So I do it

May 22, 2026

Hey Game Masters! In this post I'm going to give a full rundown of how Fantasy Fader fits into my session prep.

Outside of ambiance and combat music, my session prep is admittedly pretty lacking. I usually have one giant document of recaps from previous sessions that I share with players, and one giant document of session notes that I keep to myself. Frankly I’ve been doing it this way for years and it’s worked pretty well for me. Sometimes I’ll make a separate doc for a quest or a town if the quest is really involved or the town has a few dozen amenities, but for the most part one megadoc is fine for me.

I definitely used to be one of those dungeon masters that would plan out entire scenes with dialogue and everything. I had plenty of experience playing RPGs, so I would write these complex dialogue trees like “If the players ask about the murder victim, the shopkeeper gets evasive and weird and says he doesn’t know what they’re talking about” or “If the players demand extra pay, the questgiver reluctantly agrees to 10% more gold”. I thought I was helping myself be prepared for whatever they could throw at me, but all it did was make me panic when they asked a question that I hadn’t thought of.

I’ve since grown as a person and realized that having less notes is actually better. All I need to know about an NPC is what they sound like, what they want, and what’s keeping them from getting what they want. Keeping my notes as basic as possible not only helps me focus on getting into character, but also provides me more brain space to spend on other immersion-boosting things, such as ambiance!

I mentioned in the previous post how preparing ambiance and combat music has always been my favorite part of DMing. I will spend hours on YouTube obsessively listening to dozens of tracks, trying to decide which ones best fit my vision, then add them all to an “AMBIANCE” megadoc. Then I would fumble through that document while we played, trying to find the video that I had written down earlier. I haven’t quite solved the “spending hours on YouTube” part (and don’t necessarily want to because I genuinely enjoy it), but I’ve effectively solved the fumbling part with Fantasy Fader. So let’s go through how I use it!

Let’s say I’m planning a one-shot where my players need to rescue a prince from a cave in the mountains where he was taken by a demon. This adventure will take place in a snowy northern region. I’ll start by considering all the locations and possible fights in the one-shot and compiling a list of what audio I’ll need for them. That list winds up looking something like this:

  • The adventure starts in the throne room with the king begging the players to find his missing son.
  • The king offers them a carriage to take them to the mountains where he suspects his son was taken.
  • The carriage is attacked by bandits. The players find a note on one of them, indicating that they were hired by someone to stop the players from getting to the mountains.
  • The snow starts to get too deep and the carriage has to stop. The players must get out and walk through the deep snow at the foot of the mountain, searching for tracks and clues as to the Prince’s whereabouts. If the players want to walk instead of taking the carriage for whatever reason, we can just use this track for the walk there.
  • The players reach the mountains and are hot on the trail. Even the martial characters are able to detect the demon’s foul presence. They have to make some survival checks because of the bitter climate, and solve a puzzle to enter the demon’s cave.
  • The players traverse through the cave, requiring wits and athletics to cross fissures and descend through abandoned mine shafts.
  • The players reach the ritual chamber and encounter the demon and the prince. The demon is preparing a ritual to sacrifice the prince. The demon reveals that the king willingly handed over the prince and that the bandits from earlier were hired by the king to stop the players from reaching the demon. (We can perhaps use the FADE TO SILENCE button for dramatic effect as he makes this reveal)
  • To free the prince, the players can fight the demon or can return to the king to fight him instead, handing his soul over to the demon. If they go that route, the king is overcome with rage that his plan failed and grows into a terrifying demonic form, powered by all the deals he’s made with demons. Regardless of the route, we can use the same demon stat block for both fights and use the same combat track.
  • Regardless of the route, we have a wrap up scene in the town’s tavern where the prince thanks the players profusely and promises them rewards befitting of heroes. If they killed the demon, he thanks them and promises his corrupt father will face justice. If they killed the king, he is sad but still thanks them for thwarting his evil father and promises to do better with the crown.

As I find tracks I like, I’ll add them to my playlist in Fantasy Fader and rename them to make it easier to remember what I wanted to use them for. On a free account, I can then listen to each track and decide an appropriate volume level to set it at. For example, the ambiance I chose for the throne room is really quiet, so I would likely keep that one at max volume and turn the rest down. On a pro account, I can use the BALANCE button to automatically analyze every track in my playlist/decks and pick an appropriate volume level based on the track’s average decibel level. Using the autobalance feature is a great starting point and is usually good enough, but you may still want to take a peek at your tracks and decide if you want something to be louder than the recommended volume for dramatic effect. Finally, I’ll get the first track queued up and reorganize all the tracks in the playlist into the order that I think I’ll use them.

And now we’re ready to roll! I’ll start off with the throne room ambiance, then use the FADE button as we transition from scene to scene and into and out of combat. That’s it! My players have admitted that the jarring cuts and sudden volume changes as I switch tracks in the past totally ripped them out of their immersion, defeating the purpose of setting up said ambiance in the first place. They’ve told me that now that I can smoothly transition between scenes, sometimes they’re so immersed that they don’t even notice the ambiance change and it’s easier to forget that we’re all just sitting around a coffee table in the basement. That’s all the encouragement I need to know that this project was a good idea!

That’s all for today, please don’t hesitate to hit me up at fantasyfader@gmail.com if you have any ideas for features I can add to help you get your players more immersed. Everyone should get to experience the magic of getting lost in a fantasy world (or noir world, or cyberpunk world, or gothic horror world, etc). Or just hit me up if you want to tell me about your home game, I’d love to hear about it!

-Mitch