How To Decide Which Black/Doom Metal Album To Blare Over Your Speakers So You Can Ignore Your Players!

One of my players asked me how I choose what background music I play during my campaigns. I thought I could give her a more accurate/honest answer as well as assist other Referees by writing this post. I look at the background music of my campaign as the "score" of my sessions. I'll get into my advice on how to pick out good background music for your campaign below, but I want to explain some concepts first.

In regards to effectively scoring my campaigns, I have been fortunate in two unique ways Referees with the same amount of experience may not have been. First, around my sophomore year of high school I began to try to gain a better taste or appreciation in music. I began to expand my horizons in not only what I listened to, but also tried to listen to the "best" music. I don't currently ingest as much music as I did and I think I only spend maybe 3 hours a week attempting to find new music. I feel that because of this I am simply aware of more music to draw upon than other Referees. Second, I have been exposed to much media which had excellent usage of sound atmosphere. I don't know if I simply chanced upon noticing these things because they all had great usage of sound atmosphere, or if  my diet of music predisposed me to noticing the usage of sound elsewhere.

Like other aspects which go into creating an atmospheric setting such as negative/positive space usage, visual aesthetics, and tempo; a good sound atmosphere can make one's partaking in media much more overwhelming. I use the term overwhelming in an emotional sense, not a sensory one. I'm not referring to music being blared over loud speakers, instead I'm referring to the emotional intensity which results from the summation of a media's individual components.

Examples of good sound atmosphere off the top of my head below:

Donkey Kong Country

Heroes of Might and Magic 4

Sunless Sea

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Sound Effects and Backing Track

Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift Sound Reinforcing Visuals

28 Days Later  Climactic Build Up

Soundscapes

If one were to ask me to describe what kind of music I enjoy the most, I would probably list off a few of my favorite genres. Last time this happened I was asked why those specifically, and I got to thinking about how they relate to one another. The majority of my favorite albums fall into one of the following genres: Black Metal, Stoner Doom Metal, Cloud Rap, Witch-house, and Emotive Hardcore. On first glance, one may simply surmise I have garbage taste. Honestly though, each of those genres are dominated by soundscapes. I use the term to mean the increasingly atmospheric composition created as the album/song is played. perhaps the following song may help explain.

Link

Each element of the song builds and coalesces into an overwhelming experience. Now the song itself could not serve as background music. Instead, I would say to think of the song as two separate components. First are the recited lyrics and the second is the background instrumental. The lyrics themselves evoke a certain theme and the background instrumental reinforces that same theme. I would say that each component on its own could evoke the theme, but the combination of them is what makes it so atmospheric. Each component can then be divided into components. The recited lyrics can be looked at in terms of what is said as well as how it is said. The instrumental component can be looked at in terms of the repeated motifs and chants, specific tonalities and slow somber tempo.

Selecting Background Music

There is a fine line between distracting and supporting background music. To quote the musician Brian Eno "it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." The purpose of the background music is to thematically support the tone of the campaign, not be fun to listen to. Think of the campaign as the recited lyrics and the music as the instrumental component.

Side-note: Please don't use any music which has lyrics. Lyrics are too engaging and the players will try to figure out what they are saying. That kind of music distracts from the actual playing.

A great way to get music for your campaign is to steal Original Soundtracks from other media. Those are designed to facilitate a specific theme and you will also get a sense of what it should sound like. Friendly reminder, creativity is a false god!

For the majority of my dungeon background music, I either choose Dungeon-Synth, Post Metal, or Doom Metal Albums. Here are the ones I currently have in rotation for when the party delves: Pig Destroyer - Mass & Volume, Bongripper - Satan Worhsiping Doom, Bongripper - Miserable, HUNTER GATHERER - Regathered, Ufomammut - Idolum, Sans Soleil - A Holy Land Beneath a Godless Sky, Asva - A Game In Hell Hard Work In Heaven, Asva - A Trap For Judges,Sunn O))) - Black Wedding, Lord Wolf - Darklands of Hate, Dolch - Yggdrasil, Depressive Silence - 1996 Demo, Leviathan - A Silhouette in Splinters, Locrain - Extinction, and Locrain - Drenched Lands.

