Musique Magnifique

Music may not be for every table, but it can be used to help set atmosphere. I'm gonna sit down with this post and go over what I have found that could be of use for helping immerse players through audio.

People can only know about the world around them through sensing it: sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound. With our digital age a myriad of sounds can be found and compiled to help with immersion. Adding more immersive elements is helpful to role-playing whether it is the historical reenactor, Society of Creative Anachronism (S.C.A.) member, Live Action Role Players (L.A.R.P.), or Dungeons & Dragons player wearing a blanket like a cloak. Sound is a cheap means of immersing people.

Atmosphere and Ambience

Now one can buy audio clips from site such as Amazon. In fact here is one for Medieval Battle Camps. If you want to create your own mix of sounds I suggest sites like Ambient-Mixer or Tabletop Audio where one can customize the audio files to their liking before buying them. Or.  . . have a couple tabs open where the sounds are playing, and unmute the specific mixer boards when appropriate for mood setting in the session.

Another cheap way is to look for the sounds on YouTube, such as the medieval siege collection by Ject Production below. Another idea is to look up A.S.M.R. videos either on YouTube or Vidme. A.S.M.R. by its nature places an intense value on ambient sounds. YouTube is an older site, so it will have a greater number of videos to choose from. Vidme though has a more intuitive layout and a specific tag for A.S.M.R. videos that would make searching easier.

Other actions one can take are to ignore ambient sounds and simply use music. My preference is instrumental music for it doesn't have your words and the musical lyrics mixing. Instrumental music's general lack of lyrics makes it require more emphasis on pitch, tone, speed, and other mechanics to create the mood. Also, not all music you find will be unusable for ambience. Imagine the below video from one YouTube channel, 15 Decades, being used either inside a church or in a social interaction before/ after a battle.

That isn't to say more general scene setting music can't be provided. Consider your players walking into a graveyard to the sound of "Ghost of Brandenburg," a piece meant to evoke an eeriness. One can simply have the song play in full, only its beginning, or start it at any other part in the video; it is an orchestral piece so there are several tempo [speed], volume, and key [collection of pitches] changes throughout.

On a final note there are some tips for not just the above videos but also for the below. Have several windows/ tabs open ahead of time. Nothing will break immersion like an advertisement starting up. Make sure the videos are running at their lowest quality, no one will be watching the video screens so take advantage of the increased buffer speed from lower image pixilation. The sound quality will remain the same throughout. Finally do what suits your group, have a metal guitar solo if that will get your players invested; it's your game.

COMBAT

One of the best places to use music is in combat. Songs here need not be directly related to the encounter; they need to build tension and evoke agitation. When I say agitation I mean movement, so a fast paced song with loud bombastic sounds would be a good fit. It grabs the players' attention and makes them be drawn into the fight. You should consider music as a tool in those situation because without music players are waiting and waiting for someone to finish their rolls.

"This is the Nylands och Tavastehus Calavlry March from Caliguoa or Hollowfaith's Drum and Fife mod for Empire: Total War!" (SpecialOST). I had to track this song down a fair bit, but it is a very eerie and threatening tune. It's hard for me to not imagine something dangerous approaching at the sound of those raspy pipes.

As can be heard in the above video, the battle music doesn't strictly need to be this tension building thing throughout. Music can simply be a means of filling the silence between drumming dice across a table. I personally like the Basil Poledouris piece that was used in "Conan the Barbarian "[1982], for its sound track gives this mystical and epic scope. Being used for a movie based off a sword and sorcery book series just gives an extra degree of appropriateness in my mind. Feel free to use any particularly powerful piece from a favorite movie.

Or perhaps you know a band with a particularly useful song, like the above Nightwish song I found by happenstance. It has a decent tempo and would work for my table with keeping the players somewhat immersed with what is going on at the table. Not in a manner of being strictly lined with the combat, but something to signify that they should keep paying attention. My players often have side conversations, which derail all of us---I'm still working on my G.M. skills to wrangle them all in again.

I cannot reinforce enough that one must use what they and their players would like. My advice is still to have a preference on instrumental pieces. Also, if you are having difficulty in finding music our sounds to use, simply type into YouTube (or some other streaming service) "battle music" or "battle sounds." There are actually a number of videos out there that already have a series of pieces and excerpts combined into a whole. Longer videos for audio purposes can be useful as combat in Dungeons and Dragons can take a long time. A shorter video is still useful for being easier to navigate to certain points if you have to micromanage the music to an extent.

That's all for this week.

Works Cited


15 Decades. Roman Catholic Chant - Crusades. YouTube: 15 Decades. May 29, 2013. Web Video. Accessed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY2KzjVNoKY>

Janoy Cresva. Nightwish - Last of the Wilds. YouTube: Janoy Cresva. August 15, 2010. Web Video. Accessed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oLqP6AsI7o>

JECT PRODUCTION+. MEDIEVAL BRUTAL SIEGE BATTLE SOUND EFFECT HD. YouTube: JECT PRODUCTION+. August 2, 2015. Web Video. Accessed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIKxZ2ZsH70>

Paganini Jovi. Basil Poledouris - Riddle Of Steel / Riders Of Doom. YouTube: Paganini Jovi. January 25, 2008. Web Video. Accessed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onGWF8mz1Zw>

Richard Meyer. Ghost of Brandeburg - Richard Meyer. YouTube: Classical HD. July 30, 2016. Web Video. Accessed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeenHWxcEFQ>

SpecialOST. Empire: Total War D&F OST (2009) Nylands och Tavastehus [SWE]. Youtube: SpecialOST. January 2, 2015. Web Video. Accessed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEQcXRnzxVI>