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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Victoly" data-source="post: 4243331" data-attributes="member: 35127">Personally I'm against using the battle theme music from RPG videogames.  The battles in most such games are really short, and D&D battles can take quite a while to sort out - sure, the tracks are designed to be looped, but a half hour of the Final Fantasy battle music is going to get on anyone's nerves.  Some video games have great soundtracks that are worthy of sampling - the Quake soundtrack is one of my favourites for creepy underground exploration, and the Shadow of the Colossus score makes for some dramatic moments - but a lot of it becomes too obvious when taken out of context.Also, if your gaming group is anything like mine, we've all heard those songs far too many times already while growing our materia or drawing more magics from enemies or whatever it was at the time.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I'll second the suggestion of viking/black metal.  The stuff is sinister, it keeps consistently chugging along, and the lyrics are usually impossible to decipher (so that players won't get distracted by the words being spoken).  I use a few tracks from Kampfar's album "Fra Underverdenen" on a fairly regular basis and I think they're a great match for desperate, violent situations.  I'm also thinking about using some Meshuggah in the future.I would also strongly recommend Apocalyptica, particularly their original tunes (not the covers - though some of the covers are also pretty good).  Ninety percent of it is instrumental (I find vocals to be a distraction for game soundtrack music), it's all cello and drums (so it has some connections to "classical" music), and most importantly it kicks ass.  Their self-titled album and the "Cult" album are great places to start for D&D battle music.I ran an Iron Heroes game that was based heavily on reading the Berserk manga and listening to a bunch of Apocalyptica and black metal and it turned out exceptionally well.Some links:Apocalyptica: <a href="http://www.myspace.com/apocalyptica" target="_blank">http://www.myspace.com/apocalyptica</a>Check out Grace, Worlds Collide, and Last Hope.  The others have vocals, and thus aren't as good for scoring your games.Meshuggah: <a href="http://www.myspace.com/meshuggah" target="_blank">http://www.myspace.com/meshuggah</a>Just for a general idea.  Loud, relentless, and heavy - does your rampaging horde of orcs deserve anything less?Kampfar: <a href="http://www.myspace.com/norsepagans" target="_blank">http://www.myspace.com/norsepagans</a>A little more atmospheric than Meshuggah, and also a little more dramatic.  Cool stuff!</blockquote>

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