Choosing Music for TTRPGs

Mike offers tips and recommendations for using music during your tabletop roleplaying games.
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[@aaronandrighetti6153]

One of my favorite soundtracks for combat music is the extended version of the Darkest Dungeon soundtrack. Some awesome intense music in there. I also use music from the Bardify KZbin site a ton.

[@gvanbooven]

I am 100% with you on your three playlists. I also have a fourth, the Emotional playlist. It is different from the relaxing playlist in that I use it when PCs are having deep or impactful conversations and digging into important bits of their background. Any of the Elder Scrolls online OSTs are worth a listen. Not sure if you use ambient sound, but I'd like to shout out Michael Ghelfi Studios has all sorts of useful things from dungeon ambience to village and city sounds, docks, ships, swamps...lots more great stuff.

[@McCrackenVaughn]

Hey Mike, I just want to say that these shorter videos are awesome! Such a boon, because I can organize them and save them as separate entities rather than just taking notes on the entire podcast. Since my main campaign is online, I really take music in my game seriously because I try to take every opportunity to increase player engagement. That can be a struggle in online games. In fact, music selection has become a sort of trademark of my games, I get compliments on it constantly. If anyone wants additional tips, I’m happy to share, but I’ll just include my favorite way to use music: Give NPCs theme songs! I can’t understate how impactful this is. It’s so impactful that I’ve quizzed my players in a fun game by playing tracks and asking them which NPC it belonged to. They get 60-80% of them right, even two years after a campaign has ended!

[@vanexelfan]

how do you manage the NPC theme song? do you manually play the relevant song whenever they're interacting with that NPC? this is the kind of thing I would forget to do 95% of the time.

[@McCrackenVaughn]

@@vanexelfan I play them when they're introduced, and when they're speaking usually. I should've mentioned that I only do it for really important NPCs that are bound to appear often. Like 8-20 per campaign. That makes it not so hard to keep track of.

[@dbvelocity6508]

I happen to use a fourth category of music with the relaxing, suspense, and combat. Maybe there is a better name but I use music of a "somber" nature in aftermath of battle or in reverent settings. It especially fits as the session is at the end while cleaning up and everyone reflects on the events that unfolded. Love your channel and advice.

[@WafflestheJohn]

Video game soundtracks are definitely where it is at. I use a lot of the ones listed in the video as well as the music from Guild Wars and multiple of the Legend of Zelda games.

[@RuneGM]

Cold, dead, eyes by Wulfsiege is my go to album for ambient d&d music and im glad its not just me that uses the darktide music for my fantasy games

[@liammontgomery1825]

My GM for Pathfinder 2e pulled out some Pokemon battle music from one of the more recent games and it really surprised me how well it worked. Don't be afraid of going perhaps a bit out of the genre for the game you're running.

[@Pasta070]

My players voted to have music for our campaign, and I'm so glad they had. It's been great fun finding out how to play into having music. As rare as it is, try to find music that has multiple versions that build up on a single theme, such as most of the songs from Monster Hunter World. Having the slow build up when the players have the upper hand before combat, or successfully perceiving enemies around really helps set the mood and the minds on the encounter to be had. Another great use for the layered tracks like that is the ability to still surprise them with an even more complete track as a bigger baddie is summoned, or a more dire moment that helps clue the players into the fact that they might want to skedaddle

[@dmeep]

this is off topic but i was watching your rime of the frostmaiden prepp and you talked about gaining entry to the fortress via the underdark and as i have recently gotten my hands on ruins of the grendleroot does that book contain an adventure that would be a good fit for that purpose?

[@SavantApostle]

I would like to try an Infected Mushroom album in a high tech world. It would also be great for exploration.

[@Runehammer1]

my man with the Truth

[@viktordjambov1437]

IHaha I've got plenty, most coming from game ost too. Daytime Nighttime Dungeon Tavern Fight Boss fight and even a playlist called Prelude, which is lovely, it's the thing you play 1 or 2 songs of only just before and during initiative roll. Tension builds up, I write numbers down, and then we transition to the fight music

[@amessinger]

If you want easy TTRPG music that's also customizable, I've found SoundTale to be an underappreciated gem. No need to sift out soundtrack music with lyrics and keep carefully curated playlists, plus the transitions of mood and setting are nice and smooth. Best of all, it may be paid but it's *not* a subscription (and the one-time price is less than some services' monthly cost).

[@antonychames3327]

Great! Also Lineage II is full of Relaxing, Suspensefull and Villagey.

[@dungeonmaster2417]

Mike, check this guy out. You won't be disappointed. RPG Music Maker - Travis Savoie. Themed music brings a familiarity to a group when they enter the session and hear a themed background music. Awesome ambiance without lyrics.

[@zeugenberg]

And there I am, scripting Discord and Spotify together to handle my 30+ playlists.... Thanks for the Video :)

[@emessar]

Certain movie scores work really well also: Lord of the Rings, Conan, etc. I also like to include a Japanese drum band called Kodo in my combat music. Also, check in with your players to make sure they're cool with having music and that the volume is okay. We have a player with a hearing impairment and too much noise can make it hard for her to hear what's going on. I could also see it being an issue for people who are neurodivergent.

[@tescoplasticbag]

The skylanders spyros adventure soundtrack is quite good ttrpg music IMO

[@MySqueezingArm]

White Bat does royalty free cyberpunk style music

[@Granite-ny8up]

That's ruddy mysterious

[@matiej]

It would be so lazy from me to ask you for your playlists.. Can you share your playlists?

[@Deadshot15]

1000% The true Lazy DM way!! :)

[@junderlandgames1186]

Same here. Or at least give us some example lists.

[@margaretjones2585]

Just throw some Iron Maiden on 😋

[@dougpridgen9682]

Background music plus Syrinscape.

[@reddanger95]

any chance you could paste your playlists?

[@thabookwyrm]

Remember, too, that the music you're using is non-diagetic. Sell the aesthetic and tone of your setting however you can, don't just stick to generic orchestral stuff because you feel obligated to use period-accurate instrumentation. You can remove vocals from modern tracks using audacity or Splitter-AI and as long as there isn't too much reverb your players will never notice.

[@MrPopsnap]

any advice on how to remove vocals in audacity?

[@thabookwyrm]

@@MrPopsnap you just select the audio you want altered and use the vocal reduction tool. There's another method you can use that involves splitting audio channels that I hear is more reliable, but it's beyond my level of expertise

[@ogreboy8843]

Ravenloft = Bram Stokers Dracula OST