Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

If you'll bear with me for a moment: one interesting thing about tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons is that you can, theoretically, make them about Winning Or Losing. Either you slay the monsters, complete your quest, and become a hero, or you don't. I think such pastimes are more engaging and valuable, however, when they're not about Winning Or Losing, but about telling a story. The choices you make in TTRPGs, with that goal in mind, is not about being the best and most triumphant, but about appreciating the saga that you help to create; if a roll of the dice (literal or proverbial) is not favorable to a character, it's still okay, because failure can also produce great storytelling. These thoughts are relevant to 'Stray gods: The roleplaying musical' because the choices we make as players aren't about any definitive victory or defeat, but instead cause and effect, effort and consequence, and not just what they say about our fictional protagonist, or how they impact her or other characters, but how we, as players, feel about those choices. In the moment of any given prompt we can choose for Grace to be aggressive, sympathetic, charming, sage, or uncertain, and whether or not we personally like the outcome that these decisions produce, a compelling narrative is woven all along the way.

With this firmly in mind, one possible criticism to level at the playing experience is that no matter the choices you make, the thrust of the central plot will never change. Details of how scenes play out, how characters will be impacted, and where each individual character will end up when all is said and done are, gratifyingly, fairly mutable, as we hope and expect. Even if you make decisions at every prompt, however, that would outwardly seem to trend toward a less positive outcome - or decisions that one might think could result in the tale terminating prematurely, like finding an early grave in a Choose Your Own Adventure book - each scene and the whole will still follow the same broad path. Failure in TTRPGs fuels storytelling; here, there is no such thing as abject failure. In this instance we as players are not changing the course of the river, but placing boulders of varying size and shape in the riverbed around which the water must flow differently than it otherwise might. On that note, some of those boulders are more convincing than others. One concrete flaw I think this game bears is the unevenness with which dialogue trees branch out or converge, and the manner in which some player choices come to bear fruit. Sometimes a player choice will result in a kernel of information that is very illuminating; sometimes player choices will result in subsequent dialogue and exposition that feels unnatural, as if the game still wants us to obtain that information even if we didn't seem to make the choice that would have allowed for it. The input of a player choice (e.g., Grace's next line of dialogue) may lead to subsequent dialogue that either (a) comports directly to that input, (b) indirectly gets around to more or less matching that input, or (c) doesn't entirely come off the way we supposed it would have. Sometimes we imagine choices that may be coming up soon but the writing turns out not to offer such a choice; sometimes choices, endeavoring to, say, persuade another character, produce the desired result with a curtness that seems too easy, and inorganic.

All this is to say that when it comes to the core mechanics that 'Stray gods' promises, the actual gaming and storytelling experience is a little flawed; the writing struggles in its finer points. Not to belabor such matters, but while we're at it, it's also possible that some of those fine details can take a surprising particular form from even just one choice we casually made much earlier. (Case in point: I was spurred to swiftly start a second game partly because the final scene I got in my first play-through earned a flat, hard "No" from me.) It's also worth observing, perhaps, that simple as the controls are (using the directional pad to highlight one choice or another), the game can occasionally be laggy and unresponsive to our input; moreover, the total length for one play-through is fairly short, for we can explore every branch on every dialogue tree, and nevertheless finish in maybe six hours. And still, with all this having been said: decidedly imperfect as this title is, I had a really good time playing, and in fact I immediately replayed it a couple more times to see what I necessarily missed out on before.

It has its issues, but in my opinion this is more worthwhile than not, with much to appreciate. It was the cast that initially caught my attention; being a fan of Critical Role, I was instantly drawn to the inclusion of Laura Bailey and Ashley Johnson, and I readily recognized many other names attached, including Anjali Bhimani, Felicia Day, Erika Ishii, Khary Payton, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, and Felicia Day, among others. Everyone involved gives terrific performances, and I would expect no less; whether speaking and simply giving life to their characters with vivid personality and mannerisms, or singing, it really is a joy to hear all these voices I know and love. Not to discount anyone else, but in a smaller supporting part Bhimani is plainly exceptional and a top highlight; Rahul Kohli is a delight. McGlynn very much impresses - and as much as I adore Bailey, I'm of the mind that Janina Gavankar rather steals the show in voicing Grace's best friend Freddie. All this is to say nothing of the superb character designs, the fetching art style, or the very welcome diversity that the game reflects both in its characters and in its cast, and to which it further speaks with some of those small details (narrative or visual) throughout the story.

In some fashion the music is more a flavoring than a primary essence; technically this could have been made without the musical stylings. Yet these are employed meaningfully nonetheless, and not only do the actors have splendid singing voices, but I quite enjoy the music in and of itself, too. Some themes are more simple or gawky than others, true, and like stage musicals in real life, there are times when the lyrics being laid in are less like the seamless fit of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but more akin to a Volkswagen Beetle trying to carry a king-size mattress. And it goes without saying that if one has a hard time engaging with musicals, generally, this probably won't be up your alley, either. Be all that as it may, the songs are often excellent in and of themselves, and do change shape in varying measures in accordance with player input. Regardless of how they relate to player input, the scene writing and dialogue are fantastic at large, and feed into an overall plot that really is interesting and worthwhile. There is nothing revelatory about 'Stray gods,' but even with rough edges it delivers on what it promises, and I step away very satisfied.

It won't appeal to all comers. I do recommend taking a look at some screenshots, or otherwise gaining a basic sense of how gamplay works, to determine if this is something that you'd like to check out; I freely admit that all told, it was a tad different than I had expected, not knowing any better. If you are receptive to the style, though, and especially if you have some particular impetus to play, then as far as I'm concerned 'Stray gods' is fun and deserves a look.

There are so many talented voice actors involved in this project and each cast member does a fantastic job in their role. I've had the duet between Laura Bailey and Ashley Johnson stuck in my head since the game first came out - when these two sing together it's a magical experience. Although certain events can't be avoided, I enjoyed the various outcomes and song possibilities. The fact that the game was nominated for a Grammy speaks to the quality of the soundtrack. This is my first experience with a role playing musical game and although the gameplay may not be for everyone, I found it to be engaging, entertaining and innovative.