For the majority of my overland travel background music, I go either with folk or ambient albums. Here are the ones I currently have in rotation for when the party travels: Bone Tomahawk Film OST, Book of Eli OST, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OST, Nebelung - Palingenesis, Black Hill and heklAa - Rivers & Shores, Forndom - Flykt,  Forndom - Dauðra Dura, Wardruna - Yggdrasil, Wardruna - Ragnarok, and Wardruna - Gap var Ginnunga.

For the majority of my battle music, I go with either the songs a film's OST uses for a fight scene, or a four string cover of either video game or thrash metal. For important NPC's and the occasional monster I use leitmotifs. These are often instrumental tracks of a song that remind me of a character. I use sounds of wind, rain, and the ocean to reinforce the locations characters are at. Lastly, I use instrumental covers of songs on harp or actual medieval music for when the party goes carousing.

Rant 1 and Pyramid of Futility II

Story-time: I got the Dungeon's and Dragons Monster Manual 3.5 edition when I was around 12? I just really liked all the different monsters illustrated and couldn't figure out why the book was around 40$. Some time later I acquired Monster Manual 2 and 3, and at some point after that I realized that these were supplements for a game. I was a freshman in highschool when I tried to DM my first game. I remember having the great idea to set a gothic/oppressive tone after reading Heroes of Horror (a supplement of 3.5 time which tried to explain how to have a horror/darker campaign). I thought it was really awesome that you could rise above rolling dice and playing pretend and elevate it to proper storytelling which could illicit a proper guttural reaction just like music could. Needless to say it went about as awful as I imagine most people's first time playing a tabletop rpg goes. I played with two friends and I remember that I had one of them save against a door and I think they got through a single room before we gave up. I remember that I played most of a death-core album as background music. ¹

2009 was a hard time for me, but pictured are handouts and music for a dnd session

It's been a while since then and I know that I have better skills as a DM/Referee/Storyteller. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a good storyteller. In my opinion I am better than a lot of the people I have encountered as a player, but I think that's a unrealistic perspective. I know that there is a great difference between an educated group and a non-educated group. As of 2009, 16% of the USA belongs to a gym (IHRSA). Now lets assume that about half of those people actually go to the gym and about half of those people lift weights. That means about 1 in 25 people has familiarity/education in lifting. That 1 in 25 will have radically different views on strength and lifting compared to the other 24. Further within the 4% of people who are lifting, Only a percentage of them is doing so correctly/ enjoys success in it. Their mental schema of benching 225 would be very different from a person's who is not familiar/educated in lifting. I know that the ability to compare oneself to the elites in strength sports, especially with social media, skews one's perception of self. The same way that every model being skinny and tall or every male in porn seemingly having a 10+ inch penis constructs a skewed assessment of what a "normal person" looks like, exposure to the elites skews one's understanding of what a baseline is.

I know among the people I train with whatever your current PR is, its not enough. Everyone has this sense of unworthiness which disallows them to stagnate. I think that all greatness is derived from this same source, but exposure to the elites/ those better than you serves to impart a need to be better yourself. The phrases "Iron sharpens Iron" and "if you're ever the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room" come to mind.

Maybe I'm a great DM, but it benefits me much more If i believe that I'm garbage and need to improve in all regards. Not only me, but it benefits my players, and I think it betters the tabletop rpg experience. I know the single most beneficial change I have ever done is to have a "Roses and Thorns" session after each play session. I stole this from my boy-scout troop, where the scoutmasters used as a way to receive feedback from us scouts. The only other time i have seen player-DM conversations about how the DM runs the game is when the player brings it up to express his dissatisfaction. I think by getting feedback after every session I don't let the situation get that far. More importantly, it has let me learn a great deal about the effectiveness of my DMing techniques. I think lifting is a unique hobby because results are so incredibly evident. You lift a weight many times and then you get stronger. Further the effectiveness of what you do is so visible with how much weight you can lift, in contrast to cooking where you may not be able to gage how effective a new method is. We have yet to quantify taste profiles.

This brings me to another pyramid of futility, this one for DMing/running a game.

Figure 1.

