Do you play music during games and if so, care to share your playlist ?

[JiCi]

and as "play music", I mean "using a music player like a sound system or a computer to listen to music while playing", of course, because playing guitar while rolling dice is a pain.

I'm looking for tracks to play during exploration and battles, you know, just to spice it up.

I got a few tracks from Castlevania, Final Fantasy series (mostly from Dissidia), Tales series (the battle themes), Golden Sun, Okami, Samurai Warriors, Skies of Arcadia, Legend of Zelda and even Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions (mainly the boss battle themes).

Of course, YouTube and iTunes are good sources for music, so availability isn't a problem.

[Tirq]

Halo 3 did a live orchestra for the soundtrack. They also have it at most libraries. This is probably my favorite, but I also like this one.

[Dabbler]

Not usually, but last session I played Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries when half the party took off in pursuit of a corrupted silver dragon - sorcerer used Form of the Dragon and carried the ranger/rogue, the druid wild shaped into a giant eagle and the paladin mounted him.

[Lambien]

I like the Midnight Syndicate Dungeons and Dragons cd; the rest of the gang in my gaming group also like the original Conan soundtrack.

[Unruly]

When I was in a group that played music during battles it was typically the battle music from Final Fantasy games, and mostly came from FF6-9. Occasionally we'd have some other music that got played, but the Final Fantasy stuff was the most frequent.

When World of Warcraft and Guild Wars came out we started cycling in some of the more up-tempo stuff from them as well. Say what you will about the two games but they've got some pretty good music. Our group liked a lot of the real drum-heavy stuff from WoW for gaming, but the group fell apart maybe a year after WoW released due to real-world issues, so they didn't see a whole lot of playtime.

[maouse]

I like Social Distortion playing lightly in the background. Mostly so if they get captured I can flip to "Prison Bound" or if they start arguing with me I can put on "I Was Wrong" for them... LOL.

and of course if a 1 comes up "Bad Luck" lol

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Right now I'm trying to build up a Pathfinder music library to use during games. It's fairly small right now though. Here's what I have so far.

Shards of Eberron. It came with the Sharn: City of Towers source book during 3.5, very atmospheric and most importantly doesn't distract too much from gameplay.

Icewind Dale Soundtrack Jeremy Soule, very atmospheric, again non-distracting.

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Soundtrack There are some great tunes in this, but other ones can get in the way.

Bond I have a couple of Bond albums, this string quartet works wonders for certain situations.

The Secret of Monkey Island Great for Pirate games.

Pirates of the Caribbean More Piratey Goodness!

[Zerombr]

Here's a good thread about this subject

[Orthos]

Back when I had a local gaming group it was mostly RPG background musics, Final Fantasy and the like for me; I think Chrono Cross probably got the most use out of the whole lot, with some of the Castlevanias in close second.

That said, I haven't gamed in person with people for years, so it's been less prevalent since. Most of my gaming these days is via PbP so occasionally I'll link an appropriate song.

[grrtigger]

A while back I set up a Google Docs spreadsheet for sharing my custom playlists for city, combat, and exploring. Probably in need of an update, as I've added music since posting this and I'll sometimes find a misfiled track, but overall this works pretty well for my game:

KDND - gamer_dave D&D soundtrack

[Drejk]

Magic Taborea. And a few other of their songs.

[Gark the Goblin]

Sometimes I troll my fellow players with saccharine 8bit musical dissonance during a battle.

Unironically good moviesque music, though:
Alex Roe
Denny Schneidemesser
Homestuck

[Zerombr]

I think I might work on that google doc, add my own stuff.

I also think that there needs to be different categories for music for mood.

Battle

Epic Battle

Action - not something you'd want to fight to, but a good representation of car chases and other high octane moments

Drama

Sorrow

Wonder

Covert - Suspenseful music, should give the feeling of being on edge

Investigation - softer music but still with intensity

Horror

Everyday - Music to start the game with, to have people settle in, also good for characters just lounging about. Classic radio fare works well. I remember most of my modern age games always starting with 'Summer in the City' back when Die Hard was in theatres.

Lietmotifs - signature pieces for specific characters. I assign bonus exp to anyone who defines one, and makes it work. You can't just pick a rock song and expect it to work, it needs an attachment of some sort.

Backgrounds - Fires raging, hurricanes, rain, soft flutes, gunfire, they all go here.

Anyone see anything I'm missing?