Will Savino

Doing a land acknowledgement before baby’s nap time.

I’m so sensitive to narrow mixes now. I feel like half the early-aughts alt rock I listened to just had awful stereo. And then, of course, all that iPod era music had 0 transients.

I took a philosophy of music class in undergrad, and while we explored a lot of legitimately compelling topics, our professor was mostly concerned with examining why he loved “Slow Ride” by Foghat in high school but hated it now.

Thanks AI! Glad to know that the truth is actually AI-generated misinformation.

I lived in India for 3 months, but inexplicably the spiciest thing I've ever eaten was a burger in a mall in Finland.

Having a 1-year-old with food allergies is wild. Like, you’re saying my daughter could get one-shotted by a walnut?

Wife just confessed that she always thinks Benicio Del Toro is Leonardo DiCaprio in heavy makeup.

A private Instagram account sent me a message asking for some sheet music for one of my tunes. Said she wants to play it on flute. I would normally just say “yeah sure,” but now I’m nervous that it’s just an AI account who wants to train a model on my music. I hate this paranoia.

I'm floored by your candor here. What a great retrospective. Your writing is such a gift to the jazz community.

I'm sorry, but we really need to start shaming adults who have low animal literacy. What the hell do you mean you're 35 and have never heard of a pangolin?

Damn, my instinct is that TikTok skews much younger and/or that only young people would be like "hey wow I should listen to this song I heard in some meme video." Not a very evidence-based opinion, tbf.

Music discovery as a phenomenon is inversely correlated with age. Young people simply discover more music; older people tend to listen to what they already know. Accordingly, the app that skews younger (TikTok) almost certainly drives more discovery.

I'm still surprised Holy Fuck never became more popular/influential. The combo of weird electronics + live bass and drums is just so fun. One of the most exciting live acts I've ever seen.

This would be a hilarious time for Sufjan to just be like “fuck it, here’s New Mexico.”

Ditto here, but my wife was sooooo much worse that I was. Grateful that I got better quickly enough to take over full-time baby care once she got bad.

Here's my newest album with Borough Bound! If you want some fantasy music that skews Gershwin x Reich: firstly, that's oddly specific. Secondly, this album is for you!

Doing some genius-level game theory to figure out if it’s better to get norovirus first or last in a house with 3 people.

I had the great pleasure of scoring this adventure. If you want Die Hard in space with immaculate roleplaying and worldbuilding, give it a listen!

Happy new year! Are you ready to take flight? TOMORROW, Jan. 6th, is the launch of our new campaign, Flight of the Icaron, GM'd by Lou Wilson!

Stick around our socials to meet the ship's crew ...

Here's a preview of the score, composed by @willsavino.bsky.social!

What Tabletop GMs Can Learn From Elden Ring Elden Ring can teach tabletop gamemasters useful lessons that will improve any TTRPG campaign.

Elden Ring is a very good game and a very weird game. Its peculiarities can teach us a lot about what makes for cool adventures. With that, here's an overview of lessons from Elden Ring (with an embarrassingly clickbait-y title).

How I’d Run Every Borough Bound Setting Borough Bound has a lot of settings. Where do you start? Read this quick overview and choose for yourself!

We've released so many goddamn settings over at Borough Bound, and occasionally people ask us where they should start. Well, here's a little primer on each of our boroughs and a quick overview of how I would personally run each.

The Best Puzzle for GMs that Don't Like Puzzles The Nine Cups Puzzle will challenge your players without bringing the session to a halt. Plus, it's fun and funny.

I don't usually love puzzles in my campaigns, but I came up with one that solves every problem I normally have with "TTRPG puzzles." I explain the puzzle and—critically, IMO—why it works so well.

You can reply to literally any photo with “POV: You’re a camera”

Hey, I scored this.

UGH! I am so jealous!

8 Tabletop Composers You Must Know The best TTRPG composers for you to use in your tabletop campaigns

Building up a library of TTRPG tunes for your sessions? Start here. These composers have fabulous libraries built specifically for use in a tabletop context.

The cover art for Into the Wilds, Pt. 3

I've got a new EP out today! Into the Wilds, Pt. 3 is a collection of fantasy tunes that I wrote for @tomcartos.bsky.social's newest collection of tabletop battle maps.

Streaming links: distrokid.com/hyperfollow/...

Czepeku’s animated maps are indeed very sick.

One way or another, your party is going to get crushed by the machine.

Bad-ass animated sci-fi battlemap by @czepeku.bsky.social, featuring my track “In Their Clutches”

Lore & Mortar #4: Power Structures When designing fantasy worlds, add intrigue and nuance by fine-tuning the relationships between power structures.

You don't need to be some Foucault scholar, but you should still be thinking about different forms of power structures when you plan out your TTRPG campaigns.

blog.boroughbound.com/loremortar4/