I know there is already a thread on this but it is buried in the archives.
Do you listen to music during games, if so what do you listen to. I prefer to have a selection of different CDs on hand which will generally include Classical, Metal and Film Soundtracks (Gladiator and Matrix being the usual two).
Do you listen to music during games, if so what do you listen to.
It all depends. If we can get music, we generally play it. Typically it's whatever feels right for whatever is going on, with a heavy tendency toward video game music -- .Hack and Chaos Legion saw a lot of use last time I DMed, for example, with Final Fantasy, Zelda, and the Phantom of the Opera all making appearances as well.
We also lean toward soundtracks from movies or games. Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Pact of the Wolves, Hero, these are the most used soundtracks we use.
However I would like to ad that I find music in the end to be unnecessary. I has to be played low enough so everyone can hear each other at the table which in the end makes the music simply disapear into the back, no one realy being affected by it.
I was in a game where a DM did it another way one time. He wrote an adventure and keyed different songs to different scenes. He then only played each song one time at the beginning of each scene. It did put the music more in focus but as this was during the era of cassete-tapes, it felt a bit like railroading as each scene had to come in the right order so the songs would fit. With CDs that could be handled differently though.
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Do you listen to music during games, if so what do you listen to. I prefer to have a selection of different CDs on hand which will generally include Classical, Metal and Film Soundtracks (Gladiator and Matrix being the usual two).
My faves are usually soundtracks, such as Riven, Sin City, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Fog (remake), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, various tracks from the Harry Potter movies, The Mummy, Constantine, Aeon Flux, and Batman Begins. I've got a playlist on iPod with about 350 tracks that play on random, so we don't have to switch CDs or listen to the same thing over and over all time.
Based on similar threads I've seen elsewhere, I built a simple webpage for people to share their favorites. Check it out at:
http://rpg.mercurial.org/gamemusic.php
and feel free to add your own if you like.
My Favorite Movie Soundtracks for Playing D&D:
The Last of the Mohicans,
Conan the Barbarian,
Lord of the Rings (all three),
Mortal Kombat,
Robin Hood Prince of Thieves,
1492,
Gladiator,
Alexander,
Braveheart,
The Three Musketteers,
Almost anything by John Williams,
I'm sure there's more...
Other Favorites:
Anything by Peter Buffet,
The Diablo 2 Soundtrack,
A personal compilation of vidoegame soundtracks which include:
Final Fantasy (and Tactics), Tomb Raider, and many more.
Ultradan
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Do you listen to music during games, if so what do you listen to.
I have a fairly large soundtrack collection and here are some of the ones that I think are better...
Aliens (there are a number of really good pieces in this)
Atlantis
Batman
Batman Begins
Braveheart
Broken Arrow (Excellent)
Dark Crystal
Dragonheart
Gladiator
Harry Potter movies (Prisoner of Azkaban is especially good)
Mummy
Mummy Returns
Pirates of the Caribbean (Excellent)
Planet of the Apes (Again Excellent)
Princess Mononoke (A little odd, but well placed could be good)
Robin Hood
The Rock
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Makes you feel like a super hero)
Spider-Man
Stargate
Total Recall
Xena
Hans Zimmer is typically very good. Other composers to watch for are Danny Elfman, James Horner, Alan Silvestri, John Williams, James Newton Howard, and Jerry Goldsmith.
Hope that this helps.
Bill
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It's a shame, but Interplay used to offer all the mp3s from their games such as Baldur's Gate for free on their website -- I just checked, and they are gone.
I like putting a quiet track on in the background and use movie and game soundtrack music. I'm running a Forgotten Realms Unapproachable East campaign, and some of the best music I've found is the turkish music from Medieval: Total War and the soundtrack to the Children of Dune.
Director of Narrative
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To add to all the great suggestions above....
If anyone has access to XM try channel 27 "Cinemagic" The whole thing is scores from movies. Most of the time with it low and in the background it doesn't matter what score it is.
Also, someone in the group recieved the Midnight Syndicate CD. It's pretty good as well as far as score music goes.
