How do I select background music for my fantasy RPG campaign?

Question

Music is an essential component of my games. When running games set in the Star Wars universe, the music of John Williams adds a new dimension to the experience, both for me and for my players. Now that I'm starting a fantasy campaign, I'm a bit more uncertain about which music to use.

How do I create a soundtrack suitable for using in a fantasy campaign?

Specifically:

• What sort of characteristics make for good back ground music? What makes for bad background music?

• What should I look for to get a fantasy feel? Which genres/sub-genres support fantasy games?

• What are good sources for fantasy background music?

A few notes:

• Because the music will be used in the background of game sessions, most of the tracks should be one minute or longer, to avoid repetitive loops.
• Likewise, soundtracks with a variety of themes are preferred, so that they can easily support different modes of the game: exploration, combat, and chases, to name a few.
• Orchestral or acoustic music is preferred over music with vocals or electric instruments.

Answer 1

I am quiet fond of computer game music. It loops nicely, generally is quiet good, and has many themes similar to your game. You can get your travel, spooky, hide and sneak, and of course, combat.

Examples would be Dragon Age (1 and 2), Assassin's Creed (2 and brotherhood), Europa Universalis 3 (although this one maybe a little more renaissance), Jade Empire, Overlord (1 and 2), The Witcher (1 and 2).

How to choose: Pick a game that has similar themes to the scene(s) you want to portrait and use that. Wikipedia or IGN or countless of other sites will give you the synopsis of the game. Game selling sites are good as they give you a break down by genre.

So, if I wanted to run scenes in a haunted house, I would pick something from Silent Hill for the creepy parts and one for the boss fights from Resident Evil for the big fight scene.

One thing to avoid, or rather to be aware of: Some music are so keyed to some settings/character that playing it will generate out of character comments/conversations/out of character knowledge. Just try introducing a Paladin to The Imperial March from Star Wars and watch as neither PC nor players trust him/her ever.

Answer 2

There are some good posts on this at Gnome stew:

• RPG Background Music: 41 Awesome Soundtracks
• More Awesome RPG Background Music: 58 Reader Favorites and New Discoveries

It mainly focuses on movie and game soundtracks which are often a good bet, as they are designed to evoke emotions of a certain type (chase, explore etc) and not overpower the action. I'd also throw in recommendations for Midnight Syndicate and Nox Arcana there, though they tend to be quite dark and not suitable for all situations.

Answer 3

A couple of years ago, D&D got it's own official soundtrack made by Midnight Syndicate, I think their music in general should fit your needs.

Answer 4

add to your collection

While I can't use them (any background music makes it hard for me to understand my players), I'll recommend several I've found useful for pre-game mood setting:

Tangerine Dream's music is excellent; the best known piece is "Geometry of Shadows" - the main title for Babylon 5. The Bab5 sound track is a good start, but their other albums are equally as useful. And not all of it is instantly "OOH! Babylon 5!"

For religious settings, there are good collections of religious chant; some is online for free. The Presov Choir (http://www.grkat.nfo.sk/eng/music.html) has some Byzantine-Slavonic chant. While vocal, it's excellent, mellow, and mood-setting. Much gregorian is available as well, but the professional recordings are much clearer, and not terribly pricey. ($9 at B&N last I checked.)

Look for "English Country Dancing" music for that renaissance feel. Most of it is actually late medieval, but carried forth into the Renaissance, and was written down then. That the music matches the description given in the older notations of the dances establishes this. The estabished reference is John Playford; many artists have recorded his collection in whole or part.

New England Dancing Masters has several excellent collections of similar folk dance from New England; the steps and terms are the same as English Country Dance, and the music closely related. Chimes of Dunkirk is excellent for Renaissance mood-setting. (I use these at work, but have borrowed disks occasionally to use to mood-set for writing adventures.)

For Spirit of the Century and other games set in the early 20th Century, Glenn Miller sets the big band quite well - it's 1938-on. Herb Alpert and the Tiajuanna Brass is from the 60's and 70's, but harkens back to the Big Band era as well - many players will think it older, and it's pretty good for 60's and 70's stuff.

Carlos Santana has excellent music as well, and a lot of it instrumental.

Find several electronica collections; Russia Electrochestvoi is an old favorite. Lots of Russian classics done on synths.

