4e Battle Music! My Dilemma.

Woo! DMing our upcoming 4e game and damn am I psyched.

Trying to make everything perfect, drawn battle-mats on 1 inch grid paper, painted minis, ambiance lighting and... Music.

Ive never done game music before and I really want to. Battle music especially. However, I have a problem. Its hard to find good, upbeat, serious fantasy music (such as to inspire a fast and furious 4e battle).


Well... it got me thinking about making some compromises...

A bit of techno?

This is a high fantasy campaign (no arguments about what exactly that constitutes) in most aspects.

However, I'm absolutely for sacrificing (a bit of) authenticity and (a bit of) verisimilitude for more player fun if thats what it comes down too. And I feel like techno (of the fast and bassy but not beepy and synthy variety) might really do the trick as far as combat backing goes.


What are your thoughts on the topic? What are you going to use for your games?

I think the best music for D&D battles comes videogames, particularly from Japanese tactical RPGs. Final Fantasy Tactics and the Fire Emblem series, for example. The songs in these games are designed to serve as background music for lengthy strategic battles, and tend to have a lot of energy and emotion without being obnoxious or grating, even if you listen to them for a quite a while at a time.

I think TwinBahamut's got the right idea going. The battle music from tactical/strategy RPGs, especially those medieval-fantasy based, should serve you rather well. They're made to be looped for long fights, are easy on the ears, but invoke the proper emotional response. Just a matter of finding the right song for the right fight.

Hmm... good point, it makes sense that they might be a source of good muzacks. But how, may I ask, can I get my hands on such exotic fare?

I am downloading music for that purpose right now!

Music from tatical rpg videogames are indeed perfect but i am also downloading soundtracks that carries the whole spirit of a fantastic medieval adventure, here are some of them:

OSTs
Braveheart
The Last of the Mohicans
The Lord of the rings
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Destroyer
Krull
LadyHawke
Indiana Jones
The Princess Bride
Dune

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot
Shadow of the Colossus (game)
Joan of Arc (movie)
Dracula (Bram Stoker)

greyscale1 said:

Hmm... good point, it makes sense that they might be a source of good muzacks. But how, may I ask, can I get my hands on such exotic fare?

Click to expand...

Well, to be fair, it can be kind of difficult sometimes. Very few games have their soundtracks released for independent purchase, and the names of the songs are generally unknown to the average person. It takes a bit of research, but it's certainly doable.

The first thing is to find out the name of the songs. Wikipedia or websites dedicated to the specific game are a goldmine of such information. After you have the song's name, it's a simple matter of searching for it like you would any other song online.

If you'd like a list of good candidates, just ask. SRPGs just happen to be my favorite genre of video game, so I know quite a lot.

Conan is a must for battle, as well as a lot of fast pacing action movie themes that are NOT modern.

Personally, I enjoy music more in the exploration takes - it interferes too much during battles.

All the Soundtracks of Guild Wars are perfect for D&D.

If you really want to dig deeper and out of this dimension, try some odd ECM records, like Terje Ripdal or Barre Phillips in the 70's - these may work well when exploring strange places.

I would recommend for a excellent source of battle music and music in general for gameplay (especially if your willing to go beyond "fantasy-appropriate" music) would be the Metal Gear Solid music. It is fairly easy to find because all the games have released soundtracks. You can easily for example type "Metal Gear Solid ost" or "Metal Gear Solid 2 ost" on Youtube to find the songs.

You can also look to some power metal bands. I have used bands such as Manowar, Hammerfall and Rhaphsody of Fire many times, depending on the mood.

Beowulf!

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=268374291&s=143441