What would you suggest to play in the background.

I think it should be something that captures the dark and grimey theme of the game, but I at a loss to which songs/album to use ...

Conan soundtrack?

Hans Zimmer soundtracks are good IMO.

prepping some for a session tonight myself.

Generally soundtracks from fanatsy/sci-fi movies work well. Just be careful with the really catchy tunes people know from Lotr etc.

The Green Mile, King Kong, Kingdom of Heaven, Sleepy Hollow, Name of the Rose, Stargate, transformers arejust some xamples of good soundtracks

Cheers

-LA

Film music is of course wonderful, perhaps the only problem with it that it might be too good, by which I mean; sometimes the music is so powerful it might actually make you lose your focus on the game and have you listening instead (of course, I speak from the POV of a major film music fan).

What you might also consider is game music: The Witcher, for example, has a soundtrack that would fit perfectly with Warhammer

name of the rose is a good idea ... even one of those albums i got at home in CD ... from the time before torrents ... i mean youtube, youtube !!!

Conan and Witcher are very good ideas .... those 3 (with name of the rose) should form a good base *g*

with soundtrack i meant soundtrack for warhammer, not "only music from movie soundtracks"

I sometimes use Radio Rivendell:

http://radiorivendell.com/

I always want to go to Warhammer's roots and play Sabbath, Maiden, or Priest, but that's generally a bit disruptive for most groups.

The Warhammer Online soundtrack (which can be downloaded from their website) has some good characterful pieces, but I pretty much stick to soundtracks like Gladiator, Conan, or weird ambient stuff like Autechre or Aphex Twin if I want an unsettling or alien mood.

Some of the stuff by Nox Arcana is pretty good and dark.

morskittar said:

There is a quartet of celloists called Apocolyptica who did a an album of Metallica covers. I really liked the idea of something that had the sound of something that wasn't 'anachronistic' but had the metal roots aswell! It worked really well, the tongue should never be too far away from the cheek during WFRP sessions so as to contrast with the darkness, so you can try the Blackadder theme (series 2). Otherwise, chamber music of all shades and particularly something with a harpsicord.

I think a lot of the traditional bombastic fantasy style soundtracks don't actually fit all that well with wfrp, or at least not the view I have of it. It's a pretty quirky world so I prefer to go with kind of quirky music. I've used Tom Waits (from Rain Dogs on) to great success and when in some tense rooftop chase a bit of crazy klezmer works wonders!

Actually klezmer feels very wfrp to me, although if you'd like something slighly less frenetic but with a similar feel to it I can warmly recommend the soundtrack of the new Sherlock Holmes movie (by Zimmer). The whole movie actually has a very distinct warhammer feel to it, go and see it.

Poe said:

Rocky road to Dublin... my favorite song. Not really fitting for WFRP, but just remembered it was in the new sherlock movie. I can reccomend the soundtrack from Age of Conan (the MMO). Incredible soundtrack.

Zimmer's Sherlock Holmes, Ravenous Soundtrack, Brotherhood of the Wolf soundtrack all capture a range of emotions and 'feels' that fit the setting.

keltheos said:

I don't quite remember the soundtrack to Brotherhood of the Wolf, but Ravenous is certainly a gem.

Selections from any and all of these:

Dead Can Dance

Andy Partridge & Harold Budd, "Through the Hill"

Arcana, "Le Serpent Rouge"

Birger Mistereggen & Trio Medieval

Corvus Corax

Grabesmond

Stephan Michael Sechi

Soundtracks to Riven, Myst IV, Conan the Barbarian, DragonHeart, Eternal Darkness, Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, District 9, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Assassin's Creed

I find that any music that gets people pumped up in combat, or feel emotional during sad encounters, work. Sure, perhaps techno music isn't the way to go, but I think you'll be surprised to see what actually works! Also, if you can tailor your scenes after some great musical masterpeices, the scenes become 10x better! I even made two players shed a few tears at the end of one of my campaign, and these are really tough guys too!

I find that music from computer/console game often work wonders!

Here's a few examples I use, courtesy of youtube! Listen to the music and imagine the scenes!

www.youtube.com/watch - A great tavern or calm town music

www.youtube.com/watch - Great big city music

And that's only a few of many tracks I use to enhance the mood of my games. If you use any of them, let me know if they worked for you.

i think it depends from session. I really offten use:

- Lord of the Rings (complete soundtracks from all 3 movies)

- 300 ost

- Le Pacte des Loups ost

and sometimes I use:

- Sleepy Hollow ost

- Conan ost

- The Witcher ost (from the game and from the movie)

That's all.

