Music ideas for game night

[Saint of M]

Most of us have like music. Alot of us like music durring game night to set the mood. So what are some good excamples of stuff to have.

Try to have no more than ten per post so you don't overwhelm and say what kind of setting they could be good for.

1. Within Temptation (Fantasy mostly, but sci fi is also a good choice with some of the songs). I know, I know, for those of you that have heard of the band low fruit hanging. A symphic metal band, they have good songs, but they would be perfect for a bunch of different settings.

2. The Skyrim SOundtrack (Primarily Fantasy): Another low fruit hanging. Most of it is pretty atmosphiric, but it has good songs for exploring, fighting, fighting bossess, being in the tavern, and oh so many renditions of Dragonborn.

3. The Hu (Fantasy mostlY): A Mongolian metal band, that use traditional instraments in their work. They have grown quite popular, with vertions of their songs having Lindsy Hale and Jaccoby Shaddix of Papa Roach on their songs.


4. Starset (Scifi): THeir main gimmick is having a scifi or science slant to their music, so a scifi setting works well for them. Add the songs are actualy good, they are worth a listen.


5. God of Waar by Dirty Wormz and featuring Tech N9ne (when every you need something with pure aggression). I cant say much for the rest of their music, but if you need a song that is all about ripping a foe in half with your bare hands, this is the song for you. THey drop a couple of F bombs in it so not while your Grandma is around.

 

[Asita]

Funny you should ask, actually. Not so long ago, I heard a story about someone running a False Hydra campaign on tabletop, and it included a few of the songs they'd use to set the mood of the scene. Mentions were as follows:

Just need some generic fantasy sounding music? Lord of the Rings soundtrack (too many to list, and you know you heard some of them in your head as soon as you read the title)

Understated creepy atmosphere? Orchestral version of Lavender Town (Pokemon)

Upping the anticipatory tension? 28 Days Later theme, Resident Evil (movie) theme

Group's doing well? Sunshine theme.

Requiem for a Dream (reasons not explained)

Things heating up? The Beginning is the End is the Beginning (as in the Watchmen movie), Nightmare on Elm Street (remix)

 

[Xprimentyl]

3. The Hu (Fantasy mostlY): A Mongolian metal band, that use traditional instraments in their work. They have grown quite popular, with vertions of their songs having Lindsy Hale and Jaccoby Shaddix of Papa Roach on their songs.

If ever there was a genre made for throat singing, it's metal. How this didn't happen sooner blows my mind.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Are you looking for atmospheric stuff? Overworld sort of music, battle music, just something lengthy/with a lot of similar songs to play in the background and leave it be for a long period of time? I have a lot of ideas, but an idea of exactly what kind of stuff you're looking for would help narrow it down a bit

 

[Saint of M]

If ever there was a genre made for throat singing, it's metal. How this didn't happen sooner blows my mind.

I think one of them, or at least one of the Mongolian Metal singers was even used in Doom Eternal. Bathesday realized to have an epic corus in this heavy metal laden game, you needed heavy metal singers, and one of them had the throaty Mongolian style.

Are you looking for atmospheric stuff? Overworld sort of music, battle music, just something lengthy/with a lot of similar songs to play in the background and leave it be for a long period of time? I have a lot of ideas, but an idea of exactly what kind of stuff you're looking for would help narrow it down a bit

Mostly picking up stuff that might be good, any situation, while giveing others ideas as well.

 

[Asita]

So, just stumbled on something that may be 'too obvious'. Have you seen Tabletop Audio? Seems to do a mix of music and sound effects for atmosphere, with each 'track' seeming to be 10 minutes long. And personally, I kinda like its style.

 

[Gordon_4]

My Cyberpunk DM has the soundtracks for Ghost in the Shell (movies and show) pretty much on shuffled repeat for our sessions.

 

[Buyetyen]

I fucking love The Hu. Saw them live in 2019 and they slayed.

Anyway, if you're looking for atmospheric stuff for a horror game, check out Nox Arcana. Each album is essentially a soundtrack to a horror movie that never was.

 

[Terminal Blue]

If ever there was a genre made for throat singing, it's metal. How this didn't happen sooner blows my mind.

I actually kind of love throat singing. It's a really interesting technique that has cropped up independently all over the world. It can create an incredible range of sounds without the need for complex instruments, and it just sounds cool as hell.

Although I would maintain that the best genre for throat singing is obviously trap.


Anyway, I should probably say something on topic.

I actually have a lot of ambient music lying around, although most of it now is stuff I used to study to. A lot of low tempo psytrance would be good for science fiction, if you want that kind of spacey ambient vibe. This whole album is great actually, it's just spacey ambient tracks.


Another great choice would be Atrium Carceri. There's an incredible ammount of his stuff and it can basically suit any horror/tension/sadness vibe you're going for.


