Music to role-play to

[Lucas Pitta]

What are the best songs/bands to play D&D to?

I think that blind guardian gives a good feel to the game

[Pyro_Azer]

Pirates of the Carribean soundtrack (at least in my games).

[Lawless III]

It's a bit cliche, but I use the LOTR soundtrack for more serious games and Led Zeppelin for most everything else.

[Ormur]

Classical: Wagner, Chopin, Beethoven, Saint-Saens.

Sountracks: LotR, John Williams, Spaghetti Westerns (Ennio Morricone).

[industrious]

What are the best songs/bands to play D&D to?

I think that blind guardian gives a good feel to the game

This. Nightwish also works on certain occasions.

But I find that Gershwin is king for urban settings.

[bytbyt]

Jpop music that or Nightwish

[Touchy]

Jpop music that or Nightwish

I disagree.
Try finding something a bit more epic (The old epic, not the misused new epic), Oblivion's soundtrack is pretty cool, and I agree with the LoTR.

[Malificus]

Fable has a good, distinct style that sets a mood without being overwhelming.

Soundtracks in general, as well as classical music. Like Chopin has a lot of music that would be good for formal settings and towns. Fantasie Impromptu would even make good battle music. Also try out Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Cavatina.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Prokofiev wrote some fairly epic stuff, and I love Rachmaninov's piano concertos for urban action. Vivaldi's Four Seasons is excellent, and the "Allegro Non Molto" in "Winter" is a favorite of mine. Then there are Verdi's "Dies Irae", Bach's St. Matthew Passion (Especially the "Erbarme Dich" and "So ist mein Jesu nun gefangen"*), and the Eroica (Beethoven's 3rd). Oh, and Palestrina, and the Peer Gynt Suite (with "Hall of the Mountain King" coming yo mind).

For modern music, Epica, Nightwish, Tyr (especially the songs with Old Norse) and "Requiem for a Dream".

Those are some good ones for all sorts of games.

*:

Spoiler

Show

And if you know German and therefore which words I ought to be capitalizing, please let me know, as I'm away from my score and can't check it to correct it)

Edit: The Planets but especially "Mars". Best music to set a tense mood ever.

[Shadowbane]

I find classical music, particularly the above mentioned, very useful. I also have used the new Star Trek film's soundtrack on occasion.

[CockroachTeaParty]

I find a lot of video game soundtracks work well. I usually use orchestrated versions of video game songs, or soundtracks from genre-appropriate movies. The soundtrack to Red Dragon is one of my favorites.

[valadil]

I think that blind guardian gives a good feel to the game

The problem with BG is I'd rather listen to them than play the game ;-)

I prefer music that isn't lyrical or easily recognized. Less than popular game and movie soundtracks are perfect. Vangelis has a lot of generic soundtrack material that nobody will recognize. I also like Sephiroth (Ulf Soderberg's version, not FF7's) for creepy dungeon music.

[littlebottom]

anything that the group as a whole enjoy, as long as it isnt too loud as to distract from the actual game, hell ive had dragonforce to rammstein to sepultura playing while weve played.

[Saintheart]

Aliens. Has both combat tracks and moody atmosphere tracks.

Braveheart, too. Awesome stuff.

[SharpWolf]

For a celtic-inspired, medieval fantasy campaign I'm currently running, I mostly use the following soundtracks:

The Witcher (both the OST from the game and "Inspired by" one)
Baldur's Gate 1-2
The Tower of Druaga
Shadow of the Colossus

They provide a great range of diversity and emotions -- and Shadow of the Colossus has the best music I've heard when it comes to epic battles!

[Lawless III]

I have to second the use of the Oblivion soundtrack. The main theme just feels more mystical than I can rightly describe.

I'm doing a retro-scifi campaign soon, and it's going to be nothing but 70's prog (Rush, Yes, King Crimson etc.)

[Window459]

Lustmord is your in a more evilsih setting

[AslanCross]

While I agree that Blind Guardian is awesome, I would rather not have vocals in my music as it has a jarring and distracting effect from narration.

