Obviously most of us are going to have John Williams on the speakers a lot of the time while we play. But I also use some less well-known Star Wars music in my games. Two examples: some old MP3s of the Knights of the Old Republic soundtrack , and the very Williams-esque Shadows of the Empire soundtrack from the 90s.

Anyone else have similar recommendations?

In those times where I've used music in the background, I've used the KOTOR soundtracks (one and two), as well as the SWTOR soundtrack, and even the Force Unleashed tracks that the composer put up on the web around the time the game came out.

I've also made use of tracks from The Big O, Final Fantasy 7 and 8, as well as a few from Avatar: The Last Airbender, but those mostly for character leitmotifs.

I use the X Rebirth soundtrack fairly often as well as the Blade Runner soundtrack.

I am a big fan of Two Steps From **** who have made a wide variety of styles of music, but are best known for their video game and movie work. The anthologies Invincible, Skyworld, Archangel, and Legend are especially good for games, but don't stop there.

Go here: https://www.youtube.com/user/TwoStepsFromTheMusic/playlists

Now, my game tends to be pretty serious and can get a bit tense so we need down-beats or humorous memes now and again.To that end, some of the Star Wars Kinect songs are actual in-universe songs now. For instance, the Imperial HoloNet has a propaganda show called Empire Today that uses the eponymous song as bumper music. Also, the songs Hologram Girl and the Huttese-language We Speak no Huttese and Dance Until You Drop have been heard on low-low during some club or cantina scenes.

Go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibM9KlEDoII&list=PLe3jBFMkBDJzfl1mdv_JAAI1VX6jbR7wX

Speaking of cantina style scenes, if you want something low key, the Andrew Allen Trio has done some soul jazz covers of traditional Star Wars songs.

Go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFfaN-ai5Eg&list=PLZ7QDcb1npHUY-95QvYkLvnRezIXSiNkx

And, while its different and not all of it works, if I just want some gentle ambient background music DJ AJ's remixes are pretty good. He's got a mix of classical music, movie themes, and original music. There are also a few Star Wars covers.

Go here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgWC7P2qVPluALVUeAnU_mA

Then there's that moment I had where I just plunked on the Ep. IV soundtrack and called it a day. The party was trying to sneak into an Imperial airbase when the cantina band came on.

We decided it must have been one of the stormtrooper's ringtone.

As for what music I listen to while RPing? Mostly Demon Hunter, Sabaton, or some Manowar, but admittedly, most of my playing is PbPs because I'm only sporadically able to play in person. Oh, and I also listen to lots of political commentary, but I doubt that counts as music.
Either way, not obvious choices...

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Oh, and I also listen to lots of political commentary, but I doubt that counts as music...

I don't know, Talking Heads is a band...

Wizards of the Coast did a series of articles on this back when they had the Star Wars license.

Focusing on the "less obvious", more than "appropriate"...

It's not what anyone expects from Star Wars, so it's got that going for it...

Ambient works well.
Old school Aphex Twin and Brian Eno. But also Fennesz or Eluvium.
And drone metal like Sunn O))) works wonders for fighting scenes.

Way back in the day I used the Blade Runner, Spawn and Blade soundtracks a lot (and some others I can't recall now). As well as the Star Wars soundtracks. Additionally I found Minority Report to be very fitting (which perhaps isn't that strange).

Last few games have been run with the new star wars soundtracks, I'm particularly fond of Solo, but any of the ST works well too, and Rogue One is acceptable, but all Star Wars soundtracks, from computer games, animated show or live-action shows, have shown themselves useful for gaming. So far.

John Carter (from Mars) OST is pretty darned decent.

The Conan soundtracks (and of course Red Sonja), whether from game or film, also works quite well.

The Elder Scrolls soundtracks also work for Star Wars, in more nature and fantasy-esque situations with mysteries and not so friendly nature-dwelling locals.

Ugress has a lot of nice tracks, and albums (can also be found on Spotify ). And for more moody stuff, the same guy also goes under the name Nebular Spool ( spotify ) and Shadow of the Beat ( spotify ), which all work quite well for gaming too, if not for the most happy-lucky-go-go games.

Laibach 's rendition of Also Sprach Zarathustra is also pretty **** tense.

Hugo Kant has nice stuff for games also.

Oh, and this guy. I first heard him playing by the river in Porto, Portugal, in 2018. (he's also on facebook ).

Great stuff, if you want some emotional oomph in your scene, when building it up.

3 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Ambient works well.
Old school Aphex Twin and Brian Eno. But also Fennesz or Eluvium.

That's what we've done. Or David Sylvian, especially Rain Tree Crow or Gone to Earth, or his earlier work with Japan. Or Jon Hassell and his synthesized trumpets...eerie! But those are just defaults when we don't want to think about it, we mix it up quite a bit.

On 1/6/2020 at 7:16 PM, DaverWattra said:

Obviously most of us are going to have John Williams on the speakers a lot of the time while we play.

Dear lordy no. I have never *ever* done this, never will. Contrary to popular belief, there is a level of fandom I simply will not cross...

For me, it’s often the expected stuff, culled from a variety of movie and tv soundtracks that fit the particular session (when I even use music; sometimes I’ve got enough going on just running the game, without adding DJ duty on top).

As a player, I’m lucky to have a GM who, in addition to using mood music, is not averse to us supplying music that’s scene-appropriate, even if it’s non-genre. Example: In one campaign, I had a Twi’lek slicer. But because of the natural species boost to Charm, he also ended up being the de facto face character, so I began playing up his social aspect. So much so that we had a running gag that, when I was about to charm someone, I (as the player) would give a cheesy smile and thumbs-up, saying “ding” (like those old shows where they’d animate a tooth sparkle and add a chime sound). In one game, we needed some information from a woman, and none of the other characters’ tactics were working. So, here I went...smile/thumbs-up/“ding”...and on my phone, I queued up “Sexy and I Know It.” Got a laugh from everyone at the table, and a boost die on my Charm roll for amusing the GM.

I'm pretty fond of the Stellaris soundtrack as a background.

It's got some pretty nice generic spaceyness to it and if you don't have it playing on max it makes for a pretty nice ambient background.

32 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

I'm pretty fond of the Stellaris soundtrack as a background.

It's got some pretty nice generic spaceyness to it and if you don't have it playing on max it makes for a pretty nice ambient background.

I love the Stellaris soundtrack! It's really good. Never struck me as particularly Star-Warsy though. More just general sci-fi.

As an addendum, even if it’s recognizable (sometimes specifically because it’s recognizable) I’ll use music from well outside Star Wars to cue my players in to a particular mood or content. For example, I found an orchestral version of the Walking Dead theme that I used at the top of a Halloween adventure that pit the group against Blackwing virus zombies. For a heist caper, I used the Ocean’s Eleven soundtrack...that sort of thing.

Mississippi Delta Blues.