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This is a rework of an article I wrote in 2013. I’ve added some sources, but others might be a bit dated. Additional scores and suggestions welcome! 

You can also hear the gist of this preamble in the recording of “Something at Work in the Soul: Horror in RPGs” from Orcacon 2018 

Silence: Ambiance’s Weak Spot 

I won’t run horror tabletop RPGs without background music. They need it.

More so than other games with their looping tracks from The Lord of the Rings or Conan, horror games absolutely require background music.  

Is that strange? In a genre filled with innocents creeping across creaky floorboards and screams piercing still nights, is it weird to use music to fill every breath-holding moment?

If you’re making a movie, maybe (and even then only maybe). In the TTRPG game you’re running, though, absolutely not.

In any horror game, a absolute goal of your work as a GM is to build an appropriately creepy ambiance or atmosphere. To do so, you’ll use your story, lurid descriptions, whispered conversations, dimmed lights, a whole bag of spooky tricks. But in all of it, your greatest enemy is silence.

That’s because, once a pause hits, once you’re not forwarding the plot, once a player’s not speaking in character, like a mist, the ambiance starts dissipating. Too quickly, the players realize they’re not on rain-slick parapets fleeing the hungry night, they’re in your game room. They remember they’re just playing, they might even realize they’re tense, and in that situation they might do what most humans do when they’re tense: try to break that tension.

Gamers do this with Monty Python jokes.

Monty Python jokes KILL AMBIANCE DEAD. 

Horror Behind Your Words

So what to do? Never slow the game’s momentum. Never look up a rule. Never use the restroom. Never break the session. Lock all the doors. Run the game until either its over or you are.

Or, give yourself some backup. 

Low, subtle, constant, appropriately creepy music provides a steady drumbeat of atmospheric agreement to your story.

While you’re describing the indescribable, it’s an ominous pulse, nodding along, seconding every terror you reveal. 

Even better, though, in the pauses, it’s still there. It’s the dread that lingers even when you’re not building it, it fills the space and holds the atmosphere, helping to keep players in the moment when you can’t.

There are a thousand tricks you can play once you’ve incorporated music into your game—volume, looping, manipulating attention, Pavlovian responses, avoiding recognition—but that’s a discussion for another time. With appropriate selections, the score to your game can do as much to create a memorable experience as your storytelling itself. But, your music has to work for you.

Dread Accompaniment: Horror Music Playlists

Not all horror is alike. The world-destroying marches of Godzilla’s score would never work if you subbed them in behind the visuals of Ringu. Hellraiser’s score works for Hellraiser, The Thing’s score works for The Thing, and trying to swap them would be a mess. The music has to encourage the atmosphere you’re trying to create. If it doesn’t, it might actively work against your story.

As the director on Pathfinder’s Carrion Crown Adventure Path, I wrote several forewords that included my suggestions for music that reinforced the themes of those adventures and that highlighted a specific horror genre or general concept. (The associated films also make damn fine viewing if you’re looking for a specific vein of inspiration.) For ease of reference, I’ve expanded on those playlists here, each with suggested artists, albums, and (where possible) links to help emphasize certain ominous moods. Obviously, these playlists are not all-inclusive; just some of my favorites that have worked well for me in the past.

Use these next time you’re looking for something to enhance the atmosphere of your most sinister TTRPG games, those sessions when you really want to leave  your players dangling from the edges of their seats.

General

Beal, Jeff: Carnivale

Dead Can Dance: The Serpent’s Egg, et al.

Elfman, Danny: Red Dragon

Haslinger, Paul: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Julyan, David: The Descent, The Prestige

Kilar, Wojciech : Bram Stoker’s Dracula*

Navarrete, Javier: Mirrors, Pan’s Labyrinth

Newman, Thomas: Castle Rock

Söderqvist, Johan: Let the Right One In

Yamane, Michiru: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, et al.

Zimmer, Hans: Hannibal*

Ghosts

Carlos, Wendy & Elkind-Tourre, Rachel: The Shining

Carpenter, John: The Fog

Giacchino, Michael: Let Me In

Henifin, Steve: Eternal Darkness

Midnight Syndicate: Gates of Delirium, et al.

Newman, David: Serenity

Revell, Graeme: Below

Yamaoka, Akira: Silent Hill, et al.

Young, Christopher: Drag Me to Hell, The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Zimmer, Hans: The Ring

Terrors of Science

Alwyn, Kenneth: Bride of Frankenstein

Rachmaninoff, Sergei: Prelude in C Sharp Minor, Op.3, No.2

Aufort, Cyrille: Splice

Band, Richard: Reanimator

Beltrami, Marco: Mimic

Bergeaud, David: The Outer Limits

Burwell, Curt: Gods & Monsters

Davis, Carl: Frankenstein Unbound

Doyle, Patrick: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Shore, Howard: The Fly

Savage Horror

Donaggio, Pino: The Howling

Elfman, Danny: Nightbreed, The Wolfman

Frankel, Benjamin: Curse of the Werewolf and Other Film Music

Haslinger, Paul: Underworld (and sequels)

Kanno, Yoko: Wolf ’s Rain Soundtrack 2

LoDuca , Joseph: Brotherhood of the Wolf

Marianelli, Dario: The Brothers Grimm

Morricone, Ennio: Wolf

Powell, Andrew: Ladyhawke

Horrifying Resurrections

Carpenter, John: Village of the Damned

Goldsmith, Jerry: The Mummy

Elm, Bill & Woody Jackson: Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

Heil, Reinhold & Johnny Klimek: Land of the Dead

Isham, Mark: The Crazies

Morasky, Mike: Left 4 Dead

Murphy, John: 28 Days Later

Revell, Graeme: The Crow

Suzuki, Kota: Resident Evil 5 (Related Resident Evil 7 OST)

Taïeb, Jean-Pierre: Frontiere(s)

Alien Horror

Bates, Tyler: Slither

Beltrami, Marco: The Eye

Carpenter, John: Prince of Darkness*

Elfman, Danny: Mars Attacks

Goldenthal, Elliot: Sphere

Graves, Jason: Dead Space

Horner, James: Aliens

Howard, James Newton: Signs

Kurzel, Jed: Alien Covenant

Morricone, Ennio: The Thing*

Shortner, Clinton: District 9

Subtle Horror

Bell, Joshua: The Red Violin*

Bishara, Joseph: Annabelle, The Conjuring

D’Ambrosio, Marco: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust*

Fjellström, Marcus: The Terror

Glass, Philip: Dracula

Goldenthal, Elliot: Interview with the Vampire

Jones, Trevor: From Hell

Kid, Jesper: Assassin’s Creed 2: Brotherhood

McCreary, Bear: 10 Cloverfield Lane

Reitzell, Brian: Hannibal (2014 series)

Tartini, Giuseppe: Violin Sonata in G minor

Zimmer, Hans: Sherlock Holmes

World Ruiners

Benyacar, Simone, Craig Stuart Garfinkle, Veigar Margeirsson, & Daniel Nielsen: Requiem for a Tower

Brower, Russell, Derek Duke, & Edo Guidotti: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Debney, John: End of Days

Desplat, Alexandre: Godzilla (2014)

Glass, Philip: Candyman

Goldsmith, Jerry: The Omen

Ifukube, Akira & Sagisu, Shirō: Shin Godzilla

Jackman, Henry: Skull Island

Mancell, Clint: The Fountain

Young, Christopher: Hellraiser

Zimmer, Hans: Inception

Gods among men