Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[bloodshadows]

I always use background music for my games and one thing I'm really interested in is a soundtrack for Hardboiled and maybe for War of the Dead.

I need to gauge fan interest before we move forward on this though. So what say you?
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Mike Dukes

[nonefornic]

Um... I went with 'no' but I really wanted a maybe. It would depend for me on the music and the game. I wouldn't by music I didn't like, no matter how good the RPG is. And, depending on the game, I may or may not have my own idea of fitting music. But then again, if I enjoy the music, I'll probably just buy it simply because I enjoy it- regardless of if its useful in an RPG or not.
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No longer a luddite... I have a blog... After losing settings, rules and more in PC wipe after wipe its now home to my swag of RPG homebrewing... http://theniconomicon.blogspot.com/

[Jordan Peacock]

What I could really use would be some "setting ambience." That is, the sort of thing that loops in the background in various games (particularly various types of "adventure" games that are content to sit and wait indefinitely for my next move) to help convey that you're in a futuristic city, or a drippy cavern, or a haunted dungeon, or a creaking pirate ship at sea, or what-have-you. (Sometimes I've toyed with the idea of bringing my PC into the game room, loading up some adventure game with the appropriate background ambience, setting up a bunch of savegame points just where I'd like, and hooking the audio output to my TV system.)

I've sometimes played music in the background, but one major issue is how long it'll go before it loops around again. With ambient background noise, a bit of repetition can be forgiven since it's just "noise." Music, however, is a lot more distinctive and noticeable (there are exceptions, I know) when it starts over. For my Pirates RPG game, I ended up buying all of the Pirates CDs, but no one CD would last long enough in the player - so I ended up putting mp3s of the songs on my laptop and setting a really long playlist to go through the lot of them.

The "Riven" soundtrack is also pretty good. So is the "American McGee Alice" soundtrack, though I got even better results when I extracted the song tracks from the WAD files of the game itself. (Hmm. I see a trend! Video game soundtracks make for good RP background music.)

Anyway, I also have some CDs that have ambient noises such as thunderstorms, tropical jungles, etc., but those only go so far. (It's hard to find ones that don't also have a piano or synthesizer inexplicably playing in the middle of the jungle. It wouldn't be so bad if the music were a little more "adventure-appropriate.")
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[bloodshadows]

I guess I should have been more specific. The idea we had was for downloadable tracks, some being ambient music. Basically, I wanted to paint a picture musically for various aspects of the games. Enter Blood Town, you'll always know it because of the tawdry music. Be in the presence of the Cathedral and you'll hear the angelic choirs...

I know all too well how there are some tracks you wish would last for 20 minutes during a certain scene in your game (been there, done that ). While we wouldn't have anything quite that long, they are MP3s so they could be looped on a laptop or burnt that way onto a CD.

This is definitely helpful though. I welcome all opinions so I don't end up putting out an unwanted product.
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Mike Dukes

[TheLoremaster]

I would say, "Yes, depending on quality." I'm a big soundtrack goob, so more music = more better. Even if I don't use it during play, I like to listen to it for background while I'm working on the game. Of course, it's gotta be good enough to earn my interest.
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"Your GM is metagaming ... and wrong!"

[bloodshadows]

I don't know if it helps but the same fellow doing music for Pelgrane Press' Trail of Cthulhu would be doing our music as well.

He did intro music for my video reviews and interviews. Excellent stuff. Plus, he's worked on a noir project recently so he knows the feel we're going for with Hardboiled.
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Mike Dukes

[Sadric]

I select "NO", but its depend on the gaming group.
A few years ago i had a gaming group that really liked it.
We played Star Wars and playec the Music and it was way cooler then without music. And the sound track of babylon 5 for a SF-Mystery with sinister evil Aliens and it was cool.

And we played Pulp with the sound track of Indiana and on player sayed he do dangerous stunts because of the music.

We played a sort of atomic monster hunt and played the soundtrack of the Emerich Godzilla music. It was cool, except one player that didnt see the movie found it inappropriate

For Fantasy we hadnt the right soundtrack (it was before LotR).
So I had the feeling that it has a lot to do with the mental Image that a music create. Im not sure if a soundtrack that hadnt a big movie behind it could create this image. Thats why I choose NO.

[nonefornic]

[DerFinsterling]

I voted yes.
I don't always use background music, only sometimes and it#s always nice to have choices. Totally depends on the quality and the cost, though.
Like, I wouldn't pay 99 cents on itunes on somehting like this.... maybe 3.99 for an "album" of 12 songs.
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Markus
The Sundered Skies Serial - full of spoilers!
Savagepedia at wikispaces

[Jordan Peacock]

[bloodshadows]

James told me I could link to his website so everyone could hear the sort of music that he does. http://www.jamessemple.com/

And then here's his Star Wars project- http://www.jamessemple.com/shadowproject.php
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Mike Dukes

[The Dead Ranger]

I used to use music a lot with games but now that I have to go to the location instead of running at home, and not owning a laptop, I just don't use it anymore.
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John W. Thompson

"If everyone's having fun, then you're doing it right."