Van Helsing (Jackson)

Dracula - (Gary Oldman)

Great soundtracks despite the so so movies.

I'd personally recommend against using themes or motifs that are too recognizable. Having the Conan theme come thundering up will definitely bring chuckles and high fives. That could be what you're going for, but it could be inappropriate or jarring depending on the mood you're striving for.

Unless it's been said already, some PC game music can supply you with a broad range of background music that is less recognizable, loops seamlessly, and is often pre-organized by theme (dungeon, town, rural, hell etc...).

Eg.: the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has all it's music stored in easy to access folders in MP3 format. Not bad, I'd say.

EDIT: what GravityAngel said on page 1. I wholeheartedly second his recommendations:

Selections from any and all of these:

Dead Can Dance

Andy Partridge & Harold Budd, "Through the Hill"

Arcana, "Le Serpent Rouge"

Birger Mistereggen & Trio Medieval

Corvus Corax

Grabesmond

Stephan Michael Sechi

Soundtracks to Riven, Myst IV, Conan the Barbarian, DragonHeart, Eternal Darkness, Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, District 9, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Assassin's Creed

I was thinking of using the soundtrack from World of Warcraft. It's quite easy to label according to theme, and the music is just perfect since it is not that intrusive, but has a lot of feeling into it. I know that it may be heresy to use WoW assets in WFRP, but what do I care

Im all for instrumental soundtracks when playing games. If theres vocals, I want them to be in another language, preferably something ancient.

- Dead Can Dance (DCD) is awesome!!! Lisa Gerrard from DCD has a couple solo albums also. Shes the haunting voice in the Gladiator soundtrack.

- The 300 soundtrack sounds like Lisa, but is actually Azam Ali. Saw her play live once singing and playing the dulcimer. So otherworldy. She has solo albums and has sung for 2 groups, Niyaz and Vas. Azam Ali is a goddess, when i shook her hand, she actually hugged me. She makes a better voice for the middle eastern-y dark fantasy feel than Lisa does (probly coz shes actually middle eastern and not irish)

- A little known gem of an instrumental is the album Black Aria from Glenn Danzig (yup thats Danzig, of Danzig and the Misfits) It sounds like the soundtrack for "a rebel angels, falling from heaven, that doesnt suck movie"

- But for grim dark fantasy in a muddy little village, Id like to recommend the Warsaw Village Band! cool polish guys and gals playing the heck out of ancient ethnic instruments.

- Theres a ton of Balkan Brass bands, but I think they might be too fast for rpgers, but tabletop wargamers ive played with love it! i recommend Fanfare Ciocarlia, Kocani Orkestar, Boban Marcovic, Taraf de Haidouks. Balkan Brass is so awesome it can make peoples heads explode.

Hope this helps...

mastodon

First off, I'd like to say that I use RPGSoundMixer in every game I play. I won't go to the table without it (that, and 'The Keep'). I helped translate the manual for it from German to English. I think it's an absolute must for any table.

I use the soundtrack from an old game called 'Soulbringer' as the core soundtrack for my games. It has become iconic for my Warhammer games. I play it during 'idle' times and before the game starts. During combat and suspense scenes, I use a combination of Conan and the soundtrack from an old 40k game called 'Rites of War'.

I also have a few tracks from 'Vampire: Requiem', 'Rings of Power', and 'Diablo II'.

Some of the more esoteric tracks I use are 'Requiem - Das Haus der Schatten' and 'RequiemII - In finsteren Hallen'.

