Cue the Choir (Final Battle music)
Ulrick
First Post
I once played "Call of Ktulu" and "Master of Puppets" from Metallica's S&M Album in an epic battle with a final bad guy in one of my campaigns.
A few neat things about these songs on S&M:
1. They play back to back--you don't have to do any switching what so ever. The songs are also long--appropriate for D&D combat.
2. "Call of Ktulu" is very brooding at first and soon sounds more and more desperate as it picks up speed.
3. "Master of Puppets" is appropriate because well...the final bad guy has been pulling the PCs strings for the entire campaign.
4. The songs are recorded live in concert. The audience shouting can sound very similiar to people screaming. In fact, when I used these song, the main villain was destroying a city and causing mass panic.
5. Heavy Metal mixed with Classic Symphony Orchestra music has an incredible "epic" feel to it.
I also like to play selections from Rammstein.
A few neat things about these songs on S&M:
1. They play back to back--you don't have to do any switching what so ever. The songs are also long--appropriate for D&D combat.
2. "Call of Ktulu" is very brooding at first and soon sounds more and more desperate as it picks up speed.
3. "Master of Puppets" is appropriate because well...the final bad guy has been pulling the PCs strings for the entire campaign.
4. The songs are recorded live in concert. The audience shouting can sound very similiar to people screaming. In fact, when I used these song, the main villain was destroying a city and causing mass panic.
5. Heavy Metal mixed with Classic Symphony Orchestra music has an incredible "epic" feel to it.
I also like to play selections from Rammstein.
I would say it depends on the enemy and the PCs- but then, I have a huge music collection converted to mp3, and nearly always have a line of albums and favorite tracks queued up to play when I'm running a game.
But here's an example. {WARNING: Spoilers for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and Age of Worms ahead!} One of my current games features a mostly Evil-aligned party bent on taking down a mysterious Cult of a Dark God, for which I have combined elements from Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil with elements of the Kyuss religion glimpsed in Age of Worms. >
< The battle took us an entire session, plus an hour in a second session, to run, and through it all I had theme music playing in the background. For this battle, I went with various tracks from the Kill Bill soundtracks; the idea of showdown between two evil forces seemed uniquely appropriate and set a suitably epic mood for my mind.
Other times, I've used tracks from the boss monsters of Final Fantasy games, Secret of Mana and Legend of Mana, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, and various other movie and game STs that seemed to fit the situation in the game well. I can get behind any or all of the recommendations from posters above, under the correct circumstances. Conan scores are a perennial favorite for any fantasy game, Carmina Burana is perfect for dark fantasy, horror, and just about anything involving demons or other fiends, and others all have their niche. Ulrick's note about the crowd noise from Symphony and Metallica evoking the BBEG's destruction in a city is a perfect example of this sort of theming.
But here's an example. {WARNING: Spoilers for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and Age of Worms ahead!} One of my current games features a mostly Evil-aligned party bent on taking down a mysterious Cult of a Dark God, for which I have combined elements from Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil with elements of the Kyuss religion glimpsed in Age of Worms. >
The last session was entirely occupied by a battle wherein the party started their second assault on the Black Spike; the Triad and the Doomdreamers were expecting them to come fairly soon but not with precise timing. The party teleported into the Inner Fane crater, and found it filled practically to the brim with Kyussian undead of various stripes. I pulled the Ulgurstasta Sorcerer and its attendant Earthcancer Centipedes and Mindkiller Scorpions from Into the Wormcrawl Fissure, added three advanced Ulgurstastas using the stats for the Apostle of Kyuss from The Champion's Belt, and added over 300 generic Spawn of Kyuss mainly to occupy the area-effect blaster mages.
Other times, I've used tracks from the boss monsters of Final Fantasy games, Secret of Mana and Legend of Mana, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, and various other movie and game STs that seemed to fit the situation in the game well. I can get behind any or all of the recommendations from posters above, under the correct circumstances. Conan scores are a perennial favorite for any fantasy game, Carmina Burana is perfect for dark fantasy, horror, and just about anything involving demons or other fiends, and others all have their niche. Ulrick's note about the crowd noise from Symphony and Metallica evoking the BBEG's destruction in a city is a perfect example of this sort of theming.
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Mark Hope said:
Let me second "Battle of the Mounds" from the Conan soundtrack. Basil Pouledoris makes the D&D music for my games, although I admit a small dose of Uematsu.
You might also consider giving the Children of Dune soundtrack a listen too, especially "the Jihad." Very sweeping, heroic feel to it. Now that Pouledoris has left us, Brian Tyler is my next choice for the guy I'd hire to do the soundtrack for my fantasy movies.
The soundtrack to Troy is surprsingly good for D&D music too, although I have mixed feelings about the movie itself. "Achilles leads the Myrmidons" and "the Greek Army and its Defeat" are good epic battle pieces.
The music from the various Silent Hill games is also of use to me. It has a creepy, moody atmosphere that's good for exploring dungeons or haunted ruins, it often makes me think of the Temple of Elemental Evil.
thedungeondelver
Adventurer
Torment said:
Hot damn! I've hit name level! I'm attracting followers! Woooo!
JVisgaitis
Explorer
I love Conan the Barbarian don't get me wrong its perfect, but its way overplayed. I would go with something not as well known. I've been on a huge Hans Zimmer kick recently. He did music for Gladiator and The Last Samurai and his stuff is very moody. There's also an album I stumbled on recently on iTunes called Varese Sarabande A 25th Anniversary Celebration (25 Years of Great Film Music) that sounds cool.
Expanding beyond the pure "BBEG-fight themes," Hans Zimmer also did The DaVinci Code, and regardless of how you may feel about the movie or its subject matter, the music on its own is very good- I've used it several times during an "investigation" session when the PCs are trying to solve a mystery, using lots of Divination spells, or otherwise gather information in ways other than going out and actually using the Gather Information skill.
