For Dungeon Masters who like to use a lot of music, don't be afraid to use music from movies, even the more popular themes. Music is a very powerful tool for story telling and being able to define a mood or set a scene with one theme is an incredible ability that is usually hard to perfect. By using a song from a movie with a similar scenario in your campaign, you are quickly defining the setting for your players.
I'll use Jurassic Park as an example since it's the last movie I watched. A lot of the less well-known themes in the movie have a very ominous jungle sound and would work very well for the ruins of a jungle society or a dungeon overrun with greenery. I especially recommend the opening theme for this. And if you're using dinosaurs in your campaign, use the Jurassic Park theme. It will immediately communicate to the players that they will be encountering beautiful dinosaurs in the upcoming scenes.
That's just one example. If you want a big battle finale with your players feeling like super heroes, use the Avengers theme. If you're players are sneaking into a castle or something similar, use the Mission Impossible theme. It may seem cheap but your players will love to here their favorite music in their campaign. If used right, it can even make their own actions seem cooler. These gigantic orchestral numbers were made for adventures. Don't be shy to implement music you really like.
Music composed for video games often works better than movie scores, imo. It's composed to loop, so as long as the players are in such and such town it keeps playing along in the background. Also, it doesn't have big moments built in that are easy to mistime or inappropriate for what's happening with your players.
When I do use movie music, I usually do some crate digging and try to find different bits and pieces from one composer over different movies, so there's some continuity. For example, I really wanted Hans Zimmer's "Supermarine," from the Dunkirk soundtrack to be playing when my players used a war blimp to fight a dragon. So when I was thinking about the scene where they ask the Duke to let them use the blimp, I also found something from his score for House of the Spirits. And then for the scene where they steal the blimp because the Duke said no, something Zimmer wrote for the HBO miniseries, The Pacific. Spotify has been a godsend in that regard. It's super easy to look up a composer's catalog and browse around.
I second the use of Video Game music, it is very easy to loop. For perspective I tried to loop a specific song from Alien Isolation using the soundtrack I found online. After several failed attempts I just loaded up the game and went to that part of the game where the song is, and fought off the alien for 20 minutes with no audio queues but the music playing and recording in Audacity.
But one thing I would add to this conversation to all DMs, please for the love of Gygax, USE MUSIC IN YOUR GAME! I have popped into so many DnD streams on twitch and them not using music is such a turn off, because I am less informed about the situation they are in. Most of us are not professional actors, we need help getting people (the players included) into the correct headspace to imagine what is going on.
Think about it this way. If you have played Alien Isolation, try and think about it without the music or the ambient sounds. It is so much less creepy then it other wise would be.
Remeber the more of the 5 senses you work into your game, the more immersed your players will be. Clearly smell, touch, and taste are harder. Sight can be solved with some visual aids. But sound is by far the easiest, all you gotta do is loop a song that fits the situation. There are plenty of 30 minute loops on Youtube you can use. It is my personal belief that the day I started using music, my games took a huge level up.
So, as your party is traveling through the woods, (dice roll,) oh. Just a sec. (Cues theme song from Jaws.) as I was saying, nothing seems to be going on, a pretty boring day...
Another great movie for theme music is the Omen, especially when someone is calling on dark powers.
Other soundtracks to consider: forest Gump & anything from Tarantino. "Stuck in the middle with you" makes for a great background tune during an average combat.
Keep your volume low though. The music should help set the scene, not overpower it.
Yeah, everything is cool, but what about royalty rights? I guess it's better to use a special video editor with licensed music. I use crello for this. It has a lot cool functions and lit tracks
I love using videogame and movie music, but my group streams our game on Twitch, so we can't use copyrighted music normally. That said, any time a game isn't streaming, I usually make a spotify playlist that I use for music. I had a ton of fun for a Christmas one-shot where I used a bunch of different versions of "Come Rest ye Merry Gentlemen" as a sort of leitmotif for the whole adventure and capped it all off with Trans-Siberian Orchestra for a suitably epic finale.
