Being a Dungeon Master (DM) is no walk in the park, but it’s a rewarding and fun way to express your creativity. You get to be the boss, that’s always fun, but more importantly you get to narrate a fun and imaginative story. Setting the mood with sound effects and music will really pull your players into their imagination. I put together a list of my favorite DM ambience tools that I have used in the past and hopefully you’ll find value in some of them.

Tabletop Audio

Tabletop Audio is a free website that offers a couple of different ways to provide sound in campaign setting that both players and dungeon masters will love. Their main site offers a variety of ambience and music that will help create an immersive experience. They also have their SoundPad if you’re looking for a way to offer a whole host of background noises such as wind, footsteps, rain, or even just the sound of tavern noise. You can select from a set of pre-packaged sound pads, or create your own custom sound pad. 

If you’re running a game remotely (which many of us are these days) you can create a broadcast link to let your players connect with you and enjoy these sound effects and ambience from the comfort of their own home. It takes a little bit of getting use to, but once you got it rolling and everyone on-board, I think Tabletop Audio will add a whole new dimension to your game!

Go to Tabletop Audio

Soundcloud

There are a number of great sounds available on Soundcloud, I’ve liked one of my favorites called “tabletop audio” which is a playlist of different sounds. However, if you don’t find what you want, simply search for Dungeons & Dragons (or something similar) and choose albums, and you’ll find an endless supply of possibilities for your campaign. The trick here is broadcasting these sounds to your remote users because it doesn’t seem to have an option like Tabletop Audio. However, if you can get around that limitation, you’ll find more than enough to provide an excellent experience.

Go to Soundcloud

myNoise

This website wasn’t really designed to provide ambient sounds for D&D games, but it does offer a host of fantastic background noises that you could use. Similar issue to Soundcloud, you’ll have to find your own way to broadcast it to your remote players. You’ll also find it offers a unique feature that allows you to adjust the volume of different layers of sounds, for example the Thunder Noise Generator will let you adjust low thunder, thunder + rain, rumble, etc. Fun way to customize your experience as well.

Go to myNoise

SyrinScape

SyrinScape provides an application that runs on Windows, Linux. MacOS, iOS, and Android which allows you dungeon masters to share sounds similar to Tabletop Audio (but through the application). You get 10 sounds for free, and if you like it you can choose from their paid plans ranging from $7.15/month to $10.99/month. You’re basically paying for the convenience of having an app, but they do have a new beta online player that might have potential. 

Go to Syrinscape