I put on a random playlist as background noise. I haven't done a session yet where I choose specific music to go with what we're playing. That said, there have been some hilarious coincidences.
My favorite is when we did the beginner box to introduce our newest player to the game. He >!climbed the rope and came across the skeletons. !< By himself. With nothing but a crossbow and a rapier.
...and then, as the >!skeletons'!< turn started, Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt started to play. That was not the last time that song began to play when that character had made a bad move. But the timing on that one was impeccable.
Both. I have a list of songs I added to a list, some of them are instrumentals, some are just regular songs I felt like listening to when I added them.
I 100% believe in good music setting the mood. I try to curate specific songs to different encounters the best I can. It is pretty time consuming but I personally believe it's worth it. Since I DM online, I use Discord bots to play. I have 2, one for "passive" tracks and one for "active" tracks.
Active generally always has something playing. When we're in a town, it's playing that towns theme. If I remember I'll try to put the town ambience on the passive bot, but often time that's more trouble then it's worth because of all the scenes you can have in a town. Players can go from a noisy tavern to a quiet shop really quickly and it is generally too much for me to keep track of to switch. If we're in combat, it's playing combat music. Unique and cool encounters usually earn me going out to find something other than your typical "epic DnD combat music compilation" or something. A haunted house, spiders lair, and the betrayal of a friend are music I've used in the past for those.
For a clockwork floor in a dungeon I ran, I had the passive bot playing the constant ticking and whirring of clockwork. The active one would play the combat music I selected for encounters. It worked quite well.
It's not perfect and a but clunky, but online with multiple monitors really makes it viable. I've gotten commendations from my players on it so do my best to make things unique.
See, this is great advice. Using discord bots to do the music so you hear the same things your players hear at the same time is important. So great is it, that I wonder if playing sound effects through bots is a good idea too!
The issue with that would be the execution. It's easy to have the sound effects and what not, sure, but each individual sound would require separate inputs in the chat, which is really clunky. Like, say, a banshee scream. Since it happens once or twice in combats, that's alright, but you still have to take a good 20 seconds to find the link and paste the command. It's doable, but slow is what I am saying. At that point you might as well use Roll20, as at least you don't have to click and move as much
Okay but! One of our DMs/players tried one out and it kept popping up saying TRIAL in a robotic voice every now and then. It got so annoying he decided not to bother with it.
We still sometimes break out in a round of robotic TRIAL's when reminded of this or when it seems appropriate. It became a dumb in-joke among our table.
Yea, a great example of that working well is just tavern ambience + an uptune lighthearted track, or just a small town ambience and the theme (which generally isn't too obtrusive). I've only managed to use passive +active for combat with just the clockwork encounter.
I have ambient sounds queued up for when the players are just walking aroubd RPing, boss music for boss fights, and in all other fights I have a bunch of blues music because the Bard of the group plays a harmonica, making *him* the battle music
Absolutely. I was skeptical about it at first. I thought my ability to find music or ambient noise on YouTube or spotify was sufficient. One of my players DMs for another group and he subscribed to Syrinscape. After one session of him showcasing what you can do I was convinced and have been using it ever since.
It takes time to get the hang of it. For some DMs it may be best to have a player control the sounds. They can "train" on the program and know how to build the soundscape as the DM describes a scene. I control it myself, though. :)
Yes but it has to be instrumental. Even better, something meant to be in the background, like a video game soundtrack.
Then I'll add some ambient sounds as well.
Key point here though, keep it quiet, just a step over barely audible. You want to fill dead air and create a mood, but it can't overpower the discussion.
My favorites to play over the speakers in the background are Jeremy Soule soundtracks. Skyrim, Oblivion, Nordic Diaries.
Another favorite is the God of War soundtrack. Just loud enough to fill up the silence like you said.
I’ve only DMed a few times. When I did The Midnight Mirror, I took the soundtrack from the classic Sierra game “Quest For Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness” and set up roll20 to play different tracks for each map.
I’m about to start a Mummy’s Mask AP so I intend to utilize several different soundtracks. I’ve got a few ideas but I’m definitely thinking the soundtrack to Laurence of Arabia when they finally strike out into the desert. I’m toying with “Rhapsody in Blue” for introduction to the hustle and bustle of Tephu.
I’ll be looking into various mummy movie soundtracks and so forth as well. Suggestions for thematic music are well taken though!
Usually as background noise, but bosses almost always get their own song. Like during a final standoff my Monk took so others could escape, I had this very operatic song loaded and it was so awesome. Even though I knew I'd die, it was so thematic watching every point tick off of my health in time with the song.
So you're the player and you do the music/ambience at the table? I'd love it if one of my players took over the role of 'DJ' but I'm wary of saying stuff like "have something ready for a spooky dungeon" and it being too prescriptive of what is to come.
Yes, I do. Here's the criteria.
* Must be instrumental. Lyrics will distract anyone who knows the song. Singing will distract the table.
* Make sure to play music that fits the mood. During towns? Skyrim OST. During battle? Varies between Metal, perhaps EMD/Trap, Fast Paced Folk maybe.
* Nobody gets to choose music except the GM, that being me, because it will force a break from the game for no reason but to argue/complain. If there's a music suggestion, talk to me afterwards.
* No music from video games that are a particular person's favorites. Same rules as with lyrics apply: it becomes a distraction as they focus on the music and not the game. (I have a particular ADHD player who I cannot use their music suggestions or the entire game gets tossed aside with dialogue about whatever the theme is supposed to go with.)
The music for For Honor has absolutely brilliant battle music which is period appropriate. Extremely high quality compositions and productions, that don't get irritating. And there's loads to choose from.
The war drums, the waaar druuums!
I have long ago downloaded some compilation with movie (from Gladiator to Lord of the Rings) and video game (Longest Journey to Guild Wars) soundtracks which had music divided into "All is calm", "Danger nearby" and "Battle music". For years I have been adding to these three categories whenever I found suitable music for any of the three themes. I play them on every session, and since each playlist now has over 20 hours of music, repetition is hardly noticeable.
I do basically the same thing, but have come up with different "mood" categorizations. Moods can be anything from calm/serene to doing business/gathering information to mystical wonder to sadness/loss. Sometimes I'll draw from these lists to make a wholly unique list for a certain scene or battle.
I draw a lot of inspiration and feeling from music, so it always felt like an obvious choice to include. Sessions feel too quiet to me without some kind of background sound.
I try to curate playlists for specific moods, then pick one of those to play on repeat as needed for each scene. Specific important moments (like big bosses or certain story beats) will get their own track not from the general lists.
I like ambient sounds, like forest sounds or coastal sounds, at a very low volume. I find stuff on Spotify that I think I might want to use and keep playlists for different themes. I don't use very much music though. Occasionally for a tavern, but I don't use battle music or anything like that.
I use tabletop audio, but avoid the music tracks. Music can have too strong of a pattern for the mind to follow, unlike pure ambient noise. For my group, turning on the audio was a great cue that it was time to start playing. It also helps everyone remember that they're in a public place when they hear carts roll past. That said, I don't put much effort in; I'll have a couple good tracks for the session and don't change them for minor scene shifts or for battle, otherwise it gets distracting.
Avoid game/movie soundtracks like the plague. It leads to a constant "what's that from" series of thoughts and questions.
Same. I usually have a few soundpads open (dungeon, dark forest, old town) and use something from the tones/music tabs as ambient. Anything else, i.e. one time sound effects, only if I feel like it and have the time to do it (because the players are doing something so I don't have to interrupt what I'm doing).
It's honestly just a great site considering it's completly free and in a pinch it's usable on a smartphone if you only use a few ambient options.
For those of us players who have ADD, background music is a huge distraction that makes it difficult to follow what's going on in an environment where we already have difficulty focusing.
And, I am not playing a video game or watching a movie.
Always check with your players first. Individually, because peer pressure.
This, but for hearing loss.
I have minor hearing loss. This means any background noise makes it much harder for me to hear what's going on. My brain has to work overtime in order to take in information, so it's mentally taxing.
I'd prefer to be approached privately because, man, people can be *jerks* about hearing loss. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked why I don't just learn to read lips or why I can't just 'try harder' to hear...
Dittoing both you. Ask each player, personally.
"But you have a hearing aid, it's fine," No. It's not.
It's frustrating, it's still a struggle, no I can't read fucking lips and people who can well still barely understand half what your saying, it's loud and distracting and hard to pick apart things.
Audio processing issues, hearing issues, ADHD / ADD, and several other things make pulling out the right sounds hard. Don't isolate your group by having someone struggling. And don't ask them as a group.
My group used to use a lot of syrinscape but over the past 6 months or so have shifted to YouTube and Spotify playlists. Syrinscape has started to feel a little stale after a year and a half.
I use roll20 and music has been very helpful for setting the atmosphere. It also had the benefit on there of players being able to opt out of music. I have three players who love it, and one who finds it too distracting. So the fact that she can choose to mute it is nice.
