I'm just wondering if GMs here have any thoughts on linking to music at certain junctures of their games. It would seem to be easier to do in PBP than queuing up music in a live session, but I haven't seen it often. Ideas?

Every once in a great while I will include a link to something that seems to fit the situation, but it's rare. It takes a bit of work and a pretty broad knowledge of music to score an endless game, after all.

Hell, it takes a fair bit to score a 2 hour movie.

A GM of mine does this at the opening of each chapter of our game. All period music.

I’ve don’t it, or a couple players in my game have, just linked a YouTube video to the relevant sound/ambiance music, etc. It helps set the tone, but I think doing so for every post would get tedious.

Yeah, I've done it here and there, specially if there is actual music playing in-game at that moment. I just link a YouTube video or something. =)

I've rarely GMed, and likely won't again.  But if I did, I'd for sure have a thread dedicated to scene music.

I have regularly done this in one of my games where a group are performing on stage.  I get the song link from youtube, put it in the post along with the lyrics then write the singers movements around the lyrics as if they are performing the song.

You can’t get the actual video to play in the post.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:15, Fri 18 Mar 2022.

The GM and a few of the players in a game I'm in routinely post links to YouTube videos...either characters singing during their off-hours, or listening to music to hype themselves up going into combat, stuff like that.  It doesn't autoplay...if you don't click the link, you don't hear the song (and about half the time, I don't bother...and probably 2/3 of the times I do click the link, I listen to about 30 seconds to get an idea of the tone of the song and then go back to the game, minus the music.  I admit it, I'm very picky about music, and while a lot of the songs they pick are appropriate to the situation, I just don't enjoy them all that much.

That said, I have put together 'soundtrack playlists' (back when they were still called 'mix-tapes') for entire gaming sessions or even campaigns that I played in.

I've never done music because the play by post method doesn't seem to be conducive to it (unlike in real life).

However...what I have found very effective is to use sound bytes. For example, I once used a clip of a purported Bigfoot scream as they went into a dark cave toward an unknown monster.

The GM in a game I am in absolutely nails it in music choices.  It may only be once every couple of months but a link to a piece of music that absolutely sets the scene totally immerses me in a post.  I definitely like the idea of less is more.

Less effective is a GM playlist for the game (and I have been a bit guilty of similar) because everyone's taste in music is of course, exemplary - it's just that it is perfect for them.  I've been in a game where I thought it sounded like 'x' and the GM thought 'y' and it didn't align well for me.

I once had an idea for an in-game jukebox set in a house and I kind of got into it but the more I thought about it, it felt like an overindulgence that would detract from the game.