me six new toes.

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Yeah.

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Sometimes those hard routes have.

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mighty High Payday.

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But what do we see?

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Why don't we see what's next on the docket for tonight?

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And that's gonna be a Six Diamonds,

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a song to help you focus and tune in.

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if we had just started our journey, I think we've come

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to our first major obstacle.

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Let's see what type of song we can find to help you figure out how to solve that

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puzzle and get into that old dungeon.

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I hope that ambition by Dungeon Glitch helped fill y'all with the ambition

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needed to overcome that obstacle.

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But now let's go check the phones.

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And we got a,

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we got the King of clubs.

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Well, Mr.

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King, you're not calling about the music, so what's on your mind

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will, well, you see.

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I have this issue going on with with the family.

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There seems to be some type of Hulu going on within our ranks and.

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We're not quite sure how to handle it.

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It's, we've never been faced with something like this before.

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You know how it is, new elements brought in and, and the like.

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Ah, yes.

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I understand the issue there, Mr.

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King.

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You know, change can be tough, but that adventuring party.

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Y'all are continuing to grow and change on your own.

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And sometimes you forget that just because you're with each other doesn't

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mean that you guys are communicating with each other, and that existing

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in the same space is not the same as sharing your lives with each other.

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So maybe.

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The solution is for you guys to take a break from everything and just sit down

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together and talk and have a little bit of a activity, you know, overcome

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some mi, overcome some minor challenge under your own, whether that be a board

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game, whether that be a new puzzle or whether that be trying to find that.

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That lost dungeon, that old cousin Henry been going on about forever.

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You know, a little bit of a challenge and actually working together and

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communicating with each other might just be what you need to revitalize

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that party feeling within your family.

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Hmm.

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What an interesting interesting concept.

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Thank you.

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I shall take it under consider.

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You do that now, Mr.

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King.

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You do that.

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Now, moving on to our next song for the evening.

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We must be getting ready for our fight here.

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We've already entered our dungeon.

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We've overcome our first obstacle.

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What we fixing to do now?

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Oh, we fixing to do the nine.

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A song from when your parents were young, how did you discover it?

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Hmm.

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So it seems to be that we have some type.

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Classic situation on our hands here and now.

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Look, I know folks, you know, the definition of classic keeps

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getting changed every day.

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Like I remember when I, I remember when I first heard the music that I

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listened to growing up be the finest classic, took me as a bit of a shock,

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but then I stopped and thought about it.

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You know, why was I upset that they were calling my music Dad rock?

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I mean, I am a dad and it's the rock that I listen to.

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So I guess by definition that makes it dad rock.

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But all of that aside, let's stop and think about this for a second.

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It seems we have ourselves a bit of a classic monster situation at hand.

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We're not just looking for that old type of feel music.

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We're looking for that old type of feeling, boss.

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And what is.

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Who else can be the classic boss at the end of a dungeon, aside from a dragon?

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Now, don't worry, Mr.

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Black Dragon, it ain't gonna be you.

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I know better than the bite the hand that feeds me, especially when the hand

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that feeds me can swallow me hole in one.

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But how about we do one of those mean red dragons?

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Let's see if we got something suitable for fighting a red dragon.

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And sticking with that dad rock theme.

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I hope you guys like that energetic rock B by play sound, and I hope

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you guys were able to take care of that dragon that you found.

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I know Red Dragons can seem scary and.

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Tell the truth.

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They are big, tough, angry sons.

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Guns.

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They are.

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But little bit of perseverance and a little bit of wits about you.

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I'm sure you guys took that dragon on.

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No problem, no problem whatsoever.

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And let's see who our next caller is.

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In fact, it's gonna be our last caller for the evening before

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we go ahead and play us on out.

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And let's see who we got calling up now.

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Got ourselves the ace of spades.

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Colin about, Colin, about that fat music, huh?

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Well, there, ACE, what would you like to talk about?

