For the Burning Empires pitch session I’m running tonight, I tried something new: I put together a custom soundtrack. (That’s Treasure Tables HQ in the picture.)
I’ve used music in my games before, but in the past I’ve always just popped in an appropriate CD and let it run.
This time around, I pulled together a custom soundtrack from my iTunes library — which seemed like a much better approach. It was a lot like making mix tapes back in high school and college, except it was easier and I’m not angling for a date…
My process wasn’t revolutionary, but I figured I’d share it so that we could compare notes — maybe I missed something obvious, or tried a step you usually don’t take.
1. What kind of music? Reading over the scenario, I kept coming back to sinister electronica and ambient stuff. I sampled some, and it sounded about right.
Not having words in my background music is important to me — if someone’s singing in English, it’s too distracting (other languages are okay). My other goal was to have music that was evocative without being either too slow or too fast to match up with most scenes.
2. Throw everything into a playlist. After making a new playlist, I went through my library and just started tossing in tracks that felt right. I didn’t worry about order, or spend time vetting them. Soundtracks were my friend here, particularly video game soundtracks.
This got me thinking about other music that would fit, so I threw some Japanese vocals (and one song in Gaelic — I think) into the mix.
3. Start listening. After I’d made a first pass, I listened to the whole playlist while working on other stuff. This gave me ideas for more songs, and also eliminated a few.
4. Make a battle playlist. Battles need faster, more aggressive soundtracks than the rest of the session. I stuck with the same general theme, but chose songs that felt more action-y. I found that I didn’t have quite what I wanted on hand, so I bought a handful of battle tracks on iTunes.
5. Put the playlists in order. I listened to everything one more time (both playlists — and again, while doing other things), and put songs in order as I went. I also eliminated a few more that didn’t sound so good the second time around.
6. Final run-through. Lastly, I listened to both playlists for a third time — in order, in final draft format. I had about two hours for the main playlist and 30 minutes for the battle playlist, which felt about right.
The battle music will probably get us through one conflict (and is versatile enough to use twice), while the main soundtrack will likely loop once in a four-hour session. My hope is that hearing tracks twice will tie them more closely to the game, just like the opening music for a TV show.
And that was it! Like I said, not revolutionary, but I found it to be a lot of fun. I think it’ll turn out to be worthwhile prep — I’ll let you know how it turns out.
What’s your soundtrack process like?
I just have a single playlist that suits the style of game.
The PC in my study runs that, and any background sounds that I need, while I use the laptop for any once off sounds.
For tomorrow, I have a playlist of Midnight Syndicate and Nox Arcana set up. I’ll have that set on random repeat all through the game. I also have a 5 min long rain sound, which I’ll also have running on repeat the whole time. Those will both be on the PC. Then the laptop will have a playlist comprising sound effects like slamming door, scream, breaking glass, etc. I’ll pick from that as and when I need the sounds.
The downside of random is that sometimes the track matches the moment (while playing D&D, we kept getting the The Bridge Of Khazad Dum playing during battle, which was great) and sometimes it doesn’t (Isengard Unleashed during a negotiation) but I don’t like having to jump up to change play lists during the game.
It sounds like you played the songs straight from the computer – I made a soundtrack once for a normal cd(which means limited space and having all tracks in one playlist). I took every song I could find that would fit, and tried to find those that specifically fit certain encounters(a track for night-time, travel, listening to a bard, etc.). I placed all the battle tracks at the end of the cd so I can let them loop freely(I was expecting a long combat section). I arranged all other tracks to minimize switching, and put track notes in every section of the adventure.
I definitely agree on having no songs with words, even though I occasionally find instrumental tracks that don’t let me concentrate on anything else(but that’s usually just me). The tracks were mostly old classical(Renaissance and Baroque), environmental tracks, and for combat I took many tracks from Mozart’s Requiem. It actually worked quite well.
“so I bought a handful of battle tracks on iTunes.”
Spill it! Whatdya get?
Thankfully I have a pretty large music collection on my computer so I’m able to find a number of tracks for the game I’m running if I have enough time to sift through it. For my last game I was particularly happy to find my AD&D 2nd Ed Red Steel soundtrack on my shelf. I had to strip out the track with narration by a guy with a hilariously bad accent (which would have been pretty distracting- I’m in total agreement about avoiding songs with lyrics, though I avoid even other languages.)
