Greetings!


Periodically, I have heard that some people *hate* Bard characters in D&D games. I certainly believe that the "gameified" Bard has some problems and can be annoying--but I also think that has more to do with the presentation of Bards rather than particular class features or abilities. In historical times, Bards were immensely important kinds of people--such individuals were often invited to attend the local Lord's manor or estate soon upon arriving in the area. In an age without television, radio, or mass newspapers or readily accessible books, aristocratic lords, town mayors, tribal chieftains, even Muslim Amirs and Sultans all eagerly sought to welcome and patronize Bardic characters. Even in the great Steppes, and also in places like the empires in India, or in China, Bardic characters were often of distinct prominence. These attributes of storyteller, newsman, travel journalist, explorer, and chronicler of different places and cultures, serve to make the Bard character generally quite memorable, entertaining, and always intriguing and interesting, for everyone, whether a tribal chieftain, a noble lord, a churchman, or a common artisan, farmer, or shepherd.


These attributes are quite apart from the distinct religious and magical properties assumed to Bards, especially so within ancient Celtic, Norse, Finnish and Baltic civilizations and tribal societies. Add some of the alluded to magical abilities in, perhaps some kind of religious and mystical status, and the Bard should make for an interesting and intriguing character for the campaign, and for any adventuring group!


What do you all think? Have you modified Bards in some way for your campaigns? Do Bards hold some kind of religious or mystical status? Do your Bards have some social prominence as being explorers, storytellers and chroniclers of foreign lands, places, and people?


Semper Fidelis,


SHARK

First, "music is magic" dies in a fire. Done.

Second, bards as you describe them from history are loremasters. Not the "like wizards but no magic" types, but the Indiana Jones types. Travelers, adventurers, men of the world who seek both knowledge and experience. Men who live the tales, not the men who tell the tales of others in the safety of the local tavern.

Start from there and make bards for your games.

I prefer Taliesin-style bards. Wizards, but in the traditional sense of a wise one, one steeped in lore and natural history and able to perform miracles, not the bookish version in D&D.

Quote from: RandyB on September 28, 2020, 10:43:05 PM
First, "music is magic" dies in a fire. Done.

Second, bards as you describe them from history are loremasters. Not the "like wizards but no magic" types, but the Indiana Jones types. Travelers, adventurers, men of the world who seek both knowledge and experience. Men who live the tales, not the men who tell the tales of others in the safety of the local tavern.

Start from there and make bards for your games.

Greetings!


"Music is Magic" dies in a fire!" *Laughing* Ahh, yes, that's fucking awesome, RandyB! I admit, the particular ren-faire esque Bard loaded with uber wizard spells irritates me very much. I think that Bards make as you say, excellent loremasters. However, even in Celtic and especially Finnish and Baltic mythology, Bards are known to be mysterious and fairly potent spellcasters. In Celtic lore, Bards are while also Loremasters, historians, storytellers, and travelers, they are also a particular lower-tier of Druidic priest, a branch of the Druid priesthood. In the context of all Druids are former Bards, being required to be Bards before becoming full Druid priests--while not all Bards necessarily proceed with their mystical studies and lore to become full-fledged Druid priests. Also, some Bards are considered excellent Bards, but otherwise by temperament to be unsuitable for being Druids, or the Bard no longer wishes to proceed with the additional studies to become a Druid, having found their calling sufficient to remain a Bard. How to square the two concepts? I think that the Player's Handbook Bard is strangely, far too much "wizard" and pirate-like scoundrel and rebellious rebel, and not enough Loremaster, Chronicler, or mystical priest-shaman. Within ancient Pagan tribal cultures, for example, the typical Bard wasn't a rebellious rebel or scoundrel, but likely a person of noble station, from a good family, and also liked and appreciated by the nobility, priest classes, and the chieftain or king, in addition to the warriors and the common people.


Semper Fidelis,


SHARK

Granted, this is speculation, but the reasons for the hate:

* Bards were a bolt-on when AD&D was first published.  And so many people playing bog-standard thieves, fighters and wizards were pissed off not only at all the Kewl New Powerz they had, but that bards could do some things those other classes could do.  Something of the 1950s two-women-wearing-the-same-dress-at-the-party scenario.

