How do you design a Bard who is entertaining without being lelsorandom?

Don't go pure bard. dip bard occasionally while furthering your main class, Barbarian. You are no halfling overcompensating for his lack of size with fancy words, you are a Skald. You sing of bloody triumph and chilling terror, you tell stories of victory and loss. Let the fops and nancies sing pale echoes of your baritone epics in your absence while you write your next ballad with your blade.

Have you ever traveled in/with a music band?

How are people that are entertaining live without being "lelsorandumb"?
Bards, in the more classical sense, envelope more than just jokes. They can play music, spin tales, or even tell poetry. They can even be soap-box criers for certain causes, though this gets back to being a bit of a jester in the medieval sense.
If you want a Renaissance feel, perhaps have being a bard your primary school. You study it for the Greek oration skill that is so popular, but being a Renaissance wo/man means also being capable in other arts, sciences/math, and even fighting/fencing.

Uptight, religious minstrel who takes her work extremely seriously and get frustrated when she is compared to common tavern bards or mere entertainers.

That is my current shtick, works pretty well characterwise.

>Young people are lolsorandumb

WEW

You can't, there will always be one grognard saying its lolrandumb.

Duh.

Like this.

dexterslab.wikia.com/wiki/Valhallen

Correct.

>lelsorandom bard
you fucking w0t m8?
who even plays bards like this?
You need yourself a new group user

Also pic related is best bard

Make them ugly, but charismatic guys. Who can imply threats in their lyrics, which are clearly not written for the occasion. Make them loyal, brave, and well read. Make them Gurney Halleck.

Gladiator bard.

well he's not wrong

just have the character play music and be good at it. Don't try to be the center of attention all the time.

Pretty sure he fall in randumb territory for most neckbeards.

>best bard
>best wizard
>almost best fighter
>best rogue
>best white knight
>best cuck

Don't forget best monk.

>best cuck

>best bard
Perhaps

>best wizard
Not even close. Fela's got him beat, the masters have him beat, Elodin has him beat

>almost best fighter
>Getting the shit kicked out of him by an 11 year old
>almost best fighter
ginger didn't even make it past the first stone

>best rogue
He's pretty good. But does the "best rogue" fall off a slippery roof and bust his knee open?

>best white knight
>best cuck
Agreed

>best monk
Refer to the "best fighter" comment above. He wasn't even good by Adem standards. He managed to wrestle a bunch of sailors then got the shit kicked out of him in a barfight

what story is this?

"Realistic"/Low magic/OSR:

Play a combat focused thief with a lot of points/skills/whatever into stuff like personality, performance, storytelling type skills.

Oh and be a cocky bastard about it, probably wear flashy clothes too.

Fantasy/high magic/just about everything not OSR:

Play a mage and just fluff it as you singing and shit.

"Name of the wind"
Great book, totally worth the read

Mind the second book, there is a plot tumor.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Don't....tell jokes? There's nothing requiring a bard to be funny, just to believe in the power of stories and music to shape the world.

Bards are about putting narratives to things, of turning events into history and history into legend and legend into inspiration. Bards are the true masters of magic because they're the only ones who understand WHY the wizard wibbling his hands around like an idiot makes a fireball, and everyone thinks it's so complicated when it's all so, so simple and they just don't understand it, and they think bards are silly because they think they have to try so hard when they just have to try DIFFERENT.

be a war drummer or something

>Veeky Forums flirting with girls
>Veeky Forums flirting with boys
>Veeky Forums flirting with anyone

Fucking horrible game. 0/10. Regret playing

be an actual charismatic person, and prepare your roleplay.
Accept that holding a speech or telling a goodstory is NOT AT ALL random.
Its hard work and can be learned.

Dont just talk gibberish and bullshit, prepare your story and tell it GOOD. Try to communicate atmosphere when you tell them about your hero you accompany.

And cut the simpleshit, no player likes to hear about the 120th Knight who killed a dragon.

Tell them how your Hero (sitting right next to you on the bartable) had to leave behind his whole steelarmor because the freakin jungleforest is thicker than the weak bear they serve in here. The Heat in that land was so monstrous that the wood of your instruments squelched and bowed. And then you got attacked by GIANT WOOLY BEASTS at least 10 (dont say gorilla even if the players know what you mean let them be the NPC's who have to be taught what exotic creature you mean) taller than the Elves and broader as 2 dwarfes together, Jaws bigger and cruelsome as the worst wolf. the Leader have backhair gray as the ashes of the dead.... and your hero had to leave his wonderbare claymore (dont say sword everyone knows that lame word, i know claymore isnt better but in the flow it sounds special, you're a bard you have to let normal stuff sound special) .. soo ahh he had to let his exceptional claymore behind so he took the chained rope and wrestled these inhuman giant beatss to the ground until the last rattle of air and drooled dripped out of them...

etc

i hope i didn't miss the point of your question desu.

desu

>How do you design a Fighter who is entertaining without being lelsorandom?
>How do you design a Cleric who is entertaining without being lelsorandom?
>How do you design a Monk who is entertaining without being lelsorandom?
>How do you design a Rogue who is entertaining without being lelsorandom?
>How do you design a Wizard who is entertaining without being lelsorandom?

make johnny bravo

...

