Veeky Forums, I've always had quite an issue with bards. I've first found DnD through the webcomics such as "Chainmail Bikini" and "The Order of the Stick", and the stereotype of a comically inept bard, who sings and plays a lute in a middle of intense battle while blood and guts are flying around, it was always present in my head. Yeah, yeah, I know, his singing is (sometimes, depending on the edition) causing magic to happen, but it's still singing and playing a fucking lute. I just can't take this seriously. I can't get over this image - a fighter is swinging his sword, dashing through the enemy lines, a rogue is dodging dragon's firebreath while lining up a perfect shot with his longbow, the wizard is summoning demons from Hell and raining fiery vengeance upon his enemies... And the bard is gently singing, seemingly unconcerned by the battle. Hell, we even have real life bards on LARPs, they are always drinking and trying to sell you their shitty CDs. Nothing cool about those.
It was later, when I've read such things as Soul Music and played Brutal Legend, when my opinion began to change. No, bards aren't cool still - but they could be. All we need is to replace the shitty bard stereotype with a rock star. I can't quite explain why, but black leather, an electric guitar and some bass makes for a quite less silly bard - even despite anachronisms. However, no DM on Earth would allow this kind of thing in a serious campaign, which saddens me greatly.
How do you deal with bards at you table? How can you make bards not extremely silly? Do you have any bard stories?
Exalted has ways for you to kill with music. And I keep meaning to write up that artifact instrument.
Owen Thomas
Get a songblade.
As a sidenote, do wizards bother you? They waggle their fingers, babble incoherent nonsense while holding bat shit, all in a bathrobe. It's a comical sight to see in the middle of combat if you think about it, but most don't think about it. Perhaps such a trait could prove useful for other classes...
Jacob Phillips
The difference is, wizards have been long established in fantasy. Bards are really DnD-specific and frequently seen as a joke even inside DnD.
Ethan Lopez
>Veeky Forums meme version from people who've never actually played a tabletop RPG: >"I strum my lute! The fighter gets +1 to his next roll! Also I roll to seduce the dragon we're fighting."
>actual D&D bard: >has fighting skills (but not quite as much as the fighter), thieving skills (but not quite as much as the thief), magic skills (but not quite as much as the wizard), and knows a lot of heresay about lots of random subjects (but not as much as the local sage).
Bards are nice filler characters to act as wingmen for the other PCs, but since a lot of posters on Veeky Forums are socially inept, they assume bards are supposed to be magic rock stars (male) or prostitutes (female).
Nathan Fisher
I played a dragonborn bard in one game. I was part of a rock band with a goliath and another dragonborn, and we scoured the world looking for a vocalist and going on adventures to inspire our next album. I was the bassist, part barbarian and focused on everything thunder related, quivering the earth with a note. Also cleaved people in two with a big ass songblade. Those were good times If you can ignore the dumb shit of one you can do it for another. If you allow preconceptions to color your opinions, you won't have fun with anything
Grayson Baker
>I just can't take this seriously.
So let me get this straight. We have D&D, a game where old men in bathrobes can spend every turn pulling scorpions out of the Elemental Plane of Scorpions so he can chuck them into a room to trigger all the traps in there. A game where a properly-specced Paladin can opt to magically summon a glowing, holy horse. Or a stag. Or an ostrich. Or a fucking bull shark if he's into the whole aquatic scene. A game where the cleric can hurl a bag full of powdered bear shit onto himself so he can temporarily get stronger. A game where a man, an elf, a half-demon, and a fucking lizardman can all meet in a bar and then go off to have adventures.
And the guy with the loot is what you can't take seriously?
Landon Lewis
I know you might not actually PLAY D&D user, but I won't begrudge you your presence in the board as a way to learn more and perhaps one day find a group.
That said, don't you think you could at least be polite and not post anything at all or start threads until you gain actual experience on the subject matter? I mean, I know I don't open my to talk about shit I don't know shit about because it's impolite and makes me look like a imbecile, but I don't know if that's polite behavior where you come from or not.
Zachary Robinson
...
Camden Baker
do real life military bands also strike you as unrealistic?
Carson Jenkins
I don't know what bards are in your backwards and outdated edition, but they are fullcasters and sometimes gishes in 5e.
