Prep music: Themes of Darkness and Horror

I've found over the years of my gaming experience that mood is everything. If you're playing an epic fantasy story, you want to feel like you've been teleported in some sort of mystical land. For sci-fi, you may want to get a feeling of out-worldliness. Every genre of role playing that's out there has its own mood, a flavor that is unique to its nature.

The job of bringing the mood of the RPG is the job of everyone at the table. Players have as much of a responsibility to atmosphere as the game master, because how they play their characters greatly affects the other players around them, and can inspire the game master whose primary job is to keep the players entertained and keep the game moving. That being said, the main keeper of mood and theme is the, in fact, game master. If players are doing a sub-par job of playing their characters in relation to what the theme of the game is, a game master could still pull off giving the game that sense of atmosphere worthy of the genre. If a game master, on the other hand, is doing a sub-par job of giving the table a sense of theme, it has a greatly larger affect on the game as a whole.

Sometimes, at least for me, I need a boost to get in the right kind of mood for a game. Knowing that setting the tone for the game is my responsibility when I'm running, I try to prepare myself mentally and get motivated for the game. The way I do this is through music. About a half hour to an hour before game, I'll listen to different kinds of music to get myself juiced to run. Just as there are different moods for the kinds of games that are out there, so too are there different kinds of music that can better prepare you for playing the theme of your choice.

Right now, I'll talk about running a game with a theme of horror and darkness. I'm currently storytelling for a World of Darkness game for the Cup of Head group on Roll20. For a game setting like the World of Darkness, it's only fitting that the mood is one of gloom and horror. Now, I don't spend my pregame warm-up listening to depressing goth and lulling myself into a sense utter despair. That's not the point. But I do try to listen to music with a darker theme to it. My goal is to almost transport myself, or my imagination, to the World of Darkness. The WoD, where monsters are real, and things are like our world but with a dark twist.

Here's a list of some of the music I try to listen to before game.

Nine Inch Nails: Mostly The Downward Spiral album. NIN, out of all the crazy dark music that's out there, is to me the most disturbing of them all. I'm sure plenty of people would disagree with me and feed me a whole plethora of music that's supposed to be darker than Nine Inch Nails. My argument is that Trent Reznor's music doesn't try to use gimmicks to be dark and horrifying. The music coming from him is just naturally disturbing and dark. No make up. No gimmicky videos. Just a lot of disturbing symbolism mixed with disturbing lyrics. Nine Inch Nails, for me, is the the theme music for the World of Darkness setting.

Rob Zombie: Rob Zombie is the face of horror music. He builds almost his entire reputation as being scary, but a scary that's supposed to be cool. Unlike Reznor, his music is chalk full of gimmicks, make up, and an almost carnival atmosphere. As much as his music is dark, it's also fun to listen to.

Godsmack: Mostly their song 'Voodoo'. This is actually a song I've been listening to a lot because of how much it reminds me of what I'm about to put my players through.

Demon Hunter: Yes, the Christian hardcore band. What Demon Hunter represents for me is that there is hope in the World of Darkness. But even hope and goodness has an edge to it.

Classical Music and Soundtracks: There are lot of them out there that are just dark and create an even more fantastic atmosphere of dread and horror than the rock inspired themes above. Here are two samples. The first is Gustav Holst's masterpiece, Mars: Bringer of War. It might not inspire horror in some people, but for me it's a powerful theme that radiates doom and destruction. The next is Wojciech Kilar's 'The Vampire Hunters' piece from 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula. That piece pretty much speaks for itself. 

That's just a tiny sampling of the kind of music that I use to prepare myself for a horror themed game, like the World of Darkness. The trick for me is, however, not to listen to that kind of music all the time. There are a couple of reasons for this. 1. listening to horrifying music over and over again is like watching a horror flick over and over. Pretty soon is looses it's power to scare you. Sometimes it's best to wait for that music until you're ready to use it, so it can motivate you to horrifying extremes. 2. I'm not the kind of person who actually likes to dwell on darkness. At the end of the game day, I like to turn that kind of emotion off. Life is full of wonderful people and things. Dwelling on the dark often times puts you in a dark place. That's not something I'm prepared to do. I have to much good in my life for that. 

Anyway, there it is. If you have a dark, horrifying music selection you like to listen to before game, link that song in the comments section!