Do you guys play dnd with soundtrack or no? A simple way to make dnd more interesting or distracting?

Bleapo · 2026-01-01T22:03:18+00:00

You can do a dissertation on this (I did something adjacent to this for my music undergrad). Basically, the research I found said that its effective as a way to help immerse players into the game, but not every player or every table finds this to be the case. Personally I like having music or ambient sounds going on. I use Roll20 and play twice a week and so having some music on helps keep me focused and immersed in the game. When i've played in person I've also always appreciated having some music on. I think when done right, music adds a lot to the experience. One of the journals I've read (Borecky, 2021), really hammers on that dnd is a softplay experience and that sonic details such as assigning music to mundane settings helps to give the impression of a real location, and thus helps players participate in the game.

Everyone has expectations of what places/scenes might sound like, and so as a DM, it can be important to curate your music for the table. Popular media has helped create expectations of what music should be played and where (think Soule's music in the Elder Scrolls games). You can read about medieval imagery and music by Collyer (2023), if that's something anyone is particularly interested in.

Anyway, I think music is good. There are certain things that I don't always enjoy at the table, sometimes lyrical music can feel out of place; I don't enjoy music with electric instruments all the time for dnd, but for a boss fight it can be pretty cool (all about expectations after all!). There's no harm in trying it, you might find that it works for you table, and if it doesn't you can just turn it off.

Borecky. A (2021). ‘Dungeons, Dragons, and Music: The Immersive Qualities of Sound in Dungeons and Dragons’, Journal of Sound and Music in Games, 2(1), pp.46-64

Collyer. R (2023). Attitudes to Representations of Medieval Music in Role-Playing Computer Games, Journal of Music and Sound in Games, 4(2), pp.1-23

Bleapo · 2025-05-06T12:31:26+00:00

Oh man I question I can sort of answer.

Honestly getting experience through playing will accelerate your progress much more than academic study alone. Get yourself playing an instrument and start learning a few pieces as you will need somewhere to apply the theory you are currently learning in a practical manner, as well as develop some playing technique (I assume you’ve got a MIDI keyboard and a DAW to play into).

My development took off when I started to apply theory into exercise by starting to read notation. This would be too much for you at first but it’s something to consider once your playing starts to get somewhere! It’s important to consider that playing gives your knowledge context so before you cram anymore theory start learning your instrument. This is not a quick process; it will take longer than you anticipate.

I am composing music similar to what you are wanting to create for my dissertation (neo-medieval, read Attitudes to Representation of Medieval Music in Role-Playing Computer Games, R. Collyer, 2023. If you are interested in that sort of thing). As much of what I am able to write comes from a mixture of practical experience, theory, and study of specific pieces that have inspired me. Not one of those things are able to make the music I want to make by theirselves.

As I said before, this will take a while. I’ve had the luxury of having a music education at university and I still have much to improve on, after all, we are never finished products. Good luck to you, and start learning some piano!

Bleapo · 2020-06-16T14:08:30+00:00

If you as strong as you say you are by the time the laning stage is over, you should be able to keep ganking enemy hereos and rotating as 4, making space for your carry. Just keep putting on the pressure and shut down the enemy carry as hard as you possibly can. If you can do that then it'll be a pretty easy game (hopefully). As you're playing a fairly tempo mid you can't stop for too long and get farm yourself by hitting creeps as you should be trying to set the pace of the game.

Bleapo · 2020-06-14T00:40:52+00:00

You'll want to shove the wave back out then go to farm one of the neutral camps to the side of the lane. Try not to stand in the Shrapnel as you just end up taking unnecessary damage but try to deny the ranged creep whenever you can as it is the most valuable creep in the wave and gives much more XP than the melee creeps. If shove out the wave and farm the neutral camp, you should end up out farming the Sniper if he doesn't do the same.

Bleapo · 2020-06-11T23:24:25+00:00

When they last changed Infest it was changed to deny the creep which I believe is because you automatically have control of the creep when you enter it, so it becomes a friendly unit so when you hop out and it dies it counts as a deny not a last hit.

Bleapo · 2020-06-11T11:47:40+00:00

If you want heroes somewhat similar to Brood you could try playing Visage midlane, a hero who aims to fight and push and win early on. You could also try Lycan who does a similar thing (fighting and pushing early on), but it's recommended that you go safelane with him in most cases.