(This is a redux of my post under the 'Audio'heading)
I've been gaming or running games since '78 and music has always been a major part of the 'ambiance' at our table. I even used to lug a dozen or so LPs to the houses of friends, along with all those books and dice. When I'd cue up a deep crescendo, the crew's faces would tighten with dread, and anticipation. Heroes lived and died to the music...
Over the years I've built a collection of over 100 film score LPs and over 250 soundtrack CDs, now supplemented with legal downloads available from sites such as music4games.net, fileshack.com and others. When running a Traveller campaign in the 1980s-early 90s, one of my players and I recorded a 'campaign soundtrack' of cues from the collection, complete with liner notes. It filled fourteen 90-minute cassettes, and was topped off at the end by three 'best of' CDs with full labeling and cover art-and this was in 1994!
Now I'm running the Age of Worms AP and looking for suitable cues for that 'writhing' feel-I was never much into horror films but I think I'll be using some of this type of music.
In general, if you haven't tried these film scores in your game, I highly recommend them:
Fantasy:
The Sword and the Sorceror (old school fantasy film)
Krull (more of the same, by James Horner)
Merlin (very atmospheric)
Cutthroat Island (the best modern swashbuckling soundtrack)
Lord of the Rings (1978 animated film-with orcish chorus!)
Battle for the Planet of the Apes
(Sounds just like LotR 1978, above)
The Warlord (short but sweet-gotta love that bell...)
The Vikings (Must-have for any Norse/barbarian campaign)
Rune (from the PC/console videogame)
Ivanhoe (typical chivalric score from 1950s)
Ben-Hur ('Row well, and live!'-great naval battle cue)
Godzilla (score)(with orchestra and metallic highlights)
First Blood (great for those woodland stalkings)
Lionheart (great score by Goldsmith)
The 9th Gate (Very eerie, good for an evil cult)
Dracula (Wojciech Kilar)(A favorite horror score)
Red Dawn (interesting work by 'Conan' composer Poleduris)
Robin and Marian (very mild, but flavorful score)
Robin Hood (Costner's film version)
Spartacus (The battle score is a must!)
Timeline (Both versions, Tyler and Goldsmith, are very good)
Tombstone (Not as western as you'd think, very strong themes)
Willow (More old school)
Chronicles of Riddick (New, and heavy, but not bad)
Onimusha II/III (From ADV films.com-good and atmospheric)
Icewind Dale I/II (excellent fantasy music)
Baldur's Gate I/II (The classic fantasy game scores)
The Rock (strong main theme-we used it for 'Night Below' D&D campaign in the mid-1990s)
Reign of Fire (Good work by new composer Shearmur)
Sleepy Hollow (Danny Elfman's fine period piece)
Alexander Nevsky (Russian, with battle sound effects and good thematic melodies)
First Knight (good main theme)
Iron Monkey (as good as newer asian film scores)
Rapa Nui (For Polynesian-flavor scenarios, none better!)
Hellboy (good mix of action and brooding suspense)
The Cell (sounds like Lord of the Rings trilogy-same composer)
The Wind and the Lion (Excellent for Al-Qadim setting)
The Name of the Rose (great and rare score from Connery film)
Ogniem i Mieczem (Polish-from the epic Sienkiewicz story)
Torment (from the Planescape PC game)
Space Opera:
Aliens quadrilogy
(incl. Aliens vs. Predator)
Predator 2
Terminator trilogy
Total Recall
Battle Beyond the Stars
Battlestar Galactica (original version)
Escape from New York
Independence Day
Hitman 2
Hitman 3:Contracts
Mission: Impossible (film)
Robocop
Starship Troopers I/II
Steamboy
Half-Life I/II
Invisible War, Blood Rayne, Freedom Fighters (video games)
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Some music I use:
Name of the Rose (OST)
The last track of Blair Witch Project (OST) (VEEERY cool for dungeons)
Tangerin Dream (especially the albums ZEIT, and PHAEDRA)
In the Nursery (especially the albums KÖDA and STORMHORSE)
Dead Can Dance (the earlier albums)
The Fog (OST) (not the Remake)
and now my favorite:
BIRDY (OST) from Peter Gabriel
and of course, a lot more...
