My players mercilessly make fun of me for the music I've chosen to score the campaign with...

...

>Grow a pair
That ship has sailed

>get better tastes
Impossible

The difference is I actually respect my friend's taste in music, so I care what they think of mine.

Like you, for example?

Well the. Tell us what kind of campaign you're running and what you're playing for it and we can give you constructive criticism. If you're really already playing the best music you possibly can and your players are still teasing you, there's not much we can do about it.

...

post your shitty music so we can laugh at you and give you better options

$20 that is either some weaboo shit or Dragonforce tier power cheese.

> My players mercilessly make fun of me for the music I've chosen to score the campaign with
What music?

>The difference is I actually respect my friend's taste in music, so I care what they think of mine.

so basically all those cruel barbs are deserved and you're hopeless because you can't get better taste?

anyway, rule 1 to getting dickheads to respect your picks in music is to just pick something they haven't heard and insist you only picked it for theme.

they can't argue it's in poor taste if they know nothing about the subject. and if they do, you say "well i picked it for fitting, not because of it's artistic merit" and wow look at that you explained away your bad taste

ask what kind of music they'd rather have, or maybe dont play music at all if it just distracts them

but most importantly first post what you were playing & the context

Pathfinder campaign. Setting is a continent spanning city I might as well have called "Noo York" for all the luck I'm having hiding my influences. Some examples of the music I'm using are as follows.

youtube.com/watch?v=aue3NrdtzN0
youtube.com/watch?v=eLcOVaAZTMs
youtube.com/watch?v=aFI2u18FQlA
youtube.com/watch?v=DyDp55wfnHM
youtube.com/watch?v=QExmP7iUl3U
youtube.com/watch?v=0cK_AIpmejs
youtube.com/watch?v=V89ZFWxVxcI

>piano
>piano
>piano
>piano
too samey

That first one is nice tho, saved

Sounds like your players are just not that into urban/noir campaigns. You shouldn't have to force a genre onto someone else - neither GM nor players.

>Sounds like your players are just not that into urban/noir campaigns.
They like the campaign, they don't like the music

I enjoyed listening to those. Thank you, OP.

I think these are pretty fitting... What exactly they don't like? What did they suggest?

I agree with your players.

It's good music, but it's not good campaign background music.

I could see it working if its used sparingly and only in a couple key, narrative and story heavy moments, but I can't see it working if it's constantly playing in the background regardless of what's happening.

How dark is the campaign? A focus on more upbeat styles might make them feel better about things without totally changing genre.

sounds like production music, very samey and forgettable (and not in a good way). if this is all you got just drop the music entirely, if theyre not into it as a game element theyre not gonna suddenly buy into it no matter how much ambient piano noodling your make them listen to. your other option is to focus on finding a clear musical leitmotif and using it for effect instead of having this stuff crooning away all the time

They think it's anachronistic, which is stupid. It's not a medieval setting. There are steam trains and primitive computers and techno-monks. The culture is closer to the 50s than anything else. Even if it was a renn faire setting it's not like they had full film score orchestras back then either, so that's just as much an anachronism. Besides, they don't mind speaking in modern English, one of them is playing a homosexual.

Not that I say any of this to them. I sheepishly laugh it off and try to change the subject. I'm a coward and I don't enjoy confronting people.

>I could see it working if its used sparingly and only in a couple key, narrative and story heavy moments, but I can't see it working if it's constantly playing in the background regardless of what's happening.
I'm somewhere between those two. I don't play it ALL the time. But I do play it more frequently than just at key dramatic moments.

It's a noir. So it's dark in that sense, but not in the "crawling in my skin" sense. More Glengarry Glen Ross than Underworld

>sounds like production music, very samey and forgettable (and not in a good way)
Oh... I like it... but okay... fair enough

>But I do play it more frequently than just at key dramatic moments.
Ditch it. It's only suitable to be used very sparingly, and never in dramatic moments.

To pull off that music, you would need a very good voice and a very compelling narrative.

Unless you're a professional narrator, it's just going to feel ridiculous.

