Tabletone is a lovely mobile solution for Dungeon Masters with limited time to prepare.
I’ve been a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master on more than a few occasions, and over the years I’ve gathered an array of useful stuff to make running games easier. The obligatory DM screen, map books, and surprisingly handy, mini dry-wipe cards. I never really bothered with sorting music and other ambiance for games until around a year ago. I’ve tried a few different options. I liked the granularity of Syrinscape, but found the mobile app was not user friendly and it would deactivate music if you switched apps. Monument Studios has no app at all, but a selection of really solid musical options. Now I’ve been trying out Tabletone, which I think I’ll be sticking with for some time.
As a DM that doesn’t really use a laptop and relies on books, paper, and occasionally my phone, it’s frustrating when the mobile phone option for music and sound doesn’t really land. Tabletone is app only, which does provide its own issue which I’ll get to. The app is easy to use in the moment, with all your pre-selected music available on a wheel for the scene you’re playing out.
You can have up to eight soundscapes set up on your wheel, and tapping one will start it playing. What’s particularly neat though, is the way you can tune those sounds to the current circumstance with a secondary wheel in the centre of the screen. The music you are currently playing can be adapted to be relaxed, suspenseful, or action depending on what the party is doing in the game. The action option even includes a more victorious or threatening version depending on how things are going. I really liked this as it allows an amount of ambient tinkering within a single scene with a single tap. You can go a little deeper too, with a pop-up menu allowing you to alter it to be brighter or darker in tone.
A swipe to the left will give you a sound effect wheel too, where you can add up to twelve ready to play sound effects. There’s a pretty long list to choose from, but I did find that the search option didn’t always give me what I wanted as you need to know the exact name of the sound rather than it being based on key words. I found it easier to scroll through and pick out ones I liked. Swiping up gives you a number of additional ambient sounds like rats or engines that you can set going any time. I liked that there’s a volume controller to modify which types of sounds are more dominant.
The app includes three universes, those being fantasy, science fiction, and horror, each with their own library. There’s a fair bit of crossover between fantasy and horror, but there’s plenty in each of them. Each universe comes with its own array of ambient sounds too, so you’ll always have something on hand.
All this, of course means you’ll need to prepare, and whilst there are a few presets available, most DMs will want to set up their own soundscape. This is where Tabletone is a little weaker as everything has to be done in the app. As much as I disliked the app that Syrinscape offered, I really appreciated being able to set everything up on the website and then it working from my phone. I haven’t seen an option for that with Tabletone, and whilst the app is great in game, I found it a little fiddly to set everything up. It’s not bad by any stretch, but it does take longer than I’d like. If you want to hear every version of a piece, you’ll need to enter edit mode, select where you want it on the wheel, find the music, add it to the wheel, exit edit mode then test the different versions. There are descriptions for each music track, but I’d have much preferred being able to test out all those options without the additional faff. The app is also pretty battery intensive, so having a charger on hand would be wise for DMs making use of it.
In terms of pricing, you can buy the full library to keep for a fairly substantial $250, which is around £200. Quite an investment, but there is quality there. There are options to buy specific packs if you’d rather tailor it to your needs rather than going all in. You can also get a subscription for $9 a month, which seems more reasonable to me and also good to try it out for a month and decide if it’s worthwhile. If you’re a regular DM, around £7 a month isn’t too bad, sitting between the monthly cost of Syrinscape and Monument Studios.
I’ll be sticking with Tabletone for the time being as it gives me what I need without too much set up time, and my players seem to enjoy it too, commenting on the shift in tone within a single scene being neat. If you’re a DM that wants to experiment with customised music rather than finding something on Spotify or YouTube, then I’d certainly recommend Tabletone.
Tabletone is available on Google Play and the AppStore now.