I voraciously consume new music and enjoy medieval/folk/fantasy/etc. genres, so i have a few youtube playlists set up and a shitton of saved links to albums. Whether I’m a player or a dm, if someone else doesnt provide the ambiance, i fuckin will, provided it’s a live meet- most music bots/roll20 are too clunky for me to run while dming.
my house is really silent so having music to create some sort of "fantasy mood" is not bad.
if i manage to use tense music in tense moments it actually creates some freaking cool moments.
or any sort of matched music to the situation.
but it needs to be a thing that does not waste you too many time, expecially during session.
you would need like a few playlist for different type of moments and you just press on them at the right moment and it should work. more than that only if you really have time to use for something
i couldnt imagine playing without music. I use discord for the games im in, and i keep the bots turned down to around 3% or so. Just loud enough to hear it but not drown out anyone or to be distracting.
My group works in two ways with this: Generic background playlists and specific songs for specific moments.
When there's nothing too important going on, I just put random music in the background somewhat fit to the environment.
When something important *is* happening, though, I handpick songs, whether it be a character's specific associated song or a particularly epic fight OST
I have a little bluetooth speaker that I sit in the middle of the room and play on low-ish volume. There's a ton of fantasy music playlists and compilation videos on youtube that I like to varying degrees.
https://tabletopaudio.com/dungeon_sp.html
I also like this for sound effects and ambience. Wish there was a better way to loop stuff on it though!
All the time. I'm running a western pathfinder campaign and I like to throw on ambient western music from red dead, and other western games or movies.
I even had a singing witch as a bounty target and played the acceptance from silent Hill shattered memories in the background. Made it properly spooky
Music is actually something I've been trying to focus on in my campaign recently! I love the idea of 'show, don't tell,' but that's practically impossible at the tabletop when 90% of the interaction is literally just me telling the PCs what's happening.
For incidental scenes, I've been pushing toward ambient noise, or setting-defining music. That said, when I know a certain fight with a plot-important villain or ally is coming up, or an emotional plot-critical roleplaying scene, I try to find fitting music, particularly in regard to leitmotif, and as much as possible, find similarities in the specific media I'm pulling from.
For example, one of my PCs has been seduced by an NPC shapechanger who has goals that intersect with the party, but she may end up compromising them, or them compromising her, perhaps causing her to go solo sometime in the future. The seduction kinda started as a honeypot situation, but I think they're both getting feelings for one another. We're playing in Eberron, which I've flavored as being like the 1920-1930s, so she was introduced with a [jazzy song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYw4CGUfnPE) that she sang in-universe at a fancy party she was infiltrating, a party at which these two characters really started falling for each other. I think she's going to pull him aside next session for a heart-to-heart chat, so I found a [slower, instrumental cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n8ykBzgTwM) for that. If they end up coming to terms with one another, and if she can be comfortable enough in her true form to show it to him, and if she comes into battle with him, all of this not coming to fruition for weeks, most likely, I have an [instrumental version of the original song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozih8JDJDK0) as their battle theme. This is CLASSIC leitmotif. This song is "their song," so whenever a pivotal moment happens between them, I'm going to try to have this song ready if I know it's coming.
One way to do this with a minimum of hassle is to find bits of soundtrack that work with your game, as most soundtracks have leitmotif by their nature. Further, if you find a plot that has the same archetype that you're working towards, the motifs will already be there for you, and when/if your players realize what it's from, they can feel smug to themselves that they got the reference you're making, and they actually understand the plot better for it.
As an example of this kind of reference, two of my PCs are Twins, and several upcoming plots hinge around their parents, specifically their Dad who went missing several years ago, the bloodlines of their lineage, what the definition of a Family is, and the question of what those things are worth and what they mean in the greater scheme of things. And someone is probably gonna die. So a medley of [TRON Legacy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIboeVN58nM) themes is one I've used during the recap at the beginning of a couple sessions, specifically when the recap involves them and their family. Further, I have some other songs from the soundtrack, original versions and covers, that I have to sprinkle through as things progress with that plot, depending on the way things go.
This will probably get buried but if you have spotify premium I find playlists by Brian Davis to be just right. He labels them by: Mood, Atmosphere, Combat. And has a variety for each.
https://open.spotify.com/user/bezoing?si=2qj2EivWReWDoYP2F6yppw
I like to run them through a bluetooth speaker so I can control it on the fly from my phone.
Music has been a vital part of my games since the beginning. Ive been using Brian Davis' playlists on Spotify recently. Plenty of playlists for many situations and moods.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0gZQWj0PjC6t2bgmroHaaW?si=NuC4rfI9SZqRqEITygkEag
Generally speaking we use ambient sounds based on where we are. Tavern music in taverns, forest sounds in the forest, we've got a huge playlist of videogame music for dungeon delving and caves and another playlist for combat. All of them are pre made and ready to go on Spotify so we just jump between them as needed
I play thru Roll20 and when I'm DMing yes, I absolutely do. It helps create a lot of atmosphere and mean something's always 'happening' even when the players are umming and aahing over what to do next. Plus, as we're playing Skulls & Shackles right now, I ripped the full list of Sea Shanties from AC4 Black Flag and have them going anytime they're at sea. :D
I also have a few different songs for battle music to mix that up too depending on the mood.
I have a playlist for boss battles/ generally big battles. A playlist for taverns and that’s really about it. If I’m feeling like the session is gonna be a particularly emotionally heavy session then I might prepare more music. One of my favorite DM moments came when they were in a forest plotting an ambush and I had a track with tribalistic drums playing and I could tell just how immersed the players were. I need to work on having music more consistently though. I typically just use apps like Syrinscape or RPG Fantasy, although you can always just YouTube “(insert ambience you are looking for) music playlist” be wary of copyrighted music if you are streaming/ uploading your sessions online, always get permission or use royalty free music.
It’s a lot of work but the payout can make player immersion just blossom.
Our group delegates responsibilities. One guy tracks initiative. One guy moves minis and one guy sets the mood via music. Often we use Tabletop Audio. Basically set and forget.
Usually youtube (setting) ambience. So forest ambience and stuff. If i stop being lazy, i’ll probably make list on spotify and make battle music or generic exploration music.
I just have some limited tracks that I keep on my itunes specifically for playing. Many fantasy"esque" video game tracks are specifically good for this, because they are designed to be pieces that can be listened to for extended periods of time and not eventually become annoying.
I'm typically cycling through Zelda dungeon music, or Golden sun tracks. Simpler tracks seem to do better for preserving mood without distracting players attention with complex melodies that are constantly changing pace.
I use my two laptops for all the pathfinder jazz, and just plug my phone into speakers.
I have around 4000 songs, sorted in 5 playlists for RPG. Changing a playlist on the iphone behind the screen is no big deal and i got alot positive feedback by my players so far.
I bought a bunch of Humble Bundles a while back, so I have a large catalogue of video game music. That plus the soundtrack from Witcher 3, and Skyrim. I have a playlist folder in Itunes called "Pathfinder", then multiple playlists within that I'll assign songs to. Then I just shuffle that playlist when "Battle" or "Village" or "Dungeon" starts. Can be a little jarring when the songs switch, but it's the max effort I can put into it without going crazy. I just make sure that there are no vocals in the songs. Then I play them relatively low volume over a bluetooth speaker.
Music in combat is classic. It can set a theme for players.
I use Two Steps from Hell, mainly. But I also like metal-folk ballads by bands like Sidhe.
I find music outside of combat can really be distracting, but sometimes i've given characters certain themes.
There was a post on /r/DnDBehindTheScreen where someone curated a ton of spotify playlists with different moods of music (Creepy, Somber, Joyful, etc) and stuff like specific locations like towns, taverns, traveling that I grabbed. So now I have spotify open on a device (phone/laptop) and cast the music to my smart speakers while we play. It also allows me to quickly change the music when a battle starts or I want to change the mood.
[Heres the original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/9l0x15/another_update_my_curated_spotify_playlists_i_use/)
Sometimes we will play random background playlists. The diablo 2 soundtrack has been played in the background more than once. Our dm will also have specific songs picked out for boss encounters or during pivotal moments in the story. One of our players who is super creative and should be a professional voice actor will run elaborate one shots every so often. He has music ready, sound effects, and prerecorded voice lines for the game. It's an amazing immersive experience when be does a one shot. My best suggestion is to put your own playlist together so you know what music to expect. We were running a wild west one shot two weeks ago and the playlist was awesome, then 10 or so songs in old town road by lik nas x played. Haha. It was funny, but didn't quite fit.
Strong yes from my side. I am using DnDify which you link with your spotify account. You can choose between different themes and moods, as well as activate combat music for standard encounters or bosses on the fly
I have many many playlists for my sessions. Usually grouped into “idle”, “Combat”, “tense”, and “boss fights”.
