Earlier this week The Angry GM (on his own website) posted a response to a reader (Double Rainbow) inquiry about how to add atmosphere to the gaming session. The reader considered music as the solution but the Angry GM was quick to dismiss the use of music and had other suggestions (as per the title of his post) “Ask Angry: With Apologies to the Battelbards (sic)” So, we felt an appropriate, yet less-than-angry response was required.
The advice given to Double Rainbow is well articulated, insightful, and supported by real experiences from veteran GM’s — almost. The GM does make the moment, no question, and a majority of the advice given by The Angry GM is outstanding. However, we believe that a GM can and should leverage any and all tools available to create as immersive and enjoyable a gaming experience as they are able and one such powerful tool is music.
Just as watching the Star Wars opening crawl without John Williams is going to come off a bit dry, more than one narration or gaming sequence has lacked the ‘oomph’ needed to truly deliver the drama, suspense, elation, or horror the GM tried to instill. Just as movies and video games turn up that high octane score during a major battle, the tense music as the hero tiptoes around in a haunted mansion, or the dramatic orchestration during the death of a major character, tabletop gaming can leverage that same music to deeply move players, providing key context to a scene or setting.
In our games, the addition of music to gaming has in some instances brought players to tears, inspired heroic self-sacrifice, and caused players to leave the room out of terror, just to name a few examples. In many ways, music allows the GM to dial in the appropriate emotion or level of energy sought in the coming sequence, this being particularly critical as the gaming session runs into it’s 6th hour or the group just got back from a food break.
Not only can music provide an emotional shortcut, allowing a GM some leeway in shortening a narration or description, but it also amplifies the intended delivery of a script.
Beyond simply using a track for ambiance, there are a ton of tools adding music gives you:
- Leverage latent emotional connections — Need something for a fun-loving pirate gaming sequence. Chances are your players have watched Pirates of the Caribbean and using a notable score from that OST such as this which allows you to borrow both the energy of the music and the memory and emotional connection to those characters in the movie. Don’t like that movie? No problem. There are tons of classic movies with easily recognizable and powerful OST’s to leverage!
- Emotional Shortcuts — Don’t have the time or inclination for a long flowing narrative to describe precisely how the wind mournfully howls in the twilight of a forest grove to accent the loss of a party member? Let music do it for you! Selecting the right track allows the GM to ‘fill in the gaps’ in a narration by spurring the imagination of players through emotional connection.
- Amplify Narrative — Combined with the right narrative and your really fancy, well-synced, music can massively help you deliver memorable gaming moments. The combination of Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince – Dumbledore’s Farewell with the narration depicting a dying father who gave his life to save one of the characters caused a player to weep at the table (in a good way, I promise — SORRY LEANNE!)
- Let Music Make the Scene for You — It’s extremely rare but sometimes, you find a piece of music that actually describes a sequence or narrative better than you can, allowing you to actually simply play a piece and just tell the player “There, you hear this.” and let their imaginations and the piece do the rest. Thought to be wholly mad, an unkempt and oddly prophetic bard who was known as a great adventurer before going mad gave the following performance to a character aspiring to be an adventuring bard as well. With a bit of setup, the lyrics kick that scene out of the park.
This is just scratching the surface of just how profound a tool music can be in your game and we only mentioned music, not touching the whole world of soundscapes, monsterscapes, sound effects, voiceovers and so on. In regards to the musically misguided, if you’re shouting over your music, we suggest getting speakers with working volume control.
If the music you’re selecting is ignored or annoying, be more selective in what gets scored or look to expand your library. Like anything else, moderation is key. Score what you feel would have the most effect, select music that drives the point home, and get feedback from players.
In truth, injecting a bit of music to your games is pretty simple and potential very rewarding, depending on how you and your players like to play. So Double Rainbow, we’d suggest that you experiment and try injecting different kinds of music where it would help to create an organic, believable, and emotionally invest-able world.
And for The Angry GM, we sing a Sonnet of Soothing Melodies to calm his restless soul.
