BiggusGeekus said:
We either play techo (DJ John Kelly) or movie soundtracks.
Whoa. You listen to DJ John Kelly? This is going to sound weird, but I actually know the guy. He's usually often touring and doing the DJ scene in various cities, but I see him a few times here and there. Next time I see him, I'll tell him he has some fans in the RPG community.
FYI: And I don't think he'll mind if I tell you guys this, but he plays RPGs too. Mostly GURPS though, because that's the system our usual GM Chris uses for his games.
But back on topic:
I actually find
Lord of the Rings to be a not-so-friendly soundtrack for gaming. True, the soundtrack is awesome....but I put it in the same category as
Star Wars when it comes to game use. In other words, both soundtracks are difficult to use in gaming sessions.
The reason why is that the composer had written the score to be very precise along with the emotions of the scenes. Doing this makes the score very specific to just the original movie. Which....doesn't help your game.
Example: If a certain track is written specifically for a certain scene...then it will hit the 'high's and 'lows' of that scene. A good battle tune maybe going on for the first two minutes, then all of a sudden it will dip to calm music because in the movie the scene had cut to some other characters someplace else doing something non-combat related. So, you put this track on while your players are in battle, then in the middle of moment when one of you is rolling to slice the Orc Chief's head....the music (instead of continuing) suddenly calms down and changes tone.
To me, the best Soundtracks are the ones that have track selections that can be easily cued up for specific needs and the track is...from start to finish....all the same mood / tone.
During my
Street Fighter campaign...I found soundtracks like
Black Rain and
Backdraft to be great for this.
For D&D, I find even video game soundtrack to be just about the best for your game. Why? Because the music is written in such a way that it lends itself for constant looping. You can hit track #5 and just hit 'repeat' until the battle is over. Or...until the love scene is over. Or whatever. I actually use the
Warcraft III soundtrack a lot. Since soundtracks to American video games aren't sold regularly in stores....I do resort to some Japanese games or anime. If I could get a hold of a CD with the
Diablo II soundtrack....I would be in heaven.
Also, sometimes certain soundtracks are great for games even though you hated the movie. Or if the movie has nothing to do with the fantasy genre. Don't just look at fantasy movies for soundtracks. Or only look at movies you like. While
Waterworld wasn't a big hit with most of you....the soundtrack is awesome and I use it in my library of bg music during my games. I hear the soundtrack to
First Knight is also good game music despite the fact that the movie blew rotten donkey arse.