Dave: I figured I’d share the whole soundtrack once I saw how it worked out in the game, but I’d be happy to share the battle tracks now. 😉
1. To Victory – 300 Soundtrack
2. Unyielding – Halo 2 Soundtrack, v. 2
3. Just Like You Imagined – Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile (Left)
4. Attack of the Drones – Gears of War Soundtrack
5. African Rundown – Casino Royale Soundtrack
6. NATO Final – Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Soundtrack
7. Never Surrender – Halo 2 Soundtrack, v. 1
The only ones I already had were the NIN track and Casino Royale.
I have for several campaigns used soundtracks. For my Iron Heroes game, I have a combination of several Movie Soundtracks as well as some Midnight Syndicate in.
I also have a Battle playlist, which is all Warrior Metal (Manowar, Hammerfall, Iced Earth, etc).
I also have intro music, a single instrumental piece from Manowar, that I use when I read the recap to the players.
For all my playlists I listened to all the tracks and weeded any out with dialog or vocals. I took out things that were too silly (there are some tracks in the LoTR soundtracks that do no fit with Iron Heroes).
I keep my playlists in WinAmp, and have them as icons on the desktop of the laptop while I play, this way I can double click the icon and the player switches to the correct music. Great for marking the opening of combat, or an ambush.
Good luck on your Burning Empires game tonight. I am about half-way through the rules and loving it.
Have fun with the game! Just had to say that I love the R2 on your desk… That’s all, really.
I’ve used iTunes on my laptop with play lists before. Recently I found a neat program called RPG SoundMixer which let’s you create scenarios and use sound effect along with music. The program has a bit of a steep learning curve, but the demo really wowed me. I plan to use it to help set the mood during the adventure I’m going to be running soon.
Martin, is your desk really that clean? I always suspected something was a bit off… 😛
I have a number of movie and game soundtracks I’ve acquired for gaming background music. At one point, I tried to create four playlists: pastoral exploring, suspenseful exploring, battle, and town/tavern. But I haven’t found a way to jump playlists very easily; the music plays through a home theater PC with BeyondMedia and a Firefly remote, if you have advice.
So now everything’s on one “shuffled” playlist. When the track is inappropriate, I just hit the “next track” button. Not a great fix, but it works…
The last game I ran–one centered on the city of Saltmarsh, from the DMG II–had a specially made playlist. In fact, I asked each player to make their PC centered on a song, so that I could add it to the soundtrack.
The PC songs were incredibly varied. We ended up with everything from 90s grunge/metal, to hippie-trance mixes, to a Broadway show tune.
At the end of the campaign, as kind of a parting gift, I gave each of the players a copy of the playlist on CD, as something to remember the game by. Since three of the players were seniors in college (the two others being alumni), it made for a nice graduation gift.
Um, Martin, now that you’re *aware* that “pitch session” is a confusing name for what is actually well beyond the “pitch” stage, could you perhaps correct that error by not referring to it by that name anymore?
I don’t know whether you think “pilot session” is better, but it’s at least consistent with the getting-buy-in-for-an-ongoing-series metaphor.
Telas: Yep, it’s nearly always that clean. I’m pretty tidy (my wife would probably say “pretty tidy” is an understatement). 😉
bignose: I feel sort of committed to my so-so terminology, as it’s come up so often. 😉 In any case, the pitch session is over, and that aspect of it isn’t
likely to come up again any time soon.
Here’s the full soundtrack I used last night. I’d say it was a wash — I don’t think it was loud enough for my players to hear much of it, and I often didn’t notice it myself, but I was still glad it was on in the background.
1. Ripe [With Decay] – Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile (Right)
2. Discovery – Metal Gear Solid Soundtrack
3. Mosh – Fluke, Risotto
4. Gears of War – GoW Soundtrack
5. End Title – Metal Gear Solid Soundtrack
6. Truth and Reconciliation Suite – Halo Soundtrack
7. Intruder 1 – Metal Gear Solid Soundtrack
8. Music Fur Cats – cEvin Key, Music for Cats
9. Mantis’ Hymn – Metal Gear Solid Soundtrack
10. Repose – Tenchu Soundtrack
11. Opening Suite – Halo Soundtrack
12. Night Fall – Metal Gear Solid Snake
13. God of Manji-Kyo, Heretical Religion – Tenchu Soundtrack
14. Blast Furnace – Metal Gear Solid Soundtrack
15. What is Fight Club? – Fight Club Soundtrack
16. Add’ua – Tenchu Soundtrack
17. Exodus from the Underground Fortress – Akira Soundtrack
18. Punish the Wicked Merchant – Tenchu Soundtrack
19. Mausoleum Suite – Halo 2 Soundtrack, v. 2
20. Assets and Targets – The Bourne Ultimatum Soundtrack
21. Shohmyoh – Akira Soundtrack
22. Session – Meteora, Linkin Park
23. Requiem – Akira Soundtrack
I’ve just finished up tonight’s horror game and the soundtrack was a massive success.
