Hello!

Fishing for info & great suggestions:

Which is the 'soundtrack' for your Rogue Trader games?

Thanks!!

L

I forget...

For me, KMFDM is the soundtrack to 40k

Andy

Yes, that band's cool, especially for combat! but, i was hoping for more sweeping "spacey-epic-ky" stuff. Maybe some soundtracks?

I was thinking of using some Dead Can Dance themes... or Mussorgsky &, of course, Wagner.

L

reel big fish ~ sell out !!!!!!! there is nothing that ska cant make better !!!!!!! dark herasy , rogue trader , xmas with the family ANYTHING AT ALL !!!!!!!!

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Here's a thread I started a while ago about music in Rogue Trader. In the OP I dug up some nice examples from Eve Online that I think would fit the mood.

I'll just point out (again) that for some people, audio in the background interferes highly with ability to understand spoken word...

I am one of those people. So no music plays while I run, and generally not while I play.

I have set up a few playlists with different themes and switch depending on what mood I currently want to propose in the game. For "desolate corridors" I use selected parts of the soundtrack to the Alien movies and some parts of the Halo soundtrack. For "action scenes" I use music like what you can find during the actionscenes in the Matrix. For "bombastic moments" I use Baroque Music. J.S. Bach wrote some awesome pieces for church organ that sounds very much at home in a km-high cathedral. Try to avoid the most wellknown works, such as Vivaldis Springtime. It is better if the music is at the edge of the consciousness rather than having the players hum along. For "busy industrial" I prefer bands with improvised rythmical instruments, such as Stomp Out Loud. They give both a sense of music and a sense of mechanical background noise.

Gotcha - how about the Queen soundtrack to Flash Garden?

"Rocket ship Ajax approaching"

"Open fire, all weapons!"

aramis said:

I feel the same way about music with lyrics. The lyrics greatly interferes with what the players and the Gamemaster are saying, which is why I opt for use of music without any lyrics to set the mood.

Then there's also the question of volume. You shouldn't have it turned up so high that you can't hear what the people around the table are saying. Also you should think carefully about where you place the speakers in the room. For instance, I learned while using my computer to play music that if you place the speakers in front of your computer facing outwards the sound will drown out whatever it is you're trying to say to the players. My theory is that one should use a bunch of satellite speakers (4-8) and place them in a circle around the table, facing inwards så that the speakers envelop the group. That should (theoretically) give the best, uninterfering audio to any game session but I have yet to try it out myself (since I haven't managed to get a hold of sattelite speakers at a reasonable price).

I think that musical backround is very good thing for enforcing the right mood, but spoken (but only underestable (chants, murmour and screams are quiet ok)) word distract players and GM a lot. For 40k in general, I prefer soundtracks from Dawn of War (all datadiscs, sequel, and also mod Inquisition Daemonhunt), Mark of Chaos, Chaos Gate, Gears of War, Supreme Commander, tracks from Immediate Music and X-Ray Dog, than Summoning, Lustmord a bit, album Ghost´s from NIN (I found it especialy fitting for melancholic Eldar connected scenes... wierd...), John Bergin´s Traitor General Soundtrack, many versions of Lux Aeterna, and sometimes Battlestar Galactica.

Also, scouring the youtube for tracks from Warhammer Tributes proved to be a very resourceful idea. This channel http://www.youtube.com/user/GUNFLASH20 is especialy exceptional.

The Battlestar Galactica Soundtracks are pretty great

Varnias Tybalt said:

For some of us, if we can hear it, it interferes. (I've a measured discrimination and hearing loss in the mid-range. Specifically the Alto voice range. Which also happens to be pretty typically used as melodic range for a lot of purely instrumental music. It's damage from 20+ years of choral singing and 30+ years of instrumental work.)

sarmesh said:

Do you know the Pata Pata????? Do the Pata Pata!!!!!!!

L

aramis said:

The only game I usually don't use musik for is Call of Cthulhu, but that's an easthetick decision primarly.

