I’ve always loved having music going for my games. Whether it’s some soundtracks or just the classical music station on, I think it adds to the atmosphere and mood and can be very inspirational. And as we all know, gaming is one half mental masturbation and one half inspiration (or some compound mixture thereabouts). The few games I’ve sat down as a player in where the DM was against having at least some soft music on where generally sucky. Nothing worse than a quiet room and a boring, uninspiring Game Master.
The ambiance of the infamous Star Wars group I ran a few games for the other year was dominated by yapping, barking (and smelly) mutts and was seriously lacking in much needed music. The host(“ess”) would not even let me at least put on the soundtrack to my beloved Knights of the Old Republic video game to try and get the juices flowing (although I am sure she would have loved to have had the horrible prequels on TV in the background).
It may not be possible in every gaming situation to have good music going, but for our regular sessions at Andy’s house we have always appreciated some background mood. I used some video game soundtracks and other stuff, but that was a little limited. And Andy horned-in on the music with some much hyped computer set lists to play (which sometimes included some inappropriate stuff like Butthole Surfers). But we have really settled on Radio Rivendell going on his computer for our ambient sounds.
Radio Rivendell is an internet radio station created in Sweden and devoted to tunes for gaming. Streaming live 24/7, they play a great variety of orchestral, Irish music, neofolk, dark ambient, and video game soundtrack tracks (and hopefully in the future some tunes from me and the boys in the Bruno Band; we’re going to send in some samples that might make good tavern tunes). The music goes great with fantasy gaming, but I can see it working for my upcoming Knights of the Old Republic games pretty handily.
The first night we tried it was during some heavy underworld evil city combat, and the music playing was dark and dramatic and could not be more appropriate. Sure, it doesn’t always match the action, but it is always good.
Check it out and get a little music going to enhance your games.