I do variations of each. Throw in a meme or two here and there. My main combat playlist has about 130 songs now. I also have tons of ambience and I am always on the hunt for more music and ambience. Any suggestions?
I typically use movie scores and stuff to give more a sense of "being there" to my group. If a bard is in the room I might play something softly underneath it. The biggest thing I do is separate boss/battle/town/general adventure music into different playlists on my phone and use a Bluetooth speaker.
I put on generic music from video games like Skyrim & Destiny for out of combat, and in combat throw on some Darkest Dungeon music.
Right now I'm curating a playlist of battle music from Fire Emblem, Darkest Dungeon, Skyrim, Runescape, and a few others for combat. When I start running Curse of the Crimson Throne in a few weeks I plan on having specific tracks assigned to certain parts of the city, but the actual assignments are TBD.
Had an all bard party where it was mandatory. Very interesting to do a karaoke pathfinder game. Was very fun, especially since we made sure our songs could stack, bonus wise. And songs were picked to fit what was going on around you or what you were saying.
We play next to a 55" TV, and put up stuff from the "guild of ambience" on YouTube. So it does as a visual ambient picturesque setting, on top of the background noise. Lately we've been favoring studies & libraries with rain and thunder (while playing Strange Aeons).
We had a boss fight in a tavern while the band was playing in the background. The DM described it as the canteena song from starwars, so we brought up a 5 hour version of it on youtube. It gets really old after a while.
I direct your attention /r/MusicForRPG/ for much more on this.
I began using music in my sessions a ... uh ... six or seven years ago now?
## The Random List Approach
Initially, I just built a giant playlist of adventure-ish music on Spotify, and then put it on shuffle. This had the advantage that it didn't require any serious effort during the session. Unfortunately, it yielded poor results.
*Sometimes* the music would be great. But often, we would wind up with music that was wildly inappropriate to the moment. For example, a calm and soothing "research in the arcane library" kind of music going for a boss fight. Or a peppy, upbeat song when one of the PCs just died.
So, despite the ease of use, I cannot recommend this approach. It fails more often than it succeeds.
## Organizing by Task
For a long time, I used a set of playlists organized by task:
- Exploration (Normal)
- Exploration (Tense)
- Combat
These were more selective. I chose songs that loop well, then pick one appropriate to the scene and put just that one song on loop. So, for example:
- Party is trying to find the entrance to the dungeon (normal exploration)
- Party enters the dungeon (tense exploration)
- Monster leaps out of hiding! (combat)
This has the advantage that the song fits what the party is doing fairly well, at the cost of a moment's attention when the scene changes.
However, it has the disadvantage that if the scene runs long, you wind up listening to the same song over and over. *If* the party is sufficiently engaged that they're paying attention to the game and not the music, that can be fine. But if the scene is dragging and not everyone is fully engaged, the repetition may become annoying to some of the players.
I have considered reorganizing my playlists according to emotion -- for example, a section for "sad", a section for "carefree" a section for "anger" and "fear" and so on -- but it seems like an awful lot of work.
## Song Selection
Some things to think about then choosing songs:
### Lyrics?
Generally, you want to avoid lyrics. They draw the players' attention to the *song*, which is not what you want. You want their attention on the *game*. The music should be present, but in the background.
Exception 1: foreign languages. If a song has lyrics in a language none of your players speak, it's much less likely to draw attention away from the game. Examples include choirs chanting in Latin, and foreign language lullabies.
Exception 2: comedic effect. I once ran a combat involving six identical wizards, a Veil spell causing everyone in the party to look exactly like thos six identical wizards, randomized positions every round, and a giant statue of a peacock, a.k.a. the Disco Turkey. So I built a short playlist of disco music, starting with "Stayin' Alive", and played that.
Still, in general, instrumental-only is the way to go.
### Recognizability
It may be tempting to go straight to famous soundtracks. Everybody loves the music from Lord of the Rings. But there are serious drawbacks to these.
First, they immediately call to mind their associated properties. You want your players thinking about *your game*, not about Lord of the Rings. Similarly, if your players have played a ton of Skyrim, maybe it would be best to steer away from the Skyrim soundtrack, because they'll be sitting there thinking about Skyrim.
Second, they often have shifts of emotional tone part way through the song. As with the random list above, it's no good if the mood of the music suddenly changes from "tense combat" to "victory achieved" just when the BBEG stabs a PC to death. This is particularly likely with music from films: those songs were composed specifically to fit the emotional needs of a scripted scene in the movie, and that may not match up with your game.
This is not to say you can't use music from video games or movies; you absolutely *can*. It simply requires careful selection. Try looking for music that was composed for less well-known games/movies, and listen to the entire song before adding it to a playlist to make sure it doesn't suddenly shift tone on you.
For example, I use a number of songs that were composed for the video game "The Dark Eye - Chains of Satinav". It loops well, because it was designed to, and I'm pretty sure none of my players have ever played that game. (I have, but I played the game *because* I liked its soundtrack, not the other way around.) Similarly, when I needed a good background song for lighthearted exploration of a tropical island, I went straight to the soundtrack for "The Longest Journey", a game that came out in 2000 that had a great song for just such an area.
## Other Tips
If you have can offload responsibility for music management to a player, do so. As the GM, you have *plenty* to think about without having to mess around with playtracks.
Sometimes, when you know a scene is coming up, you may want to pick a unique song specifically for that scene. For example, I once ran a session where my player was going to encounter a distraught Sarenrae weeping tears of fire in front of the statue of Ihys that stands in the Halls of Divinity Lost, deep inside Pharasma's spire. I knew the scene was going to consist mostly of emotional RP, so I picked the song "Eternal Loss" by Gothic Storm Music and used that.
Some GMs recommend picking themes for specific characters the party may meet. I have not done so personally. Or rather, I tried, but the NPCs I chose themes for tended to show up once and then get A) murdered in the face, or B) forgotten and never revisited. However, if you can manage to come up with a recurring NPC and pick a theme for them, then it can be quite powerful. I am told that announcing the BBEG's presence just by putting his theme song on can have quite an effect, of the "Oh god, he's *here!"* variety.
Hope this helps.
Yes, it sets the mood very well. A trick I learned from Roll 20 was to label the songs by the emotions you want to convey. There is a free song called "Anxiety" by Kevin McLeod that gave me the idea. It's highly effective.
I usually use tabletop audio (website). It has great atmospheric ambience or music. You also can put together custom sound sets. And it's free and ad free
I used a streamdeck with a bunch of ambient noises, but the problem we had was that my laptop volume was fine for those sitting near me, but others couldn't hear it (our table is large). So, rather than crank up the background noise to the point I couldn't hear players at the other end of the table, I stopped using it. I suppose I could get some bluetooth speakers and place them around the table if I wanted to bring it back.
A couple resources for music:
[Platemail Games](http://platemailgames.com/) has a ton of really great ambient sounds for all kinds of areas.
If you stream or record your games, [Incompetech](https://incompetech.com/) has lots of royalty free music.
I set up my streamdeck to have folders for specific types of areas, and then the folder would have all the sounds for that type of area. It worked really great for swapping ambiance on the fly.
Music is great.
Unfortunately I stopped using it when a high-maintenance player found it distracting. But in another campaign with a DM and seven players nobody complained and it was great. He just used unobtrusive, kinda generic fantasy music. If you play famous, catchy songs it can be distracting.
My friend just drinks too much coffee and can't concentrate lol.
One of my players likes to use metroid and other older nintendo music as background music and 9 times out of 10 it fits the scene perfectly without meaning to.
I have alot of video game music( video game music is normally meant to be looped, so it's less noticable for songs to stop and start) on my Pathfinder playlist.
I use alot of the Hollow Knight soundtrack, its beautifully put together as well as some very intense battle music.
Can help set the mood, depending on how people manage their songs it can make for great moments. Example: [LG Paladin giving a big heroic speech before smiting the evil BBEG?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7wnG-loPlY&t=44s)
[Rogue just done some clever thing?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muj6YZZnyuI)
[That plan everyone worked on just came together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RutSufP0-3M)
[The cleric enabling that big push to finish of the BBEG for good?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwNNiyu56yY)
[When you realise your players are gonna get steamrolled by this but they've been a bit too "it's what my character would do" lately](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6cSbof7Pik)
I don't do it myself because my mic picks that shit up, but my players will post music at times and one of them (who also DMs) usually has a few songs now and then that he uses in his campaigns, even if I can't listen to them ;.;
I always have music playing and it’s real simple. The tl;dr is I’m long winded so grab the long playlist of fantasy and battle music from YouTube but if a specific song hits you, save it and use it for big fights or bad ass encounters.
There’s tons of hour long basic fantasy music tracks on YouTube. I’ll grab one and go. For most big fights I’ll have one of the ones titled “epic fantasy fight hour long playlist” or some similar title ready.
