Music to accompany a session of D&D

[Dragor]

What music do you play to spice up a session of D&D (if at all)?

Personally, I prefer Nightwish (for desperate moments, I play End of All Hope) and, if the party is truly 'kicking a-hole', then some Audioslave, with songs like Set It Off and Exploder to make the party feel good.

Is music a good thing to accompany D&D, or not? Discuss, and say whether you're headbangin' or not

[Dhavaer]

I strongly suspect that much of Manowar would be a good choice, Warriors of the World United being a particular favourite. All my gaming is PbP, though.

[Lolzords]

The only chance I get to play d+d is in a classroom at our school. In that classroom, there's three groups playing; ages ranging from 11-15. Even then every ten minutes we have to tell one of the other groups to be quiet cause they get exited during combat or something. Can you imagine if all three groups played music? Chaos.

[C Harnryd]

I always use music when I DM. It will sometimes inspire the players and always inspire me. An inspired DM is a good DM.

I try to let the campaign decide what music I use. For my recent epic campaign, there were lots of classical 20th-century works, some movie soundtracks, and some Lisa Gerrard and similar stuff.

For my present Xena campaign, there's the music from the series, and various ethno-tunes and world music.

I try to have music specific to certain locations, moods, and events. Giving important characters or creatures leitmotifs is fun too.

The trick with soundtracks from movies and TV-series is to be aware of how familiar the players are with the original source. It's not always a bad thing (getting Conan vibes in a barbarian fight, or Star Wars ditto in an one can work very well), but it can be disruptive sometimes.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Some good ethereal music is always nice, stuff like Dead Can Dance and so forth.

[Alakallanar]

We use a few dozen different CDs. Most common ( at the moment ) are Summoning, Nightwish, Manowar ( the older CDs not Warriors of the World United, Sons of Odin or Gods of War ), Mythotin and The Vision Bleak. For people which are not so fond of metal I would advice to try out Into the Green, Into the Blue and Into the Red from Erdenstern.
Movie Soundtracks are also a good idea.

[Rykaj]

We don't use music for a simple reason. Two players listen to metal only and the rest thoroughly despise it. And we feel it distracts from the game.

[Shadow of the Sun]

What, only metal? I'm as big a metal fan as they come, but only metal is kinda stupid.

[Ranis]

I have an extensive music collection I play through for my players depending upon the mood I want to set. Typical choices are the Battlestar: Galactica Soundtrack, the 300 OST, Batman Begins OST, Music selections from the Matrix Trilogy, LOTR, and, more recently, Van Halen.

I've also selected theme music for my PCs, under influence from their character backgrounds. My monk's theme music is Rage Against The Machine, and my Fighter's is Neodammerung from Matrix Revolutions. Our Rogues is a bit more poking fun at him than anything else, see, he rolled a 1 on a jump check and put himself at -5 at the bottom of a spiked pit trap, so whenever he skillmonkeries, I play Jump by Van Halen.

Teehee.

[bosssmiley]

Echo Ranis: OSTs are great for role-plays. Most gamers have seen all the appropriate films and know in their hearts how they should act when *that* music plays. Just cue up the "Indiana Jones" theme during a pulp game and watch the fur start flying!

Ambient/trance or female choral is good for astral/ethereal or elemental segments. Conveys the right sense of spaciousness for me.

Classical is really good too. Chamber music for intrigue sessions, Holst's "Planet Suite" for plane-hopping, Wagner for fight scenes (not "Ride" though, people start bellowing "Kill da wabbit! Kill da wabbit!").

[Kultrum]

lets see if one of my players does something crazy insane then I feel wonder boy by Tenacious D is good, One time we "tamed" a megaraptor and the DM couldn't get us to stop playing Godzilla by BOC and of course in the huge battle where there are a lot of weak enemys what better to hear then "let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor"

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

I usually find classical most appropriate- for my games, it's usually the atonal stuff, Schoenberg and such.

A fight in the dark against flying opponents with the 'Rite of Spring' in the background really creeped some of em' out.

[Annarrkkii]

I'm a fan of Trip-Hop and electronic stuff, and I find that the most out-there, non-dancy of the beats and breaks are absolutely awesome for slightly psychological encounters.

Some of Massive Attack's heavier stuff is awesome for darker encounters—especially Inertia Creeps, and a few other pieces from Mezzanine.

[Ranis]

Ambient/trance or female choral is good for astral/ethereal or elemental segments. Conveys the right sense of spaciousness for me.