Kiwi dwarf who screams a Hakka, mate.

Or become an orator like Mark Antony (multi classed fighter there) or MLK (should have picked up Uncanny Dodge).

Be a Blade Dancer or a Valkyrie.

Crack wise at your enemy until they're laughing, then stab the cunt.

Just putting it out there: cheerleaders are Bards.

Be 'the world's finest actor' who seeks more exotic audiences.

Granzini the Astounding: Master of illusion (note the lower case)

Multi class into Druid and spread flower power through folk music or Cleric and go On the Road For Jesus with the Supergang

Kill the whores, Jeffry, the voices command you.

Deaf bard.

Roll around in a wagon with other Bards, solving mysteries

Do Transgressive Performance Art to disgust and perplex your foes

Hooray for Imagination!

Make a Skald that writes songs about his adventures. If you can pull that off from your singing talent and roleplaying talent IRL and then sing it before every session to give a quick overview to what happened last time.

>congratulating yourself for lolsorandom cringe

This. The bard part isn't really the key point. It might play a role but really what it comes down to is the person behind the Class.

An easy way to do it is to come up with a strong simple character archetype - the refined noble, the no-frills guttersnipe, the warrior-poet, the cunning flatterer, whatever - and just roll with it. Think how a character like that would react in the current situation and do it. Strike a balance - you don't want to milk the archetype too hard or else your character can come off as one dimensional. Use it as the dish's sauce rather than its meat.

Avoid derp archetypes like the compulsive liar, the kleptomaniac, the primadonna, etc. Nobody likes a prick or anyone who causes trouble for the party all the time. Your character doesn't have to be a perfect bro but people get sick of assholes pretty quickly.

Don't forget the whole chapter where he's best at sex.

- By making him hilarious but not lelsorandom.
- By making him an exotic dancer (may or may not be a crossdresser).
- By making my bard actually a chef who cooks instead of making music.
- By making him a goth (not the tribe, but the post-punk genre).
- By playing him as a spy rather than a bard.
- By playing him as a fili - a prophet and singer who is also a lawyer and a keeper of traditions.
- By playing an orc or a dwarf.
- By making him a noble who has lost his legacy and has deep and tragic backstory and some job to do to finally get back what is his.
- By taking inspirations from Erich Zahn.
- By taking inspirations from Eddie Riggs.
- By taking inspirations from Bob Marley.
- By taking inspirations from king Jareth.

your post was so shit and so facebook tier it killed the thread

>le Veeky Forums is reaction images, insults and name-calling
Go back to where you came from. We had posts like that every day before newfags and shitters like you decided that if they can't provide content, no one else should be allowed to.
The OP asked a question. He answered it.
If you're really that drunk on the Facebook image of Veeky Forums as a place without obligations, decency or responsibility for anything, there must be some better chan for you, like Ylilauta.
A large part of being on this site is giving people shit. One thing you never give shit, though, is the act of providing content.
No matter how shit it is, it's still better than the millionth >shiggy image macro, the newest recycled /pol/ meme or another smug animu girl posted by some newfag trying to keep the level of debate where he can understand it.
Lurk, for fuck's sakes. Unplug your keyboard and spend a day on a board reading.
Then do it for a year.
Then do it for two.
And then you'll figure out how Veeky Forums works, just like everyone who provided the content you came here for.
The content doesn't create itself, and you're alongside HFYfags, incel "magical realm" witch-hunters and Tumblrite social police in the people trying to quash it and then whining when they don't get any more.

You can't lel. Bards make music. You can't make music, can you? 50% of the identity of a bard is unroleplayable.
Wow this formatting. Find a pier

Steven of Ireland from Braveheart.

Bruh, I have five younger siblings. Trust me, yes, they are. It's a very rare exception to have a kid that isn't.

I genuinely enjoy the pun of his name.

Fucking thank you. Shit, I lurked Veeky Forums for four years before I even considered making my first post, once I realized that the grand majority of the hate and trolling wasn't even genuine, it was just part of the board culture. I would disagree with some of the bard suggestions in that post, but most of them are top tier advice. Hell, I never would have imagined playing a bard based on Jareth, I would always have pinned that as a Warlock concept. But it works.

