World of Magics Mini-Review
A few weeks back I put out a question: how can one tastefully implement music into a Dungeons & Dragons game. I received plenty of sound advice, ignored it all, end ended up breaking out my laptop and having the Lich play a piano version of Metallica’s Master of Puppets I found online. It worked, but it felt incredibly out of place without any noises before or after. Thankfully, I was sent a few CDs to help fix that problem, and throughout this week and next check back for reviews of World of Magics, Monsters, and Ambiances.
First up: Magics.
World of Magics is an interesting idea: the CD has 19 tracks with an average time of about twelve seconds. Some are as short as three, some as long as 60, but most are very, very short. The concept is simple, and spells such as Fire Bolts and Eye Rays are given appropriate sound effects. In all honesty, I find the ones like this somewhat useless, and unless the player is going to sit with a speaker and click a button to play an eight second long thunderbolt noise every time they use it the value is limited.
Other tracks, however, are wonderful, and I find them extremely useful. Yog-Sothoth Summon, for instance, is a minute long, and has eerie chanting, chimes, and an eventual roar that could be attributed to any beast. I’ve already contemplated using this CD with the next one I’ll be reviewing, World of Monsters, to make a summoning sound for whatever creature I need. I would rather they be longer, maybe adding chanting before each spell to signify the spell caster’s verbal components, but there’s definitely use for this in RPGing.
As long as you can find a way to easily access the sound effects, World of Magics is a fantastic addition to any DM’s arsenal of immersion tricks. Describing a player’s Hypnotic Scream’s damage can be made even more impressive with a well placed click of the mouse; creating an experience the players will have a hard time forgetting.
Be sure to check back soon for our review of World of Monsters and my personal favorite, World of Ambiences.
Samuel Van Der Wall says:
I’ve typically used epic movie soundtracks, like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, for roleplaying background music. There are also a few good video games that have great orchestra music soundtracks.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Dave says:
Conan the Barbarian OST. Done.
March 9th, 2009 at 3:46 pm