The year is 1994. I, a ten-year-old who had just cleared fourth grade, am sitting on the floor of my older sister’s bedroom. It’s summer, and the room feels warm, so we crank the ceiling fan to max speed. She hands me a blank character sheet to create my very first character in Dungeons & Dragons (let alone any tabletop RPG). I set myself up as a dwarven paladin, excited to bring my lawful goodness to the realms. Hours later, my lifeless body has become a plaything for frost giants, and the campaign comes to a close. I recall, upon first reaching the giants, the song “Cloud on My Tongue” by Tori Amos was playing in the background. Prior to that, during combat scenarios where I was actually winning, we had been listening to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged album, a powerful album with a fresh soreness around it, given Kurt Cobain’s death months prior.
My sister, Christa, has ever been a trendsetter and tastemaker for me. My love of videogames, especially RPGs, started with her introducing me to Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger. My inclination towards grunge and alternative music, as well as my lifelong appreciation for avant-garde singer/songwriters like Tori Amos and Björk? These, too, were inspired by the cooler, elder sibling in the house.
Flash forward 13 years. It’s the summer of 2007. I recently moved to North Carolina for a job opportunity that I was made aware of thanks to, you guessed it, Christa. She invites me to join a D&D campaign with some local friends and coworkers. We’ve all graduated from 2nd edition to 3.5, and I’m still getting accustomed to some of the changes. As we dip our toes into Eberron, the casual parts of play are accompanied by Del the Funky Homosapien and Animal Collective, while combat sequences are paired with DragonForce and The Mars Volta. I, as a chaotic neutral halfling rogue, make the mistake of rushing into danger too quickly and too often. How can I not, though, when I’m rocking out to “Soldiers of the Wasteland,” huh?
Maybe what I needed to better focus on the campaign was not just music I liked, but music designed for the TTRPG experience.
And, if you’d like that same music as background for me discussing that experience, you can listen below:
Curated by the Master
For years, I have received press offerings from various groups about their software platforms or musical libraries designed specifically for a custom background music (BGM) component for a Game/Dungeon Master to incorporate into TTRPG campaigns. In talks with friends and (of course) Christa about these options, I couldn’t find consensus regarding their overall quality or in-use value (as opposed to, say, a custom Spotify playlist of music the GM likes). In my own fledgling attempts to host some D&D mini-campaigns, I’ve dabbled with the music libraries from Michael Ghelfi Studios. Ghelfi’s YouTube channel alone offers hundreds of looped, ambient audio tracks for common environs and situations a party might run across, both for fantasy and sci-fi TTRPGs. It’s an impressive library, to be sure. But, whether these tracks are generalized or somewhat specific, it’s especially rare to come across music written entirely and specifically for one campaign.
Which brings me to composer Josh Barron and his unique soundtrack for The Lost Mines of Phandelver. In the past, I’ve only known Barron as an arranger for projects like The ETHEReal String Project and my personal favorite, KALEIDOSCOPE: Sakimoto and Hamauzu Works. However, Barron has also been up to some original composition, including the FPS game Fallen Aces and, now, the TTRPG score for Phandelver.
Barron’s unique project left me with no choice: I had to experience it for myself. First, I familiarized myself with the music through several listens while studying the module for myself (with plans to be GM for the first time in my life!) Generally, the soundtrack feels like a fantasy RPG score, complete with town music, pretty nature environmental themes, scary dungeon themes, standard battle music, and special boss battle music. There are even musical stings/jingles for quest completion and leveling up. It dawned on me that the process of transferring a videogame RPG score to tabletop directly could be its own fun experience, though the domineering melodies of Final Fantasy may be a bit too heavy and/or repetitive for the TTRPG experience.
Trying My Best
After many a challenge with scheduling, I got together a crew of friends and acquaintances to try out Phandelver with music intact. The added aural component was immediately noticeable as an improvement to the typical starting experience. Even with the volume at its softest, the character creation and player introduction theme “Who Might Ye Be?” brought a sense of wonder to every spoken word among our crew. This was especially so when one player introduced themselves as a human with a dark and mysterious past named “Ashley” — it seemed the mines of Phandelver might actually be connected to Vagrant Story‘s ruined city of Leá Monde!
We didn’t get much beyond introductions in the first session. I’m sure many of you know how that can be. In the next session, which ran about four hours, we were able to move through the goblin ambush and reach Phandalin. The crew got drunk at the pub (while we appropriately listened to the track “The Hair of the Dog”). And … well, that’s where we left off. One of the party members started a new job that conflicted with our meeting time, and we never did recover. It’s a shame. We were early in the adventure, and I only got to incorporate 30% of Barron’s total score in our campaign. And I even took Hank Green’s advice of keeping the group small! (For more on trying to keep a TTRPG group going, I highly recommend watching the aforementioned Hank Green video.)
Feedback
While it is a shame our campaign faltered, I cannot blame the music. If anything, that might have been the treat my party most enjoyed. The player behind “Ashley” said they were used to TTRPGs without any music at all and asserted that the music enhanced their experience, despite their fear that music would be too intrusive. Another player, the halfling rogue “Favah,” told me he’d used plenty of ambient orchestral music in TTRPGs, especially as he had some GM experience of his own. He reported that he loved the specificity of Barron’s Phandelver project, though he also thinks it could work generally with many TTRPGs, so long as the GM is prepared to match music properly with event/environment.
My final player, the one whose job got in the way, told me that they liked the Phandelver music so much that they started listening to the score streaming while they were at work, imagining a continuation of our campaign to help pass the time. And personally, I get that. I have done the same, especially while preparing this article.
Becoming a Trendsetter
So, I may not have what it takes to be the GM my sister has been. But I think I accomplished one thing! In the same way that Christa led me to Nirvana and Tori, to Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana, and so much more, I utilized my time as GM to win three friends over to the idea of original, orchestral compositions in TTRPGs.
I remain curious, though: what kind of music are other GMs using? Popular music? Videogame soundtracks? Royalty-free demo tracks? Or maybe something specific like Barron’s Phandelver soundtrack? And, as you do this work, do you find yourself gleaning pride in your abilities not just as GM, but as trendsetter and tastemaker? And if anyone does have an ongoing Phandelver campaign running, I would highly encourage adding The Lost Mines of Phandelver Original Soundtrack, especially for Thundertree and Wave Echo Cave. I truly wish I had gotten to these end scenarios with my crew!