Oliver Bennett
To be fair, military bands aren't often seen in combat with trombones and flutes.
Bentley Cox
But that's because those trombones and flutes don't make bullets fly straighter and soldiers fight better.
Connor Cox
Scottish wars were conducted with the bagpiper preceding the army.
Colton Wright
A better example would be military drummers. Don't have them anymore, but they used to be a thing in every major army.
Ian Kelly
AD&D Bards were based on the Celtic ideal of magic being based in both nature and music. You had to take 3 levels of fighter, 2 levels in druid, and then, and only then, could you petition to become a bard.
The Celtic mages sang people into the ground, chanted names that transformed people into animals, and used names to hold power over wind and water and earth.
Learn your mythology some time.
Adrian Ross
>Soul Music I'm not really seeing where bardic inspiration is coming from here
Logan Thompson
It's probably the cover.
Levi Carter
Try playing Drakengard 3 or reading the Drakengard: Shi Ni Itaru Aka manga. Those feature singing as a way to give massive buffs to characters. Just imagine something similar is happening in your games.
Or get a better imagination. Either one works.
Grayson Myers
You talking 3.5, right? Well, just get your Bard a Resonating Weapon. It basically stores sound and releases it when hitting stuff, so you can strum your favourite instrument while brutally skewering your enemy with your favourite longsword. Throw in a Snowflake Wardance to add CHA to damage and you've got quite some possibilities. An artist who finds beauty in music and swordplay? Some sort of arcane student who uses songs to bind his magic? Or just an angry, angry musician?
Nathan Garcia
I like bards Maybe because i used to main horn in monster hunter... To me they're decent fighters with the ability to seamlessly buff both themselves and the party and attack the enemies with nonchalant ease.
James Brooks
See
Wyatt Miller
Not really applicable. That was for sending messages/instructions to large groups of soldiers when there was a lot of noise/shouting going on.
>I have no idea where the captain is or what's going on but the drums are signalling "wheel left"
Samuel Adams
...
Jose Powell
Look at Chanters from Pillars of Eternity. They basically use ancestral tales to use the souls of their ancestors for magic.
Much as i hate skyrim, you can mix it up with some of that shouting magic stuff. Makes it feel like the bard is more aggressive and actively participating.
Or just make the "singing" more like chanting magical phrases where the rhythm matters, and the bard can actually use weapons to fight while doing it.
I never make bards that play instruments while fighting cause i also think it looks retarded.
Thomas Morris
>They waggle their fingers, babble incoherent nonsense while holding bat shit, all in a bathrobe. It's a comical sight to see in the middle of combat if you think about it, but most don't think about it. Perhaps such a trait could prove useful for other classes... >If you can ignore the dumb shit of one you can do it for another. If you allow preconceptions to color your opinions, you won't have fun with anything
Now that's sophistry if I've ever seen one.
Jaxson Cox
Well. I for one agree almost completely. But in 5th ed bards are spell casters that sing when using their magic, and this is a concept I think is awesome.
It's a poorly executed concept in a lot of cases, but I like the idea of it. Singing for magic, and or spell construction is something you might have thought about while reading about the Vallar in lotr, or in mythology. If i remember correctly the bard class description in the players handbook says something about the world being told and sung into existence.
Military musicians make sense for units of dudes, but I agree they would be completely fucking useless in a group of heroes. If the bard is anything like pic related I think the class fantasy is shit.
Isaac Myers
You're just making me sad that Barbarians of Heavy Metal never got off the ground. It was an extensive re-work of Barbarians of Lemura that got Kickstarted and failed horribly. The creator tried to make it into a card game after that, then an Android app, and both failed. The game will never see the light of day.
>Barbarians of Heavy Metal (BoHM) is a Table-Top Roleplaying game set in the post-apocalyptic 31st century where sonic technology and centuries of warfare have created the Metalsphere: a series of interstellar feudal empires based around the veneration of the Rocktagon: the Eight Great Schools of Rock. >Players take on the role of Metalheads, knights of the 31st century who roam the Metalsphere in pursuit of fame and glory. They are sonic warrior-wizards who possess rare and powerful Superstring Manipulators, sonic weaponry in the shape of musical instruments that can vibrate the underlying structure of the universe, bending it to the whim of the virtuoso musician. >The most elite Metalheads are granted the privilege of ‘Riding the Heavy Metal’: Titans! These giant robot combat vehicles tower over the battlefield and possess the power of an entire tank battalion. The nobility of headbanger society, those who possess these massive behemoths are, by definition, more metal than everyone else: the rock stars idolized by a society of rock stars.
