Music is art, and it’s perfect to set the mood & helps create expectative… using Dungeons & Dragons Music Playlists is a must!

You’re sleeping on your own tent. …You slowly wake up. You’re alone. It’s still dark outside and the sound of the campfire has vanished. Something’s not right. It’s too quiet for a forest. As you hold your breath, you hear something outside. The sound of leaves in the ground being crushed by something disturbs you. Should you go back to sleep? …can you go back to sleep?

Importance

When you’re watching a horror movie, you know something bad is going to happen as soon as the music intensifies.

Sound plays a very important role and should not be underestimated.

Many movies are remembered by their soundtracks because music is something we hold on to.

Here are some examples:

• Concerning Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings (Best movie trilogy ever)
• Imperial March from Star Wars
• Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter
• He’s a Pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean
• Pokémon Theme Song (“I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was…”)

…get it?

How to use music while playing?

Well, that question is a bit dumb. But if you do not have a gaming room packed with stereo or surround speakers, then use whatever you have in your reach.

If you usually play with a laptop, tablet or smartphone you can use this method.

You must have heard of Spotify before.

Spotify is a completely free app you can download on the App Store or Play Store (depending on your OS). You just download it, create an account and you have free unlimited music, as long as you have internet access on that device, since it will stream the songs as you play them (like Youtube).

However, if you don’t have internet access (or don’t want to hear some annoying advertisements while playing D&D – zero immersion, yo-), you can buy the Premium version which allows you to listen to music without ads and download songs to your device so you don’t have to use internet whenever you want to play certain playlist.

Playlists?

Yeah! I’ve prepared some playlists (that I update regularly with more songs) divided by “themes”.

To access my free playlists just follow this steps:

1. Open Spotify
2. Go to “Search”
3. Type: TDMsT – short for The DM’s Tavern
   
4. Because of Spotify’s search algorithm, not all playlists will appear, just click “Show all playlists”
5. I have a total of 6 Playlists that you can use for your games. Just Follow the ones you think you’d need (or follow all, made by Alejandro Vigil – that’s me!)
6. If you don’t see all 6, there are direct links to each Playlist below.
7. Share with your friends & DM!

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

If you can’t find them, here’s a link for each one:

• Town
• Combat
• Exploration
• Tavern
• Elvish
• Dwarvish

If you already have your own D&D Playlist, you can add individual songs (one by one, tho) to your playlist.

Once you’ve followed the playlists you want, just go to “” and “Playlists” and there they are.

Enjoy!

Other options?

Yes! There are other options! (if, for some reason you dislike Spotify).

Tabletop Audio is a cool free website that lets you play background music with different themes like: Dungeon, Tavern, Combat, Future, etc. Downside: You need active internet connection.

Reddit: DnD Playlist is a subreddit that always has new content about… DnD Playlists! You guessed it.

Nerdsourced also has an article with some good Youtube playlists if you want to use that.

Conclusion

Music is essential and very useful for ambiance on any roleplaying game. Be sure to always use it, it will enhance the complete experience and I’m sure all the other players will like it. It also helps everybody on focusing on roleplaying and acting out your character (if you’re into it).