When I play music during sessions, I usually prefer medieval/renaissance/baroque albums which I enjoy anyway.
Folk songs and dances, troubadour songs, Palestrina, Byrd and so on, there's a lot more than just gregorian chants.
Playing soundtracks has a danger of creating too specific connections to the actual movies (unless you actually want to scare the bejeezus out of your gamers by putting on Psycho theme unexpectedly...)
In addition to soundtracks, I recommend:
Midnight Syndicate (anything by them - very atmospheric)
Nox Arcana (similar to Midnight Syndicate)
Corvus Corax (authentic medieval music!)
Folk songs and dances, troubadour songs, Palestrina, Byrd and so on, there's a lot more than just gregorian chants.
If you like that kind of stuff, check out: ATRIUM MUSICAE DE MADRID Musique de la Grece Antique (Harmonia Mundi).
From the AQ Records website (http://www.aquariusrecords.org/) "...it's a partially-imaginary reconstruction by an unusual Spanish world-music ensemble of what the music of ancient Greece MIGHT have sounded like, based on what little historical documentation is available regarding musical practices of the period. Each track references some papyrii or other (so the spoken and sung texts are supposedly historically accurate) and the music is played on what are assumed to be authentic types of instrumentation (including a reproduction of an hydraulic organ!). As we said, much of the music is ritual-sounding, with chanting and bells. It has quite an occult vibe. There's also tracks of beautiful, folky female vocals backed by plucks of the lyre. Add to that stirring horns, droning flutes, percussive crashes, eccentric vocal flourishes, and much more. Liner notes explain the Atrium Musicae's intentions and procedure in trying to recreate this lost music. There's a definite sense of drama, and of the weight of the ages upon those trying to bring the fragments of Greek music back to life. This disc is sometimes creepy, often lovely, always fascinating."
Playing soundtracks has a danger of creating too specific connections to the actual movies (unless you actually want to scare the bejeezus out of your gamers by putting on Psycho theme unexpectedly...)
This is very true. I like to edit out the tracks on soundtracks that contain the main theme.
I've got a few gigs of movie and videogame soundtracks, but all you need is www.radiorivendell.com.
Feel free to send them a few bucks to help out with the bandwidth, but it's not mandatory.
Telas
Does anybody remember the the music from star trek where captain Kirk fights Spock. WHat is the name of that song? Where can I find it and down load it to my computer? I always think of that song when battles looms (either in a game, in a movie or for real).
Google for "amok time". I don't know if that's the title, but I found it there.
Telas
You've succeeded in your Knowledge (Star Trek) check, Telas. It is indeed "Amok Time" - one of the better original series episodes, IMHO.
Go get yourself the album "Passages" by Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar. 'Nuff said. Best. D&D. Music. Ever.
If you like that kind of stuff, check out: ATRIUM MUSICAE DE MADRID Musique de la Grece Antique (Harmonia Mundi).
Hmm, I think I have seen the album but haven't head it...I better check it out.
For all you metalheads out there, a curious album recommended is Sabbatum by Estonian medieval music group Rondellus: Black Sabbath songs done in medieval style (with lyrics translated in Latin and all). They stay away from the big hits except for Verres Militares (War Pigs, naturally) and prefer songs which actually fit the style...Architectus Urbis Caelestis (Spiral Architect) is just immensely beautiful.
I do not allow music during sessions because it provides the players with something else to occupy their mind with and gets them side-tracked off the game. If I had access to music off of games such as Diablo and the like I would play that, but since I don't...
...then you don't know what you are missing, Aramil! Try music4games.net. On the discussion forums there are plenty of links to free and legal downloads of game music, including Diablo I/II, World of Warcraft, and many others. In my experience, my players would not call the game complete without music, my skills and knowledge of the rules notwithstanding.