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oxic Bag Productions' Game Masters Collection is a set of four audio compact discs designed to provide sound effects for role-playing games. The discs feed the imagination by providing the auditory equivalent of flavor text, those long passages of description found in almost every Dungeons & Dragons module. Toxic Bag's tracks focus on two types of sounds: short, action-oriented clips like monster attacks or bullet shots, and longer ambiance-building themes depicting locales as mundane as a medieval village or as exotic as Los Angeles in 2020.
The collection is divided into four volumes, each of which tackles a different aspect of the speculative-fiction genre.
Volume One: The Twentieth Century includes a variety of modern-era themes, including train stations, speakeasies, 1960s discos and the ever-useful "Mad Scientist's Lab." Sounds include gun volleys, the sounds of a fallen body (with "two more gun shots thrown in for good measure") and the sounds of battlefields from World War I to Vietnam. Volume Two: Monsters ventures into more fantastic realms, with 63 tracks inspired by creepy crawlers. There are alien screams, rampaging sea monsters, numerous caterwauling undead and some sort of "Big Breathing Thing."
Volume Three: Fantasy features more ambiance-themed tracks, including the sounds typically found while hiking through mountains, walking through a smithy or drinking ale in an inn. It also offers numerous sword- and arrow-related sound effects for those looking to spice up their fantasy battles. The last of the volumes, Strange Places, puts a science-fiction spin on the series, with more than half of the tracks dealing with far-future locales like "Supercomputer at the Galactic Core," "The 5th Dimension" and "Machine Wasteland." There are also a few oddball tracks like "Hell," "Haunted House" and "Insanity."
Gaming to a hack 'n' slash soundtrack
Using sounds to spruce up an otherwise mundane gaming experience is nothing new—more than a few gamers have diced their way to greatness while listening to the Conan the Barbarian or Star Wars soundtracks. The Game Masters Collection offers more than that, though, providing GMs with just the right sound for just the right moment.
The discs are at their best when providing ambience. The "Dungeon" track features hollow, desolate blasts of wind, like the kind that might surge through the mouth of a cavern. The "Inn/Tavern" track is dominated by a low rumble of voices occasionally punctuated for calls for ale, sickly coughs and assorted shouts—all done in such as way as to be generic. They also repeat well, so it's possible to leave the tracks running for however long it takes for the players to stumble through to their next objective.
The short tracks, as well as the more stylized ones, aren't quite as successful. It's easy to summon up an inn or tavern track if the GM has a remote for his or her CD player handy, but sounds that last four seconds—like a flight of arrows or the sound of a fireball exploding—aren't worth the time it takes to key them up. Those who use laptops in their games—and can have the tracks ready to go with a single mouse click—may find them more useful.
The stylized tracks are also slightly problematic because they're one-shot wonders—the "voice distress call," which involves a ship sinking—might be usable once or twice. The same goes for the "Emergency Broadcast Message," which involves the familiar emergency tones followed by a message declaring martial law, or the "Public Torture" track—they're good, but their usefulness is limited.
The tracks are expertly recorded, and if they occasionally sound like B-movie clips, it's because they're supposed to. With a few exceptions, like the "star cruiser rumble"—which sounds more like someone walking across a deck than a spacecraft humming along at warp—the tracks are crisp, clear and sound like what they're supposed to sound like.
Diehard game masters—the kind who have painted miniatures for every adventure and spend considerable time assembling props for their games—are going to love this collection. Their less enthusiastic brethren might not appreciate them quite as much, but will still find one or two of the volumes to be useful tools for their games.
The Game Masters Collection isn't a must buy, but it is a "nice buy"—the sort of thing that's really nice to pick up if you have the opportunity. — Kenneth
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