Background Music

[Desdichado]

However, while planning a game, I mostly listen to soundtracks.

Yeah, I do that too. I forgot to mention the game soundtracks I occasionally use, but it's mostly Heroes of Might and Magic III and IV.

 

[loki44]

I've never seen "Plunkett and Maclean" (never heard of it even) but in "A Knight's Tale" I think it was purposefully done to be a bit on the silly side.

I didn't necessarily mean that the soundtrack of "A Knights Tale" would make a good gaming soundtrack. I just threw it out there as an example of how "modern" music could be used in a seemingly out-of-context and enjoyable way. Yes, I agree that it was used for a lighthearted effect. If you haven't heard of or seen "Plunkett and Maclean" I would highly recommend it. It was a somewhat obscure movie made by a British film company about 4 or 5 years ago and the story revolves around 2 highwaymen circa 17th or 18th century (I don't have the details on hand). I remember thoroughly enjoying the film and the soundtrack though.

 

[fusangite]

While I'm not a big fan of background music for already-intense gaming scenes involving diplomacy or combat, I do think it can add a lot to less intense travel, narrative or party- splitting scenes. However, when it comes to my tastes, I'm the standard heterosexual "fag." So, my players are subjected to Enya, Loreena McKennit and, on my somewhat less embarassing side, Peter Gabriel's Passion.

On rare occasions, however (twice a decade), I do use one piece of foreground music: Black Wings from Tom Waits' Bone Machine.

 

[John Morrow]

Any suggestions for other musical selections?

I've been using the already recommended soundtrack music from the two Conan movies, The Lord of the Rings, Last of the Mohicans, Van Helsing, and Gladiator. In addition, I include a lot of harder to recognize stuff including the Weathering Continent (anime) soundtracks, The 13th Warrior, King Arthur (the recent one), Record of the Lodoss Wars (anime), the Dungeons and Dragons movie (nobody recognized it last week, even though they'd seen the movie), Vampire Hunter D (anime), Kull the Conqerer (I leave the electric guitar tracks out for one of my players who doesn't like them), Scorpion King (the score, not the song soundtrack), the SciFi Channel Dune movies (Dune and Children of Dune), and the Toto Dune soundtrack (the main theme is very recognizable but some other tracks aren't).

John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness soundtrack is useful in almost any genre for creepy music. John Carpenter's other soundtracks, including Ghosts of Mars and Escape from New York are good for modern or future games. The sountrack for Hardware is also great for science fiction games. The remix album of the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack also has some good tracks for a modern or future game. If you want retro-future, take a look at Jean-Michel Jarre and Synergy as well as Tangerine Dream.

For Westerns, make sure you get a copy of Basil Pouledoris' Quigley Down Under. Think Conan for the Wild West (though the movie takes place in Australia). The Will Smith Wild, Wild, West song can also be useful if the game has a light side to it.

If you like heavy metal, I strongly recommend Savatage's Hall of the Mountain King album for dark fantasy games.

Some Philip Glass music is strange and interesting. In particular, take a look at Kundun and Koyaanisqatsi. Both are soundtracks.

What I've done is load all this stuff on my iPod (though I use the iTunes on my iBook to actually select the music during play) and categorize it into themes like general background music, travel, combat, creepy music, etc. It's sort of a middle ground between selecting specific songs for a scene and just letting the music play. I can just select the "combat" playlist during combat scenes and just let those tracks play. Using playlists also helps me take out inappropriate music from otherwise good soundtracks. For example, Dune and Hardware include dialog from the movies (as does the expanded Escape from New York soundtrack) and a lot of the anime soundtracks include a peppy Japanese pop music song that just doesn't belong. The playlists let me leave those out.

Also creepy is the very slow version of (Don't Fear) The Reaper from the Scream soundtrack. There are some other interesting versions of this song on iTunes.

 

[John Morrow]

And Star Wars soundtracks for Star Wars games, naturally, is a given.

The soundtrack for Wing Commander is actually pretty good for Science Fiction games, too. A lot of people write off the soundtracks for movies like Dungeons and Dragons, Kull, Wing Commander, Hardware, King Arthur, etc. because the movies were either mediocre, dull, or even awful. But some pretty awful movies have some really great soundtracks for gaming purposes and, if you're luckly, your players won't recognize it or associate it with the movie.

iTunes can also be useful here because it lets you buy specific tracks off of soundtracks--on the fly, too, if you've got a broadband connection. They don't have everything but it can be useful for picking and choosing or filling in.

As an FYI, Basil Pouledoris was heavily inspired by Sergei Prokovievs' Alexander Nevsky for Conan and it's worth listening to.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

but in "A Knight's Tale" I think it was purposefully done to be a bit on the silly side.

There was an interview a ways back that revealed it was an attempt to translate the atmosphere of a joust to modern sporting terms, to better explain it to Joe Bubba Football Fan. Same with the dance.

Regardless, I found it one of the most gratifying things ever. I keep toying with the idea of doing rock FanSub soundtracks of both Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

 

[Dextolen]

There have been some good suggestions.

I would add (for 'fantasy')

Vas (indian and middle eastern)
Last Temptation of Christ Sntrck (Peter Gabriel's score. Avoiding the controversy of the movie! Has syth drums which sound too clean in bits but there are some outstanding tracks)
Tears of the Sun Sountrack - A Hans Zimmer soundtrack that DOESN'T sound like Gladiator.
Dune: Children of Dune Sntrck - Awesome and varied. The singer from Vas does a track or two.
For "Modern"

Fluke
Crystal Method
The Insider Soundtrack (eerie at times)
Rob Dougan

 

[Desdichado]

However, when it comes to my tastes, I'm the standard heterosexual "fag."

That's how I've always described my tastes; I like Erasure and Pet Shop Boys, frinstance. But not while gaming.

 

[diaglo]

Just wondering what others think about background music during game play. Personally I like it, providing that it doesn't distract. Last session our DM played Midnight Syndicate's Official RPG Soundtrack and I thought it added a nice touch. Any opinions about other "made for D&D" music? Any suggestions for other musical selections?

also use Icewind Dales CD... the freebie one with music that came with the Computer Game.

 

[sjmiller]

Whenever this topic comes up I am always fascinated by it. Back in my early days of gaming (late 70s and early 80s) we used to play albums or tapes of our favorite music while playing. Not terribly loud, but enough to provide background noise. These days I run a game with 9 players, so there's plenty of noise to begin with, but the group has 3 professional musicians, 1 semi-professional, and all the rest are amateur musicians. This means that music tends to distract the group, to say the least.

What I am really wondering though, is how people who use music in their games actually use it. Is music playing all the time? Do you only play songs at particular moments? Do you play the whole song, or just snippets? If someone could describe their use of music in a game session from beginning to end, then maybe I can see why it is so popular with some groups. I just never saw the need for it, except to give you something to listen to when you are not part of the action.