Anything by Mike Oldfield is good; much of it for an X-files kind of feel. Be warned, tho: Tubular Bells is notorious Trip-toy music, is musically all over the place, and the CD has two tracks... and is a full CD of music.

Avoid

I'll also mention several to avoid:

Wagner's Ring cycle, Holst's The Planets symphony & Vivaldi's Four Seasons. EVERYONE regonizes them, and lots of people have various movies and TV shows mentally associated with them.

The Music of Star Trek as it's just too heavily associated with Trek. Unless, of course, you're running Trek.

Star Wars sound tracks have the same issue as Trek: most of gamerdom has strong associations with the source, making them useful only for that setting.

Monty Python sound track recordings... tends to trigger silly MP moments. "He's Bleeding Dead Already!"

Answer 5

Selection

The two factors I look for when choosing campaign music are mood and lack of disruption. Though mood is critical, but I won't delve into that here, because it depends so heavily on preference and situation.

Lack of disruption:

• First, avoid music with vocals. Having another voice going on in the background makes it almost impossible for my group to talk to each other. We tried just turning the music down, but voice is usually the most prominent part of pop/rock music. No matter how far we turned it down, the vocals were always more noticeable than the music.
• Second, avoid music that is too abrupt. While I love music with sudden changes, in this case the soundtrack should serve as a background, not the foreground. Choose for ambiance, not for catchiness.

Use of Music

Music can add a lot to a scene, but can be a chore to manage. I sparingly choose music for specific events that I want to highlight. Some good times to use music:

• A special place or setting. For example, the adventurers have stumbled into an buried shrine, painstakingly crafted to please an ancient god. A piece of music can give a unique feel and attachment much better than me saying "this place is unspeakably beautiful."
• An important character or moment. The adventurers enter the throne room of the demented king. As they finally come face to face with the object of their quest, music could highlight the tension hanging in the air - this is their chance.

---

Specific recommendation:

I've had some success using the "String Quartet Tribute to _" line of albums. Some are better than others, but they fit that blend of "sounds cool" and "not obtrusive".

Answer 6

I would recommend starting with one or two tracks that you already know and like that you think are suitable, then use any of the number of music services such as Spotify, Last.Fm, Pandora or Musicovery that can provide further suggestions based on these tracks.

The reason I suggest this rather than a specific playlist is that they provide you with the ability to browse artists, songs and albums that are related to the music that you and your players like.

So if you know of a track that is particularly fitting that you want to use, you can use this track as a base to explore a huge library of similar music and build your own playlists.

I've discovered so many new artists and mood tracks for use in my own campaigns by using these tools. Even if you just use these services to find music before buying the tracks on CD, or via another library such as iTunes, it's a great way to find and explore tracks.

(Nod to @wax eagle for the Pandora service).

Answer 7

For my own games, I've found that the orchestral versions of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd work very well as baseline soundtracks. (High action fantasy and dreamy surrealism, respectively.) From there, I tend to go with ambient music like Scorn or C17H19NO3 for horror games, new age like David Arkenstone (fantasy), Dead Can Dance (fantasy horror), or Sheila Chandra (for Middle Eastern-flavor); and electronica (Juno Reactor, VNV Nation, and Cruciform Injection) for cyberpunk themed games.

Anime soundtracks can also work well. Christopher Franke (of the Babylon 5 soundtracks mentioned above) did one of the Tenchi Muyo soundtracks, which I have used for space opera styled games. And since there's all manner of genres represented in anime, you can pick and choose from there. 80's-flavored cyberpunk? Bubblegum Crisis. Gritty, street level future games? Ghost in the Shell. Jazzy space? Cowboy Bebop.

Personally, I use soundtracks that suggest something to me, and I let that carry through from there. If it inspires some idea from listening, I can use it in my games. For instance, I really liked the ominous aspects of the main theme in Broken Arrow, so I tended to use it in some of my games to foreshadow a confrontation with a main villain in games. I liked the battle sequences in Alexander, Troy and Conan, so I used those soundtracks for war-themed fantasy games.

Answer 8

I feel there are some things missing, especially concerning movie soundtracks. While I admit that some of thes (say LotR OST) will be only useful for a specific setting due to very strong connotation, others are very brilliant for general fantasy type RPGs:

• Kingdom of Heaven
• Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves
• The Pillars of the Earth (BBC mini series)
• Stardust (2007)