How do you feel about Battle Music?

[crunchykoolaid]

So I'm generally a fan of ambient music during adventures to add to the feel of a story, and I have a separate playlist set up for "Battle Music" vs normal forest-y sounds and whatnot. The trouble I'm having is this.

I'm about to start a new campaign with mostly new players, and their first mission involves hunting/killing Goblins who are growing increasingly bold about attacking villages.

Spoilers: The Goblins are actually just raiding towns abandoned due to the actions of the BBEG, but I don't want to reveal that just yet.

To throw the party off the scent, I want all the Goblins to talk about this "Magic JuJu Thingamajig" their leader has that makes him stronger than normal. They will (probably) assume this is what allows them to raid so many villages, and track down the Goblin Boss to take his Magic Thing to stop the raids.

This is where it gets interesting, the I can have the Magic Thing be a shiny useless gem that the Goblins attribute their recent good fortune to, completely by accident, OR I had the idea that the Goblin Boss saw a Bard buff his teammates while adventuring and get the idea that music can make one into a powerful warrior. The Boss' "Magic Thing" is actually a crude set of instruments that his lackeys play (badly) when he fights.

This allows me to play some battle music IRL while it actually representing the "music" the in-game characters are hearing.

However, this may be a bit too complicated for a one-off gag and it also could distract the players into thinking the "music" actually is what's causing the raids. Should I go ahead with this idea, change some aspect of it, or shelve it completely in favor of a simpler starting plot?

Also: What are your thoughts on using battle music in general?

[Torgairon]

I started doing battle music/some limited ambient tracks two sessions ago and it's been a big hit. couple issues I've run into/have put thought into:

- as someone who was into video games for a long, long time before giving D&D a try, a lot of the music I've been using is borrowed from a bunch of different RPGs. the problem that arises there is that a lot of music in popular RPGs is, imo, way too intense and "epic" for your average D&D random encounter/resource-waster fight in an adventuring day. having some thick, complex orchestral stuff for big battles or giving your BBEG a reoccurring musical theme is awesome, but you probably want something a little lighter and snappier if the PCs are in a low-threat situation. you want to try and create an intensity spectrum with your tracks you have on hand, which necessarily means having a fairly large library.

- very few tracks will last through the entirety of a pivotal D&D encounter. last session, my party fought an hour-long battle, which meant that the music got looped quite a few times; while I don't think anybody minded, in the future I might switch to something a little more appropriate to how the round-by-round mood is actually shaking out, e.g. as HP gets low and resources start to dwindle and the enemies are still coming, a more ominous or portentous track.

- I have a rule that I will rarely if ever play a song from a game that people know, because if you're going to play a Dark Souls or Shadow of the Colossus track you don't want people to be thinking about those games rather than the situation at the table. this is a bit of a fringe issue since I'm sure not everyone takes exclusively from other popular media, and I'm looking to find some more general music from lesser-known composers to avoid this in the future.

[Specter]

In my case as a DJ, if I can't pick the music I don't even DM. I plan specific music for every terrain, social interaction and combat. My players like it, and it makes me seem more organized.

As for what you asked, maybe youtube Ka-En-No-Mai, from Tekken. Might help.

[MrFahrenheit]

I feel like ambient music can be too distracting for the group I DM. That being said, each one of the PCs does have their own theme music for when they land the final blow/spell in combat, nail that OOC check, or do something generally cool. The paladin's was Hulk Hogan's old entrance music, for instance, while the assassin/fighter's is the Indiana Jones theme, and the LG monk adherent of Pelor uses the Day Man song from It's Always Sunny...