#indie music rec

[sxrgripp]

shoes off at the door and could you end all of the wars please?

stream + like + reblog + share + support

[anim-ttrpgs]

How to Choose Music for a TTRPG Session & Eureka Song Selections

When our own group plays any TTRPG, we always like to have some amount of background music to help with the mood and tone, and if you do too, then here's a post about how best to choose it, because it is a learnable skill!

I am one of the creators of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

and the idea for this post grew out of making a curated list of songs for Eureka sessions, each sorted into different categories for easy access. The Narrator in a Eureka campaign exercises very little control over the story and pacing of the game, so it isn't very helpful to plan for a specific reveal of specific scene set to a certain song. To that end, I have sorted these songs into various types of scenes, tones, etc. for you to grab as the story is emerging.

You can find these lists here:

Session Intro Music (in case you wanna open each session with a musical theme like an episode of a tv show)

Investigation Scene Music (low-stakes) or Meal Scene

Investigation Scene Music (tense/creepy) Part 1

Investigation Scene Music (tense/creepy) Part 2

Foot Chase Music

Vehicle Chase Music

Scooby-doo-ass Chase Music

Investigators Fleeing/Hiding from Monster Music

Unarmed Combat Music

Deadly/Armed Melee Combat Music

Deadly/Firearm Combat Music

Monster Rampage Music

Monster Hunting Music (as in the monster is a PC who is hunting prey)

How to Choose Music for a TTRPG Session

There’s a few things that make a good TTRPG session song that aren’t immediately obvious.

Avoid Lyrics

Lyrics are a no-go 90% of the time. You gotta assume that the players will be trying to read rules and/or do math during the session and lyrics can make that harder.

Avoid Loud, Dissonate, or Disorienting Music

For the very same reasons—and this is especially useful to keep in mind for a horror-themed game like Eureka—it can't be too dissident or grating. A lot of horror video game music is really dissident screechy and offensive to the ears because this induces a tiny sense of panic, but again, like with lyrics, this means it’s hard to actually play a TTRPG while listening to this.

Don't Outpace the Combat

For combat music, a fast-paced “action” song can work, but if it’s too fast-paced it really quickly outpaces the combat itself because TTRPG combat is necessarily kind of slow. I do have plenty of fast-paced actiony songs in those lists, but those are best grouped into a playlist in sequence rather than looped, because then you at least have the rather frequent serendipity of the song changing on a per-turn basis.

The usual better option is something “tense” and “cool” but a bit more understated, usually with a mid-intensity repeating beat. Complex action songs work in other mediums like movies because their notes can be tailored to sync up to the actual actions on-screen, but that won’t happen in a TTRPG 90% of the time, even if just because describing a character throwing a punch takes way longer than a character throwing a punch in a movie.

For Eureka I also had to like make sure there was a good selection of action music in there that wasn’t too “cool” or “heroic.” Eureka characters are not fearless action heroes nor usually trained soldiers. If they are in a fight, it usually isnt cool, it’s scary. If anything, the combat music should be the bad guy’s theme, not the protagonists’, because they’re the ones with the advantage. When a Eureka PC does have the advantage and can be super “cool” in a fight, they’re probably a monster, in which case it’s the other way around, they’re the terrifying bad guy in the NPC’s story, and I tried to pick music to reflect that with “darker,” more “sinister” tracks.

Choose Songs without Shifts in Tempo or Intensity

You want something that is very easy to loop. Lots of cool songs go through pretty dramatic changes in their intensity over the course of their runtime. This is cool like I said when they can be synced up to action in a movie, but they’ll never (or rarely) sync up with anything in a TTRPG session. They’re going to be playing over and over on like a 3-minute loop as you roll dice and occasionally look up rules, and if this loop is really noticeable because of how the song starts out slow and then swells in intensity, that is going to be annoying fast. You want a song that has a relatively consistent level of intensity throughout its whole runtime.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[kittyp333]

❧ average cranberries fans crying on a friday night

[artfilmaesthetics]

songs for july ‘24 🦢🎱🥀🎞️🧷

+ my moodboard

𖤓°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

[gayemoji]

woe. spotify playlist of lovejoy adjacent music ranging from 'extremely well known' to 'literally my friends band with two songs ever' be upon thee.