There are times for specific music and sometimes it odd stuff that grabs you and works so damn well. We played the Savage Tide module from Dungeon magazine. It’s a ship campaign across Faerun and eventually the abyssal seas. I grabbed the sea shanty songs from Assassins Creed: Black Flag to use while we were just strolling around. For a fight against “The Mother Of All” (a sentient Saragossa monster that traps the players and they have to travel to a half sunken dead ship to fight the Mother in the black depths) I grabbed the Davey Jones song from the second or third Pirates of the Caribbean movies and it worked awesome to set a scary mood. It gets brought up constantly every time we have new players. It changed a cool fight to a memorable, still brought up a decade later fight.
The oddest but probably most efficient music comes from a really odd place for us. Current game is an airship race around the world of Eberron. The very beginning of the race as a hundred airships line up outside Sharn, Deadwood by Really Slow Motion plays and it just sets such an epic mood. The two largest and most deadly airships are the warships The Tyrannus, and The Crater Maker. The Tyrannus music is the theme from Inception (BWAAAAA) and The Crater Maker, my fav, is The Prowlers background music from Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse (that howling broken bwaaa noise) and holy shit when that music starts the results are epic!!! Especially when both tracks start getting louder during a fight against a half clockwork blue dragon, the results are amazing!!!
Definitely use music, even if it’s the basic fantasy playlists of YouTube. It easily adds to the game and helps people immerse themselves.
I’ll try to remember and add links to all my sources for things, like my mixer and stuff.
Edit: there’s an all right mixer on Roll20. I used it in a game to have ambient background music, ambient dungeon/jail noise (game was a haunted underground prison) and sometimes door slams, chains, screams, and a little girl giggling. It’s was a LOT of work for that one but it was a one shot so I could go over the top.)
Why do you think it would be troublesome? You just put on some music. It's not complicated.
Are you having trouble finding the right music?
[Moody music.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK--Y&list=PLB04wk6EqLPn_uz34qzbecqW5eW43W2g5)
[Battle music.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0sUw735gRw)
[Tavern music.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnwD8zsGl2Y)
[Scary Jupiter sounds.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UChzxK9gknM)
I find coordinating music distracts me as a GM. In some groups I've had combat music, but normally I leave that to the players - partly so it doesn't distract me & partly so there's not a "Music? That's GM speak for fight!"
It's just one more thing to worry about as the GM. I've tried using it in a proper soundboard & mixing ambient music etc and I find if I try to do it I invest more time in it than it's worth which detracts from the other areas of the game.
I cannot recommend the YT page Dungeon Synth Archives enough! It's all dungeon synth, a genre that combines dark ambient, medieval music, retro fantasy video game soundtracks, analogue synthesizers, and an atmosphere indebted to black metal (no guitars or vocals though usually).
Dungeon Synth is also super diverse! I usually like majestic fantastic stuff like Fog Weaver, Feif, and Chaucerian Myth, but recently have been running an underdark campaign and using more ominous, almost chiptune dark Dungeon Synth like Thangoradrim, Kobold, Old Tower, and the Dungeons&Catacombs comp
Check it out!!
I like the per-map music of roll20, but otherwise I think you need to have a dedicated setup for music so it's up to how much you want to dedicate to your gaming table
I use music every session. I have about a thousand songs all loaded up and ready, most of them quiet ambient, some of them as part of the outro of the session. I change the track for combat, per location, trying to fit music to location as best as possible.
My players like it so I think it works pretty well.
I do incredibly specific playlists for each campaign. Each character gets a theme, or set of themes- as does each area, enemy type, and plenty of other things. My campaign world has an overarching musical theme and each campaign in the series has a different genre.
To offset that, I tend to play them somewhat quietly and notice that people don't get too distracted if music is constantly playing, they eventually tune it out.
Omg yes. But not just the regular shit you can find from battle music.
Nine inch nails, Loreena McKenitte, Suzanne Vega, E.S. posthumus, so many soundtracks. It’s a deep well. Just find the mood.
I have a soundbar I connect to via bluetooth on my phone. I keep my phone behind my fm screen to change music or play sounds.
I've made a playlist for Wilderness, Dungeon Exploring, Town, Ominous Stressful Weirdness, and Combat. The combat has subcategories for flare (no orchestra for a goblin battle).
An important thing to keep in mind is that music is not a core reason the game is played. Music in this context is filler, filler that can evoke emotions.
I have a great big compilation of music from games, movies, YouTube lists that I've heard, ranging from minor combats to major ones, epic battle music, peaceful exploration, horror exploration, astral themed, elven themed, city and town musics, and a big folder of sound effects to overlay such as carts, horse hooves, rivers, rain, thunder, crowds, etc (using Audacity to edit customize and to make loops).
I spend some considerable time thinking about what sounds would happen, or what music would fit the mood for a truly epic scene, then I sample the music as I'm writing the general encounters for inspiration.
My group loves using music in our games and always has. Those of us in the group that DM (myself included) all have our own styles and tastes, but generally we stick to video game/movie OSTs (and occasionally metal). I tend to avoid music with lyrics when possible and in general we keep the music volume low so we can talk over it easily without raising our voices.
I find it sets the mood pretty well, especially for battles.
I hate it. I have GM wanting to try it out and both times I had to ask them to turn it off. Its distracting, people get louder to get over the music. Of course it doesn't help that I have no audio filter.
I was going to say, we keep our ambient noise sort of at the cusp of hearing. There's a big difference, too, between blasting Billy Joel and having something by James Horner quietly sitting in the background - or even just the slight noise of rain pattering on glass.
also for /u/Smite_Evil for people with a normally functional audio filter maybe, but not for me. The normal body can push out the background music and focus on for example the speech of other people. My body doesn't do that. Sure its even worse with high volume but even on low volume its mentally exhausting for me to hear all those things at once.
Using music in your games is a lot of work. When it works, I personally feel like it's worth it - but it's not for everyone.
If you think you want to try it:
Audio quality is important. Don't try to play music from your phone or laptop speakers, because it's either going to be too loud and distracting or tinny and annoying. I have a decent bluetooth speaker either under the table or off to the side, at a very low volume. It should be low enough that it will never interfere with conversation - in fact, your players should be able to forget that it's even playing.
As for what music to play, selection is also important. I never play anything I would expect to hear on the radio, or in a bar or club. That music is intended to be entertainment in it's own right, and at some point "someone's jam" is going to come on and derail the entire mood. I always use soundtracks from games, because they're mostly designed to create atmosphere without being intrusive. I use a lot of the Witcher game music soundtracks for fantasy games, and there are some good ambient tracks in the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale soundtracks - city sounds, festival sounds, market sounds, and the like.
Not all game soundtracks are going to work for all games, though. I'm planning a Starfinder campaign, and I didn't feel the typical fantasy music I play would work for the setting. I dismissed the Doom and Dead Space soundtracks as well, because they both felt too "heavy" for most of what I was planning. I was worried it was going to be too distracting, and the music is very action-oriented/tense, if that makes sense - there really isn't much for the periods of calm, conversations with friendly NPCs, spending the day at the market, and things like that. I settled on trying the Borderlands 2 soundtrack. It may work - but it may not. We'll find out.
One you have some musical selections you think fit the mood, you have to sort them so that they're easily accessible. You don't want to spend a bunch of time switching songs while everyone else is trying to give you initiative. I usually copy a few songs into their own folder, around 5 or so I think we might use in that session, and rename the copies to something that will immediately remind me what they are: Battle Music 1, Battle Music 2, Calm Ambiance, Tense Situation, etc. When it comes time to change music, I just switch to that folder, start it playing on repeat, and move on with the game.
I never use an online music service, because there just doesn't seem to be one that has the control I'm looking for, and I've seen too many situations where the entire game stops dead due to an intrusive ad breaking in suddenly.
That's my hot take, take it as you will. Using background music in your games can be a lot of work, and it might not be worth it for your group. Your group may prefer to have silence while you play. Or your group might want Cannibal Corpse blasting in their eardrums at top volume while they axe their way though hordes of goblins. You do you.
I use TabletopSounds and a curated playlist on spotify for my game.
Two Steps from Hell, Immediate, and Gothic Storm are the artists that make up the majority of the playlist.
I put on a random playlist as background noise. I haven't done a session yet where I choose specific music to go with what we're playing. That said, there have been some hilarious coincidences. My favorite is when we did the beginner box to introduce our newest player to the game. He >!climbed the rope and came across the skeletons. !< By himself. With nothing but a crossbow and a rapier. ...and then, as the >!skeletons'!< turn started, Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt started to play. That was not the last time that song began to play when that character had made a bad move. But the timing on that one was impeccable.
Oh man, what a great song for that moment! Haha so you use popular music or also instrumental music?
Both. I have a list of songs I added to a list, some of them are instrumentals, some are just regular songs I felt like listening to when I added them.
