Setting the Mood...

Setting the mood can help take a good game and make it great.  The right music, sound effects, voices and accents, lighting, and props can all help set the mood. Doing can be difficult depending on time and resources.

For me, music is the easiest thing to do for setting the mood.  I have all six Star Wars movie soundtracks plus the music from The Old Republic.  This is my standard for any Star Wars game I run. With it being all digital, I can set up a track list and easily switch out to the appropriate music depending on the scene or battle. I have various soundtracks from the Lord of the Rings, Conan, Gladiator, Braveheart, plus more for fantasy games.  I prefer orchestral music for my fantasy games. If I'm running Shadowrun, I’ll pick some techno music and a friend turned me onto the Batman Beyond soundtrack for that. With used CD stores or digital downloads from iTunes or Amazon it is so easy to get music for your games.

Sound effects are another great tool. With laptops, tablets, and digital downloads, you can find so many things for the background. Howling winds, gulls, sounds of the city... I have quite a few clips of blaster fire from the various Star Wars movies, droid sound effects, swords clashing, even various animals. These sounds in the background can help draw your players in.

Lighting is important depending on the game as well. A friend who used to run Call of Cthulu only ran her game at night and only lit the table with candles. She had gotten some cheap candle holders and we would take one if we had a private scene with our character. It helped set the stage for the horror that would soon follow. The way the shadows danced on the wall added to the game.

Props are a fantastic way to immerse your players. This can be from the simple hand written note to maps.  I will often write out a note in code to let the players try to decipher it.  Crude maps to represent what they may have taken from a body.  A friend went so far as to purchase cheap cutlasses and hats for a naval game.  The icing on the cake was the bottle of rum that we had to toast to the Kings health during the officers' meal.

Voices and accents are a lot of fun but I’m not good at them.  These can certainly bring your characters or NPC’s to life. Most of my characters end up sounding very similar though I try to change up the dialog. No matter how many times I rehearse the voices they just never come out right. Stage fright, perhaps. On the other hand, I’ve played with GM’s whose characters each have a distinct voice and personality that comes out. It’s impressive and I wish I could do that for my players. 

These are but a handful of different ideas to try and get you and your players into the mood for your game. I highly recommend trying different things, mixing and matching. It may not work out the way you plan but it’s never bad to try something new.   What are some of the things you’ve done to get your players into the mood for your games? Any great stories or interesting ideas? Please share them!