Music Cues

A cue is the music assigned to a scene, a combatant, or the fight as a whole. Minstrel watches the active scene and combat and plays the winning cue. Cues only change while a GM is logged in.

The cue board

The Scenes, Combat, Actors, and Other tabs of the console share one layout: each row has a target dropdown and a priority number.

The target dropdown lists Nothing, your moods, and every playlist, with Whole playlist or a single track under each one. A deleted target shows as Missing, and Minstrel skips that cue.

Scenes

Each scene’s Scene row plays while the scene is active and no combat is running.

Combat

The Global row holds the default combat cue. The Scenes group gives each scene its own combat cue.

Actors

The Tokens on this scene group lists tokens on the scene you are viewing. The Actors group lists every actor. Both set a combat theme that plays on that combatant’s turn. A token’s cue beats its actor’s cue at the default priorities.

Other

The Other tab appears only when another module registers its own cue sections. See API and Hooks.

Right-click a scene in the Scenes sidebar or an actor in the Actors sidebar and choose Set Minstrel music. The console opens at that row.

Which cue plays

Outside combat, the scene cue plays. When several encounters exist, Minstrel uses the active encounter on the active scene.

Once combat starts, the current combatant’s theme wins if its token or actor has one. By default, every other combatant’s theme is skipped and the highest priority number among the remaining cues wins. On a tie, the more specific source wins in this order: token, actor, scene, Global. If no combat cue applies, the scene cue keeps playing. The Combat music resolution setting changes how turns without a theme are handled.

Minstrel rechecks cues when combat starts or ends, on each turn or round change, and when a combatant joins or leaves mid-fight. If the winning cue stays the same, its music keeps playing without restarting. A playlist or track cue stops any other playing playlist when it starts.

Silencing scene or combat music

The Scenes tab has a Silence scene music button, and the Combat tab has Silence combat music. Each skips every cue of that kind until you turn it off, and the next cue in line takes over. The Toggle scene music and Toggle combat music keybinds flip the same switches. Both are GM-only, with no key assigned until you set one in Configure Controls.

Player combat themes

Players who own an actor see the Actors tab with rows for their own actors and their tokens on the scene they are viewing. The other tabs stay hidden from them.

Players also see Set Minstrel music when right-clicking an actor they own in the Actors sidebar. Right-clicking their own name in the Players list shows Combat Music, which opens the tab at their assigned character or the first actor they own.

Locking a cue

Actor and token rows have a lock button. A locked row is read-only for the players who own it.

Resuming where a track left off

When a cue change stops a playlist, Minstrel remembers the track and position. The next cue that plays that playlist picks up from there. A track cue resumes only when it points to the remembered track. Remembered positions survive a world reload.

Importing Video Game Music assignments

The first time a GM loads the world with Minstrel active, Minstrel imports Video Game Music assignments as cues. This covers scene area and combat music, token combat music on every scene, and actor and prototype token combat music. Each cue keeps its playlist, starting track, and priority. Assignments whose playlist no longer exists are skipped.

A scene mood or combat mood set on a scene also becomes a cue when no Video Game Music playlist covers that section. Existing Minstrel cues are never overwritten. The import runs once per world.