Music is a powerful tool, heightening any scene to give it a full, theatrical feeling. Imagine your favorite scene from your favorite movie, and remove the music from it. It’s lacking something, isn’t it? So, why do the same thing to your tabletop games? Music helps immerse the players and GM into the story and punctuates the emotions of any scene. We’ve all spent hours curating the perfect character playlist, so why rob your own campaign of that attention to detail?

As a player who needs music whenever I’m playing or GMing, I’ve scoured the internet for the best places to curate music for my games. I’m someone who is a sucker for a great UX, reasonable pricing, and ease of use. Here are some of my favorite resources:

BEST FREE MUSIC RESOURCE: YouTube

Good ol’ reliable YouTube. Filled with music playlists from artists putting their original work out there, to people curating playlists of classical music to fit any mood. Whenever I’m in a pinch, I know I can search “epic fight music” on YouTube and something will pop up that sets the mood. Want to add a bit of spice to your games? I highly recommend searching for bardcore covers of popular songs, perfect for any fantasy game that has more comedy angle to it.

Pros: Free, lots of options to choose from, other users curate playlists for you

Cons: Unless you have YouTube premium, there’ll be ad interruptions. Also, if you super particular about music in your games like me, the generic fantasy music may not serve what you are looking for.

BEST CINEMATIC MUSIC: Fantasy+ from Monument Studios

Okay, maybe you need a tool that will help support the Tolkein-esque story you’re trying to tell. You may see yourself as the Steven Spielberg of the GM world, and want a tool that makes your games feel like a movie. Fantasy+ may be the music tool for you, allowing GMs to build epic soundscapes with original compositions and sound effects for fantasy, western, sci-fi, and horror games. GMs that love curation will enjoy sitting down and fleshing out a full soundscape for their world, making the perfect ambience for any moment. Paying $5 a month gives you access to their full library, making it worth the small investment. 

Pros: Large library of original music, covers a wide variety of genres, ability to upload your own music. 

Cons: Requires time to sit down and create scenes, which not everyone has.

BEST APP: Pocketbard

If you’re like me, you have your notes, Roll20, D&D Beyond, Reddit and 500 other tabs open during any TTRPG game. Having ANOTHER website to open up to can feel like a headache. Enter Pocketbard, the app on your phone dedicated to easily creating immersive audio. Pocketbard makes it easy and simple to transition from one scene to the next, all you have to do is tap a button that tells the app that you’re moving to a new phase of the game (i.e. Explore to Combat). The music changes, shifting to fit the mood, and allows the user to change the levels within the ambience (Should the whispering townsfolk be louder? Or should the music heighten the moment happening?). Pocketbard is tremendously easy to use, and provides all of your tabletop musical needs right from your phone.

PROS: Extremely easy to use, nice UX, available in both the Apple Store and Google Play store, 

CONS: While the starter pack is fantastic, you need to upgrade to the Open Worlds subscription in order to access the full library of music.

BEST FOR THE RECOVERING THEATRE TECH KID: Voicemeter

Let’s get real here, you want MORE than music, you want the ability to make sure everyone is sounding fantastic in your game. You were the head sound tech for Beauty and the Beast Jr. at your high school, you want to get your hands dirty. Voicemeter will give you that experience you want. Voicemeter allows for multiple audio channels, separating voices from music and sound effects, so everyone sounds balanced. Sound effects can be added into any scene, letting players feel immersed into the world, and it has echo control, getting rid of that pesky audio feedback. Voicemeter gives you the control to make sure everyone is sounding good, regardless of their audio quality.

PROS: Makes sure everyone is sounding crisp, multiple channels allow for layering, fantastic for people with audio prevalent TTRPG games.

CONS: May be intimidating for folks who haven’t worked in audio mixing

BEST FOR CHANGING YOUR VOICE: Voicemod

Some people are blessed with the ability to mimic voices and accents, and some folks just want to play a fun TTRPG without worrying about putting on a full production. That’s where Voicemod comes into play, an app that allows you to change your voice just by speaking into your mic. A full library of voices that create the sounds of robots, zombies, dragons, all you have to do is speak, and the app will change your voice for you.

PROS: Easy to install, easy to use! Two free voices are already available if you want to use it for just one thing.

CONS: Not every voice changer knocks it out of the park. Some sound very stilted and more like text-to-speech.

BEST DISCORD BOT: Kenku

Sometimes a TTRPG game that happens over discord can be a bit of a drag. Sitting in front of your computer, waiting for your turn in battle as someone tries to calculate fireball damage, the silence sometimes feels deafening. Screensharing for YouTube doesn’t always work, and most apps that stream music into a Discord server break DMCA (rest in peace, multiple bots that played YouTube music in my servers). Kenku is a great way to stream music in Discord, and because they offer a large library of original music, their bot is there to stay! It links up with your Steam Deck, allowing for seamless music transitions, and easily brings some excitement to your Discord games.

PROS: Streams BOTH music from YouTube and its own large library, functions like any other Discord bot

CONS: Kenku’s strength is when it operates as a bot in a Discord game, for home games it may have a hard time finding its footing.

BEST FOR CREATING SOUNDSCAPES: Ambient Mixer

A free website dedicated to making ambient soundscapes, Ambient Mixer makes it easy to create your own soundscape for whatever scenario you need. You can layer noises and loop them, upload an MP3 of a piece of music you want to use, and boom, you have a musical backdrop for whatever scene you want. Not feeling too keen on making your own soundscape? You can browse the hundreds of ambient sounds users have made, some inspired by their favorite TV shows and movies. 

PROS: Free, large and expansive library made by other users.

CONS: It’s hard to quickly change the mood to reflect a new setting. You have to manually create multiple soundscapes to match whatever scenarios your players will fall into.

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Madeleine is a writer, performer, and comedian based in the Los Angeles area.