This script, the RPGbox, is thought to help to create atmosphere at the game table by adding music and sound effects to it.
A disco in Shadowrun could have plenty of background music and some shouting guests, clinking glasses, and some gun shots as random sound effects. A bar in D&D may have mumbling guests as background music and shouts and moving chairs as sound effects. You may also imagine a beach with rolling waves in the background and sea gulls, noises of ships, and laughter of children occasionally interspersed. Or what about a rainy forrest, say for Cthulhu? Heavy showers in the background, and every now and then, you hear thunder, birds, and wind. And of course, when it comes to fight, all sounds fade out to make place for throbbing battle music.
RPGbox can provide all of this. First, you need to collect the music and the sound effects (if you want any). See below for possible sources. Then, you create an xml file in which you define themes and associate the background and effect sounds to them.
At the gaming table, you set up the computer with speakers and a keyboard. No mouse fiddling is needed. When you need a certain theme, just hit the corresponding key on your keyboard. The background music will start in random order and sound effects will start playing randomly. You can skip an inappropriate song anytime by pressing the right-arrow key. You can also pause and unpause anytime by hitting space. There is also the possibility for global effects, like some sound for a critical hit or killing a particularly difficult enemy. Or what about the Jeopardy thinking music for some player that cannot decide? These global effects have a key assigned to them that you can press anytime. You can define for each effect whether it should interrupt all other music (Jeopardy music) or just overlay existing music and effects (critical hit).
- Python 3: https://www.python.org
- Pygame: http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml
Media support is limited by Pygame. Currently, only ogg and uncompressed wav files are generaly supported. Depending on the system, also mp3 files may be supported for background music but never for sound effects.
The XML file contains information about all music, background noises, sound effects etc. Here is an example file:
<rpgbox>
<config textcolor="black" bgcolor="white" emphcolor="#c80000" fadecolor="#7f7f7f" />
<theme key="t" name="The first theme" basetime="3600" volume="100" default="default">
<config textcolor="white" bgcolor="#169010" emphcolor="#ff9600" fadecolor="black" />
<background file="theme1/*.mp3" volume="100" />
<background file="theme1/veryLoudFile.mp3" volume="75" />
<background file="generalStuff/niceBG?.mp3" />
<effect file="theme1/*.ogg" occurence="10" />
<effect file="theme1/playThisOften.wav" occurence="120" volume="90" />
<effect file="theme1/playThisInLoop.wav" occurence="3600" volume="50" loop="true" />
</theme>
<theme name="Jungle" key="j">
<background file="generalStuff/jungle.mp3" />
</theme>
<globals volume="100">
<global file="generalStuff/jeopardy.ogg" key="1" name="Jeopardy Thinking Music" volume="100" interrupting="yes" />
</globals>
</rpgbox>All tags and attributes must be in lowercase. Indentation and empty lines don't have any effect.
The contents of every RPGbox xml file must be contained in <rpgbox>...</rpgbox>.
Basic colors may be defined with a <config> tag. The colors may be given in common names or hex notation (#rrggbb). With textcolor the text color is changed. bgcolor is responsible for the background. emphcolor is used for emphasizing text and fadecolor for fading text. The values in the example are the default values if no <config> is given.
Every theme starts with a <theme> tag that must have a name and a key attribute. Optionally, every theme can have a basetime and a base volume. The name is shown on the screen (in case you look at it). The key is the keyboard key (a-z, 0-9) that you want to press while in game to start this theme. The basetime is a reference time in seconds. The default value is 3600 seconds or one hour. It must be in range 1 to 36000 (one second to ten hours). See below at <effect> for more info on this attribute. The volume is the basic volume of the whole theme in percent. Default is 100 and it must be in range 0 to 100. Optionally, a theme may be set to default. If there is a default attribute this theme will be started directly, when the script starts. The text of the default attribute is irrelevant, it is just there to comply with the xml standard.
You may define colors specific to a theme. As with the general color options, this is done with a <config> tag. See above for explanation. If no <config> tag is given, the general colors will be used for this theme.