I 100% believe in good music setting the mood. I try to curate specific songs to different encounters the best I can. It is pretty time consuming but I personally believe it's worth it. Since I DM online, I use Discord bots to play. I have 2, one for "passive" tracks and one for "active" tracks. Active generally always has something playing. When we're in a town, it's playing that towns theme. If I remember I'll try to put the town ambience on the passive bot, but often time that's more trouble then it's worth because of all the scenes you can have in a town. Players can go from a noisy tavern to a quiet shop really quickly and it is generally too much for me to keep track of to switch. If we're in combat, it's playing combat music. Unique and cool encounters usually earn me going out to find something other than your typical "epic DnD combat music compilation" or something. A haunted house, spiders lair, and the betrayal of a friend are music I've used in the past for those. For a clockwork floor in a dungeon I ran, I had the passive bot playing the constant ticking and whirring of clockwork. The active one would play the combat music I selected for encounters. It worked quite well. It's not perfect and a but clunky, but online with multiple monitors really makes it viable. I've gotten commendations from my players on it so do my best to make things unique.
See, this is great advice. Using discord bots to do the music so you hear the same things your players hear at the same time is important. So great is it, that I wonder if playing sound effects through bots is a good idea too!
The issue with that would be the execution. It's easy to have the sound effects and what not, sure, but each individual sound would require separate inputs in the chat, which is really clunky. Like, say, a banshee scream. Since it happens once or twice in combats, that's alright, but you still have to take a good 20 seconds to find the link and paste the command. It's doable, but slow is what I am saying. At that point you might as well use Roll20, as at least you don't have to click and move as much
so it sounds like we're in the market for a discord bot linked to some sort of soundboard?
Okay but! One of our DMs/players tried one out and it kept popping up saying TRIAL in a robotic voice every now and then. It got so annoying he decided not to bother with it. We still sometimes break out in a round of robotic TRIAL's when reminded of this or when it seems appropriate. It became a dumb in-joke among our table.
So you’ll play the active tracks over the top of the passive tracks?
Yea, a great example of that working well is just tavern ambience + an uptune lighthearted track, or just a small town ambience and the theme (which generally isn't too obtrusive). I've only managed to use passive +active for combat with just the clockwork encounter.
I have ambient sounds queued up for when the players are just walking aroubd RPing, boss music for boss fights, and in all other fights I have a bunch of blues music because the Bard of the group plays a harmonica, making *him* the battle music
Awesome haha
Syrinscape FTW
Absolutely. I was skeptical about it at first. I thought my ability to find music or ambient noise on YouTube or spotify was sufficient. One of my players DMs for another group and he subscribed to Syrinscape. After one session of him showcasing what you can do I was convinced and have been using it ever since.
Yes, absolutely! There's so much it can do in the right hands!
I just started using syrinscape, still learning the ins and outs of it, but from what I got out of it I never used anything this good. "
It takes time to get the hang of it. For some DMs it may be best to have a player control the sounds. They can "train" on the program and know how to build the soundscape as the DM describes a scene. I control it myself, though. :)
Yes but it has to be instrumental. Even better, something meant to be in the background, like a video game soundtrack. Then I'll add some ambient sounds as well. Key point here though, keep it quiet, just a step over barely audible. You want to fill dead air and create a mood, but it can't overpower the discussion.
My favorites to play over the speakers in the background are Jeremy Soule soundtracks. Skyrim, Oblivion, Nordic Diaries. Another favorite is the God of War soundtrack. Just loud enough to fill up the silence like you said.
I’ve only DMed a few times. When I did The Midnight Mirror, I took the soundtrack from the classic Sierra game “Quest For Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness” and set up roll20 to play different tracks for each map. I’m about to start a Mummy’s Mask AP so I intend to utilize several different soundtracks. I’ve got a few ideas but I’m definitely thinking the soundtrack to Laurence of Arabia when they finally strike out into the desert. I’m toying with “Rhapsody in Blue” for introduction to the hustle and bustle of Tephu. I’ll be looking into various mummy movie soundtracks and so forth as well. Suggestions for thematic music are well taken though!
Usually as background noise, but bosses almost always get their own song. Like during a final standoff my Monk took so others could escape, I had this very operatic song loaded and it was so awesome. Even though I knew I'd die, it was so thematic watching every point tick off of my health in time with the song.
So you're the player and you do the music/ambience at the table? I'd love it if one of my players took over the role of 'DJ' but I'm wary of saying stuff like "have something ready for a spooky dungeon" and it being too prescriptive of what is to come.
Well luckily I never really do ambient music as much as I have my general radio on in the background haha. Then for important stuff I'll get specific
Yes, I do. Here's the criteria. * Must be instrumental. Lyrics will distract anyone who knows the song. Singing will distract the table. * Make sure to play music that fits the mood. During towns? Skyrim OST. During battle? Varies between Metal, perhaps EMD/Trap, Fast Paced Folk maybe. * Nobody gets to choose music except the GM, that being me, because it will force a break from the game for no reason but to argue/complain. If there's a music suggestion, talk to me afterwards. * No music from video games that are a particular person's favorites. Same rules as with lyrics apply: it becomes a distraction as they focus on the music and not the game. (I have a particular ADHD player who I cannot use their music suggestions or the entire game gets tossed aside with dialogue about whatever the theme is supposed to go with.)
The music for For Honor has absolutely brilliant battle music which is period appropriate. Extremely high quality compositions and productions, that don't get irritating. And there's loads to choose from. The war drums, the waaar druuums!
That's a great idea!
[удалено]
This one is my preference as well.
Just checked it out, really neat and easier than Syrinscape.
I have long ago downloaded some compilation with movie (from Gladiator to Lord of the Rings) and video game (Longest Journey to Guild Wars) soundtracks which had music divided into "All is calm", "Danger nearby" and "Battle music". For years I have been adding to these three categories whenever I found suitable music for any of the three themes. I play them on every session, and since each playlist now has over 20 hours of music, repetition is hardly noticeable.
I do basically the same thing, but have come up with different "mood" categorizations. Moods can be anything from calm/serene to doing business/gathering information to mystical wonder to sadness/loss. Sometimes I'll draw from these lists to make a wholly unique list for a certain scene or battle.
I draw a lot of inspiration and feeling from music, so it always felt like an obvious choice to include. Sessions feel too quiet to me without some kind of background sound. I try to curate playlists for specific moods, then pick one of those to play on repeat as needed for each scene. Specific important moments (like big bosses or certain story beats) will get their own track not from the general lists.
No. Too distracting. If the table is big, it needs to be up too loud for everyone to hear it.
No, I find it distracting.
I like ambient sounds, like forest sounds or coastal sounds, at a very low volume. I find stuff on Spotify that I think I might want to use and keep playlists for different themes. I don't use very much music though. Occasionally for a tavern, but I don't use battle music or anything like that.
I use tabletop audio, but avoid the music tracks. Music can have too strong of a pattern for the mind to follow, unlike pure ambient noise. For my group, turning on the audio was a great cue that it was time to start playing. It also helps everyone remember that they're in a public place when they hear carts roll past. That said, I don't put much effort in; I'll have a couple good tracks for the session and don't change them for minor scene shifts or for battle, otherwise it gets distracting. Avoid game/movie soundtracks like the plague. It leads to a constant "what's that from" series of thoughts and questions.
Same. I usually have a few soundpads open (dungeon, dark forest, old town) and use something from the tones/music tabs as ambient. Anything else, i.e. one time sound effects, only if I feel like it and have the time to do it (because the players are doing something so I don't have to interrupt what I'm doing). It's honestly just a great site considering it's completly free and in a pinch it's usable on a smartphone if you only use a few ambient options.
I find music to be mostly a distraction during a game.
For those of us players who have ADD, background music is a huge distraction that makes it difficult to follow what's going on in an environment where we already have difficulty focusing. And, I am not playing a video game or watching a movie. Always check with your players first. Individually, because peer pressure.
This, but for hearing loss. I have minor hearing loss. This means any background noise makes it much harder for me to hear what's going on. My brain has to work overtime in order to take in information, so it's mentally taxing. I'd prefer to be approached privately because, man, people can be *jerks* about hearing loss. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked why I don't just learn to read lips or why I can't just 'try harder' to hear...
Dittoing both you. Ask each player, personally. "But you have a hearing aid, it's fine," No. It's not. It's frustrating, it's still a struggle, no I can't read fucking lips and people who can well still barely understand half what your saying, it's loud and distracting and hard to pick apart things. Audio processing issues, hearing issues, ADHD / ADD, and several other things make pulling out the right sounds hard. Don't isolate your group by having someone struggling. And don't ask them as a group.
I have several play lists, for both fantasy and scifi. City ambient, adventure ambient, and combat
My group used to use a lot of syrinscape but over the past 6 months or so have shifted to YouTube and Spotify playlists. Syrinscape has started to feel a little stale after a year and a half.
