Music and roleplaying games go together like steak and ale. No matter what the game system or setting, there’s always a tune that will help immerse players’ imaginations in the dungeon master’s world. Years ago, I discovered an Internet radio site called Radio Rivendell, which plays nothing but “high fantasy” music from games, movies, television shows, and other sources.
The site took a long hiatus at one point, and during that time I started crafting my own playlist on Apple Music. That list now exceeds 1,000 tracks and covers everything from Game of Thrones to Erdenstern. Some of the music is spicy with a fast beat (for combat), and some of it is sedate and bucolic (for exploration or small villages). No matter what the scene, this list has a song to set it.
Apple Music allows its subscribers to embed playlists into web pages, so I’m sharing mine here. Consider this a sampler of sonic delights for your next game. Almost every track should be available on Spotify, Amazon Music, or YouTube as well. Enjoy the songs, and maybe they’ll provide you with a little “bardic inspiration” of your own.
Feeling adventurous? If you’d like to port this playlist to another service, it’s also available as a text file for parsing. This file is updated infrequently, so check the date in the filename to see when it was last exported.