I saw this posted on Facebook, but I’ll link to the YouTube video.
This is hilarious!
Tag Archives: Music
Background Music
Way back in the day we made mix tapes of Science Fiction and Fantasy movies and TV shows themes. Usually the “benign” songs were at the front of the tape, and the more energetic would come on at a tense moment in the game, or when we were in a fight.
Battle of the Mutara Nebula from Wrath of Khan, the “planet eater” theme from Star Trek TOS (That same theme was used in many episodes, I am not sure what its correct name is.), Aliens, Star Wars, classical music such as Mars by Holst. I am not a fan of metal music, so a lot of other players I have read about online, feel that metal is the right kind of mood music. That is true for them, for me, my tastes lies in classical style music. As always, Rule (-1): “If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.”
Recently I ran across Tabletop Audio, he also has a Google Plus page. He has free downloadable audio background sounds and music, that can also be played directly on his site. These would be great for an online game, if you had the bandwidth, or for an in-person game if you had a decent sound system. He also has a Patreon and a PayPal donate button. He also has something called Flattr, that I had never heard of, but is another way to make donations to content creators.
The way I keep buying new dice, books, and so forth, I am not able to add a donation at this time, but soon. I am going to be working from home soon, as they decided to close our office of three employees. Once I start seeing the savings in gasoline, I can afford a bit here and there for content creators I admire and more importantly, for whom I use their stuff.
Music To Enhance Play
Long ago, we used music from movies and TV shows to serve as the soundtrack to our gaming sessions. We had cassette tapes we bought, and then put together our “favorite songs to game by”. Fast forward to 2009 and CDs and MP3 players and Computers make it easier to mix the songs together. Someone with more time on their hands could add the sound effects of wind, rain, lightning, charging hoards of monsters, etc. for the DM to kick off at the appropriate time.While that would be nice, to me that is just more prep time for the DM. If there was a standard “library” with an easy to use program to key it off at the right time so game play is not interrupted, it would work for me. Just setting the scene with the appropriate music and letting the group’s imagination take over works wonders.
We just set the music and let it run, as we do not want to spend time juggling tapes/CDs to interrupt the flow of the game. It is amazing how we seem to end up in a fight when the music is appropriate. Sometimes the DM picks more ominous music than the players want to listen to, so we players would have our own tapes/CDs to raise our spirits a bit.
Favorites for us then and now are many of the Star Trek songs used in the original TV series, the “Planet Eater” music was used in many of the original episodes, but it does serve to build tension. “Wrath of Khan” has a good soundtrack. “Aliens” is good too. “Star Wars”, and most things by John Williams can fit the bill. Classical music also fits the bill such as “Mars” from “The Planets” by Holst, “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, “Night on Bald Mountain”, etc.
What music or other mood enhancers do you use in your games?