* Back then (and the syndrome's still there today) there was a marked hostility in many gaming groups for roleplaying.  Clerics who boasted about their levels, +5 Maces of Big Bad Smiting, and Holy Armor of the Eternals stammered when asked about their religions' doctrines and dogmas, beyond a "But but but ... he's Lawful Good!"  "My fighter tells the NPC lord to fuck off" was a common element of dialogue.  Any RP element that might interfere with sole focus on completing the tactical mission was -- and still is -- a mortal sin in many groups.  So a character class that was ostensibly about RP was just a non-starter.

How do I handle bards?  Well, for starters, I don't play D&D; I've been a GURPS GM for 35 years now.  A bare handful of points will get you decent Singing, Public Speaking, Performance and/or Musical Instrument skills, there is no archetype onto which that can't be bolted effectively (although it's easier on a high-IQ character), and someone who wants to go whole hog and do up a master minstrel has many other options.  There's no canalization as required by D&D.

For another, I just have a strong roleplaying campaign.  If the gypsy healer/herbalist in my group (who has some modest performance skills) says that she's going to break out her instrument, sing a couple love tunes, entertain the throng, keep her ears open for info, and schmooze the bad guy thugs after, the other players don't sneer at her and mutter "special snowflake" under their breaths.  That's her gig, and that's part of what she contributes to the group, and they like that fine.

Quote from: Ravenswing on September 29, 2020, 01:23:23 AM
Granted, this is speculation, but the reasons for the hate:

* Bards were a bolt-on when AD&D was first published.  And so many people playing bog-standard thieves, fighters and wizards were pissed off not only at all the Kewl New Powerz they had, but that bards could do some things those other classes could do.  Something of the 1950s two-women-wearing-the-same-dress-at-the-party scenario.

* Back then (and the syndrome's still there today) there was a marked hostility in many gaming groups for roleplaying.  Clerics who boasted about their levels, +5 Maces of Big Bad Smiting, and Holy Armor of the Eternals stammered when asked about their religions' doctrines and dogmas, beyond a "But but but ... he's Lawful Good!"  "My fighter tells the NPC lord to fuck off" was a common element of dialogue.  Any RP element that might interfere with sole focus on completing the tactical mission was -- and still is -- a mortal sin in many groups.  So a character class that was ostensibly about RP was just a non-starter.

How do I handle bards?  Well, for starters, I don't play D&D; I've been a GURPS GM for 35 years now.  A bare handful of points will get you decent Singing, Public Speaking, Performance and/or Musical Instrument skills, there is no archetype onto which that can't be bolted effectively (although it's easier on a high-IQ character), and someone who wants to go whole hog and do up a master minstrel has many other options.  There's no canalization as required by D&D.

For another, I just have a strong roleplaying campaign.  If the gypsy healer/herbalist in my group (who has some modest performance skills) says that she's going to break out her instrument, sing a couple love tunes, entertain the throng, keep her ears open for info, and schmooze the bad guy thugs after, the other players don't sneer at her and mutter "special snowflake" under their breaths.  That's her gig, and that's part of what she contributes to the group, and they like that fine.

Greetings!


Very interesting, Ravenswing. I remember the hate for such characters--and often roleplaying, as you mentioned, back in the day. I hadn't thought that such hate had continued! *laughing* I agree, though, in original AD&D, the Bard was quite a mess. Your female gypsy healer/herbalist sounds like a great player! I always love players like that. They often really bring so much to portraying a fantasy character that is three-dimensional, sophisticated, and articulate. Admittedly, even with the historically-inspired commentary I have made here, a Bard--to be successful even in a barbaric, tribal environment--must be a complex and skilled social character, equally comfortable with socializing and rubbing shoulders with fierce warriors, ambitious nobles, or mystical priests. The Bard's greatest assets or attributes are knowledge and history, politics and a powerful grasp and understanding of various family lineages and local lore, memory, socially smooth, and some mystically awareness and sensitivity. Having some decent family and social status helps immensely as well. None of which relies on flashy, uber magic, or skill with a multitude of weapons, or summoning monsters. I suppose that's a tall order to create and embody such a character, even for today. *Laughing*


I'm reminded of reading where some of the Finnish and Celtic Bards possessed some skill with a sword, and occasionally fought in battles, but were particularly well-known for knowing about everyone's family, lineages, and past history, personal curses or frailties, as well as virtues and accomplishments. Such figures knew how many people around their community ticked, and could teach a person about themselves, their destiny, their hopes, as well as a trove of details about their enemies or opponents. Bards also knew all kinds of details about a person's family--sometimes things they preferred kept secret, but other times deeper issues and goals, and character. It is small wonder then why in historical settings such figures were so highly regarded, by noble and commoner alike.