______
Worldbuilding
__________
Uniqueness
_____________
Worrying about player agency/railroading, Game "Balance" innate to the system
___________________
Reinforcing the mood via Lighting/Music/Handouts
______________________
Adjectives
_________________________
Quality NPCs/Dungeons
____________________________
Meaningful adventures
_______________________________
Consistent Rules/Theme, Informed Players
__________________________________
Consistent playtime, System-Tone alignment
_____________________________________
Players and DM agreeing to tone/theme/mood, Efficient usage of game time
________________________________________
Players playing with consistency, being able to effectively communicate with the players, the goal of having a pleasurable experience as a group
___________________________________________

I will not try to explain what I mean by each level of the pyramid

the goal of having a pleasurable experience as a group: People shouldn't do things if they are unpleasant, this is the core philosophy of why you guys are at a table

being able to effectively communicate with the players: If your players cannot understand what you are saying y'all wont be on the same page and this conflicts will emerge

Players playing with consistency: If people don't show up they 1. make problems with keeping their character in the narrative, and 2. miss stuff, which harms their enjoyment of the game

Efficient usage of game time: If you spend 3 hours of your 4 hour session dealing with a single player who wants to harass the wait staff and everyone else wants to go in a dungeon, there will be issues

Players and DM agreeing to tone/theme/mood: Its a collaborative game. The DM is essentially the conductor of an orchestra. Agreeing on what music you play beforehand not only puts everyone on the same page, it also allows players to prepare how to roleplay. Don't be the guy playing free-form jazz while everyone else struggles through the Scythian Suite.

System-Tone alignment: The tone of the game needs to be congruent with the narrative. Using pathfinder for a horror campaign is likely to cause issues simply because how pathfinder's mechanics don't reflect high lethality and rewards those who play the character building minigame. (Sidenote,- IMO Pathfinder is only good for a superhero campaign)

Consistent playtime: If you only meet for one session it better be a fantastic session.

Informed Players: If your players don't know what their character's can do then there will be an inconsistency in the challenges you can put in front of them and the challenges they can solve. If you know that your players can fly and they don't then it generally won't end well if you drop them off a cliff.

Consistent Rules/Theme: If one session is grim horror, the next is three stooges slapstick, and the third is guns blazing akimbo your players will probably not know what to expect and will likely end up confused/ their suspension of disbelief will end.

Meaningful adventures: I think a really important concept is that the world reacts to the players, otherwise why give the players the ability to take an action. So they can just waste time?

Quality NPCs/Dungeons: These two components are how you directly interact with the players. The better these are the more fulfilling it will be for players to interact with them.

Adjectives: The more you describe things, the more accurately you put into the player's mind what is in yours. If anything this is just a very specific case of effective communication.

Reinforcing the mood via Lighting/Music/Handouts: This is fairly self explanatory, thought I think you can screw this up more ways than correctly do it.

Game "Balance" innate to the system: Okay lets be real, like .1% of people actually play by the rules as written, and that's not getting into rules as intended. Sincerely almost all of "game balance" issues are not actually playing the game as it was supposed to be run. Even then, if the game systen supports the theme, then you shouldn't be having that many issues.

Worrying about player agency/railroading: Its a game of pretend with your friends as evaluated by dice. I think worrying about illusionism and false choices in a game beyond not real is tantamount of trying to police how people play pretend.

Source: Flintstones Comic

Uniqueness: Whether or not your elves are unique is not going to make or break whether someone has fun at your table. After I ran a super generic plot, my skills as a DM greatly improved, it allowed em to focus on other things below which I believe made it much tighter. 

Worldbuilding: Don't do this. There is literally no purpose. Especially don't write long back stories for your entire setting. All you do is delay actually working on things which make your DMing better. Now, this doesn't mean don't have names for anything, but if the players don't interact with it, its of no use.

In summary, DMing is an art. Fundamentally one makes "good" art by demonstrating their mastery over the medium. Once they achieve this mastery it allows them to express themselves effectively. No artist got good at evoking sadness by practicing evoking sadness, they got good at evoking sadness by getting good at making their art. Its the same for you, you get good at creating an atmosphere of dread and fear in your tabletop RPG game by getting god at running tabletop RPG games. 

1. The album in question was Carnal Reprecussions by Salt the Wound. I still think it's a really good album. (their label Rotten Records has purged Youtube many times so the link was the only one I could find online)