{"id":9734,"date":"2026-09-16T03:54:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T03:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/?p=9734"},"modified":"2026-09-21T03:13:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T03:13:44","slug":"the-road-a-game-of-musical-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/?p=9734","title":{"rendered":"THE ROAD: A Game of Musical Survival."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The object is to become a successful touring musician, although after playing for twenty minutes everyone realizes the actual object is to get <\/strong>home with roughly the same amount of money, equipment and psychological stability you started with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The board is a map made up of bars, theatres, festivals, church basements, house concerts, border crossings, motels and enormous stretches of highway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone begins with a musician, an instrument, $500 and an unreasonable degree of optimism. There is no conventional finish line. You must complete a twelve-show tour and return home. The player with the most Money, Audience and Sanity remaining wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each turn you roll the dice and travel toward the next engagement. Landing on certain spaces requires drawing a Card: For Instance i) Promoter forgot you were coming. ii) Lose $200.<\/em> iii) Audience member buys every CD because your song reminded her of her late husband. Gain $180 and two Sanity points.<\/em> Or: Piano has not been tuned since Mulroney was Prime Minister. Lose one Sanity point unless you possess the Emergency Piano Tuner card.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also Gig Cards. Before every performance you draw one: i) Sold Out<\/em>, ii) Twenty-three People<\/em>, iii) Audience Includes Three Drunk Men Discussing Hockey<\/em>, iv) Opening Act Plays Seventy Minutes<\/em>, v) Standing Ovation<\/em>, or [especially feared] vi) Great Show, Nobody Buys Anything<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money isn’t the only currency. You accumulate Stories. Bad experiences often cost money or Sanity but earn Story points. Your car breaks down outside Wawa: terrible financially, excellent story. You sleep in a promoter’s basement beside an enormous fish-tank containing one piranha: lose two Sanity, gain three Stories. You play a perfect concert in a comfortable theatre and receive the agreed fee: financially excellent, zero Story points. This creates the central philosophical problem of the game: the worse your tour becomes, the better your eventual memoir gets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a pile called Musician Decisions. These don’t depend on dice. The player has to choose. You have a day off. Drive six hours toward tomorrow’s show, or stay in the motel and rest?<\/em> The promoter offers another $200 if you play an extra set.<\/em> A musician you’ve always admired asks you to sit in, but you have to drive 500 kilometres tomorrow morning.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every musician receives a secret Condition Card at the beginning: Insomnia<\/em>, Bad Back<\/em>, Needs Applause<\/em>, Cannot Pass a Used Record Store<\/em>, Falls in Love Easily<\/em>, Vegetarian in Northern Ontario<\/em>, Believes Every Show Could Change His Life<\/em>. These make certain spaces more dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there is one square everyone fears:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE BORDER.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You must draw a card and answer the question exactly as written. Nothing good comes from explaining yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game becomes increasingly absurd. Players acquire merchandise, lose chargers, find better hotels, receive parking tickets, gain fans, lose band members and discover that the venue advertising a \u201cbeautiful grand piano\u201d actually means an electronic keyboard stored underneath a foosball table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final space is HOME. When you reach it, you count everything. Money matters. Audience matters. Sanity matters. Stories matter. Then comes the final card:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YOU HAVE BEEN HOME FOR THREE DAYS. SOMEONE OFFERS YOU TWELVE SHOWS IN THE MARITIMES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you say no, you keep your score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you say yes, you win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The object is to become a successful touring musician, although after playing for twenty minutes everyone realizes the actual object is to get home with roughly the same amount of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[877],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-rockbob","post-9734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}