If you’re on the hunt for immersive music for your D&D games across a wide variety of settings, look no further than Syrinscape!
Syrinscape is an official partner with Wizards of the Coast and make soundtracks for hardcover adventures like Descent into Avernus and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist as well as lots of other natural and fantastical settings. We’re playing through Waterdeep at the moment, and it’s so nice to be able to select a location or plot point and have music ready to go that fits for the entire session!
When you select one of their fantasy soundtracks, they have several options for ways the narrative might progress. This feature makes make navigating the sounds settings really easy for DMs. There are also selections on the sides for sudden sound effects, like a creaking door or clap of thunder, if needed.
Syrinscape Fantasy Player
We came across Syrinscape in the second half of 2019 and, to be honest, I was immediately sold with the logo—I love sirens! I’m happy to report, though, that the music is just as incredible as the gorgeous branding made it seem like it would be!
We reached out to the Syrinscape team, and they gave us free access to their fantasy player for a year so we could tell you more about it.
Jonathan and I are really into immersion at the gaming table: the more epic and sensory we can make the experience, the better.
What It Is
They answer this question really well, so we’ll let them take the reins here first:
Beautiful, immersive, dynamic music and sound effects for your favorite tabletop games.”
– from the Syrinscape homepage
There are two different ways of adding Syrinscape to your D&D table.
Both of the links below take you to the download page. If you want to go the free route or if you want to try it out first, which we always recommend when possible, after you download the fantasy player app, you can activate your ten free tracks.
Test it out for a few sessions and see what you think, and then you can either add a monthly subscription or buy individual tracks later!
Free version
The free version of the Syrinscape Fantasy player gives you access to ten diverse tracks that can be used in a wide variety of in-game situations. My personal favorite of these is the “Red Dragon City Raid” which takes you from an innocent city going about its business one morning through a red dragon attack and dealing with the smoldering remains afterward!
Monthly Subscription version
Similar to Spotify or other monthly music subscription service, you can opt for access to all of Syrinscape’s fantasy and D&D soundtracks for $7.15/month.
Quick note for the sake of clarity: At the time of writing, these payments are made every two months for $14.30.
Why we love it
Based in Narrative
One of my favorite aspects of the Syrinscape Fantasy player is that each soundtrack is set up to tell a story. Innocuous yet mood-setting opening tracks can give way with the touch of a box to a dangerous plot escalation.
Adjustable
Each set of soundtracks has an array of sounds included for the different parts of the story. You can turn on or mute particular tracks or change their volume.
If you’re like us and have a dog who is easily upset by bird calls, for instance, you can turn them off while maintaining the rest of the ambiance.
Additionally, each track has special effect buttons along the side. In “Lycanthrope Stalker,” for example, you can press a button and add a clap of thunder or a distant howl to increase the tension in a particular moment.
Using it in a duet
In almost any type of D&D, the DM is going to have a lot to manage. In one-on-one D&D, however, they have the additional problem of no tiny break moments while players RP with one another.
Because of this lack of in-game downtime, we recommend at least trying out having the player be the one who runs the soundtrack for your sessions. (You can read more about that here.)
With Syrinscape, the player can pick out a mood in advance, such as the “Witchwood” soundtrack, based on the DM’s chosen starting location, and if something changes drastically mid-session, they can always change it while their DM adjusts as well.
Other cool things!
Syrinscape is the first official sound-provider of D&D! If you’re playing through Waterdeep: Dragon Heist like we are, for instance, there are sound settings created for different narrative moments and locations in the official storyline!
Closing thoughts
We hope this has given you plenty to think about for immersive sound at your gaming table! I know that we’ve recommend other sites in the past, and we would encourage you to try out all the different options to see what works best for you.
The biggest issue we’ve run across with any of the RPG sound systems is compatibility with our different technologies and how much space we have on our gaming table. At present, we use a mix of Syrinscape and Spotify when we’re gaming and really like the flexibility this provides.
What’s your favorite ambient music during your D&D sessions? Let us know in the comments below!
If you like what you’re reading, please consider supporting the blog by purchasing our adventures and supplements in our shop or sponsoring us on Patreon. We appreciate you so much! Thank you for joining us on this adventure! – Beth and Jonathan
Mark Stevenson says
I have to congratulate you on such a great website. I’ve delving into it to learn to run Duets as my crew all have issues with scheduling so I’ll be running a few one on ones and one on two sessions. Have you thought of writing a book dedicated on the subject. I know it is something I know I’d love in pretty hard cover on my shelf with my other RPG book to pull on when needed.
Beth says
Hi Mark,
First, thank you so much for your kind words! This really means the world to us! And please do let us know how the breakout sessions go! Will they be taking place within the larger campaign you’re running with your group or as side narratives? Somewhere in between?
We have talked about creating a book, and we’re so flattered that you would ask! We do have a few active projects we’d like to take care of before tackling a book about playing one-on-one, and we’re also working on a full-length duet campaign book with our patrons. But we definitely have plans to bring a non-fiction book into being at some point in the near-ish future!
Mark Stevenson says
The “micro” sessions of duet play will be taking play over an era of a few years to a few hundred years before the main campaign and will be setting up lore and heroic tales for bards to sing of and named artefacts to be found by the party playing in the future.