[sympathyforlady]

[newwavesylviaplath]

playlist recs (cuz i'm an influencer)

hiii! i was just thinking about how much i love making playlists but i have legitimately two irl friends and they don't give a shit abt my music taste so i wanted to make a cutesie little (kind of??) masterlist of all my fave playlists that ive made and like their general vibes <3

(p.s i'm super picky abt the songs i put in a playlist so they're all generally short)

⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡⋆˚

for my morute girlies; very blood in snow/dirt stained babydoll dresses/stuffed animals with big sharp teeth

you should've known, you should've guessed

for my borderline yandere bitches; very love quinn from you/obsessed teenage girl/follow him around like a lost puppy

crazy stalker gf

for my zooey deschanel wannabes; very owns a typewriter/semi vegan/is a wes anderson diehard

does eyes, collared dresses, etc.

for my girlbloggers; very sylvia plath quotes on tumblr/heart aches when you think about your mother at your age/"obviously doctor, you've never been a 13 year old girl"

woman moment

for my babes with suspected narcolepsy; very 'protecting your peace'/ten step face care routine/patchouli oil in the humidifier

bed time routine

for my coquette bitches; very listens to unreleased lana on a spotify podcast/wears an excessive amount of lace/giggles instead of laughs

sweet kinda gal

for anyone who cries over spilled milk; very scared of aging/birthday playlist from a few years back/wellbutrin zoloft combo

march sadness/old woman

for the ones with kathleen hanna vocal fry; very resting bitch face/riot grrrl adjacent/too cool for you/wears bright colours ironically

it girl wannabe

for people who can't wait until october; very apple cinnamon bath and body works/tate and violet season/leg warmers over top of doc martens

iced pumpkin foam chai latte

for people who can't wait until december; very glee christmas specials/cute fluffy earmuffs/buying advent calendars when they go on sale right after the 24th

gingerbread houses

for all of newwavesylviaplath nation; very much camryncore/songs i listen to while i blog/my personal faves

teenage girl playlist

⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡ ｡⋆˚⋆✧⋆˚⋆｡⋆˚

that's all! because i've been a bit of a flop recently i begged a bunch of people to let me tag them thanks yall: @fear-is-truth @cult-of-lambs @thebonesofwhatyoubelieve @dangeroustaintedflawed @yandereunsolved @taintandviolent @nahoyasboyfriend @elaine-in-the-membrane @slutforgarlogan @coentinim @bluerthanvelvet444 @briaroftheroses @am3ricanh0rrorwh0re @feefymo

[neunhofferart]

IF you have finished watching Jurassic World Chaos Theory:

Behold, my personal curated playlist of some songs I listened to while storyboarding or thinking about the show, in episode order.

Scroll down for the episode breakdown, and only listen if you're done! (And if anyone is moved to make edits to any of these songs...👀)

Some songs I feel are character specific, others also work for multiple episodes or the season overall.

A couple of them were actually temp radio songs for the episodes they're paired with (Don't Stop and Jerk it Out), and even though we couldn't get the rights they will always be there in my heart haha.

My favorite songs on the list are Hollywood Forever Cemetery (THE Brooklynn song for me), We're All Gonna Die, and Dinosaur (fits the whole show) <3

Also, that last song-- it came on the radio one morning when I was driving to work and the first line took me out so hard I almost crashed my car HAHA

(but also even besides that line.... good song for the show)!

[chaithetics]

LISTEN TO VERBATHIM!!!

Nemahsis is a Palestinian Canadian artist who has just dropped her debut album 'Verbathim'. In early October 2023 Nemahsis went and signed a contract with a record label for her debut album, literally a few days after signing the contract and Oct 7th, Nemahsis was dropped by her label.

Nemahsis said she has lost a lot of the connections she made in the industry because of her being Palestinian and pro-Palestine, she has had to make and release this album independently and completely out of her own pocket.

She's not just a great activist but also a really talented artist, her music is unique, beautiful in both her voice and lyrics. She has an interesting sound and some really beautiful music videos, she is SO TALENTED! If you're on tik tok there's a good chance you've heard 'stick of gum' by her! Please, please, please listen, stream and buy it wherever you get music or platforms you listen to.

She needs and deserves our support! Don't just champion white artists and activists!

[local-lover-boy]

As miserable as things are rn, here's something that filled me with joy

Cavetown and Frankie Cosmos concert from Nov. 4th 2024

[los-gatitos-luciran-muy-lindos]

ೃ⁀➷ * Ship Song Association * ੈ *Characters : Bakugou/Izuku * /♡˳ My Hero Academia ♡˳/

⋅ʚHinamizawaɞ⋅⋅ʚ

︵‿︵︵︵‿︵‿୨ ˚🗡˚୧‿︵‿︵︵︵︵‿

[stuffydollband]

In case you’re ever wondering why lyrics are rare on Spotify, here’s the reason! Small artists can’t afford to pay to post our lyrics up there.

Let Spotify know how you feel about that and also feel free to roast me for both having a gross laptop screen and also for taking a picture of my laptop screen on my phone

[infantandinnocent]

some hard albums to kick the fall season off

[academic-vampire]

𝚃𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚊𝚟𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸’𝚕𝚕 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚗 𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚜

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

Fontaines D.C. for GQ, Autumn 2024

(Photos by Ewan Spencer)

[antlersnteeth]

April 3d 2024

photography by me

some songs i’ve been listening to lately