Themes may contain an arbitrary number of <background> tags. With these tags, you can define music (or noise) files that permanently play in the background in a random order. Every background must have a file attribute that points to one or several files. You can address several files by using * (matches an arbitrary number of arbitrary characters), ? (matches exactly one arbitrary character), or [] (matches exactly one character in a range of characters, e.g. [0-9] or [asdf]). In addition, backgrounds may have a volume in percent associated to them. Default is 100. The background volume will be adjusted by the theme volume.
Themes may also contain <effect> tags. Here, you can define sounds that are randomly played on top of the background music. Like backgrounds, each effect must have a file attribute and may have a volume associated to them. See <background> tags for details. In addition, you may define an occurence attribute that defines, how often the given sound(s) is played. This occurence is always in relation to the basetime of the <theme>. It states how often (on average) the sound effect will be played within the basetime. So if the basetime is 3600 (one hour) and the occurence is 10. The sound effect(s) will be played approximately ten times per hour or every six minutes. The numbers are not precise, as the sound effects are triggered randomly. Default, minimum and maximum are 1%, 0% and 100%, respectively, of basetime. Another possible attribute is cooldown. After playing a sound, the program will block the sound for cooldown seconds before it can be played again. This does not mean, that the sound will be played after cooldown seconds. The sound is only unblocked after that time. By chosing a negative value, the sound is allowed to be played while another instance of it still plays. You may have sound effects that are played permanently in a loop, by adding a loop attribute to it that must be "truthy" (i.e. yes, y, on, true, 1). Be carefull that you don't have too many (i.e. more than two or three) looped sounds as these block audio channels.
Besides themes, there may be global effects. These are bundled within a <globals> tag. This tag may optionally have a volume attribute. Within the <globals> tag, there must be at least one <global> tag (without s). Each <global> tag must have a file, a key, and a name attribute, refering to the filename, the keyboard key that is associated with the global effect, and the name of the effect, respectively. In addtion, you may state a volume that will be modified similar to the music and sound volumes with the volume of <globals>. The last possible attribute is interrupting. If this attribute is set and the value is "truthy" (i.e. yes, y, on, true, 1), the global effect will stop all other music and sounds when it is invoked. If it is not set, music and other sounds will continue playing while that global effect is active.
You can assign all keys from a to z (lowercase only) and 0 to 9 for any theme or global sound effect. No key may be assigned twice.
Other predefined keys are:
- right-arrow: next song
- left-arrow: previous song (up to ten songs back)
- space: pause or unpause playback
- F1: Allow or disallow music
- F2: Allow or disallow sounds
- F5: Allow or disallow custom colors
- F10: Force redrawing of the screen (Debugging function, likely to be removed later)
- escape: quit
OK, now you got the script running, but what should you feed into it? There are plenty of sources for background music and sound effects on the net.
In addition to free online sources, you may also look for soundtracks. Movie soundtracks are great, but they tend to shift the mood within one song as they are fitted to one particular scene. However, there are also many soundtracks for computer or console games. Here, the tracks are more often consistent in mood. Some (particularly older) computer games even have their sound effects in single files, easy to use for background sounds.
Here are some suggestions of free sources on the net.
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Tabletop Audio offers ten minute pieces for table top games with different atmospheres that can of course also be used for role-playing games.
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Kingdom Hearts Insider has a large database of computer game soundtracks that can be downloaded.
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Game Theme Songs also has many, many game songs.
Take care when you want to use prominent soundtracks for gaming. It can create an unwanted atmosphere. Imagine a serious fight of the player vampires against NPC werewolves. The mood is tense, it's a narrow fight – and suddenly the Pirates of the Caribbean main theme blares through the room. This theme is certainly suited for action scenes, but it is completely wrong in an intense fight in the World of Darkness.
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In addtion to the abovementioned background tracks, Tabletop Audio also offers a sound pad with some preconfigured sets.
You can send me bugs via the GitHub issue system.
A todo list is in the first lines of the script.