RPG music categories

Hello

I'm looking for some unusual information

I need to make a tag system of categories / genres, that would give me a proper music to listen to when playing a given scenario / planes / locations in a rele-playing game; both tabletop and video, both fantasy and modern / s-f

I'm not looking for titles of songs, for names of artists, or titles of albums, but just the suggestions for the list of categories. Something basic like "dungeons", "villages" or "battle" or "night", but not as specific as "lava dungeons", "tribal villages", "epic underwater battle" or "night in seaport"; in the end summing up to 10-25 "genres"

Long story short, I've already did this two times, but now I'm doing it all over again from scratch. And the problem is that I don't wanna do this the fourth time or make any changes after the tag system is set and running- so it has to be ultimate, meaning without errors, doubts or whatever inaccuracies

So after making my own list, I've googled this subject for with different phrases. But all I got was 2-3 list of such kind, that gave me something to chew on; and 2-3 pieces of software generating music / sounds for RGPs. And also I've looked at stock music detabeses. Unfortunately most of the time all I got was playlists, name of artists list of RPG genres [and not RPG music genres] and of course list / databeses of music well know genres like "tribal" and "rock"

So as I want to have more data so I have two questions:

1] Do you use such an RPG oriented tag system that you could share? Or at least something similar [moods genres, association with places or thoughts / feelings]?

2] Aside from RPG forums, where or how can I look further for that kind of genres lists?

Any information near this subject or a simple suggestion is potentially helpful. Because I'm still thinking about my almost ready to use list and things like "do I use >>villages<< or >>tribal<<" or should there be sub-genres

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollenspiel_(Spiel)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game
... see also other wiki languages ... maybe you will find some inspiration.

DD.20150227.1057.CET

It didn't help at all

But I've found another list like mine by searching more of the same. I also read some articles about RPG music at large

I think the only way is just to start using the beta version; adding new [genre] names if a need for one will pop out. And then eventually I will add an order to the list other than alphabetical [or retain it]- and make it ultimate [unchangeable] by placing a code number for each category

But the problem would be the additions of new genres, because they would most likely imply a split / modification of an already existing one

Yes; that's double yes

After using it for a while what I already got, I was able to adjust the list. And then again

Unfortunately on both those occasions I had to [more or less thoroughly] go back through already evaluated files

Continuing the lonesome quest...


I am looking for a single [not even hyphened] English word that could describe the long time gone past; that distant past which happened before the not-so-distant past. A word that could describe music that was created before humans knew how to write it down or how to create instruments [and so they banged in techno beats with branches to their heads...]

I have

  • prehistoric
  • primordial
  • primeval

and

  • ancient
  • antic

but these last two describe "past" and I need to look beyond that

Any other suggestions before I venture off again to some RPG forums? Other than: look for synonyms in Google?


And how about a future after the future? To name that, for years now, I have absolutely nothing


In my native language we can just add "before" to "past" and create the meaning which I am after; although it is not an every day word, but more like something that a poet would write. We even have a grammatical time called [in archaic way] like that- but that word itself has not translation in English dictionaries; while the names of grammatical times are translated like "past perfect" and so on

And although there is no in my language analogical word for the future after the future, I could just add "after" to "future" [thus creating such word] and everybody would understand what I meant with it. But know I see it could work also with English: afterfuture. After all, there are afterparty, afterword and afterthought and etc., right? But once again: any suggestions?

I think that the pre-syllable "post" would be better like "post-apocalyptic".
What I found also: "retro-futuristic / retro-futurism":

One thing you could consider if you've already re-made the tags several times is instead create a kind of "proxy" list of values for a custom tag field that uses generic words that are then separately mapped to whatever theme word you decide upon later by changing the tag value's appearance in a music player like foobar2000.

The advantage is you could change the appearance of the "proxy" value easily without touching the raw tags, if you later decide a descriptor should be changed.

I mightn't have explained that well but here's the concept:

Let's say the custom tag field used for adding theme values is, say, themes, and in it you could add a multi-value separated entry in Mp3Tag of what I'm calling "proxy" theme values, such as:

date-old-3\\place-type-1\\time-of-day-end

Then format those values in a music player like foobar2000 (the Facets addon has a straightforward way of doing this with its Filter drop-down*). So you might decide perhaps visually you'd like them displayed in the music player as such:

date-old-3 = Ancient
place-type-1 = Dungeon
time-of-day-end = Night

For initially tagging the files you could decide on some tentative mappings like the above and then tag them with the generic values using the mappings as a guide.

* With Facets you could create such a selectable drop-down:

The obvious drawback to this method is it requires a specific setup that can support such visual 'mappings' which limits its overall flexibility, so it may be unsuitable for your needs. Just thought I'd post it as an idea, given I can see you enjoy getting the descriptors just right :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

That is something for me to consider, thank you

That is exactly what I am using. Well, a combination of and a workaround to be precise


I use numbers; or to be very specyfic codes that mostly are two digit numbers- accompanied by few one digit and a letter combination. I applied this system to all of music, not only that RPG. But for RPG I use also words, as it would be hard to remember 44 names [like DUNGEON] and around 50 sub-names / variations [SEWER]; and they can change or have changed already 2 or 3 times [I most like removed one, renamed some of them, added completely new one]

And so I just remember codes and names for everything and also have them listed in actions [to apply them to files]. Except for RPG names [themes] like DUNGEON - but for RPG descriptions likes NIGHT or ANCIENT I also use codes [as they are not may and do not change]. And that ANCIENT is just a temporary name

And as for the player, my Winamp displays me just values from tags, so it spits out a combination of codes and themes- but I could write and action that would [in a secondary tag field] rename all of the codes to names, so that Winamp could just show words. But I simply choose not to see all of those other words [like WORKOUT: EXTREME or FALLING ASLEEP] as it would get so clouded with them, it would be just less readable to me

After long though and some additional research, I decided to go with primordial for describing the "oldest ones", as apparently primordial is something older that even primeval. And "everything newer" is just ordinary past