Using Music

Originally published August 10, 2012

In episode 6 of the podcast, Jared, Mike and Rob talked about the benefit of using music in your games and gave some recommendations on albums and artists to use. I also believe music can be of great use in setting the mood and building excitement for your players.

There are however a few rules I apply to any music for a game. First I avoid any music with lyrics. For me, hearing someone singing can make me focus on their words and steal focus from other things, such as the game. It doesn’t always happen but when it does it can ruin the effect you are shooting for. There are some exceptions. Songs with foreign languages can be ok since unless your players happen to know said language there isn’t the risk of them focusing on the words over the game. The key is we want to maintain immersion and keep the music in the background.

Another related problem is music with strong associations for your players. A classic example is the Imperial March from Star Wars. If you are not planning to have an evil empire make its presence known when this plays it can derail the mood. It can be hard to judge which songs have strong associations for your players but any music from popular shows or movies should be watch out for. Not that this is always a bad thing. For example, I used to often use Furious Angels from Matrix Reloaded in my combat music and my players at the time instantly made the connection. Thus when that song was playing they realized it was time for them to kick ass. One class of music that I have found not to work in general (at least with my current group) is video game music. It just seem to pull them out of the game and leads to them mocking the music.

For horror games and games with horror elements I recommend Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana, and the Resident Evil movie soundtracks (particularly the first and fourth films). Midnight Syndicate and Nox Arcana are bands that specialize in horror themed soundtracks. Both are excellent, though Nox Arcana tends to have a number of tracks with people talking.

Midnight Syndicate also is responsible for the Dungeons and Dragons album which is obviously useful for fantasy based games. I’ve also found Unearthed by E.S. Posthumus to excellent for this genre.

Unearthed by E.S. Posthumus

For general action games and music in general, Two Steps From Hell is an excellent source. This group basically creates music for movie trailers which tend to be chock full of good exciting music for combat and other dramatic scenes. Also good for action, assuming modern music is reasonable, are the soundtracks for the Matrix.

For more science fiction or modern settings, I find the soundtracks for Tron: Legacy and Inception to be very helpful. I also frequently use Crystal Method and other electronica as background for any science fiction setting.