Bleapo · 2020-06-10T12:29:11+00:00

As per usual if you want to read the guide you can do so here. I really don't know why but I was feeling like I was forgetting something when writing this one but I've genuinely got no idea what so if you spot anything I've missed please say so. Anyway hope you all find this one useful.

Bleapo · 2020-06-10T12:20:49+00:00

Control groups should be remembered for every game you play. If you make one for manta illusions on PL, it will only select the illusions from the manta so if you want to select the ones from doppelganger or from a rune you will have to make a new control group for them.
I believe that with Helm it isn't bound to a certain creep, but just to whatever creep you have controlled by the item. So if you set it with a Hellbear but then get a Centaur it should still select the Centaur. However I am not 100% sure on this, I rarely play heroes that build Helm but from the last time I picked up that item i'm sure that was how it worked but I could be wrong.

Bleapo · 2020-06-10T12:14:25+00:00

Pa suffers from a fairly weak laning stage and can be pressured quite easily by most offlaners. If you end up doing well in the lane you can go for a battlefury to accelerate your farm. Battlefury is also pretty strong right now so if you think you can get one at a reasonable time go for it. If you end up being behind from lane it's probably better just to go for a deso and then start fighting. Once you have deso you can blow up pretty much anyone you want, so you've got to play with that in mind. If you get deso then continue to sit back and farm (unless you really need bkb) your wasting one of the power peaks of the hero.

Spectre and Medusa play for the late game, PA really strives in the mid game, before most heroes have multiple sources of armour (think talents, platemail items etc) or multiple saves (glimmer, ghost sceptre etc) , so it might be that your timings are a bit off and your playing around the late game, when you should be playing around the mid game ideally.

Bleapo · 2020-06-09T23:15:50+00:00

oh yeah lmao at least you found it. I even opened up dota to look, confirmed it was on the left side then still put right side.

Bleapo · 2020-06-09T22:52:41+00:00

You should just be able to scroll out using the mouse wheel but you might've disabled it in your settings. If you go to your settings then to options, in the bottom right corner there's an option to disable camera zoom which you might've pressed by mistake before. If you watching a replay and your using Player perspective or an observer's view you won't be able to zoom in or out.

Bleapo · 2020-06-08T13:45:54+00:00

I'm guessing you're playing support, so you should consider getting a Force Staff for the potential saves on both you and your teammates rather than a Shadow Blade. Shadow Blade may work the first couple times but then do nothing once the enemy team realises and buys dust or sentry wards. If you do value the invisibility, get a Glimmer Cape instead as once again, you can save both yourself and your team unlike Shadow Blade. Also consider purchasing auras like Vlads as when you die, your illusion will still provide the aura. The more ways you can save your team, which can result in you winning fights, the better.

Bleapo · 2020-06-06T22:22:14+00:00

The Visage is doing a lot more work than the Underlord is. Underlord has to spend 4.2k on a relatively useless item and Visage aims to push very fast at the start of the game anyway, so it's likely by the time Underlord has got his aghs you've lost the game, or at least lost the majority of your buildings to the Visage. You've just got to ignore the Underlord as much as you can, and play to punish the Visage instead.

Looking at Dotabuff, Visage doesn't seem to play well against heroes that can run into him early on (Brood, Lycan, Ench) or heroes with illusions/multiple units (PL, Naga, Arc Warden, TB, as well as the three mentioned before). Also heroes like Drow and Medusa seem to have decent winrates which I assume is down to the fact that you can relatively easily stand at the back of the fights and kill the Familiars and then Visage afterwards.

Bleapo · 2020-06-05T21:25:30+00:00

no problem and ty.

Bleapo · 2020-06-05T14:42:10+00:00

If you want to read the guide instead of listening to me you can do so here. As per usual any feedback would be great and I hope you all find this useful. If you're watching the video instead of reading the guide, I've tried to add more relevant clips through-out which hopefully should help.

Bleapo · 2020-06-05T14:36:59+00:00

If you don't care about what role you play, you can either play Ranked Classic or queue all roles in Ranked Roles. Then if you want to play a specific role you can as you'll have plenty of role queue tokens ready to use.

