Posts Tagged by background music
| October 31, 2012 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
I recently got to run two sessions of Call of Cthulhu for my group, and when I was prepping for the game I decided it was time to freshen up my horror background music playlist. I normally use an “applicable to most RPGs” playlist (Sinister, part of my three-playlist system for BGM) that draws from all sorts of soundtracks, but a little web research suggested a new tack that sounded fun: dark ambient music that fades into the background, its atmosphere of tension pervading the…
| January 18, 2012 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Over the past couple of years, I’ve refined a simple, lazy, but highly effective approach to RPG background music. I call it the Three Playlist System, and in this article I’m going to show you how to use it. This approach to BGM balances the desire to set the mood at the gaming table with the need to focus on what really matters: the game. I want background music and my group wants background music, but we don’t want to devote a lot of time…
| November 8, 2011 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Gnotes from Gnome Stew HQ RPG Mapping Software For many years, I’ve felt like I wasn’t a true gamer because I didn’t have a world I’d been building since I was a little kid. I’ve built pieces of worlds, and helped write plenty of worldbuilding fiction, but never had a world all my own, like so many gamers do — one that I’d been adding to, bit by bit, until it became a rich and interesting place. A couple weeks back, that changed. Fellow gnome…
| August 2, 2011 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Gnotes from Gnome Stew HQ The first installment of Martin’s Mentions seemed to go over well, so I’m sticking to that format for this edition. If you have an item to suggest, please email me: martin (at) gnomestew (dot) com. GMing Roundup The two latest “The Architect DM” articles over on Critical Hits were quite enjoyable. On Sandbox Campaigns looks at how starting a sandbox-style campaign (one where the PCs pick a direction and you adapt accordingly, more or less) is like entering a train…
| April 25, 2011 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Gnome Stew readers posted so many great suggestions for RPG background music in the comments on RPG Background Music: 41 Awesome Soundtracks that I decided to make a “reader tips” edition as a follow-up article. Combined, there are 99 recommendations between these two pieces. I’ve already picked up one album based on your comments (the BSG Season One soundtrack, which is amazing — and also great music to prep to), and wishlisted many others. Many thanks to the fine folks who suggested these albums! In…
| February 23, 2011 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
I love background music when I’m GMing and when I’m playing — for me, it’s an integral part of the gaming experience. It’s been two years since I wrote about background music here on the Stew (Creating Simple, Deep Playlists for RPG Background Music), and it’s time for an update. The advice in that article, which focused on building playlists, still holds true for me today — that’s still what my RPG playlists look like. But I’ve added quite a bit of new music in…
