Do you use music in your games to enhance them or do you consider it too cringeworthy?
>>44461503
Too cringeworthy by half.
>>44461503
I do.
>>44461503
Player here but I find having some soft melody or tune playing in the back ground in a tavern setting can be nice.
>>44461503
I tried it twice. Once it was for a Shadowrun game set in the world of music industry, and it worked well. The other time I tried generic epic music for fantasy battles and nobody cared about it.
Recently I played in a con game. Horror setting. The GM used the music very well to accentuate the feeling of the scenes, but I don't see how that could work in a regular game at home. Too much prep.
>>44461503
For the Star Wars campaign I GM, it can be great to set the mood, yeah. My GM is quite partial to using Professor Layton music to provide ambiance.
>>44461503
I'll have some ambient music, sort of normal tavern-style stuff. Not really connected to the game, just there to make the silences a bit less awkward.
>>44461503
Some soft background mood music is as far as I go. Something that loops seamlessly and isn't distracting is preferred.
Idiots who just toss up whatever random heavy metal song they thought would be cool during the boss fight are full fucking cringy, though.
>>44461503
>too cringeworthy?
How badly do you have to mess up with your music selection to evoke that response?
>>44461503
I occasionally play music for comical effect. I often play "shot through the heart" when players crit or kill an enemy with a rangend weapon. Having background music is a a bit distracting though.
>>44461745
You've never had a DM set the big fight against the BBEG to Linkin Park's "Crawling" and loop it continually until the fight ends?
You're lucky.
>>44461503
I've got a question:
How many of you have used ambient sound effects and background noise in the background?
Forest sounds as the PCs wander the wilderness, the Star Trek warp core for scifi games on a spaceship, tavern background noise, busy town streets, ect?
tabletopaudio.com and that's it.
For marketplaces, open seas, taverns etc.
In dungeon or out in the woods nah.
>>44461700
tabletopaudio.com
That's your prep done.
>>44461503
Depends on the game and the situation. For fantasy games, having music playing in the background when the party visits a town or sits down in a tavern can be really nice, but I prefer ventures into the wild without a band following the party.
For sci-fim, expecially cyberpunk, games, I see more of a point with constant music playing in the background, but it should be music that the players generally don't recognize, that sounds futuristic to give them a sense of "oh, so that's what people listen to in 2077", and should generally be instrumental. Stuff like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher work very well for futuristic bars and pubs, and instrumental hip hop works for the slums and ghettos.
But, and this is important, if the GM decides to put music in his games he shouldn't fiddle constantly with the playlist on the laptop. Whatever mood would be gained from having the music playing is instantly lost as soon as the GM turns away his attention from the game to switch tracks. Prepare and make playlists for whatever situation that might require music and only switch playlists or stop the music when appropiate. Otherwise, keep the computer out of sight and out of mind.
>>44461854
>Generic crap: the site
Exactly what I don't want.
I've tried it before, and it seemed to complex and fiddly... I know there is probably a better way to manage it, so that's why I'm interested in this thread, but I couldn't find long tracks that looped seamlessly, it was a big immersion breaking bit when searching for thematically appropriate songs, and even when grouping them into thematic playlists, one track of "mysterious tunnel" music would be so off theme, it just felt jarring, so I'd have to click next over and over on the playlist to find the "mysterious tunnel" track that matched the "wondrous, but just a tad spooky, though not immediately dangerous" ambiance I was going for.
>>44461947
>But, and this is important, if the GM decides to put music in his games he shouldn't fiddle constantly with the playlist on the laptop. Whatever mood would be gained from having the music playing is instantly lost as soon as the GM turns away his attention from the game to switch tracks. Prepare and make playlists for whatever situation that might require music and only switch playlists or stop the music when appropiate. Otherwise, keep the computer out of sight and out of mind.
That completely describes the issue I had with it as a GM.
It feels like I need to custom tailor hour long versions of every track for every situation.
>>44461795
>>44461854
This sounds interesting though. I'm just looking at it right now, does it address issues of not having annoying sound loops and not breaking ambiance? Or is it just a database of samples of ambient sound?
>>44461784
I do. There's a surprisingly amount of tracks on youtube dedicated to STALKER/the Zone ambience, and it's come in handy often.
>>44462240
See tunnels and general exploration is one of those places where I don't think music really works. It's preferable, at least to me, if the music can be assumed to be something that the character's are actually hearing at that time.
That said, if you really want ambient music playing during spellunking, you are gonna have to tailor playlists for it beforehand. Make sure to listen to the songs from start to finish and only include the ones that fit the theme you're going for. Don't feel compelled to add songs just because "I only have three tracks so far." That's not gonna result in anything but you having a playlist full of songs that don't express what you want them to express.
The biggest hurdle to get through, though, is to stop worrying so damn much about it. If the game is compelling no one is gonna notice that tracks don't flow into each other seamlessly.
>>44463174
Well, I used that as an example, but I can dig the advice that making huge playlists for the sake of huge playlists isn't totally helpful.
I feel like it's a bit awkward without the ambiance, but I feel like most things require me to be so hands-on that they also jolt the mood too because it's like, 10 seconds (if I'm on the ball) to choose, "perfect white noise optionally coupled by non-invasive background music" I looked at tabletopaudio.com since it was linked in the thread, and I kinda liked the idea of the soundboards to easily start, stop, and fade nature sounds, but it feels like it is just 3/5 of the way to my perfect solution... a bit too feature bare; but that is also something delicate to balance with a tool you need to be able to handle as quick as possible, therefore forbidding bloating the UI with extraneous useless options.
>>44461745
In my last game session, the GM used music from Undertale, Metal Gear Rising, RWBY, and Dragonforce.
I was okay with it, but I'm sure that will trigger some of you.
I'm an audio engineer major so I take this shit really seriously.
I have it set up so that the music I want plays to everything. I even have my exact words synced to the music sometimes.
>>44461503
I use a set of light, non-repeating background music to set the tone.
I have one DM that uses battle music from old RPG games and sets it on repeat, it drives me fucking mad because he can't manage to make a single combat encounter that takes less than an hour.
i do when i'm running a game or if the gm suggests that one of us pick something, but i'll only play very long songs with no singing or sometimes ambient nature stuff, like the sound of rain and distant thunder or just waves on the shore. there's a lot it on youtube. we just put it on and let it go as background noise, as long as it's not too distracting.
>>44461766
I just threw up a little bit. Thanks for ruining my day, anon.
>>44461717
Same here. I just make a quick playlist of sonatas and suites, put it on in the background, and get to work.
>>44461766
>>44461766
>>44463735
>Metal Gear Rising
thats one good dm
>>44466272
That sounds like it could be cringe in its own right
>>44463735
I've never heard the music from any of those things, but something tells me that the Undertale songs wouldn't mesh well with the rest
>>44461766
Does anybody have "I really like that song" screencap?
>>44461506
I'm afraid I must agree.
I wish it wasn't, though.
So, while on the subject of music, does anyone have a troll victory song?
To be clear, this guy (a pirate) got captured and put in the worst prison on the world.
*2 months later*
Assuming he survives the coming fight (and none of the previously jailed NPCs die) he'll walk out with a mythical powerup, a captured pirate prince, the sword of the greatest pirate to live in the last 100 years, and all of his captured crew.
