Exchange of Realities

Sometimes, it seems like we’re competing all the other media for their audiences. As such, it occasionally becomes necessary to borrow a few of their tricks, and the most popular way of doing that is to add a soundtrack.

The question, then, becomes how, and what to use. It’s a perennial question in the communities I’ve frequented; what do you play, how do you choose it, and how do you implement it?

In general, the key to incorporating music is not to let it get too loud. If you can’t hear each other over the soundtrack, it’s going to mess up the game; avoid this. But that’s common sense, right?

The first thing you’re going to want to figure out is whether to take the random approach or target your themes. (Note that “Both” is definitely an option.) The advantage to randomizing—putting together a playlist of approximately the right mood and running it with a shuffle function—is that it gets the mood across quickly without getting boring. The problem is that either you spend a lot of time coming up with playlists for specific events, or you risk losing mood when something appropriate to a list’s general purpose but not to the scene you’re trying to run comes up on the shuffle. On the other hand, there’s choosing tracks, and playing the chosen ones on loop during important events. This technique is rather hit or miss. When you’ve got the tunes, and good timing, and can switch between them quickly, it works. Unfortunately, lack of inspiration, lack of reaction time, or just a scene dragging far beyond its expected duration (particularly common in chat-games) can lead to looping the same song over… and over… and over. Moreover, some of the best songs out there can’t loop worth anything.

Despite its flaws, I favor the targeted track method—when it works, it’s absolutely stunning.

The second thing to do is to choose your tunes. Now, this depends a lot on your game, your group, and your own inclinations. I find that it’s better to avoid songs with lyrics, or at least ones with lyrics in English. They tend to be distracting, and oftentimes the tune of a song will match a scene, but the lyrics won’t. (On the other hand, one of my friends swears by Rammstein for battle scenes, and it doesn’t seem to have failed him yet.) You may want to pick tunes that could be some stretch of the imagination fit with the time period, but this, again, is optional.

Then you come to a question that has caused many debates, at least in my group: How recognizable do you want your music to be? If you’re like a friend of mine, recognizability doesn’t matter to you, and will in fact help: when it comes time for that major battle, you can start blasting the Imperial March or One-Winged Angel through your laptop speakers and/or over whatever voice over internet protocol you use, and the players will get the image in ways that you couldn’t manage with just words. Plus, it means you can use almost anything; it doesn’t matter which anime or movies your group has seen, or which games they’ve played; the more widely versed they are, the better!

If you’re like me, though, you prefer to avoid those. Your images are your own, and you don’t want them overlaid with something the group has already seen, so the more obscure your source, or at least the less connected it is with pre-existing visuals and characters, the better. It’s particularly important if you have music from games you haven’t played or movies you haven’t seen, since you might find that music that paints one image for you makes quite another for those in the know. I find the advantage to targeted music is that you can create new associations between music and characters or events for your group; for instance, in my game the vibrato saxophone from John Sampen’s Shadows and Dawning CD means that they’re going to be dealing with a certain fate-twisting demon spider, and I don’t think any of them are going to be able to hear Duo En’s Moonlight Over the Castle Ruins without thinking of walls sparkling under tinted stars, and the lizardwoman with the koto crooning a melody to nobody.

One trick I find useful is just going through your music list and listening, song by song. Take notes on what image it gives you, then see if you can fit something you need to that image—or if the image gives you an idea for something new entirely. If you’ve got a really large music library, I highly recommend writing down what you figure out.

Regardless of your preference in style, there are a few things you should watch out for. The most important of these is songs that change in style in the middle. What are you supposed to do when you picked up a piece for a fight, but it takes a turn more akin to a love song halfway through, and stays there? Or worse (and you know perfectly well this is going to happen right when the players are winning), goes tragic? Or even changes genres? It’s best to check ahead, and make sure it’s not going to pull the rug out from under you. (The Lord of the Rings soundtracks are particularly prone to this.) Another thing to watch out for is music that comes in sets: it begins and ends with segues from and to other tunes, but when you’re looping it, or bracketing it with songs it was not meant to be bracketed with, it doesn’t sound near as good. Another, if you’re loop-prone, is making your loops too long. It doesn’t matter how beautiful a piece is: after a dozen or so repetitions, even you’re likely to be sick of it. I personally recommend, if you can get them, ambient pieces that last twenty minutes or more; it puts off the loop issue for quite a while.

Happy listening!