Music and D&D thread • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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Music and D&D thread
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invincibleoverlord
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Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:10 pm

Continued from Nev's How to determine if something will keep its value Thread conversation that went astray mostly due to me. Sorry Nev -

Re-post of last post-

grodog wrote:

(gotta love Warrior on the Edge of Time and Chronicle of the Black Sword, both heavily influence by Moorcock)

And

When I need really dark music I pull out Glenn Danzig's Black Aria

Some of my favorites too!

I especially love old Hawk Wind for reading. There's nothing like some wizard's smoke, a vintage gaming book, my zero-gravity chair, and Warrior on the Edge of Time to take the "edge" off that bad day.

The Conan movie soundtrack is a nice treat as well for background music.

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Ralf Toth
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Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:55 pm

invincibleoverlord wrote:The Conan movie soundtrack is a nice treat as well for background music.

Movie soundtracks and certain classical music albums are great background music for gaming. For example, I liked to use the opening track of Kubrick's Shining when the party arrived at an unholy place. The music alone is scary, even more so, if the players know the movie.

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Xaxaxe
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Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:03 pm

Man, I love a good soundtrack, especially those with "heroic" sounding music.

However, I found one major problem with using soundtracks in gaming sessions: many of us RPG-types are all also very media-savvy and hip to pop culture. Recognizable music has the potential to turn a gaming session into a debate on the merits of various movies.

Thus, playing "The Imperial March" to introduce a major villain will instead result in the players discussing Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back.

Playing the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" theme during a chase scene or a dramatic finale will have the same obvious consequences.

The following are also right out: Conan; Lord of the Rings (any of the three); Blade Runner; any TV theme, no matter how cool; any and all sounds that could possibly be associated with Monty Python; and Gladiator.

Lesser-known soundtracks and/or most classical music usually works a lot better, though. It depends on the group.

Or maybe me and my group are just a bunch of pop-culture slaves. :lol:

grodog
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Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 2:11 pm

Here's my post from Nev's thread:

grodog wrote:
Deadlord36 wrote:I'm curious: Does anyone else put on tunes during D&D? If so, what music? If it's Poison, please don't answer.

Depends on the evening's game and focus of activity, actually: any given night could include dark and haunting music from early Tangerine Dream (Rubycon, Zeit), early Pink Floyd ("One of These Days" or "Meddle"), old Yes (great for elven music), authentic medieval/renaissance music (lutes, harps, harpsicords, etc.), choral (medieval monks, Chanticleer), dark pop (Porcupine Tree's later work, Black Box Recorder), etc. Depends on what's going on and the game that we're playing.

On the metal front, I've variously used AC/DC, Queensryche, 'Maiden, Rush (nothing like a little 2112 Overture to kick off a combat!), Hawkwind (gotta love Warrior on the Edge of Time and Chronicle of the Black Sword, both heavily influence by Moorcock), etc.

When I need really dark music I pull out Glenn Danzig's Black Aria, Godspeed You Black Emperor (and related bands), Soulmatrix, King Crimson ("Devil's Triangle" from In the Wake of Poseidon), and such. I only use these for special occasions like the summoning of Demogorgon, the activation of a monstrous artifact, the opening of miles-wide gates to Limbo, etc.

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Kingofpain89
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 3:32 am

Xaxaxe wrote:Man, I love a good soundtrack, especially those with "heroic" sounding music.

However, I found one major problem with using soundtracks in gaming sessions: many of us RPG-types are all also very media-savvy and hip to pop culture. Recognizable music has the potential to turn a gaming session into a debate on the merits of various movies.

Lesser-known soundtracks and/or most classical music usually works a lot better, though. It depends on the group.

There are a few not-so-well known soundtracks that might be usable in such a situation. "Stargate" by David Arnold and "The 13th Warrior" by Jerry Goldsmith. The soundtrack for "Troy" is also good and most people wont recognize it. And for anyone running a Traveller, Transhuman Space, or Star Frontiers campaign the soundtrack from Wing Commander is awesome. Just dont buy the movie. :wink:

Traveller
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 9:52 pm

Hey, I didn't think Wing Commander was all that bad. It didn't stick true to the first Wing Commander game, but software and books are pretty much in the same boat: movie companies make "adjustments" to each to sell more tickets.