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Oh, I remember when we felt our first dragon, it was, it was

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quite a harrowing adventure.

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We, we were so under prepared.

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It was a miracle that we even survived.

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But the team came together and we all had each other's backs

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and threw some crafty, crafty.

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Tactics, thankfully developed by by our fighter and some

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well-placed shots by the Ranger.

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I was able to use some of my casting ability to trap that

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thing down on the ground.

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and then a few well placed his from the monk and Bob both

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stunned it and stunned it.

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The fighter, he liked to call that the shock and awe, you know, the

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stunning strike followed by the reckless attack that sort of thing.

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He was very, he was very fond of that little trick of of his sleeve.

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It was, it was quite amusing, huh?

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To, to see.

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And oh, it's always a pleasure to watch work out.

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But again, you know, it was, it was a hair and horror, an

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incident and, you know, quite.

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Despite, despite all of that, still quite the meal cause we made it out.

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But I'm glad that we did and I'm glad that I trusted in my team

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that we were able to do that.

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Well, that does sound like quite the quite the predicament you guys were in, but

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luckily everything seemed to work out for.

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. Well, at least in the material sense, I hope that after that incident

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that you guys were able to go seek someone to talk it out with as well.

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Cuz remember, it's not always the physical dragons that you gotta worry about.

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It's those mental dragons as well, those dragons that hide deep in your

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mind, poisoning you with thoughts.

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Slack, I'm not worth it and I can't do it.

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All right.

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Those are the dragons that we're fighting every.

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and those are dragons just as scary as those big red ones

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living up in the mountain.

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And we shouldn't be ashamed about talking about our fights with

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them and none, none whatsoever.

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So I hope that after your, after your battle with the physical

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dragon, you guys were able to take care of your mental dragons.

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I've been Steel stash.

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This has been Dungeon Dive Radio on VO 1680 am and looking for

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our final song to sign out.

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Be the eight.

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We're gonna be signing out with something to make you feel invincible,

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rather apropo consider.

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After all, we just beat a dragon.

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So I hope y'all are feeling strong.

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I hope y'all are feeling an invincible and like this song title, like

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this song by light saturation.

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I hope y'all are willing to do that hard work.

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Goodnight all.

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All right, so that is Void 1680 FM by Ken Lowry.

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So this was a really interesting concept for a game.

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I really enjoyed it.

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Definitely up there with one of the definitely up there with one of the

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more interesting and novel approaches.

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The gameplay I do.

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I do like the basic design that you're building a playlist and you're building

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this this rapport with your collars.

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I think that this is a game that, you know, I think this is

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a game that will kind of shine the more you play it especially

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with the ability of having those.

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Collars call back multiple times.

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I think that the, I think that the collar deck might be a little bit small, but then

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again, we're talking about an AM station, so it's not, it's not like we're dealing

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with that huge of an audience as well.

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And for those of you youngins out there who might be like, well, this

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is totally unrealistic, who would call into a radio show or anything like that,

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you know, go ask your mom about Del.

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Just go do that.

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Go ask your mom about Delilah.

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I'm, I'm sure that, I'm sure that she has, she has stories listening

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to Delilah Late night radio.

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All right.

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We, but this is definitely, this is definitely one of those

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that captures that nostalgia, it captures that classic feel to it.

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Got an interesting, got an interesting feel.

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And I like it.

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I like it.

SteelStash:

And if nothing else, if nothing else, now you can be the DJ for your group

SteelStash:

during their dungeon crawl, as you now have a template for how that would work.

SteelStash:

But if you enjoyed this game and you want to find it for yourself,

SteelStash:

You can get it on Itch for $10 at banner list games.itch.io/void-sixteen 80

SteelStash:

dash am or check my links down below.

SteelStash:

And if you pick it up, make sure you tell 'em that steel stash sent ya.

SteelStash:

But that's been it for this week.

SteelStash:

You guys take care and remember I mustache all to stay Awesome.