4e Battle Music! My Dilemma.

For a more weird vibe try

Afro-Celt Soundsystem
Gabriel Roth and the Mirrors
Enigma
Dead can Dance

they were the soundtrack to my first 3.x games a will do the same for 4th.
 

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HeavenShallBurn said:
TANGENT ALERT: You know I've listened to a LOT of metal and something has occurred to me. Metal is especially suited to Germanic and Slavic Languages. It's like they were made for each other. Romance languages don't sound right for metal. I've never heard metal in African or Middle Eastern languages but the structure and rhythm of the languages don't mesh. The various Indian and East Asian languages just can't do metal. I should know I've heard attempts by Japanese and Koreans but the sounds don't work together.

Chthonic are a Taiwanese band who have done some stuff in their native tongue and its actually pretty good. Its extraordinarily sad and bleak stuff. Otherwise though, the Germanic and Slavic languages go perfectly with metal, the harsh guttural and throaty sounds that are so common in those tongues fit perfectly with the harsh and grinding tones of extreme metal.

On topic, Mannegarm are a band who deserve a lot more recognition than they get. Their newer stuff by and large is folk inspired metal that just makes me wanna grab an axe and go a-viking. And virtually everything they've done is in swedish.
 

Excellent Sunspot, thanks muchly!

I just finished downloading Apocalyptica, the butcher bay soundtrack, the EQ2 soundtrack (surprisingly awesome) along with TONS MORE.

I'm working on sorting it all into categories as we speak, er, type.... read.


Everybody join in! Its awesome to see such an animated discussion about our different tastes in gaming music, but don't just talk about it! Fallow Sunspot's example.

I know I will be uploading a good deal come tomorrow when i have time to sort it all out.
 

The soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings is terrible for D&D. Ponderous, unthrilling nonsense. It goes okay with the film, if you like that sort of "look how epic we are" feel, but it's yawn-inducing at the game table.
 

mhacdebhandia said:
The soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings is terrible for D&D. Ponderous, unthrilling nonsense. It goes okay with the film, if you like that sort of "look how epic we are" feel, but it's yawn-inducing at the game table.
The biggest problem with it is: It's LotR. They're pretty much impossible to separate. The same with many film scores (as Star Wars), unless you're playing something set in that universe.

Cheers, LT.
 

Haven't used too much music in my games recently, but there's a soft spot in my heart for the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack. Perfect for wilderness travel and the occasional battlefield, or just as general background music.

The song "Eifersucht" by Rammstein has done me well for fights with the BBEG, especially with the maniacal laughter (which makes me think "blood-crazed nobleman" everytime) around the middle. Rammstein is also ideal for any sort of steampunk-industrial setting.
 


Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 (& ToB) soundtrack is amazing. For combat, for normal situations, for exploring, for whatever. It was available for free at their official site, but since the company changed a bit and the site changed, I haven't seen it again there.

I also play :
-Conan the Barbarian and the Destroyer soundtracks (certain tracks).
-Diablo I & II soundtracks (certain tracks).
-Some X-ray Dog tracks.
-Sacred soundtrack (videogame, clone of Diablo 2).
-Several tracks from videogames / medieval movies soundtracks.
-Mass Effect soundtrack.

I don't play [Melodic Death] Metal tracks because they distract me (I unconsciously start to sing).
 

I have the opposite opinion about Rammstein, actually. I find that the later stuff generally works much better, because the obvious bleeps and bloops of Herzeleid and Sehnsucht were too typically "industrial" sounding and distracted from the feel of a medieval-fantasy game. I don't mean to just argue, but I'm not sure how anyone could listen to the throbbing synth in the verses of Sehnsucht and think that this stuff was somehow less "industrial" sounding than their later stuff, and the bouncy guitar riff at the beginning of Eifersucht and the laughter, for example, strike me as just being silly. Their later sound became a bit more sophisticated in its incorporation of electronic noises, though some tracks are too oddball to really be used much for D&D (Amerika, Keine Lust, Te Quiero Puta!, etc.).

Different strokes for different folks!

Part of the problem with a lot of movie scores is that the music is molded too well to the action in a scene - a rapidly swelling crescendo might perfectly match the action as a building collapses and the heroes of the film try to escape, but it might just be really distracting when all you're trying to do with your D&D music is set the mood. Also, some themes become so iconic that the players won't be able to associate the music with D&D because they'll constantly be thinking back to the film or videogame in question.

Sometimes, though, using a well-known rock song can have the opposite effect for a dramatic moment: players recognize the song and have some emotional connection to it already, but don't already have it associated with a "scene" - so by tapping into their feelings about a well-known song you can sometimes heighten the intensity of a moment. This works especially well if the vast majority of your soundtrack is instrumental, subtle, and/or unknown - the moment you decide to spring the iconic rock song on them suddenly becomes a standout moment, something to remember.
 
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