A couple suggestions for categories of Nova content

Nova
#1

Hi team,
I’m using Nova here and there to provide ambient background music while working (am I an odd bird for doing this?). So no live-from-the-table feedback just yet.

When I do use Syrinscape during games, 80% or more is non-combat, with a smaller share in-combat. What I LOVE about sound is the ability to set the mood and immerse players (and me as GM) in a setting, world, or scene. (I’m an immersion player, for whatever RPG player typology you like.)

Back to Nova: the early release content has a nice range. To further improve, I suggest:

  • in the Creatures category, include some non-hostile creatures, so they can be an accent to ambient Location sounds (a monkey? farm animals, a friendly pixie; even an overly-dutiful butler making pains to serve the Lord of the Manor and guests);
  • in the Effects category, many of these overlap with the ambient sounds in the Locations category (e.g. wind or rain on top of an ambient track that’s already windy or rainy), so more Effects would be useful (magical gate, rock falls, panicked/threatening mob and non-threatening effects such as audience applause, laughter of charming people, wagon wheels).

Hope that’s helpful–keep up the good work and Happy Holidays to all!

2 Likes
#2

I agree that the categories overlap a bit in their wording. The way I see it, they are (or should be) like the following:

  • Music: Pretty obviously a single piece/a loop of tracks, if I start another, the currently plaxing Music stops as it should
  • Location: This thing is a lot trickier, as a location contains effects and creatures, especially if we talk about non-hostile creatures. A bar contains a lot of patrons for example, but I would consider them part of the location, rather than their own creature. I don’t want to activate the creature farm animals everytime I start the Location “Farm”, they belong to the location. If I have a Farm Location, it should maybe have a Barn Mood, where there are more animal sounds, I don’t want to manually raise them in another tab.
  • Creature: To make the distinction clearer, maybe it should be Hostiles/Enemies instead? I really like that I can set the creature separately from location, music and effects, as making combat encounters in moods is a bit repetitive, especially if the same monsters can appear on different Locations
  • Effects: I love that I can set things like weather separately! But please don’t have effects like weather in Locations. What I am missing is a way to connect certain effects: If the party goes indoors, I love that weather sounds get more dulled and distant, it feels really immersive. If I have to manually adjust location and effect, this immersion gets broken a bit. If there would be a way to link Locations and effects, e.g. make effects (or only certain effects) quieter on a specific location (or have a toggle for outside/inside), that would be great. I do agree on the range of effects: Everything that is not specific to a single location could be an effect. Weather, Travelling (horses, wagons, by foot), non-specific crowds, magic sounds and so on.

I love the new way of thinking in general though, it is a lot more intuitive. Down the road I would like some more “expert” features, but only when I need them, I like to keep the general UI as simple as possible. I love to use Syrinscape, it adds so much immersion, but I don’t want to have to do much thinking about it while running a session.

All in all, great work so far, the direction is wonderful!

2 Likes
#3

These are ALL really good ideas. We’ll get onto these! :slight_smile:

#4

Totally! This has been a BIG change in the way combat works in Syrinscape and I think it is a BIG improvement! :slight_smile: I mean, music is ALSO separated from LOCATIONS too.

Yeah, being able to save scenes (everything that is currently playing) will go a big distance to making transitioning smoother and easier. atm you might have to change 3 things and can’t get them all done simultaneously!

#5

Thanks for the input! The team is all coming back on board this week, and we are raring to go! :robot: :pizza: :fire: