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The five senses. In your role-playing sessions, how many of these five senses do you use? Let's go over these:
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Sight: Do you use props in your gaming session? Sure, maps and such are nice, but how about some other things, such as prop weapons and costumes?
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Touch: Touch is a tough one, since many of the things involved in a normal role-playing session would be hard to replicate with touch. Sure, there are some things that you can do, such as peeled grapes for eyeballs and other Halloween standards.
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Taste: Another tricky one, since people usually bring their own goodies to taste to their gaming sessions. If you have a group of adults (as in 21 or over here in the States) have some wine on hand for that special dinner with the local lord who hires the group for a special task. Maybe some hours-de-oeuvres?
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Smell: One word: Incense. Unfortunately, sometimes gamers also bring their own scents to the gaming session, but that's a topic for a whole new article. Two more words: Bathe regularly.
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Sound: A yes, the point of this review. Bringing sound to your gaming session can be one of the most easiest things to do. No, I am not talking about the boisterous chattering of your gamers - I'm talking about your very own gaming soundtrack!
There
are many options for your gaming sessions, well, more for your fantasy
gamers I would say. You can bring along a soundtrack from your
favorite movies along and cover the background sounds, so is this one -
the Official Dungeons & Dragons soundtrack from Midnight Syndicate - worth
your cash? That's a good question.
When I first listened to the CD, I was a little disappointed. I guess that I was expecting something more along the lines of the Vampyre CD that I had previously reviewed. What I didn't notice, though, was that this was the D&D soundtrack, and not the same type of composition that Vampyre had been.
Ok, so that was after one listen. Two - same feelings. Three? Well, I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was listening to one of the Lord of the Rings soundtracks. It didn't feel as original as the Vampyre disc!
Sure, there's a fine enough variety of music to use on the CD, which is why the rating doesn't tank the CD. Plus, these CD's are made for gaming instead of your movie soundtracks, so I have to give some extra points for that. However, I cannot strongly recommend it as I had the Vampyre disc.
Midnight Syndicate are a talented bunch, and I love what they do. One question that I have is how much did Wizards of the Coast have to do with the sound direction? I can't be sure, but I wonder if that is why this disc doesn't have the same "oomph" that Vampyre had.
I would recommend the CD overall if you want to support gamer music instead of the usual Hollywood bigwigs. One plus to the possible Wizards of the Coast interference is that the CD jacket was done VERY nicely and has some cool artwork throughout. Bonus points for that.
Do yourself a favor - work on making music/background sounds to your gaming session. With some time and effort you can make your gaming sessions even more enjoyable and memorable. Midnight Syndicate is here to help...
Written by Gene Vogel
(Posted 01-20-2004)