Music at the Game Table? Y/N - Why

tomas246

I am still rather new to this forum and I don't know how many of you out there play RPGs at an actual table. Either way, everyone can contribute to this discussion, if interested. I know this may be a topic some of you have encountered before, but I want to see what everyone thinks about it.

What are your thoughts on using music:whistle: during a live, D&D game?

In my opinion, music can enhance the gaming experience when you use the right kind. It takes a lot of searching for the right tracks. Some sound tracks from movies and video games work well. If the song doesn't have too many changes throughout the track, its a good thing. A song that fits one mood and then changes to another mood later in the track, can distract players into cheesy jokes about the sudden mood swing.

Player (at change in music): "AND THEN A DRAGON SUDDENLY APPEARS! ha ha ha..."
DM: ... ... ... ... ... ...NO!

I'm actually slightly obsessive about the music I use, creating play list categories for general events throughout the game: traveling, combat, town music and holy music are a few lists. I like doing it that way so that the songs make sense.

Usually keeping the music at a low level has been best for me, something about it being more in the background has worked out.

Good Music
-Anything Conan (Movies and the newer MMORPG)
-Beowulf
-Black Aria 2 (1 seems a little too dramatic to me)
-LOTR
-The 13th Warrior
-Mince Pye

Bad Music
-Lots of individual tracks from the list above that don't work because of the aforementioned mood changes in the middle of the song
- Most tracks from Krull (this is a good example of music that has the very specific mood change throughout many tracks that indicate something along the lines of, "Darkness happens... And then the hero saves the day"


Some groups seem not to like the music playing, even at a low level. I get the feeling that it can seem a little cheese ball for the "too cool" types.

Anyway - what do you all think?

PolloDiablo

I go both ways. I like having something playing, even if it's usually just the radio.

Sometimes I'll get a themed playlist going, but I don't micromanage the songs. I used to GM a pretty awesome Western campaign, and I'd usually put on a CD of Morricone music or the like. It does help build immersion.

Dyrwen66

I've used music in campaigns before. During Ravenloft, it was particularly neat. I usually throw on some post-rock like Godspeed you! Black Emperor, or Explosions in the Sky with "Pandora" radio and we're set. It doesn't distract from the game if kept at the right level, and helps gloss over some silences with ambiance.

UEAKCrash

There is a group called Midnight Syndicate that I like to play every once in awhile at the table. They actually came out with a role playing soundtrack awhile ago. Like, official D&D soundtrack.

In general, I keep the music pretty low though. Just ambiance.

DarkPrimus

I'd like to be able to incorporate music into my DM sessions (sparingly, of course), but our sesssions are held at the local gaming store, and already have the radio on at low volume. Everyone filters it out during the game, but if there was other music they were supposed to focus on it'd probably ruin it. That and everyone else at the store having to listen to the music too. :P

tomas246

UEAKCrash wrote: »

There is a group called Midnight Syndicate that I like to play every once in awhile at the table. They actually came out with a role playing soundtrack awhile ago. Like, official D&D soundtrack.

In general, I keep the music pretty low though. Just ambiance.

Yeah, Midnight Syndicate is one I forgot to add. It is a little like the store brand version of movie music, but it works just fine.

Another good point brought up is just having music, period. Some of my best memories associated with some Ozzy songs were had at my friend's garage, back in the day, as we sat playing RPGs.

For the game store comment.... I am kind of wondering exactly what would happen if you did play music for your RPG in the store. What would customers do?

tomas246

funny side note: my iTunes just did a number on me and decided to delete every play list and my entire library as it is seen through the application.... leaving me to have to restore all lists, pod casts, etc. via playing them.... FUCK YOU iTunes!

Utsanomiko

I used a soundtrack CD in a CD player when fiddling around with the original Star Wars RPG. The problem with this setup was:

1) The player lacked a track loop function, forcing me to jump back every time the track ended during the same scene.
2) Most tracks only last 10-15 minutes in total, at best. The useful/memorable sections are much shorter usually. So a 40 minute scene would loop 4-8 times, half of it being of a completely different mood then the rest.

So if I could get my hands on some thirty minute ambient music once I pick up a netbook, I'd certainly look into using music again for D&D, Warhammer 40kRPG, and Star Wars.

LightRider

I haven't done it personally, but I'd rip some of the WoW or NWN music and play that. Also, some channels on sattellite radio work well for bg music.

tomas246

LightRider wrote: »

I haven't done it personally, but I'd rip some of the WoW or NWN music and play that. Also, some channels on sattellite radio work well for bg music.

Let me know if you are able to ever do that. I don't know how to do that myself - but would actually use some of that music.

Hahnsoo1

We play over Ventrilo, and thus, using music would be akin to the annoying crap that people do in online voice chat (pumping music to drown out everyone's voices). But even when my group played at the same table, we didn't use music. It's fairly difficult to time the music to events, and it leaves yet another element that can go horribly wrong during a game. It's far more likely to detract from the GM's attention and leave the players bored ("You're messing with the CDs/MP3s AGAIN?? Just sit down and GM, dude."). Or worse, make you think that you have to budget the time on each scene, which screws over player autonomy (pacing is not equal to railroading). When it's done right, it doesn't add all that much, either, even when you get the rare coincidental moment which matches a Natural 20 with a dramatic musical climax.

EDIT: Actually, we have used music once or twice, but it was Yakety Sax and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", so I don't think those count.

It's a different story if you are running a campaign on Neverwinter Nights. The music is automatic and is part of the experience (at least, it gives you an auditory cue that combat is occuring in the same location). But that's a different story.

If you must use music, anything by Jeremy Soule works well, I'd think. It's ambient and cinematic at the same time. He has done a variety of video game soundtracks, some of which can be found free online or ripped directly as MP3 or OGG files from the game disks.

TehSloth

My old group tried this, maybe once or twice, with some celtic CDs one of us happened to have. I really wouldn't say it was distracting, but I really wasn't into it. In recent games sometimes my roommate will leave the music in his room up, and it'll be ambiently playing, but I pretty much filter it out entirely.

LightRider

tomas246 wrote: »

LightRider wrote: »

I haven't done it personally, but I'd rip some of the WoW or NWN music and play that. Also, some channels on sattellite radio work well for bg music.

Let me know if you are able to ever do that. I don't know how to do that myself - but would actually use some of that music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPQ

That has some information to get you started on extracting Blizzard's stuff from the MPQ files. I've done it before and it's fairly straightforward. It also lets you listen to all the /silly jokes, which is the first thing I did when I got WoW.

DarkPrimus

I was going to say, if WoW used MPQs like other Blizzard games do, there's apps for decompling them to extract files.

EDIT:
Looks like WinMPQ is even hosted on WoW download sites.