Semper Fidelis,


SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on September 28, 2020, 09:00:04 PMPeriodically, I have heard that some people *hate* Bard characters in D&D games. I certainly believe that the "gameified" Bard has some problems and can be annoying--but I also think that has more to do with the presentation of Bards rather than particular class features or abilities. In historical times, Bards were immensely important kinds of people--such individuals were often invited to attend the local Lord's manor or estate soon upon arriving in the area. In an age without television, radio, or mass newspapers or readily accessible books, aristocratic lords, town mayors, tribal chieftains, even Muslim Amirs and Sultans all eagerly sought to welcome and patronize Bardic characters. Even in the great Steppes, and also in places like the empires in India, or in China, Bardic characters were often of distinct prominence. These attributes of storyteller, newsman, travel journalist, explorer, and chronicler of different places and cultures, serve to make the Bard character generally quite memorable, entertaining, and always intriguing and interesting, for everyone, whether a tribal chieftain, a noble lord, a churchman, or a common artisan, farmer, or shepherd.

These attributes are quite apart from the distinct religious and magical properties assumed to Bards, especially so within ancient Celtic, Norse, Finnish and Baltic civilizations and tribal societies. Add some of the alluded to magical abilities in, perhaps some kind of religious and mystical status, and the Bard should make for an interesting and intriguing character for the campaign, and for any adventuring group!

I think the fundamental disconnect is that bards are from a pre-literate tradition of oral storytelling. But D&D usually doesn't depict such a world. All characters are literate - it's taken for granted. Books are commonplace. When literacy is common, then the memory of a bard loses a huge part of its power and impact.

Back when I ran an medieval Norse campaign (using homebrewed RuneQuest), figures like bards were considered highly important. But I feel like the bard in D&D is an odd duck at best - one that doesn't fit with the society that D&D projects, and doesn't figure in nearly all of the fantasy fiction that D&D draws on. Bards featured in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books based on Welsh myth, but that's pretty peripheral to D&D's inspirations.

Not coincidentally, the D&D rules have never settled well on what bards are supposed to be like. I feel like bards don't have a strong archetypal power given the world of most games. I'd tend to have bard be a background option rather than it be a separate character class.

Think it depends on the depiction and mechanics really. Bards in D&D are magical musicians that were originally a long process to get to. Some did not like that and wanted to get right to the bardinin.
For others it could be anything really. Theres never been a class that has not had someone bitch about it being overpowered, and someone else bitch about it being underpowered, and someone else bitch about -because!-.
Monks, rangers, paladins etc.

I love bars both in fiction and history, but to me they just don't fit in with adventuring in a dungeon.  The obvious bard skills don't do much for overcoming the standard challenges, and the ones added on for D&D don't make much sense.  And D&D bards don't really have a useful niche, which is pretty important in a class-based game.  If the games were focused on places where there are more people, than party face-man would make a lot of sense.  Or if the game made having a loremaster important and interesting.  But of course it doesn't.

Quote from: Mishihari on September 29, 2020, 04:30:46 AM
I love bars both in fiction and history, but to me they just don't fit in with adventuring in a dungeon.

Oh, I don't know, stopping in for a cold one and chatting up the regulars is pretty dern welcome mid-adventure!

Humor aside, perhaps not.  But a lot of us don't play dungeon fantasy.  I've only GMed one stereotypical dungeon crawl in over 40 years, and that was only because my players heard that I still had the maps and notes from my Big Damn Dungeon from 1978, and thought it would be a hoot to check it out.  I'm quite content with character abilities, concepts and styles that have nothing to do with tactical combat.

Quote from: SHARK on September 28, 2020, 11:32:44 PM

Quote from: RandyB on September 28, 2020, 10:43:05 PM
First, "music is magic" dies in a fire. Done.

Second, bards as you describe them from history are loremasters. Not the "like wizards but no magic" types, but the Indiana Jones types. Travelers, adventurers, men of the world who seek both knowledge and experience. Men who live the tales, not the men who tell the tales of others in the safety of the local tavern.

Start from there and make bards for your games.

Greetings!