Like this

>playing a bard
>bring an instrument to the table
>actually play short riffs and snippets of songs
Pic related is how I bard.

There's also a lot of cool little musical apps on iOS that can substitute for an instrument in a pinch. If you've played Guitar Hero, you can probably figure out how to play some chords on a virtual guitar in Garage Band.

What the hell is that? A musical whistle? A foward harmonica? Hohner makes harmonicas right?
I want it

Not him, but that's not. Having an odd character concept =/= randumb

It's a melodica. It says it right there in the filename.

Imagine if you could take the annoyance of a harmonica and combine that previously limited range of ear rape with the possibilities of a piano to make a new form of torture.

Some of the best character concepts come from ideas like that.
You just have to understand how serious the rest of the group is about the game, then boil down the character to the essentials and build a convincing, nuanced, flawed human character around it.
All of those concepts, by reducing the amount of pop-culture/real-world references and by making the concept fit with the character instead of the other way around, could make for brilliant characters if played by someone willing to cooperate.
speaks the truth here. You can go for an archetype or a gimmicky concept, but what matters the most is the character. The best and most original concept in the world is wasted if the player just makes the character around it and forgets everything else.
Your character is a person first and foremost, and then comes their gimmick, their race and their powers.

Sign me up, I love harmonica. What kinda communist doesn't love the sound of the old west?

The old west had more pianos, string instruments, and wind instruments(other than the harmonica) than harmonica's. Just like the apache weren't actually insanely crazy awesome warriors who could stare you in the eye with alpha male men everyone.
Don't believe the narratives spaghetti westerns and cowboy(didn't actually exist as presented, ever) culture push they're lies on par with legit communist proganda to make more patriots out of the kiddies and romantics.

I believe you're fundamentally misinformed about what modern neocommunists are trying to do.
Romanticized Western heroes and cowboys are straight in the nationalist right wing's ballpark.
No left-winger nowadays would be caught dead encouraging white males to love their own country and its history, much less tell lies to do so, because the orbital point of modern pseudocommunism is white guilt and trending sociopolitical white noise.
If the Commies were trying to make patriots out of people, we'd be hearing the Horst Wessel-Lied in every German mall.
Instead, these people try to build a society on nothing but historical revisionism and denial of their own culture and values, erasing any material that could possibly compel a child to feel confidence, pride or even happiness about working together with countrymen and family for a greater cause.
At least a Nazi propaganda movie would compel someone to work for the nation and the people.
You know it's Tumblr neo-communism when everything is about why you don't have to try but you can blame everyone else anyway.

I know that harmonicas weren't prevalent, being invented around that time there was no real way they could have been. I'm aware that the real west is not the movie west, but the movie west is still iconic and just a plain good genre, and the music was essential to the identity.
Also I'd rather have patriots then apathetic noodle people or worse, communists.

Woah. No no no user. I'm saying the complexity, reach, and effect was similar to the communist propaganda mill in strength and efficacy NOT that westerns and cowboys are a communist creation.
Westerns were just another exploitative hollywood trend people are up and cowboys were almost entirely invented by cigarette companies. I was just saying the narratives they present are mostly wholecloth lies and not actually representative of the era.
Oh trust me I love the genre too and I'm still angry they beat it to death so badly before I was even born to experience it but my point was a bit of mild autism that if you want to think of iconic Actual Old West you should think of fiddlers and pianists.
As for the patriot bit I feel I misworded that please read the above bit. Though it did play a part in the Bad Boy meme we have now so I'm sure plenty of patriots could owe their status to it by proxy.

To be fair, the part about
>lies on par with legit communist proganda to make more patriots out of the kiddies and romantics
does make it read like the communist propaganda was to make patriots out of kids and romantics.
You really never know how misinformed someone might be on here, especially politically.

Why not play a cheerleader?
>LET GO PARTY LET GO!!!
>*claps loudly*
>LET GO PARTY LET GO!!!

Don't. It opens up the whole thing to lolsorandumb shenanigans and "guys can be cheerleaders too!" Ironically or otherwise.
If we could have a legit flutter or the campaign is for funsies then yeah let's do this otherwise it loses its lustre after 20 minutes.

bitch, I once played a crossdressing dancer and try to ride the paladin's dick. Don't tell me what's "lolsorandumb shenanigans". A bard is suppose to have fun and be funny. Embrace the spoony bard.

As mentioned above bards can be many things and fit many ---Man roles. If you're in a basic campaign and setting being the hyper random hahaha omgosh gayboi slit who's mission is to fall the paladin you're factually being a problem.

>How do you design an entertainer who is entertaining without being lelsorandom?
I'm having a hard time understanding.