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a2jeff
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 10:07 pm

Great call on Danzig Black Aria, I thought they were just metal and remember that great song Mother on the 1st album. I listened to samples of Black Aria today that that's some great stuff!!

Kingofpain89
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 10:20 pm

Don't get me wrong...I thought Chris Roberts did a pretty decent job with what he had. I felt his choice of actors was the major flaw. I thought he could have made a much better movie using the actors he used in the video games. Instead of Freddie Prinze Jr, Matthew Lillard, and Saffron Burrows he should have used Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson (Biff from Back to the Future) and Ginger Lynn Allen.

To be clear, I own both the soundtrack and the movie. I paid $15 for the soundtrack and $10 for the movie. I definitely got my money's worth out of the soundtrack. Could be worse though...it could have been like the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Neither the movie nor the soundtrack were particularly memorable.

Theleb
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 10:30 pm

KingOfPain wrote:Could be worse though...it could have been like the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Neither the movie nor the soundtrack were particularly memorable.

You mean you didn't like the D&D rap techno song?
duh-duh-duh-duh-dungeons and dragons!

Kingofpain89
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 10:41 pm

D&D rap song? Bwahahahahaha!!! Let me guess, the DJ that did that also did the techno remix of the Sesame Street theme?

*shudder* :lol:

belial418
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 9:50 pm

Here is my music list I rec.-to chk out:

Gladiator sndtrk
Man-O-War (old stuff like "Dark Avenger" and "Sign of the Hammer" good 80's flashback cheesey metal)
Cirith Ungol ("One foot in hell/King of the Dead--warning, singers voice can only be tolerated for short periods of time before someone complains as they fall to the floor holding thier eardrums closed)
Midnight Syndicate has a couple cool tunes
Believe it or not, some video games for the PC have cool soundtraks (Baldurs gate/Never winter nights/theElder Scrolls:Morrowind etc)[/b]

Zenopus
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 9:56 am

There's a line from a song, Brouhaha, from the latest Beastie Boys album that goes:

"Just back from Japan and ooh I'm laggin'

Goin' rao rao with the dungeon dragon"

(If I recall correctly it's Mike D with these lyrics)

Blackmoor
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 12:34 pm

zhowar1 wrote:There's a line from a song, Brouhaha, from the latest Beastie Boys album that goes:

"Just back from Japan and ooh I'm laggin'

Goin' rao rao with the dungeon dragon"

(If I recall correctly it's Mike D with these lyrics)

I use the screams and crying of my small children (6 and 2). Great backgound noise when playing Ravenloft :lol:

Fight noises are realistic as well :!:

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Deadlord
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 1:14 pm

Cannibal Corpse works well for mass undead battles.

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arconom
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Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:27 pm

Use the Morrowind OST for dungeons, the Naruto OST for wandering around (causing mischief and battles), the Hellsing OST (for vampires), Soul Coughing (for weird stuff), Final Fantasy battle music (for nostalgia)

Lordan
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Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 2:54 pm

The Last of the Mohicans Soundtrack I would highly recommend.

Love to pop in anything Marillion/Pink Floyd but people generally gripe at anything with vocals

Picked up a CD from some guy named Vond ( Slipp Sorgen Los ). Kinda a weirdo but this CD is really great for atmosphere.

even made a CD of various zone music from Everquest

- someday I'll get aroung to posting on the "introduce yourself" board.......

7ambo
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Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 3:41 am

Well met,
I've enjoyed reading this forum as I've been searching for good and unique music to game by. Great suggestions! Just wanted to share that I came across radiorivendell.com. I've listened for the last half an hour and its amazing and has a few of the songs noted in this thread. Great to play in the background hands free

grodog
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Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 1:05 pm

Daimajin wrote:Love to pop in anything Marillion/Pink Floyd but people generally gripe at anything with vocals

Large sections of Grendel and Echoes are very worthwhile for D&D games, with the vocals

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