For Dungeon Masters who like to use a lot of music, don't be afraid to use music from movies, even the more popular themes. Music is a very powerful tool for story telling and being able to define a mood or set a scene with one theme is an incredible ability that is usually hard to perfect. By using a song from a movie with a similar scenario in your campaign, you are quickly defining the setting for your players.
I'll use Jurassic Park as an example since it's the last movie I watched. A lot of the less well-known themes in the movie have a very ominous jungle sound and would work very well for the ruins of a jungle society or a dungeon overrun with greenery. I especially recommend the opening theme for this. And if you're using dinosaurs in your campaign, use the Jurassic Park theme. It will immediately communicate to the players that they will be encountering beautiful dinosaurs in the upcoming scenes.
That's just one example. If you want a big battle finale with your players feeling like super heroes, use the Avengers theme. If you're players are sneaking into a castle or something similar, use the Mission Impossible theme. It may seem cheap but your players will love to here their favorite music in their campaign. If used right, it can even make their own actions seem cooler. These gigantic orchestral numbers were made for adventures. Don't be shy to implement music you really like.
Music composed for video games often works better than movie scores, imo. It's composed to loop, so as long as the players are in such and such town it keeps playing along in the background. Also, it doesn't have big moments built in that are easy to mistime or inappropriate for what's happening with your players.
When I do use movie music, I usually do some crate digging and try to find different bits and pieces from one composer over different movies, so there's some continuity. For example, I really wanted Hans Zimmer's "Supermarine," from the Dunkirk soundtrack to be playing when my players used a war blimp to fight a dragon. So when I was thinking about the scene where they ask the Duke to let them use the blimp, I also found something from his score for House of the Spirits. And then for the scene where they steal the blimp because the Duke said no, something Zimmer wrote for the HBO miniseries, The Pacific. Spotify has been a godsend in that regard. It's super easy to look up a composer's catalog and browse around.
I second the use of Video Game music, it is very easy to loop. For perspective I tried to loop a specific song from Alien Isolation using the soundtrack I found online. After several failed attempts I just loaded up the game and went to that part of the game where the song is, and fought off the alien for 20 minutes with no audio queues but the music playing and recording in Audacity.
But one thing I would add to this conversation to all DMs, please for the love of Gygax, USE MUSIC IN YOUR GAME! I have popped into so many DnD streams on twitch and them not using music is such a turn off, because I am less informed about the situation they are in. Most of us are not professional actors, we need help getting people (the players included) into the correct headspace to imagine what is going on.
Think about it this way. If you have played Alien Isolation, try and think about it without the music or the ambient sounds. It is so much less creepy then it other wise would be.
Remeber the more of the 5 senses you work into your game, the more immersed your players will be. Clearly smell, touch, and taste are harder. Sight can be solved with some visual aids. But sound is by far the easiest, all you gotta do is loop a song that fits the situation. There are plenty of 30 minute loops on Youtube you can use. It is my personal belief that the day I started using music, my games took a huge level up.
So, as your party is traveling through the woods, (dice roll,) oh. Just a sec. (Cues theme song from Jaws.) as I was saying, nothing seems to be going on, a pretty boring day...
Another great movie for theme music is the Omen, especially when someone is calling on dark powers.
Other soundtracks to consider: forest Gump & anything from Tarantino. "Stuck in the middle with you" makes for a great background tune during an average combat.
Keep your volume low though. The music should help set the scene, not overpower it.
Yeah, everything is cool, but what about royalty rights? I guess it's better to use a special video editor with licensed music. I use crello for this. It has a lot cool functions and lit tracks
Skyrim music is generally great for anything you might want to do with music in DnD, seriously one of the best game soundtracks of all time!
I love using videogame and movie music, but my group streams our game on Twitch, so we can't use copyrighted music normally. That said, any time a game isn't streaming, I usually make a spotify playlist that I use for music. I had a ton of fun for a Christmas one-shot where I used a bunch of different versions of "Come Rest ye Merry Gentlemen" as a sort of leitmotif for the whole adventure and capped it all off with Trans-Siberian Orchestra for a suitably epic finale.
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I love using music in games. Unfortunately, some of my players said they found it distracting over the VTT, so I stopped.
Shame... I had some cool evil music picked out for the BBEG....
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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