Choral is played whenever they are in a temple, above or underground, it lets them know they can relax before I make the chokers and umber hulks that were clinging to the ceiling to make the drop and smackdown on them.

I'm also in the process of getting more techno to play during combat, does anyone know where I can get some good techno?

[Kel_Arath]

anything instrumental, FF music is always good, and throw in some heavy stuff on a low volume for battles

[Wooter]

What, no Dio?

[Flawless]

Virgin Steele! Most epic and tragic metal ever.

[Ravyn]

Instrumental music, definitely--most groups I know will get distracted by lyrics. (I make exceptions for this, of course: There's nothing like Streams of Passion's Embrace the Storm when opening a gate to another world to bring in something they'd considered an implacable enemy for the entire year realtime we'd been playing, for instance.) I actually prefer things that don't have very strong pre-associations, so when I do use video game and anime music I try to keep it as obscure as possible. So my playlist ends up being one part synth, one part guitar-and-panpipes, one part relatively obscure soundtracks, one part classical, one part gamelan... and whatever else is handy. Eclectic is good, and as long as it fits the mood it works.

[Genome]

Jia Peng Fang, Jiang Xiao Qing, and the Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack for an Asian feel; Phil Coulter, Solas, Enya, LOTR OST, and the Braveheart OST for a Celtic feel; Final Fantasy OSTs (VI, VII, VIII and IX), Sonata Arctica, Pirates of the Caribbean OST, The Black Mages, for an epic feel; and Midnight Syndicate and Final Fantasy OSTs for a dark feel.

Occasionally I'll throw in another miscellaneous movie or game song.

[DraPrime]

Nothing makes combat awesome like The Wickerman by Iron Maiden. I actually use Iron Maiden a lot for music. You have no idea how Dance of Death creeped out my players when they were going through a dungeon full of bodaks.

[Matthew]

For my present Xena campaign, there's the music from the series, and various ethno-tunes and world music.

Wow, a Xena Campaign? Sounds fun.

Usually we just listen to whatever people have brought along to listen to, but fantasy staples include: Metallica (S&M typically), Conan the Barbarian, The Lord of the Rings, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Gladiator sound tracks, amongst others.
In the case of Sci Fi or Space Opera type games, Blade Runner, Aliens, Star Wars, Babylon Five and Battle Star Galactica sound tracks are more appropriate.

My players usually object to Crusaders: in nomine domini, philistines, but for the most art anything goes to listen to conventionally and the sound track to 'good' genre appropriate games and films are used to build ambience.

[C Harnryd]

Wow, a Xena Campaign? Sounds fun.

It is.

(I keep making modifications to the rules, but only for the fun of it - the Core rules work great as long as you tweak things to a low-magic level.)

The Conan soundtrack, yes. A masterpiece in every sense of the word.

[TempusCCK]

The Diablo II Soundtrack worked great for me, it's got the right feel of creepy and flowing.

DragonForce is fast and epic if you're in a hardcore fight, but don't play it loud or it's distracting as hell, me and a player of mine routinely break into air guitar solos if it catches my attention.

Aside from that, anything instrumental and classical is the best, the Final Fantasy soundtracks are real good for things like that.

[Hunter Noventa]

During major battles with one of my groups, we can hook the laptop up to the room's speaker system for some good old fashion Final Fantasy Boss music, among other things.

However, if we set something on fire to spectacular effect, it quickly becomes time for "Feuer Frei!"

[Ranis]

During major battles with one of my groups, we can hook the laptop up to the room's speaker system for some good old fashion Final Fantasy Boss music, among other things.

Yes! Those Who Fight Further = Win.

[Gungnir]

I'm going to be starting a decidedly Halo-themed Exalted game soon (DAMN is it easy to make a Halo knock-off in Exalted. Wonders of the First Age gives you everything: warships, guns, powered armor, even AI's), so I'm having my friend chop up the Halo Soundtrack into loop-friendly individual files to listen to while we're playing.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Put together a menagerie. Imagine a situation, and think of what songs you'd play during that situation. Have a couple big fight themes, a few adventure songs, a handful of emotional tracks, etc.

I second Dragon Force as an excellent battle music band. You play that, and your players are going to feel like kicking some ass.

And feel free to humiliate your players. This Thursday, I'm going to "accidentally" select two songs for a certain friend of mine's theme song- "It's Raining Men", followed by "When I Think About You". Lightens up the atmosphere if the plot's getting overly dramatic.