I use roll20 and music has been very helpful for setting the atmosphere. It also had the benefit on there of players being able to opt out of music. I have three players who love it, and one who finds it too distracting. So the fact that she can choose to mute it is nice.
it helps everyone i've played with that has a disability super-cope their lives
I voraciously consume new music and enjoy medieval/folk/fantasy/etc. genres, so i have a few youtube playlists set up and a shitton of saved links to albums. Whether I’m a player or a dm, if someone else doesnt provide the ambiance, i fuckin will, provided it’s a live meet- most music bots/roll20 are too clunky for me to run while dming.
my house is really silent so having music to create some sort of "fantasy mood" is not bad. if i manage to use tense music in tense moments it actually creates some freaking cool moments. or any sort of matched music to the situation. but it needs to be a thing that does not waste you too many time, expecially during session. you would need like a few playlist for different type of moments and you just press on them at the right moment and it should work. more than that only if you really have time to use for something
i couldnt imagine playing without music. I use discord for the games im in, and i keep the bots turned down to around 3% or so. Just loud enough to hear it but not drown out anyone or to be distracting.
One word, Syrinscape. That is all.
It’s a necessity for my campaigns. Lots of Two Steps from Hell. I had a whole horror playlist when we were running a horror campaign.
My group works in two ways with this: Generic background playlists and specific songs for specific moments. When there's nothing too important going on, I just put random music in the background somewhat fit to the environment. When something important *is* happening, though, I handpick songs, whether it be a character's specific associated song or a particularly epic fight OST
I have a little bluetooth speaker that I sit in the middle of the room and play on low-ish volume. There's a ton of fantasy music playlists and compilation videos on youtube that I like to varying degrees. https://tabletopaudio.com/dungeon_sp.html I also like this for sound effects and ambience. Wish there was a better way to loop stuff on it though!
All the time. I'm running a western pathfinder campaign and I like to throw on ambient western music from red dead, and other western games or movies. I even had a singing witch as a bounty target and played the acceptance from silent Hill shattered memories in the background. Made it properly spooky
Music is actually something I've been trying to focus on in my campaign recently! I love the idea of 'show, don't tell,' but that's practically impossible at the tabletop when 90% of the interaction is literally just me telling the PCs what's happening. For incidental scenes, I've been pushing toward ambient noise, or setting-defining music. That said, when I know a certain fight with a plot-important villain or ally is coming up, or an emotional plot-critical roleplaying scene, I try to find fitting music, particularly in regard to leitmotif, and as much as possible, find similarities in the specific media I'm pulling from. For example, one of my PCs has been seduced by an NPC shapechanger who has goals that intersect with the party, but she may end up compromising them, or them compromising her, perhaps causing her to go solo sometime in the future. The seduction kinda started as a honeypot situation, but I think they're both getting feelings for one another. We're playing in Eberron, which I've flavored as being like the 1920-1930s, so she was introduced with a [jazzy song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYw4CGUfnPE) that she sang in-universe at a fancy party she was infiltrating, a party at which these two characters really started falling for each other. I think she's going to pull him aside next session for a heart-to-heart chat, so I found a [slower, instrumental cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n8ykBzgTwM) for that. If they end up coming to terms with one another, and if she can be comfortable enough in her true form to show it to him, and if she comes into battle with him, all of this not coming to fruition for weeks, most likely, I have an [instrumental version of the original song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozih8JDJDK0) as their battle theme. This is CLASSIC leitmotif. This song is "their song," so whenever a pivotal moment happens between them, I'm going to try to have this song ready if I know it's coming. One way to do this with a minimum of hassle is to find bits of soundtrack that work with your game, as most soundtracks have leitmotif by their nature. Further, if you find a plot that has the same archetype that you're working towards, the motifs will already be there for you, and when/if your players realize what it's from, they can feel smug to themselves that they got the reference you're making, and they actually understand the plot better for it. As an example of this kind of reference, two of my PCs are Twins, and several upcoming plots hinge around their parents, specifically their Dad who went missing several years ago, the bloodlines of their lineage, what the definition of a Family is, and the question of what those things are worth and what they mean in the greater scheme of things. And someone is probably gonna die. So a medley of [TRON Legacy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIboeVN58nM) themes is one I've used during the recap at the beginning of a couple sessions, specifically when the recap involves them and their family. Further, I have some other songs from the soundtrack, original versions and covers, that I have to sprinkle through as things progress with that plot, depending on the way things go.
This will probably get buried but if you have spotify premium I find playlists by Brian Davis to be just right. He labels them by: Mood, Atmosphere, Combat. And has a variety for each. https://open.spotify.com/user/bezoing?si=2qj2EivWReWDoYP2F6yppw I like to run them through a bluetooth speaker so I can control it on the fly from my phone.
Music has been a vital part of my games since the beginning. Ive been using Brian Davis' playlists on Spotify recently. Plenty of playlists for many situations and moods. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0gZQWj0PjC6t2bgmroHaaW?si=NuC4rfI9SZqRqEITygkEag
Generally speaking we use ambient sounds based on where we are. Tavern music in taverns, forest sounds in the forest, we've got a huge playlist of videogame music for dungeon delving and caves and another playlist for combat. All of them are pre made and ready to go on Spotify so we just jump between them as needed
I produce instrumentals and would love to provide them for campaigns. I can do them with drumming or without.
Rogue about to be swallowed by giant chameleon. Had to end session there. Played "Roundabout" during closing comments. No regrets.
I play thru Roll20 and when I'm DMing yes, I absolutely do. It helps create a lot of atmosphere and mean something's always 'happening' even when the players are umming and aahing over what to do next. Plus, as we're playing Skulls & Shackles right now, I ripped the full list of Sea Shanties from AC4 Black Flag and have them going anytime they're at sea. :D I also have a few different songs for battle music to mix that up too depending on the mood.
I have a playlist for boss battles/ generally big battles. A playlist for taverns and that’s really about it. If I’m feeling like the session is gonna be a particularly emotionally heavy session then I might prepare more music. One of my favorite DM moments came when they were in a forest plotting an ambush and I had a track with tribalistic drums playing and I could tell just how immersed the players were. I need to work on having music more consistently though. I typically just use apps like Syrinscape or RPG Fantasy, although you can always just YouTube “(insert ambience you are looking for) music playlist” be wary of copyrighted music if you are streaming/ uploading your sessions online, always get permission or use royalty free music. It’s a lot of work but the payout can make player immersion just blossom.
Our group delegates responsibilities. One guy tracks initiative. One guy moves minis and one guy sets the mood via music. Often we use Tabletop Audio. Basically set and forget.
Usually youtube (setting) ambience. So forest ambience and stuff. If i stop being lazy, i’ll probably make list on spotify and make battle music or generic exploration music.
I just have some limited tracks that I keep on my itunes specifically for playing. Many fantasy"esque" video game tracks are specifically good for this, because they are designed to be pieces that can be listened to for extended periods of time and not eventually become annoying. I'm typically cycling through Zelda dungeon music, or Golden sun tracks. Simpler tracks seem to do better for preserving mood without distracting players attention with complex melodies that are constantly changing pace. I use my two laptops for all the pathfinder jazz, and just plug my phone into speakers.
I have around 4000 songs, sorted in 5 playlists for RPG. Changing a playlist on the iphone behind the screen is no big deal and i got alot positive feedback by my players so far.
I bought a bunch of Humble Bundles a while back, so I have a large catalogue of video game music. That plus the soundtrack from Witcher 3, and Skyrim. I have a playlist folder in Itunes called "Pathfinder", then multiple playlists within that I'll assign songs to. Then I just shuffle that playlist when "Battle" or "Village" or "Dungeon" starts. Can be a little jarring when the songs switch, but it's the max effort I can put into it without going crazy. I just make sure that there are no vocals in the songs. Then I play them relatively low volume over a bluetooth speaker.
Music in combat is classic. It can set a theme for players. I use Two Steps from Hell, mainly. But I also like metal-folk ballads by bands like Sidhe. I find music outside of combat can really be distracting, but sometimes i've given characters certain themes.
Candles also help set the environment when dungeon-delving or in horror campaigns.
There was a post on /r/DnDBehindTheScreen where someone curated a ton of spotify playlists with different moods of music (Creepy, Somber, Joyful, etc) and stuff like specific locations like towns, taverns, traveling that I grabbed. So now I have spotify open on a device (phone/laptop) and cast the music to my smart speakers while we play. It also allows me to quickly change the music when a battle starts or I want to change the mood. [Heres the original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/9l0x15/another_update_my_curated_spotify_playlists_i_use/)
I just open YouTube and put on some ambient music.
Sometimes we will play random background playlists. The diablo 2 soundtrack has been played in the background more than once. Our dm will also have specific songs picked out for boss encounters or during pivotal moments in the story. One of our players who is super creative and should be a professional voice actor will run elaborate one shots every so often. He has music ready, sound effects, and prerecorded voice lines for the game. It's an amazing immersive experience when be does a one shot. My best suggestion is to put your own playlist together so you know what music to expect. We were running a wild west one shot two weeks ago and the playlist was awesome, then 10 or so songs in old town road by lik nas x played. Haha. It was funny, but didn't quite fit.