On several occasions the players mentioned the creepiness of the soundtrack.
The only problem was that I’d accidentally left a tune from the stargate soundtrack in, one that was fairly distinctive and it played a little more often than I would have liked
Soundtracks for games are wonderful, but they are hard to pull of well with the pace of a game. You almost need to designate a player as the music director. My first attempt at soundtracks, I did a CD of MP3s and then printed the playlist. I popped the CD in a dvd player and chose tracks from there. It worked decently well, and it was before I owned a laptop, but having playlist support definitely seems to be the way to go.
Pitch session seems like a good enough word to me. Pilot session seems good to. Really a pilot of a TV show is like a pitch to an audience. The players are sort of like an audience. A pitch is usually done to a group of investors or producers. The players are investing in the game, and they are taking a hand in producing it. Because with out players there would be no game. So it is kind of hard to say pitch or pilot is completely accurate, but pitch seems to involve the players more.
It’s funny that this topic should come up today. I GMed a game yesterday that involved strapping the entire party to “gnomish rocket gliders” to conduct an aerial battle with a goblin zeppelin. The second the party took off, I hit play on “Highway to the Danger Zone.” Not exactly a sound track, but it definitely set the right mood for the fight. 😉
What I’d love to get is a CD with the compiled sound effects from all the various “official” D&D games. I use a laptop already at my GM station and it would be great to click “coffin opens” or “troll grunts”.
I’m actually suprised that it hasn’t happened yet, but maybe WOTC doesn’t want to encourage people to play on a table when they could be playing on the internet.
Well, I guess I’m some sort of grub-eating Luddite, because I don’t use a laptop at the table. However, I DO have a pretty kick-ass JVC boombox with a 10-disk CD changer. Over the years, I’ve come up with a pretty good “generic” list of CDs that fits 95% of my games.
1) The Crow musical score (not the soundtrack)
2) Dune (1984) soundtrack. Track #1 is also my standard “Let’s sit down and get gaming” cue.
3) Celtic Oddysey
4) Celtic Legacy
5) Halloween II soundtrack
6) Brahm Stoker’s Dracula soundtrack
7) Interview with a Vampire soundtrack
8) Dead Can Dance – A Passage in Time
9 – 10 I usually shuffle around to add some variety, depending on the game genre.
Once I’ve got my 10 CDs, I slap the old boombox into Random – All Disks and forget about it.
Dave T., I thought that I was the only one with the Red Steel soundtrack! Good to know I wasn’t the only one who bought that boxed set.
Alas, I am not yet technically savvy enough to use sound mixers or set up looping. It’s on my list of things to learn, but a long way off.
I almost always play music in the background at my games.
I also like to have the players create mix disks or playlists for their characters. The tracks consist of songs that reflect the PC in some way – attitude, secrets, fears, losses, aspirations, heritage- anything they wish to include. Playing the music allows the group a different set of insights into each PC.
One of the PCs in the last campaign went through a major change in game. It was great when the player quietly and independently contributed a new playlist to reflect the PC post-change.
I have also designed entire story arcs based on music. One of the best came after listening to King Crimson’s Court of the Crimson King.
I actually game over play-by-post mostly, but here’s an idea I had:
What if you found a nice long piece of background music and ran it on loop, cross-fading between scenes? That way, you could make sure it fit, and each scene could have a different feel. Plus, for a battle, you could skip the fade-in for an abrupt change of pace.
My idea here is based on video games; there are a number of games (Skies of Arcadia being a big one here) where I remember the locations involved based mostly on the music that played in them.
T
Some Ambient-Electronic might be helpful for most situations (No Lyrics).
Jazz music (or even Hip-Hop) would be great for more contemporary city adventures.
Old celtic songs might be good for adventures through small farming villages.
House or Techno would be great for epic battles in space.