I've found that a number of remixes of Touhou Project songs actually work very well as BGMs. Some of them are great as orchestral music, others are awesome as a mix of orchestra and metal, while others work well fine as metal or techno even if it's a fantasy setting (I DM Eberron, so techno still kind of works.) To the point:

Yama of Xanadu
Alice in the Wonderland
Satori Maiden
The Border of Life
Midnight March
Rage
Nuclear Fusion (This made an AWESOME red dragon boss theme.)
Nuclear Fusion (a more subtle remix)
Septette for the Dead Princess: Ascending into Naught
Locked Girl (Another epic boss theme; great for dragons)

Super Robot Wars tracks by Salamander Factory work really well too:
Chaos
ZEST SEVEN
The Banquet of Despair
The Last Judgment
Dark Prison
Armageddon
To Judge or Be Judged

Dramatic music from Code Geass:
Madder Sky

Ambient music:
Neverwinter Nights 2 Main Theme

[Anonomuss]

My current soundtrack consists of:
-Guild Wars,
-Final Fantasy
-LotR
-Watchmen
-James Bond
-Serenity
and the occasional bit of Halo music. I tend to avoid anything too synthetic for Fantasy games, but a lot of the instrumental music from the above seems to work fine.

[Emmerask]

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis
Conan intro
Final Fantasy - Liberi Fatali
and star wars ep 1-3 (the movies are not that good but the soundtrack is ^^)

[Shademan]

back with my old group we just launched the power metal playlist

[Radar]

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis
(...)

and the rise of sons of Arius.

Besides ever-awsome Conan soundtrack:
- Clannad - especially Legend album (soundtrack for the best incarnation of Robin Hood in history)
- Krzesimir Debski - since he won't probably be very well known, I'll let his music speak for itself: 1, 2, 3.
- if I ever run a SF campaign, I'll surly experiment with Vangelis

[Angelmaker]

radiorivendell has it all.

All hail Lord Elrond!

[Steelblood]

Slipknot's Gematria... not really.
Use Winamp to stream celtic music or other relaxing music.

[Farlion]

Summoning, best background music for RPG in my opinion.

I second "The Witcher" Soundtrack, perfect fighting music.

Cheers,
Farlion

[Katana_Geldar]

The one and only, John Williams.

[Emmerask]

- Krzesimir Debski - since he won't probably be very well known, I'll let his music speak for itself: 1, 2, 3.

oh nice ones will add them to my playlist

[onthetown]

We tend to use whatever instrumental songs fit the area . . . In RL D&D we usually only use it for battles. Online, I remember having a DM for years who would prepare ahead of time and have free mp3s online (not pirated, just free to use) that he would link to us when we entered an area, started a battle, changed the mood, etc. It was our choice if we wanted to listen, so it wasn't annoying in the least; we pretty much always listened to what he linked to us because he had a real knack of finding the perfect songs.

A lot of them were from fantasy or sci-fi RPGs, some of the most memorable being from FF6 - 10. I seem to recall some Dragon Age and Golden Sun, though . . . When I try to do the online linking thing, I actually use my own music. I don't do it often enough to have to be composing new songs, and I don't do it with my best friends because I'm horribly shy of my musical ear The stuff I use is mostly Celtic medleys of jigs, reels, some waltzes for quieter places, etc . . .

[KellKheraptis]

Surprised there are so many BG fans on here :D Savatage's Hall of the Mountain King album is awesome to RP to, as is the non-Christmas TSO. Really anything neoclassical or classical, though as a neoclassical guitarist, I gotta watch it to make sure I don't leave the table and grab the axe...happened last time someone threw on Micah Scoville doing 8 finger tapping :P

[lesser_minion]

We always just picked things that the majority of the group enjoyed and went from there. Sometimes we'd break out a particular song for a particular scene, usually at the request of the DM, but aside from that, nearly anything goes (as long as it constitutes halfway-decent music).

We've used Rammstein, Dragonforce, and even Slipknot.