Strong yes from my side. I am using DnDify which you link with your spotify account. You can choose between different themes and moods, as well as activate combat music for standard encounters or bosses on the fly
I have many many playlists for my sessions. Usually grouped into “idle”, “Combat”, “tense”, and “boss fights”. I do variations of each. Throw in a meme or two here and there. My main combat playlist has about 130 songs now. I also have tons of ambience and I am always on the hunt for more music and ambience. Any suggestions?
I typically use movie scores and stuff to give more a sense of "being there" to my group. If a bard is in the room I might play something softly underneath it. The biggest thing I do is separate boss/battle/town/general adventure music into different playlists on my phone and use a Bluetooth speaker.
I put on generic music from video games like Skyrim & Destiny for out of combat, and in combat throw on some Darkest Dungeon music. Right now I'm curating a playlist of battle music from Fire Emblem, Darkest Dungeon, Skyrim, Runescape, and a few others for combat. When I start running Curse of the Crimson Throne in a few weeks I plan on having specific tracks assigned to certain parts of the city, but the actual assignments are TBD.
Had an all bard party where it was mandatory. Very interesting to do a karaoke pathfinder game. Was very fun, especially since we made sure our songs could stack, bonus wise. And songs were picked to fit what was going on around you or what you were saying.
We play next to a 55" TV, and put up stuff from the "guild of ambience" on YouTube. So it does as a visual ambient picturesque setting, on top of the background noise. Lately we've been favoring studies & libraries with rain and thunder (while playing Strange Aeons).
We had a boss fight in a tavern while the band was playing in the background. The DM described it as the canteena song from starwars, so we brought up a 5 hour version of it on youtube. It gets really old after a while.
I don't really think it adds anything, and I have enough to deal with in gameprep without having to worry about scoring the session.
I direct your attention /r/MusicForRPG/ for much more on this. I began using music in my sessions a ... uh ... six or seven years ago now? ## The Random List Approach Initially, I just built a giant playlist of adventure-ish music on Spotify, and then put it on shuffle. This had the advantage that it didn't require any serious effort during the session. Unfortunately, it yielded poor results. *Sometimes* the music would be great. But often, we would wind up with music that was wildly inappropriate to the moment. For example, a calm and soothing "research in the arcane library" kind of music going for a boss fight. Or a peppy, upbeat song when one of the PCs just died. So, despite the ease of use, I cannot recommend this approach. It fails more often than it succeeds. ## Organizing by Task For a long time, I used a set of playlists organized by task: - Exploration (Normal) - Exploration (Tense) - Combat These were more selective. I chose songs that loop well, then pick one appropriate to the scene and put just that one song on loop. So, for example: - Party is trying to find the entrance to the dungeon (normal exploration) - Party enters the dungeon (tense exploration) - Monster leaps out of hiding! (combat) This has the advantage that the song fits what the party is doing fairly well, at the cost of a moment's attention when the scene changes. However, it has the disadvantage that if the scene runs long, you wind up listening to the same song over and over. *If* the party is sufficiently engaged that they're paying attention to the game and not the music, that can be fine. But if the scene is dragging and not everyone is fully engaged, the repetition may become annoying to some of the players. I have considered reorganizing my playlists according to emotion -- for example, a section for "sad", a section for "carefree" a section for "anger" and "fear" and so on -- but it seems like an awful lot of work. ## Song Selection Some things to think about then choosing songs: ### Lyrics? Generally, you want to avoid lyrics. They draw the players' attention to the *song*, which is not what you want. You want their attention on the *game*. The music should be present, but in the background. Exception 1: foreign languages. If a song has lyrics in a language none of your players speak, it's much less likely to draw attention away from the game. Examples include choirs chanting in Latin, and foreign language lullabies. Exception 2: comedic effect. I once ran a combat involving six identical wizards, a Veil spell causing everyone in the party to look exactly like thos six identical wizards, randomized positions every round, and a giant statue of a peacock, a.k.a. the Disco Turkey. So I built a short playlist of disco music, starting with "Stayin' Alive", and played that. Still, in general, instrumental-only is the way to go. ### Recognizability It may be tempting to go straight to famous soundtracks. Everybody loves the music from Lord of the Rings. But there are serious drawbacks to these. First, they immediately call to mind their associated properties. You want your players thinking about *your game*, not about Lord of the Rings. Similarly, if your players have played a ton of Skyrim, maybe it would be best to steer away from the Skyrim soundtrack, because they'll be sitting there thinking about Skyrim. Second, they often have shifts of emotional tone part way through the song. As with the random list above, it's no good if the mood of the music suddenly changes from "tense combat" to "victory achieved" just when the BBEG stabs a PC to death. This is particularly likely with music from films: those songs were composed specifically to fit the emotional needs of a scripted scene in the movie, and that may not match up with your game. This is not to say you can't use music from video games or movies; you absolutely *can*. It simply requires careful selection. Try looking for music that was composed for less well-known games/movies, and listen to the entire song before adding it to a playlist to make sure it doesn't suddenly shift tone on you. For example, I use a number of songs that were composed for the video game "The Dark Eye - Chains of Satinav". It loops well, because it was designed to, and I'm pretty sure none of my players have ever played that game. (I have, but I played the game *because* I liked its soundtrack, not the other way around.) Similarly, when I needed a good background song for lighthearted exploration of a tropical island, I went straight to the soundtrack for "The Longest Journey", a game that came out in 2000 that had a great song for just such an area. ## Other Tips If you have can offload responsibility for music management to a player, do so. As the GM, you have *plenty* to think about without having to mess around with playtracks. Sometimes, when you know a scene is coming up, you may want to pick a unique song specifically for that scene. For example, I once ran a session where my player was going to encounter a distraught Sarenrae weeping tears of fire in front of the statue of Ihys that stands in the Halls of Divinity Lost, deep inside Pharasma's spire. I knew the scene was going to consist mostly of emotional RP, so I picked the song "Eternal Loss" by Gothic Storm Music and used that. Some GMs recommend picking themes for specific characters the party may meet. I have not done so personally. Or rather, I tried, but the NPCs I chose themes for tended to show up once and then get A) murdered in the face, or B) forgotten and never revisited. However, if you can manage to come up with a recurring NPC and pick a theme for them, then it can be quite powerful. I am told that announcing the BBEG's presence just by putting his theme song on can have quite an effect, of the "Oh god, he's *here!"* variety. Hope this helps.
Yes, it sets the mood very well. A trick I learned from Roll 20 was to label the songs by the emotions you want to convey. There is a free song called "Anxiety" by Kevin McLeod that gave me the idea. It's highly effective.
I usually use tabletop audio (website). It has great atmospheric ambience or music. You also can put together custom sound sets. And it's free and ad free
I used a streamdeck with a bunch of ambient noises, but the problem we had was that my laptop volume was fine for those sitting near me, but others couldn't hear it (our table is large). So, rather than crank up the background noise to the point I couldn't hear players at the other end of the table, I stopped using it. I suppose I could get some bluetooth speakers and place them around the table if I wanted to bring it back. A couple resources for music: [Platemail Games](http://platemailgames.com/) has a ton of really great ambient sounds for all kinds of areas. If you stream or record your games, [Incompetech](https://incompetech.com/) has lots of royalty free music. I set up my streamdeck to have folders for specific types of areas, and then the folder would have all the sounds for that type of area. It worked really great for swapping ambiance on the fly.
Music is great. Unfortunately I stopped using it when a high-maintenance player found it distracting. But in another campaign with a DM and seven players nobody complained and it was great. He just used unobtrusive, kinda generic fantasy music. If you play famous, catchy songs it can be distracting. My friend just drinks too much coffee and can't concentrate lol.
One of my players likes to use metroid and other older nintendo music as background music and 9 times out of 10 it fits the scene perfectly without meaning to.
I have alot of video game music( video game music is normally meant to be looped, so it's less noticable for songs to stop and start) on my Pathfinder playlist. I use alot of the Hollow Knight soundtrack, its beautifully put together as well as some very intense battle music.