Here is a list of my soundscapes created in RPGSoundMixer:

Atmosphere (0)

- Aftermath (F) * M S
- Camping (Z) * S
- Combat © * M S
- Combat Monster (D) * M S
- Horse Chase (P) * M S
- Journey by horse and cart (J) * M S
- Travelling by Horse and Wagon (No Music) (W) * S

Soundtrack (1)

- Diablo II (D) * M
- Lost (H) * M
- Rings of Power (G) * M
- Rites of War (S) * M
- Soulbringer Soundtrack (New) (A) * M
- Vampire - Redemption (F) * M

Sound Effects 1 (2)
-

- Applase (A) S
- Background Frogs (E) * S
- Bats in flight (J) S
- Bird (B) S
- Bubbling (K) * S
- Burning Torch (T) * S
- Creaking (U) * S
- Crowd © * S
- Crows (Q) * S
- Dish Breaking (D) S
- Door Opening (D) S
- Dripping Water (P) * S
- Fireplace (F) * S
- Fog Horn (V) S
- Hiss (Z) S
- Horse (H) S
- Insect (I) * S
- Laughter (L) S
- Monster Roars (M) S
- Night Birds (N) S
- Other Noises (O) S
- River ® * S
- Sea Gulls (S) * S
- Sploosh (Y) S
- Strong Wind (W) * S
- Wind gust (G) S
- Wolves (X) S

Sound Effects 2 (3)
-

- Combat (F) * S
- Door Close © S
- Knocking (K) S
- Running ® * S
- Spell Casting (S) S

Locations (4)
-

- Arabic Bazaar (A) * M S
- Boat - Sheets to the Wind (N) * S
- Boat, Becalmed (B) * S
- Cave © * S
- Church (U) * S
- Inn - Low Population (O) * S
- Inn Ambiance (I) * M S
- Jungle - Day (J) * S
- Jungle - Night (K) * S
- Jungle Drums (D) * S
- Lab/Magic Shop (L) * S
- Market Place (M) * S
- Seaport (P) * S
- Smithy (S) * S
- Swamp (X) * S
- Town (T) * S

Campaign (5)

- Aftermath (U) * M
- Combat (New) (Z) * M S
- Crows (New) (Q) S
- Forest (L) * M
- Inn (K) * M S
- Restuarnt (J) * M S
- Suspense (Y) * M
- Tall Man (T) * M
- Temple (S) * M
- Temple of Shallya (D) * M
- Town (A) * M

Modern (6)

- Club © * M

Campaign Speech (7)
-

- Combat Monster (J) * M S
- Fire © * S
- Ice Lair (A) * M S
- Ice Lair - Ghostly Voices (S) S
- Ice Lair Combat (D) * M S
- Magdah (W) * M S
- Monster Roar (G) S
- Monster Roars (M) S
- Travelling by Horse (No Music) (E) * S
- Troll Country ® * M S
- Troll Country - No Narration (T) * M S
- Tzeentch Speech (Z) * M S
- Winter Fire (F) * S

Mode 8 (8)

Weather (9)
-

- Light Rain ® * S
- Rain Storm (P) * S
- Sunny Day (D) * S
- Thunderstorm (T) * S

A little more about RPGSoundMixer:

It allows you to control and mix sound.

You can start and stop a random or fixed chain of songs.

You can then add to it sound effects. These sound effects can be manually controlled or randomized (with triggers). Let's take my Inn soundscape for example.

It begins with a random selection of string based songs, such as those a bard would play. The crowd murmur quickly fades in and stabilizes at a low hum along with a crackling fire. Then I have a random selection of ambient sounds: Sneezes, coughs, laughs and giggles, cheers, shouts, the frond door opening and closings, glasses breaking, etc. I have set the interval that they occur to about 3 seconds +/- 2 seconds. Some of the sounds, like the front door, I have made lower priority so they happen less often.

I then made a few special events, for example, every so often a tray of dishes will fall. I have set a trigger on this so that whenever this happens, the crowd cheers.

I then altered this soundscape, lowered the levels and density, and saved it as 'restaurant' instead of Inn, a less populated, more quiet environment.

This has come in particularly helpful for the 'Gathering Storm' campaign. I have 4 different weather sets (light rain, rain, storm, heavy storm), compete with distant grumbling thunder and lightning strikes. I then added a few really loud lightning strikes and set them to a hot key so I can call down the thunder whenever I want!

I also modified my Inn and other indoor scenes with muffled thunder so that it sounds like it's raining outside while they are inside.

My players love this stuff. It takes a little extra time to plan each game, but it's well worth the extra time!

NezziR said:

Oh...wow. That's awesome. That's incredibly awesome. That's so awesome, in fact, that it made my otherwise crummy day okay after all. Thanks so much for sharing!!!!

Yeah I have to say I am seriously contemplating buying that... I think it would do wonders for atmosphere.