I've talked before about what I play in the background while running my setting. My style is to get pretty unobtrusive moody, atmospheric music and play it in the background at relatively low volume. I don't try to queue tracks to match what's happening in the game, so my approach to the "soundtrack" of the game is, by necessity, kind of impressionistic. Darker atmospheric tracks work at all times, with tension and horror-like vibes being common; trying to get the action to be intense usually isn't my speed. I'll mix a few tracks in that are more intense, but because I play them at low volume and keep the whole thing impressionistic, it's not like super exciting action music while people are just sitting around talking in game, or anything like that, is really something that happens a lot.
In general, playing stuff from Graham Plowman is always appropriate. He's musically interesting enough to not just be too impressionistic ambiance; there actually is enough musicality to be interesting enough to listen to, but it's not so catchy that you'll find everyone distracted by the music when you're trying to keep it low and in the background. Some of the work of Travis Savoie also works, although much of it is too high fantasy and heroic to fit the tone and mood of my game.
I used to use a lot more Nox Arcana and Midnight Syndicate. I don't care for them as much; they are all haunted house organ stuff; it sounds very melodramatic and cartoonish to me today. I still kind of like it for the nostalgia—both the sense that I used to listen to more of it, and the sense that it has a kind of old-fashioned feel to it that's kind of nostalgic—but I still have them, and I'm not likely to get rid of them and blow them off entirely. There's still some good stuff there, too, on occasion. I find, however, that musically it's not all that varied or super interesting to listen to as music, although as background ambiance while doing something else it still works.
And while I think Plowman's work is as good as any movie soundtrack not written by John Williams (and even his most recent ones have felt kinda like phoning it in), I also still really like movie soundtracks. In general, I think Williams is exactly what you don't want to use, because his themes are so recognizable. If you're playing Raiders of the Lost Ark, you better be actually playing an Indiana Jones themed game, and even then it may be a little to familiar; people still stop listening to you as GM and start listening to the music when the main themes come up and stuff. The good news is that there's a lot of bad movies that have good soundtracks. This means that the music is good, but people don't really recognize it. Even if they saw the movie, which isn't likely, they won't remember the music. Some of my favorite movie soundtracks, ironically, are movies that I haven't even seen. But it doesn't matter; I heard the soundtracks on Spotify or YouTube and knew that they had exactly the right creepy moodiness and ambiance that I want for my game.
The same can be true for video game soundtracks sometimes, although video game soundtracks aren't always as musically interesting as movie soundtracks. But it's been a long time since I actually documented what I'd listen to during a game. Here's my shortlist. I'd probably take all of these soundtracks, create a playlist out of them, and then just hit shuffle. I don't believe in streaming music, so I have actual mp3s on my phone. Connect to my blue tooth speaker(s) and I'm good to go.
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