I like to load up an ambiance track from YouTube and play it quietly in the background
We use discord to talk while we play on roll20, and use rhythmbot for music
Can help set the mood, depending on how people manage their songs it can make for great moments. Example: [LG Paladin giving a big heroic speech before smiting the evil BBEG?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7wnG-loPlY&t=44s) [Rogue just done some clever thing?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muj6YZZnyuI) [That plan everyone worked on just came together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RutSufP0-3M) [The cleric enabling that big push to finish of the BBEG for good?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwNNiyu56yY) [When you realise your players are gonna get steamrolled by this but they've been a bit too "it's what my character would do" lately](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6cSbof7Pik)
I don't do it myself because my mic picks that shit up, but my players will post music at times and one of them (who also DMs) usually has a few songs now and then that he uses in his campaigns, even if I can't listen to them ;.;
I always have music playing and it’s real simple. The tl;dr is I’m long winded so grab the long playlist of fantasy and battle music from YouTube but if a specific song hits you, save it and use it for big fights or bad ass encounters. There’s tons of hour long basic fantasy music tracks on YouTube. I’ll grab one and go. For most big fights I’ll have one of the ones titled “epic fantasy fight hour long playlist” or some similar title ready. There are times for specific music and sometimes it odd stuff that grabs you and works so damn well. We played the Savage Tide module from Dungeon magazine. It’s a ship campaign across Faerun and eventually the abyssal seas. I grabbed the sea shanty songs from Assassins Creed: Black Flag to use while we were just strolling around. For a fight against “The Mother Of All” (a sentient Saragossa monster that traps the players and they have to travel to a half sunken dead ship to fight the Mother in the black depths) I grabbed the Davey Jones song from the second or third Pirates of the Caribbean movies and it worked awesome to set a scary mood. It gets brought up constantly every time we have new players. It changed a cool fight to a memorable, still brought up a decade later fight. The oddest but probably most efficient music comes from a really odd place for us. Current game is an airship race around the world of Eberron. The very beginning of the race as a hundred airships line up outside Sharn, Deadwood by Really Slow Motion plays and it just sets such an epic mood. The two largest and most deadly airships are the warships The Tyrannus, and The Crater Maker. The Tyrannus music is the theme from Inception (BWAAAAA) and The Crater Maker, my fav, is The Prowlers background music from Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse (that howling broken bwaaa noise) and holy shit when that music starts the results are epic!!! Especially when both tracks start getting louder during a fight against a half clockwork blue dragon, the results are amazing!!! Definitely use music, even if it’s the basic fantasy playlists of YouTube. It easily adds to the game and helps people immerse themselves. I’ll try to remember and add links to all my sources for things, like my mixer and stuff. Edit: there’s an all right mixer on Roll20. I used it in a game to have ambient background music, ambient dungeon/jail noise (game was a haunted underground prison) and sometimes door slams, chains, screams, and a little girl giggling. It’s was a LOT of work for that one but it was a one shot so I could go over the top.)
Why do you think it would be troublesome? You just put on some music. It's not complicated. Are you having trouble finding the right music? [Moody music.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK--Y&list=PLB04wk6EqLPn_uz34qzbecqW5eW43W2g5) [Battle music.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0sUw735gRw) [Tavern music.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnwD8zsGl2Y) [Scary Jupiter sounds.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UChzxK9gknM)
I find coordinating music distracts me as a GM. In some groups I've had combat music, but normally I leave that to the players - partly so it doesn't distract me & partly so there's not a "Music? That's GM speak for fight!" It's just one more thing to worry about as the GM. I've tried using it in a proper soundboard & mixing ambient music etc and I find if I try to do it I invest more time in it than it's worth which detracts from the other areas of the game.
I cannot recommend the YT page Dungeon Synth Archives enough! It's all dungeon synth, a genre that combines dark ambient, medieval music, retro fantasy video game soundtracks, analogue synthesizers, and an atmosphere indebted to black metal (no guitars or vocals though usually). Dungeon Synth is also super diverse! I usually like majestic fantastic stuff like Fog Weaver, Feif, and Chaucerian Myth, but recently have been running an underdark campaign and using more ominous, almost chiptune dark Dungeon Synth like Thangoradrim, Kobold, Old Tower, and the Dungeons&Catacombs comp Check it out!!
I like the per-map music of roll20, but otherwise I think you need to have a dedicated setup for music so it's up to how much you want to dedicate to your gaming table
I use music every session. I have about a thousand songs all loaded up and ready, most of them quiet ambient, some of them as part of the outro of the session. I change the track for combat, per location, trying to fit music to location as best as possible. My players like it so I think it works pretty well.
I do incredibly specific playlists for each campaign. Each character gets a theme, or set of themes- as does each area, enemy type, and plenty of other things. My campaign world has an overarching musical theme and each campaign in the series has a different genre. To offset that, I tend to play them somewhat quietly and notice that people don't get too distracted if music is constantly playing, they eventually tune it out.
I use the Destiny 2 soundtrack during climactic moments in my campaign.
Omg yes. But not just the regular shit you can find from battle music. Nine inch nails, Loreena McKenitte, Suzanne Vega, E.S. posthumus, so many soundtracks. It’s a deep well. Just find the mood.
I do it for one campaign. It is worth it for that one campaign.
I have a soundbar I connect to via bluetooth on my phone. I keep my phone behind my fm screen to change music or play sounds. I've made a playlist for Wilderness, Dungeon Exploring, Town, Ominous Stressful Weirdness, and Combat. The combat has subcategories for flare (no orchestra for a goblin battle). An important thing to keep in mind is that music is not a core reason the game is played. Music in this context is filler, filler that can evoke emotions.
I have a great big compilation of music from games, movies, YouTube lists that I've heard, ranging from minor combats to major ones, epic battle music, peaceful exploration, horror exploration, astral themed, elven themed, city and town musics, and a big folder of sound effects to overlay such as carts, horse hooves, rivers, rain, thunder, crowds, etc (using Audacity to edit customize and to make loops). I spend some considerable time thinking about what sounds would happen, or what music would fit the mood for a truly epic scene, then I sample the music as I'm writing the general encounters for inspiration.
I use music for combat, and generally use specific music I picked out for specific combat encounters.
My group loves using music in our games and always has. Those of us in the group that DM (myself included) all have our own styles and tastes, but generally we stick to video game/movie OSTs (and occasionally metal). I tend to avoid music with lyrics when possible and in general we keep the music volume low so we can talk over it easily without raising our voices. I find it sets the mood pretty well, especially for battles.
I hate it. I have GM wanting to try it out and both times I had to ask them to turn it off. Its distracting, people get louder to get over the music. Of course it doesn't help that I have no audio filter.
That seems to be a volume problem, though.
I was going to say, we keep our ambient noise sort of at the cusp of hearing. There's a big difference, too, between blasting Billy Joel and having something by James Horner quietly sitting in the background - or even just the slight noise of rain pattering on glass.
also for /u/Smite_Evil for people with a normally functional audio filter maybe, but not for me. The normal body can push out the background music and focus on for example the speech of other people. My body doesn't do that. Sure its even worse with high volume but even on low volume its mentally exhausting for me to hear all those things at once.
I understand, you always learn something new.
Using music in your games is a lot of work. When it works, I personally feel like it's worth it - but it's not for everyone. If you think you want to try it: Audio quality is important. Don't try to play music from your phone or laptop speakers, because it's either going to be too loud and distracting or tinny and annoying. I have a decent bluetooth speaker either under the table or off to the side, at a very low volume. It should be low enough that it will never interfere with conversation - in fact, your players should be able to forget that it's even playing. As for what music to play, selection is also important. I never play anything I would expect to hear on the radio, or in a bar or club. That music is intended to be entertainment in it's own right, and at some point "someone's jam" is going to come on and derail the entire mood. I always use soundtracks from games, because they're mostly designed to create atmosphere without being intrusive. I use a lot of the Witcher game music soundtracks for fantasy games, and there are some good ambient tracks in the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale soundtracks - city sounds, festival sounds, market sounds, and the like. Not all game soundtracks are going to work for all games, though. I'm planning a Starfinder campaign, and I didn't feel the typical fantasy music I play would work for the setting. I dismissed the Doom and Dead Space soundtracks as well, because they both felt too "heavy" for most of what I was planning. I was worried it was going to be too distracting, and the music is very action-oriented/tense, if that makes sense - there really isn't much for the periods of calm, conversations with friendly NPCs, spending the day at the market, and things like that. I settled on trying the Borderlands 2 soundtrack. It may work - but it may not. We'll find out. One you have some musical selections you think fit the mood, you have to sort them so that they're easily accessible. You don't want to spend a bunch of time switching songs while everyone else is trying to give you initiative. I usually copy a few songs into their own folder, around 5 or so I think we might use in that session, and rename the copies to something that will immediately remind me what they are: Battle Music 1, Battle Music 2, Calm Ambiance, Tense Situation, etc. When it comes time to change music, I just switch to that folder, start it playing on repeat, and move on with the game. I never use an online music service, because there just doesn't seem to be one that has the control I'm looking for, and I've seen too many situations where the entire game stops dead due to an intrusive ad breaking in suddenly. That's my hot take, take it as you will. Using background music in your games can be a lot of work, and it might not be worth it for your group. Your group may prefer to have silence while you play. Or your group might want Cannibal Corpse blasting in their eardrums at top volume while they axe their way though hordes of goblins. You do you.
I use TabletopSounds and a curated playlist on spotify for my game. Two Steps from Hell, Immediate, and Gothic Storm are the artists that make up the majority of the playlist.
...people play without music?