If I was your player, I'd also be making fun of you for it, or at the very least, I wouldn't be able to be serious while that music is playing during the campaign.

>anachronistic
id be willing to bet this is partially also their way of saying that it's too on-the-nose for the setting's inspirations

>I like it
hey man you do you, but you gotta think in context of of the work and the situation instead of just what kinda aesthetic is your favorite.

>hey man you do you, but you gotta think in context of of the work and the situation instead of just what kinda aesthetic is your favorite.
I think it suits. Much of the campaign was inspired by my love of dark jazz and dark ambient. But I guess if I'm in the minority I might be wrong.

I feel really bad, but I genuinely enjoyed Macintosh Plus' Flower shop. My experience in vaporwave as a whole is limited.

look i get that its part of the whole ideal image of the campaign thats in your head, and i get the desire to try and translate that experience into reality, but it's not working with your group so quit trying to force it.

and as a supplementary point; something can be inspired by any number of things but that doesn't mean it benefits from actually explicitly containing them, yknow?

That's fair. I hadn't considered any of this before. Thank you.

Pay up

...

Australian money comes in all the Starburst flavours

>dark ambient
Then do something like that. There's plenty of darker or melancholic ambient out there.

youtube.com/watch?v=QgY5cZBklEk

It takes a special kind of player to enjoy noir jazz background, and it usually doesn't fit how an RPG plays.

There's also going full-on grime tribal for city combat to wake 'em up a bit.

youtube.com/watch?v=D9s18rUaubc

Easy solution: anytime someone complains, ask if they would rather put together a playlist for the group themselves. Either they will balk at having to do actual work and stop complaining, or you will get a bunch of free music.

>ask if they would rather put together a playlist for the group themselves
Almost everyone will be able to do this in a few seconds on youtube. But they also don't know what's coming up in the campaign, so it probably won't be as good.

tell em to deal with it or bring their own shit.
Grow a pair and/or beat their asses into submission with either brute force or a sweet dance routine.

Just ask for general moods
>"City ambiance"
>"Rising tension"
>"Fight scene"
That sort of thing.

you don't. you find out what kind of music they would rather use, and you use that, or you ditch it altogether.

their merciless teasing is feedback. as a game master you must listen to feedback from your players. when your players are unanimous over some aspect of the game detracting from their enjoyment, then you really do have to consider making a change.

City ambiance:
youtube.com/watch?v=U78dL8SDExw
Rising tension:
youtube.com/watch?v=dVuVIfL2UO8
Fight scene:
youtube.com/watch?v=6dlES4xK6Pw

There, now we got some 'noble overcoming' and 'listless twilight city' moods to go through.
Plenty of other options out there though. GMs gotta experiment to see what players like, keep an eye on their moods.

City ambiance youtube.com/watch?v=7vzyc-n4RDM
Rising tension youtube.com/watch?v=7h8ilDUhfAU
Fight scene youtube.com/watch?v=rnGPTR228hw

Canadian money is made of plastic and smells suspiciously like maple syrup sometimes.

I'm not even kidding.

suicide

your setting is still fantasy? Or are you just playing a noir game with swords and Tieflings?

This doesn't sound fitting to pathfinder at all.
Maybe for a noir detective game, used sparingly, when the characters themselves hear the music. But the sound of soft sax and piano doesn't mix well with fantasy.
I'd use some of your music for CoC, when the PCs are sitting in a bar or something, but having that music playing all the time, even in a fitting setting, is annoying.

Play Linkin Park until they miss the old music

Call them fags, it's worked since the beginning of time.

Our Maple Syrup Money is da best.

>But the sound of soft sax and piano doesn't mix well with fantasy.
I thought given the alternative tone I could pull it off.

And, frankly, what's commonly understood to "fit" with high fantasy is terrible and I'd rather have nothing than that

continue playing the music, they can choose the music when they run the campaign

Only one person bothers to handle music in our group and i remind them that if they don't like it they can take over for him (which they won't because of laziness)

At the beginning of time people did not have language and thus did not have the word to call others with.

At the beginning of time there were no people.

Two can play at that game, pedant

Tell them if they don't like it they can choose or we're going without