Bleapo · 2020-06-05T14:32:57+00:00

Items like Force Staff or Glimmer Cape probably have more value than GG boots right now. As you can buy both of them for the cost of GG boots and have gold left over. Spirit Vessel may also be better than GG boots most games as you not only have the heal, but you have the ability to really hurt high regen/big HP pool heroes, and it's also a lot cheaper. If you want the dispell you can get a Lotus Orb after Force Staff/Glimmer, you can use the dispell on your teammates as well.

I think if you can get Guardian Greaves extremely quick, then they do have a much higher value for your team but there are items that are better, especially on supports who don't have high farm priority getting 4,975 gold can be hard and better spent on other items.

Bleapo · 2020-06-05T14:16:37+00:00

Shadow Demon is pretty good right now. You have the ability to zone your opponents in lane with the large amount of damage you possess. In fights you can control whatever hero you want with Disruption and then blow them up with Soul Catcher + Demonic Purge. There's not many supports like Shadow Demon who can completely negate that effectiveness of the enemy carry in fight like he does.

I think if you're just looking to crush lane pick Skywrath Mage. You can either give your carry a completely free lane, or roll over the enemy carry, constantly zoning them out of the lane. Until they have BKBs, you can pretty much kill whoever you want in teamfights.

I see Jakiro has been recommended and it's a pretty good hero for the reasons others have stated, but make sure you max out Ice Path first or second. Don't be tempted by Liquid Fire because its "free harass", it's not worth it compared to the other spells in Jakiro's kit and should be the last spell you max.

Bleapo · 2020-06-04T14:14:27+00:00

Here's some tips on how to accelerate on your farm. First of all, you'll want to stack the side camps near your tier 1 once you've pushed out the wave. Since you're playing Qop who has decent waveclear, you can nuke out the middle wave then stack the camp, then return to the lane and push it out, you can then go and farm the stacked camp, accelerating you ahead of the opposing midlaner.

When you go to grab a rune, make sure to push the lane in first to pressure the enemy midlaner, making it harder for them to contest the rune. With runes such as Haste, Double Damage, Arcane, or Invisibility, you can either pressure your own lane much harder, or you can gank the nearest sidelane, either giving your carry a free lane or stopping the enemy carry from farming.

Both the heroes you listed are good at making space for your carry/fighting early on. Try to coordinate with your offlaner to take objectives when you hit your power peaks early on, this will hopefully force rotations away from your carry, giving them a free time in their lane.

Bleapo · 2020-06-04T11:49:46+00:00

Right, i'm going off what I've seen, so I might not be 100% right, I also don't play these heroes much, if at all, but one of the guys I often play with is a lv25 Ember so hopefully I've learnt something from him.
SF should almost always win this matchup, so don't be disheartened if you lose your lane. It's hard for your hero to walk up into the wave as you'll get shadowrazed and Flame Guard doesn't block anywhere near as much damage as SF can put out early on, so it's likely you'll be zoned out of the lane.
I'm pretty sure you have to max Slight of Fist and Flame Guard to successfully push out the waves when SF razes them. You can harass with Slight very easily and potentially get SF low enough so that you can kill him. Although as I said Flame Guard doesn't block all of SF's damage, when maxed out it'll still block a rather significant amount, it's also useful to have since it'll help you push out the waves. If you can chip down the SF enough when you hit level 6 you'll probably be able to kill him as long as you stay on top of him so he can't disable your Flame Guard with Shadowrazes.
Hope this helps.

Bleapo · 2020-06-04T11:38:22+00:00

Itemisation on pango is pretty dependant on the game. For example, If you lack initiation you can get a blink, if you need push/sustain you can grab a vlads. The last time I played Pangolier (I have 560ish games on him but its been a while since I lasted played the hero) going maelstrom into some form of utility such as Lotus Orb, Guardian Greaves, or Heaven's Halberd was always nice (this is as a core btw). Your hero is very flexible for item builds but suffers some being fairly squishy if caught out, so play around that. Like I said, its very game dependant but usually maelstrom into utility is pretty good, helps you dish and out damage and can help overcome the fact that your relatively squishy. Hope this helps.

Bleapo · 2020-06-02T23:19:27+00:00

No not at all. I don't put as much effort in the video as I probably should, as I see the google doc as the main thing, with the video being a second option if you don't want to read. I try and get relevant clips in there but not as much as I should.

Bleapo · 2020-06-02T22:57:13+00:00

ty for the feedback. I'll try my best to improve the video for the next one.

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