Another option is drone music. I don't always gel with drone because it can get a bit close to the experience of having tinnitus, but if you want to create an ambiance with the absolute bare minimum of distraction you really can't do better, and there's so much available on youtube or soundcloud.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Eacaraxe]

I like being eclectic, using a wide variety of genres to suit theme and pacing, and heavily exploiting leitmotif for my games, when I use music. The music of my Star Wars D6 campaign was a huge part of it. For example, during one session of a three-part story about the liberation of Dac:

The setup: the PC's had rescued Admiral Ackbar (they did that mission pretty much as it happened in Star Wars: X-Wing), learning from him Tarkin planned to imminently BDZ Dac due to growing Mon Calamari resistance. Three SD's were en route including one Imperial II-class, and they had just hours to get to Dac and stop it...somehow. They worked out a plan to get there, meet up with local resistance, and launch a three-pronged assault.

One group would storm a planetary shield generator and activate it, with a secondary objective to tap into planetary comms and rally the resistance. Another would attack an ion cannon installation, seize it from the Imperials, and use the ion cannons to disable one Star Destroyer. The last group would attack an orbital drydock, liberate the slaves onboard, seize an MC80A star cruiser in production, and launch it to fight off the Imperial-II with the aid of smaller ships launched from the surface that would be able to get in the fight once the planetary shield generators were online.

And they had to do it all at the same time and with near-perfect coordination, and any failed objective at any point would almost certainly get everyone killed. This was the soundtrack from the "hijack a cruiser" game session:


Title crawl/opening credits, because I wanted to set the stakes and tone immediately.


The PC's who went on this mission assaulted the drydock with local resistance fighters on board a wing of Lambda-class shuttles, neutralizing resistance in the docking bays and securing the control rooms for more shuttles to land while freeing and arming Mon Cal and Quarren slaves. Fighting was sporadic but heavy, and the alarms got raised meaning the Rebels had to start fighting their way through armed checkpoints, bottlenecks, and slicing and hacking blast doors to make a path.

They fought their way to the holding and prison cells, and in the course of getting everyone freed and armed, discovered...Lee-Char.


Who they escorted back to the control room and comms station, where he gave a rousing speech urging all citizens of Dac to rise up against the Imperials and fight, because their lives depended on it.

Then the PC's and reinforced resistance fighters fought their way to the dry dock, which the Imperials had heavily fortified to make their stand.


Fighting was intense, casualties were extreme including one PC, a Force-sensitive PC called upon the dark side to help them push through, and for a short while it looked like they weren't going to make it. But they broke through the Imperial lines, and boarded the MC80A...which they discovered to be a still under construction, but spaceworthy, Home One.


Lee-Char and Ackbar take stations on the bridge, the Mon Cal and Quarren engineers and mechanics take their stations, and Home One blasts its way out of dry dock. Under way, the ship engages the Imperial II-class, but doesn't have enough weaponry installed yet to take down the Star Destroyer...but Home One's shields are holding. Ackbar makes a clutch decision, ordering full frontal shields and all available personnel capable of powersuit and zero-G fighting to rally points near Home One's prow...


...and orders Home One to ram the Imperial II-class and initiate a boarding action. Deadass swashbuckling pirate movie-style. This was before Rogue One came out, mind. Home One successfully rams the Star Destroyer, fucking both ships up in the process, and the PC's and resistance fighters get onboard the Imperial II and start raising hell.


Ackbar's plan is to cripple the Star Destroyer, get it in a state of freefall, and let it burn up in reentry while the Home One disengages. But the Star Destroyer's repulsorlifts are too powerful, and the Imperial captain recognizes the plan and initiates a counter-maneuver, ordering the Star Destroyer to full forward thrust threatening to crush the Home One. So, the resistance makes a Hail Mary play: storm the engineering deck and overload the Star Destroyer's main reactor. Which they barely manage, running through the ship, rappelling down turbolift shafts, and demo'ing every last thing they see along the way all while fighting their way through waves of stormtroopers.

The reactor starts overloading, and the Star Destroyer enters freefall, crippled beyond repair. With systems and subsystems failing across the board, no gravity, and with the ship literally melting and disintegrating around them due to the heat and forces of reentry, the resistance fighters remaining have to get to escape pods before the Star Destroyer catastrophically explodes.

 

[AnxietyProne]

Yea, Youtube has almost any ambience you can hope for. My best DJ'ing came during a Savage Worlds: Tour of Darkness (think Call of Cthulhu in 'Nam) game, when the music went from this...

to this....


Just as they entered a VC tunnel that was being used to house weaponized hopping vampires...

 

[Master Of Puppets]

This is pretty smart planning ahead like this. We always seem to just youtube search "sci-fi horror music" or whatever depending on the theme of the game we're playing.

The results actually haven't been bad

 

[Satinavian]

I always thaught that some of the escaflowne soundtracks work quite well, like this one :