"Music is Magic" dies in a fire!" *Laughing* Ahh, yes, that's fucking awesome, RandyB! I admit, the particular ren-faire esque Bard loaded with uber wizard spells irritates me very much. I think that Bards make as you say, excellent loremasters. However, even in Celtic and especially Finnish and Baltic mythology, Bards are known to be mysterious and fairly potent spellcasters. In Celtic lore, Bards are while also Loremasters, historians, storytellers, and travelers, they are also a particular lower-tier of Druidic priest, a branch of the Druid priesthood. In the context of all Druids are former Bards, being required to be Bards before becoming full Druid priests--while not all Bards necessarily proceed with their mystical studies and lore to become full-fledged Druid priests. Also, some Bards are considered excellent Bards, but otherwise by temperament to be unsuitable for being Druids, or the Bard no longer wishes to proceed with the additional studies to become a Druid, having found their calling sufficient to remain a Bard. How to square the two concepts? I think that the Player's Handbook Bard is strangely, far too much "wizard" and pirate-like scoundrel and rebellious rebel, and not enough Loremaster, Chronicler, or mystical priest-shaman. Within ancient Pagan tribal cultures, for example, the typical Bard wasn't a rebellious rebel or scoundrel, but likely a person of noble station, from a good family, and also liked and appreciated by the nobility, priest classes, and the chieftain or king, in addition to the warriors and the common people.


Semper Fidelis,


SHARK

Agreed on all counts.

A bard should cast spells based on their mastery of lore. And they should definitely have their historical social status and place in the social hierarchy.

All of which disqualifies the Premodern Rockerboy that the class became, which has no historic, literary, or legendary antecedent.

That would make for an interesting mechanic -- your spellcasting abilities being dependent on your Knowledge skills.

I can't really disagree with any of the things everyone has listed above--which is the problem with the Bard--all those issues are there. 

One thing that strikes me in the Celtic and Norse source material is how much power the Bard has an arbiter of tradition, justice, and thus condemning incorrect behavior.  It's not "vicious mockery" doing a bit of hit point damage.  Rather, it is the Bard has spoken about your behavior in rhyme, and now your reputation and standing in the community is in tatters, possibly beyond repair. 

However, I've always viewed the main drawback to bards as not exactly opposite to rangers--call it a tangent drawback.  (Not an accident that D&D has struggled mightily with those two classes.)  They aren't archetypes--in a game that can't always decide whether classes are archetypes, mechanical packages, niche protection, or more likely, what proportion of the three. Thus you end up with "ranger" as "shoehorn Aragon into a class" later replaced with "make sure Drizzt fits too."  With Bards, you get little bits of historical bards, skalds, minstrels, troubadours, shady performers, illusionists, and tricksters trying to pretend that it is both a niche and an archetype, when it neither.  Of course the mechanics often end up borked, too.

To the extent that the 5E bard works (and it does better than any other WotC version, at least), it does so because it quits trying to do so much. The music is almost secondary to the lore.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 29, 2020, 02:21:51 PMThey aren't archetypes--in a game that can't always decide whether classes are archetypes, mechanical packages, niche protection, or more likely, what proportion of the three.

Of course it's an archetype, by any legitimate definition of the term.  That many different roles can be defined as performers?  Sure, I agree: and the same thing can be said of any other D&D-ish "archetype."  Using the word "fighter" to categorize Conan, D'artagnan, Tempus, Belisarius, Lancelot, Croaker and Paksenarrion is just as broad.  Using the term "magic-user" to define Gandalf, Elric, Egwene, Morgon of Hed, Milamber, Bink, Garion, Mary Poppins and your bog-standard Evul Necromancer is just as all over the place.  D&Ders seem to have little problem managing to square the circle.

EDIT:  Here's a bit amusing to me.  I've been trolling over my old posts, having been away from the site for a couple years.  This one came up from a 2015 thread:

QuoteOmega, I think the real problem came with the "character class" concept in the first place. 

In a point-buy system, there's no problem.  You want to play a performer?  You throw a few points as picking up a few music- and/or acting-based skills.  There's nothing otherwise about being a "bard" that should be about -- or preclude -- being a skilled swordsman, being a wizard, practicing burglary, what have you.  I've had minstrel-types in my parties that weren't the party spokesmen: being entertainers defined their roleplay, but it didn't often affect their battle strategies, except in so far as lutes are fragile things you don't want anywhere near a melee.

But D&D being D&D, you had to build a character class around it ... with unique abilities, powers tied to achieving this level or that, the whole nine yards.  There had to be something about "bard" which was every much as valuable a niche as "wizard" or "fighter" or "cleric," and didn't come off as a retread of what other classes did.  That the writers made a hash of it isn't surprising; it would've been very tough for them not to have had, without a radical redefining of D&D's structure.

And this is why my bards always take a level in barbarian!!