Beyond the Dice: Symphonic Soundscapes for Tabletop RPGs
Posted on July 17, 2012 by Flames
Beyond the Dice enhances the overall gaming experience by adding emotional depth to the table-top gaming environment.
Phrygian Phish Musical Productions presents the first release in a new line of soundtracks specifically created for the tabletop gaming environment. Beyond the Dice: Symphonic Soundscapes features six dynamic symphonic scores and two bonus music tracks created to provide a musical reference for various gaming scenes.
The concept behind all Beyond the Dice albums is to enhance the players’ experience through use of a custom soundtracks for the gaming campaign. Each track was written to represent common gaming scenes in order to make the gamers’ entire environment more representative of the scene unfolding before them. At every stage of development, this soundtrack has been tested in game settings with remarkable success.
Howard Brandon, a game master with over 12 years of experience in running table-top game campaigns, participated in the testing of the soundtrack. “It is still amazing to me how the addition of the right kind of music can completely change the level of play.” Brandon said. “With the music, my players are more engaged, the storytelling feels more exciting, and the combat seems more extreme. Given the choice, I would never run without custom game music again.”
All music will be available both digitally and physically as a CD. The CD is in an attractive sleeve designed by Margaret Poplin (Margaretpoplin.com). The sleeve design is particularly practical to carry along the CD in a RPG source book. The album will also be available through various digital distribution channels such as iTunes and Amazon mp3.
All music for Beyond the Dice was written, recorded, and mastered by Sean Bailey. Bailey has extensive background in composing in various styles of music such as classical, electronic, metal, and jazz. Bailey is currently working on more Beyond the Dice releases as well as working freelance on other custom gaming soundtracks.
Phrygian Phish (Phrygianphish.weebly.com) is a musical production enterprise for all of Bailey’s musical projects. Other projects include the collaborative concept album Via Crucis and an upcoming solo album based on the mathematics of fractals.
Beyond the Dice: Symphonic Soundscapes is available now at Amazon.com!
Tags | dark-fantasy, rpgs
Some good effort there, but I still can’t see myself worrying enough about getting the correct music for the mood of a game, as I would be constantly stressing about mood shifts and song lengths. As long as the music doesn’t actively distract from the game, I’ll just play what I feel like.
shortymonster,
A valid point, and something I struggled with at first. What I found was even using a simple program like Media Player allowed me to switch tracks easily. More quickly, honestly, than I could look up rules in the book. Also, the tracks are designed to loop fairly well, so I usually just put on the correct track, let it loop for that part of the adventure. When I swtich scenes, I just shift tracks. It is not for everyone, but with a just a few tries, the benefits far outweighed the complications.
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