L

I recommend anything by Ozric Tentacles for strange, but solid beats for space travel and investigation/exploration scenes. It's far-out progressive rock (no lyrics) with trance-like themes. Very trippy - something I imagine the Warp and Warp travel to be. I specifically recommend the albums Spice Doubt Dreaming and Pungent Effulgent.

I also play industrial tunes (pick a band of your liking) for background music. Some might say it's an obvious choice for such a mechanical and doomed universe. There are some industrial bands that do instrumentals (no lyrics) so those of you with a dislike of lyrics in your game sessions might do good there.

There's also a contingency of guitarists (Jeff Beck, John5, Joe Sitriani, Devin Townsend, etc.) who have instrumental albums. And they tend to run the gamut in terms of styles - so you might have a decent set of combat music, traveling music, and music for downtime/roleplaying moments all on one album.

/twocents

Def Sheppard said:

I've seen them live many times - never on purpose though, they just always seemed to be on whenever I was at a festival, usually about 3 in the afternoon.

I much preferred Eat Static, which would also be good for rpg background music.

Andy

LETE said:

Oh, man you have so got to play Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth if you haven't played it. It has the PERFECT music for CoC. Moody as only a dark winter evening in Innsmouth can be.

Varnias Tybalt said:

WOW, great recomendation Varnius, I´ll listen through all of it, it´s definitely useful...

Any other movie/game soundtracks you think fits the Warhammer 40 000 Universe?

EDIT: I want to point you towards Prototype soundtrack, some great moody, creepy, dark, but also action tones there...

For pregame mood setting, the Dune themes, much anything by vangelis, Holst's the Planets...

TorogTarkdacil said:

I'd recommend "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" in general, because it is one of the ultimate Lovecraftian experiences ever made. Strange why the game didn't become very famous because it is not only an awesome homage to Lovecraft but also a pretty great horror game to boot. I love horror games, but few games actually have the ability to make the hairs on my nack to stand up, and when I skulked around in the airfilled tunnels under Devils Reef with Deep Ones around every corner and that awful shriek from Mother Hydra started to bellow out of my sub-woofer enhanced speakers I nearly jumped out of my seat.

It's moments like those that makes me want to try out horror games, despite the fact that most of them don't manage to scare me at all.

As for your question, I tend to pick and choose from several different soundtracks, but I have a few songs picked out for Dark Heresy. Not really sure how appropriate they are for Rogue Trader though (since I intend to use a few songs from Eve Online for Rogue Trader, which I have linked to in this thread).

I think I have listed most of the songs in this thread:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

But that list I wrote there is by now way definitive. I'm constantly on the lookout for useful background music. Im considering checking out Prototype, since I really liked the game (you get to play a "biomancer"! ) and there was some dark, moody music in it.

Holst, The planets and Mars, Bringer of War especially.

- Player: Hey, GM. We are stuck in this ruined house, alien hybrids are patrolling the streets and it was three days since we last saw an uninfected human being. How come I suddenly know how to fly a Valkyrie? A vehicle I have never even been transported in? Do I download a software for it it like they do it in the Matrix?
- Me: Eeeh... let me get back to you on that question...

When it was time to spend xp during out next gaming session I played Eye of the Tiger and the Montage song from Team America - World police. It helped a bit with the suspension of disbelief :-)

Ilsoth: Jupiter from the same suit is my favourite when it comes to pompous.

The Hellraiser Soundtracks are great for chaos encounters.

I made a special playlist of 'space' music back when I played a lot of X3 (incidentally, the music from X3 might be quite good as well). I tend to favour the more 'electronic' end of the spectrum...

One song I love for space combat sections is Future Frame by Black Sun Empire; it was used by CCP in one of their EVE trailers, and I liked it so much I bought the album!

I'd suggest some of Mark Morgans stuff, his music has this really haunted industrial quality to it that really lends itself to the 40K universe, let Flame of the Ancient World play and then make your party explore an ancient ghost ship.