Ah well.
Aaron Reed
>This is why we can't have nice things
Camden Murphy
Played a combative warrior bard into Dragon Disciple who started out humming as a way to bolter her own boldness in a battle, and later just kept growling and roaring in the middle of battles, inspiring courage for those on her side by rout of Hey We've Got A Fucking Dragon On Our Side.
You can also easily run it as someone shouting advice and "Watch your flank" type stuff.
David Russell
Hush child, and listen to tales of the old days from those of us who've actually gotten through a single campaign before the game broke up because the DM finally hit puberty. In the ancient times...bards were one of the first Prestige Classes. It's true! One had to walk many journeys, in many different guises, to become a bard. But then, Gary was ousted from the heavens, and a new edition was made. In this new world, the Bard was a base class. It couldn't have the power of its former form, because it took no work to acquire. So, it was instead a hybrid, skill in many areas, master of none. Was it any good? Well, we're talking about 2E here, so it's hard to say. And then, of course, came 3E. Men like Ryan Dancey (who was responsible for EVERYTHING you love about 3E, and NOTHING you hate about it is his fault! And that's what he'll tell you, so you can believe it.) and Monte Cook (a fucking overrated hack. There's no real clever way to say it.). And these men decided that obviously, what the bard was missing was MAGIC MUSIC!!!! Nobody was asking for it. Nobody needed it. But we apparently decided that was the direction, especially because 'jack of all trades' was admittedly a bit weird. That's how we got where we are today - well, that, and really shitty memes from various unfunny DnD groups - the crappy movie, the webcomic with all the words, and so on. It's a long, strange journey, and we have learned nothing from it. But it is ours. So let us honor the skub, and argue about it forever.
Jace Adams
Praise be to skub!
Adrian Gomez
I really want to make a Bard whose is basically a fantasy self help guru. Instead of magic music buffs, he psyches his comrades up with motivational speeches.
His name would be Anthony of Robbinshire.
Isaiah Sullivan
I am NO FUN ALLOWED and proud of it but if anyone wanted to do the LOL DRAGONFORCE/ALESTORM HARDEST METAL KNOWN TO MAN power metal bard shit in a campaign that wasn't wholly lighthearted I would tell them to fuck off because it's cringy as fuck
Alexander Hughes
Many years ago I played a rougish-warrior human character i Warhammer Fantasy RPG 1ed. He was your typical dashing swordsman/charming marcenery guy, with w pinch of cynism and brooding to fit the warhammer grimdarkness. The reason I mention him is that my gm allowed me to have a specjal starting item - a runic guitar made by the dwarves, the runes made it sound a lot louder and basicaly like an electric guitar with low, metal sound.
The most cringe worthy thing about this character was that his name was basicaly James Hetfield with a few letters changed here and there. I was 16 and stupid.
Also, I remember there was an expansion for 1ed Warhammer with additional rules for character creation and a lot of expanded fluff about the four races available. One of the paragraphs about Dwarves culture actually mentioned them liking "bard rock and heavy metal".
Remember we're talking '80s GW, so yeah, metal.
Anthony Gonzalez
More than a few cultures have a tradition of story tellers who wander the land and do stuff. In D&D the bard is a middle of the road character you nab if your party needs someone to play jack of all trades and their music provides a nice buff. The 'bard is useless and only plays music' meme has an odd cultural vitality. I mostly blame normies who don't actually play D&D or tabletop games.
Look it's not that fucking hard to make bards work stylistically without bringing in anachronisms like heavy metal (and I say this as a die hard metalhead) play a clever warrior who tells tales of his heroics (and those of his friends and such) put that class versatility to use. Play war drums, or hell a guitar it's a fantasy setting you can find a reason to include relatively normal musical instruments.
Bards can be spies, thieves, hedge mages, assassins, spell swords. Hell one of my Favorite PS1 RPGs, Jade Cocoon has Cocoon Masters, use musical instruments to soothe the savagery in the souls of monsters that wander a world spanning forest.
