How do you guys order your playlists for your D&D sessions?
I know where to go to get the tracks that sound good, crib from the right vidya and get the atmospheric bustles from other sites, but it's a bit of a nightmare when playing the game to actually use 90% of what I've downloaded- especially if like me sometimes you get all the tracks off a playlist in a download to sift through later.
So how do you do it? Do special NPC's have their own themes? Do you prune based on any modern instruments used? Assign different places different tunes? What's the secret to a good, accessible soundscape?
Listen to a lot of music and find what you like. I have a huge rpg music folder separated into scenery. That seems to be the easiest way for me to organize it. Seaside shack? Got it. Swampy witch hut? Bam. Under the city hideout of undead planning to take over the city? I got just the thing.
David Collins
I've got a series of playlists organized by tone. Sad, Calm, Battle, Dread, Happy, Cool, Weird, and Special are the main ones, with Special for songs I really like that don't really fit a tone.
While listening to my enormous collection of music on random, if I end up hearing a song I like or one that fits a tone well, I just add that to that playlist. I only have forty or so songs for each playlist, but honestly after years of trying them out I really only end up using around twenty or so songs because I know they work well with my group.
As far as character/place themes, I used to use a neat note-taking program that let me embed songs into my notes, so whenever I needed to pull up my notes for a place or character, I also had the song up and ready.
One thing I would end up doing is listening to music, imagining a scene, and then building the scene or character for the music. This actually wound up working quite well, and it's not a bad way to get inspiration for a game.
Grayson Sanchez
You just have the one track for each bit of scenery, or a selection?
Anyone who plays actual music during a game is a faggot.
Jaxon Martinez
You must not listen to much classical or otherwise background-appropriate music.
Josiah Diaz
Huge selection under generalized scenery categories. I was just saying that I can find music to fit the scene easily with how I have it. I also have quite a few sound effect samples just in case I need to give things any extra pizzazz.
Jack Clark
I have a BlueSound (basically Canadian equivalent of SONOS) system, so I just control everything with my phone connected to the room's sound system.
To organize I just copy and paste songs into their own campaign music folder, and use the program Mp3Tag to uniformitize the metadata and organize them (first third of the "album" is background music, second third is battle music, third third is background sound effects like townscapes and whatnot).
I have a pretty good playlist at this point as I listen to a lot of classical, renaissance, folk, world, etc. music, not to mention easy choices like the Elder Scrolls soundtracks.
David Lee
I've done that, but have trouble between deciding on which theme to use.
Maybe I should compartmentalize it further.
Julian Robinson
>tfw your players don't realize you use various carefully curated pieces to condition them for the game
Feels good man
James Nelson
I need help with my Delta Green soundtrack. Thus far I've got tracks from Swans, Hotline Miami, UTOPIA, It Follows, Heroin in Tahiti and The Witch.
What else would you rec?
Carter King
>What's the secret to a good, accessible soundscape? There's no "secret", you just gotta listen to a fuckton of music in the genres that work for what you're going for.
I have hundreds of fantasy-appropriate albums and I've distilled maybe a couple dozen really game-appropriate songs out of them, songs that are interesting enough to give the game a good feeling, but not intrusive enough to distract.
Hmm... surprisingly little of my playlist is on YouTube.
Leo Bell
Yeah but how do you organize your music files?
Alexander Cox
I'm Literally copy the mp3s into the game soundtrack folder, and then uniformitize and order them with Mp3Tag, which is free and easy to use.
That way you have a ready-made folder to slap onto thumb drives, drag into music programs, or in my case shows up as a coherent album on my BlueSound system.
If there are any specific issues you're having I can try and help, I sperg out over music programs and stuff.
Nathan Thomas
I usually pick 2 or 3 tracks per location (maybe add more if the party is staying there for a while).
Blake Flores
Charles?
Levi Baker
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
Leo Morales
Roll20 added folders which I used to organize music into various categories based on the mood and/or usage. Actual styles of music follow the theme of the campaign. For example the next campaign I was working on was heavily inspired by art deco and noir and so the music was mostly jazz, slow for ambience and fast for combat. Also had a folder for songs with lyrics in case I needed to introduce the typical not-so-innocent singstress who was in over her head NPC. (Generally I don't use songs with lyrics unless the singing is actually happening in-game. Non-ambient music is otherwise distracting)
Too bad it's all moot now
Logan Brown
What kind of music would you use for something as weird as Planescape? I mean, how the hell do you associate a music theme to the Inner elemental Planes? Or with a weird city like Sigil?
Carson Harris
I made generic stage playlist
But my most memorable theme is this youtube.com/watch?v=eqdhkDCCzVs I remember I used to have a really incredible archer fucking with the party at the start. They didn't actually see him until 5 sessions in, but everytime he was around, I played this music. It gives the Jaws/Predator feel I wanted to give them.
The cleric actually burned a whole forest just to sight him, so I guess I was doing my part right.
Carter Jenkins
Hmm, not sure. I think generally the planes have an arabic theme, don't they?
>tfw your dm plays a bunch of "omg so epic XD" tracks to hype you up for the game but you wish he'd stop trying and just run
Kayden Hill
LOL 5 STEPS FROM HELL AMARITE?
Brody Rogers
I try to keep a consistent genre or sound for specific characters or groups, and then mix it up for calm ambience and action themes.
It depends on the group and session, but I think holding back and saving music for more important moments and locations is a good way to keep it fresh and enjoyable.
Jordan Nguyen
Oh God it hurts
Sometimes I sort by faction and locale instead of by mood and atmosphere. In many cases, I like to isolate an artist to a given faction, region, or character to help create a direct musical association (theme). Organizing my music by region is something with which I'm still experimenting; it's difficult when there's atmosphere overlap between regions.
Gabriel Morgan
I tend to put together a shorter playlist of maybe 6-12 tracks tailored to the feel I want for a particular scene. Sometimes I'll put them in a particular order, sometimes it's just shuffled.
Takes a bit of work to prep those playlists, but I really like what it adds to the game.
What I really ought to do is go through my huge music library and sort things ahead of time by general tone, that way I can go to those particular big playlists to easily narrow down my search.
Cooper Stewart
I just have three sections: Background Battle Soundscapes
The background section has about 15 songs that adequately cover about everything, and 15 songs doesn't need organization as you can easily just remember which song is appropriate for what. Past 15 songs I'd bet dimes to dollars you're starting to compromise on quality and appropriateness, which is pointless.
Daniel Butler
I don't know about Sigil, but for elemental planes you could go with stuff that fits the general thematic associations of the elements.
