Music for Gaming

[GriffinRider]

Greetings all! I'm wondering if anyone out there uses music to help set the scene during game, and if so perhaps they'll have some suggestions for me. Specifically, I'm looking for some gentle, pastoral instrumentals for while the players are exploring a quaint and idyllic country village and fair, and then something aggressive and dramatic as a red dragon and its lich rider lay waste to the whole place. Thoughts?

[hymer]

Beethoven's 6th springs to mind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQGm0H9l9I4). The first three movements are gentle and gorgeous. Then, a thunderstorm strikes in the fourth movement. Could just as well have been a dragon. :smallsmile:

https://youtu.be/iQGm0H9l9I4

[Man_Over_Game]

There's a nice, somewhat spooky combat song I like that isn't distracting called Vincent Price (named after the original Nosferatu actor).

It has an element of danger, with wolves occasionally howling, while still keeping a good listening rhythm while without needing to draw much attention. Great for night missions, hunting werewolves, and stealth combat.

[Danielqueue1]

For the combat bit, just about anything from two steps from hell. Strength of a thousand men is a favorite.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Um, I'm really not shilling for them or anything, but these videos have the sort of music in them you're looking for (for the pastoral stuff). I think they specifically mention who's providing their soundtrack somewhere at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNcpxqT_WsM

[Windwaert]

I think Mike Oldfield has some great pastoral arrangement in Hergest Ridge and Music of the Spheres (e.g., "Animus", "Silhouette").

For combat, I recommend video game background music. Try music from Age of Wonders III, e.g., "Battle Macabre" or "Trials of Fortitude" (search "Michiel van den Bos" on youtube).

[Torgairon]

I have two recommendations:

general ambient music: derek and brandon fiechter are two composers that I first learned about through this forum. they do simple, themed music tracks that are competent and easily fade into the background, which is exactly what you want for mood music/lower tension areas. they are prolific, so if you like the style you could probably score your entire campaign to them.

dramatic music: to me this usually means video game music, and I haven't found a better general fantasy composer than kirill pokrovsky, who scored the Divinity games. he died in 2015, but a website under his name is still online, with all of his music uploaded there and available for free download. I usually go with selections from divine divinity and divinity original sin, but I have no doubt there's great tracks from his older work that I haven't gotten around to fully exploring.

[LordNibbler]

Holst’s The Planets offers a variety of movements that cover everything from combat to investigation to sneaking to celebration.

[Lunali]

Our group mostly uses background music from a variety of video games, divided into different playlists for towns, roads/wilds, fights, and bosses. Many games have publicly available soundtracks or include the soundtrack with the game.