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As I sit here near the end of my work day* I was wondering if anyone uses music in their DC games?

I've always been a huge fan of using music in RPGs, and I looking at my Demonground articles, I even wrote a piece about them back in 2000 (issue 2).

Two I can heartly recommend at the moment are the Pandorum soundtrack and the music released by Pelgrane Press for their various GUMSHOE RPGs.

Any other suggestions?


* Yes I'm slacking...

Always an interesting topic Marcus! I like to use music too, and I think a lot of it depends on where the action is taking place. Inside a corporate building, Classical fits the bill nicely. In the Dreamlands, mellow electronica or techno. Chase scene? Anything fast and thumping

I once ran a short campaign where the party even had their own theme tune, which I would play at the start and ending of each session (In Dust We Trust by the Chemical Brothers). It really helped their concentration, with less off-topic chatter during the game than I expected.

As for specific musical pieces, I think it's best to find what works for you. Movie soundtracks are very useful, and our Canadian friend Tim Bisaillon has a load of good tracks designed for gaming purposes on his Acid Planet account.

I am lucky enough to have several musician friends and through them I have obtained some unused demos and final mixes which they let me use. I may upload some of them to share, as the producer has put them under Creative Commons.

Morthrai wrote:
I once ran a short campaign where the party even had their own theme tune, which I would play at the start and ending of each session (In Dust We Trust by the Chemical Brothers). It really helped their concentration, with less off-topic chatter during the game than I expected.

Never used music, although in one campaign I ran I thought “We Like to Be Frightened”, Rob Calvert’s paen to classic old horror movies, would have made a good theme tune. Adventures often had a rather hectic quality to them and the song just seems to fit, despite it being on the camp side.

I have used music from time to time in other games, mainly Star Wars. However, I could see some used in DC. I believe that Midnight Syndicate does some stuff that could be very useful. You also might want to check out the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast at www.hppodcraft.com. They have released some of their show music and some of it is very atmospheric. It is also an awesome show about HP Lovecraft, which may have the original Dark Ones.

One caution about music in games, avoid vocals, at least in a languages that the players speak. I find those are terribly distracting.

Thanks,
Duncan

Linden wrote:Never used music, although in one campaign I ran I thought “We Like to Be Frightened”, Rob Calvert’s paen to classic old horror movies, would have made a good theme tune.

Ah, you can't beat a bit of Bob for top-quality silliness. A guy who did an entire album about the dodgy F-104 jets that Lockheed sold to the Luftwaffe in the 1960s, including a song by a gremlin: what's not to like!

Morthrai wrote:Ah, you can't beat a bit of Bob for top-quality silliness. A guy who did an entire album about the dodgy F-104 jets that Lockheed sold to the Luftwaffe in the 1960s, including a song by a gremlin: what's not to like!

Never heard it, yet I feel as if I have. I've got a mate who rambles on about it every time he's had a drink or five, silly German voices and all.

Nice. Well most of the time our game is accompanied by some background music. I remeber well, that for one of our longest running campaigns one of the players made a mixtape with tons of songs which have some DC relations.
Movie soundtracks are always very nice. Like Pirates of the Caribbean. I remember one occasion when the players insisted to have Shostakovich's Storming Seelow Heights run in the background during the final battel in "Heart of Darkness". The battle was a bit scaled up and involved IVFs, Tanks and many Fighters on each side. We used T2K's "Last Battle" to resolve the combat...
The Mixtape was predominantly Horror Punk like Misfits and some Psycho and Rockabilly Like the Frantic Flintstones. Möterhead also works good with DC.

You absolutely can't go wrong with a well-picked movie soundtrack

Indeed, I remember the very first days of DC when we played to the soundtrack of "The Professiona" by Eric Serra. We used to play CP2020 too back than.
Danny Elfmen (and not only because of his name) is always very good. It is obvious that Ennio Morricone encourages the players to buy trench coats and revolvers for the PC, it's great nontheless.

Personally I think Psychobilly is quite good as soundtrack for DC. It combines the 50s with Punkrock and Monsters and pure evil. Just like DC

Occasionally the players had more or less officials theme songs. Like this one obviously.

I had some dark elves who liked Rob Zombie.

I always thought the original version of Bestial Invasion by German thrashers Destruction would make a great soundtrack to the "Dusted" scenario by Dan Snuffin that appeared in Challenge 71.

I have sounds and music from two of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. computer games (henceforth referred to as STALKER) that I had intended to use for a particular campaign.
Unfortunately the campaign stopped before getting to the parts where I wanted the musical accompaniment.

The STALKER series have always been big on ambient noise to enhance the game experience and the music is typically low key (sometimes you can barely hear it) unless a specific musical sound is required for a specific location.
A typical example has a soft ambient noise track that includes distant sounds such as dogs barking or gunshots.

These noises usually have the effect of making me stop to check the area because you never can be sure the noises truly are in the background or if the noises are coming from someone or something that has detected you, (that's all part of the reason I keep going back and replaying the STALKER games!)

You can find a number of the tracks from the first STALKER game (STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl) as a free download somewhere on the net but you can also get tracks from the other STALKER games if you're prepared to go into the game directory and search for the relevant .ogg format files, (assuming you have the games installed that is!)

I think the whole setting of STALKER makes a very good Dæmonground with all those monsters and anomalies. I personally have my Dæmongrounds always cordoned off by corrupt miliaries. It also gives a good feeling for the Outlaw territories with Bandits everywhere and several gangs fighting for control.
The game also had a great influence on a big market for monster parts in DC. STALKER can easily incorporated into DC.

Reading this has actually mildly frustrated me.

Like a lot of you, I've used music quite a lot. I have mainly used a mix of soundtrack stuff in the past (The Abyss, Aliens, Schindler's List, Event Horizon and many more) and will likely use a good few again in my next campaign (especially as the subscription music service that came with my current smartphone has a stack of soundtracks available).

However, prior to running my latest campaign (ten years ago), I'd decided I wanted to base the whole thing around a custom soundtrack and even tie the Dark Lord's MO to sound and Music. I spent the best part of four months carefully curating a soundtrack of appropriate songs, musical pieces and stings. Everything from Mussorgsky to Nick Cave and a large range of styles, themes and performers in between. I ran perhaps two-fifths of the campaign prior to moving away and had just reached a stage where the players were catching on to some of what I was doing.

The frustrating part? All of the songs and music were on my old desktop machine, which did not survive my absence. One day I may go back to the concept, but I don't think it will be any time soon.

I recently found what I think is the perfect DC soundtrack, especially if you - like me - see the setting as perpetually stuck in a late 80's/early 90's time warp. Called Charles Park III by Makeup and Vanity Set it is a great homage to John Carpenter's unique minimalist style of music (I don't know if this intentional or not but it's hard to think it isn't if you've heard the soundtracks of Escape from New York or Assault on Precinct 13).

You can listen to it here for free - https://makeupandvanityset.bandcamp.com ... -park-iii

As an adjunct to this - pretty much everything by this group/individual is great cyberpunk/DC music...