I fell in love with bards with The After Years version of Edward.
My boy was packing a pair of brass ones in that game. Huge step up from the original.
I made a Combat Bard who was a percussionist and used bludgeoning weapons to drop big beats while dropping big beats (ups).
I've always loved bards, but caught enough flak/teasing for it that I started getting preemptively self-depreciating about it. (I was the one in the Argent Adept podcast who was basically like "Hey, thanks for creating a bard character I actually don't get flak for playing!")
They are the most mocked of classes.
We should go back to the days when bards were feared because if you ticked one off they could basically create a song so scathing that even if you were a ruler everyone disowned you, or it was believed that a really well-crafted diss could even make the person ill.
I'm playing a Goliath Bard (named David) in a homebrew right now. He carries a Gong.
Never heard bad stuff about Bards. In Everquest they were probably the most versatile of the classes and the trickiest to master, with some unique mechanics in the way their abilties worked (they used songs instead of spells, which worked differently). My dad played one and it was pretty cool - I preferred to stick with my Necro, though :).
But yeah, Bards are cool :).
I had attempted to turn this into a full on campaign where the Big Bad was a bard who stayed one town ahead of the party turning everyoe against them.
OK. FINE. I'LL COMMENT.
I've had it pointed out to me that no matter what character I nominally create, I end up playing a bard. That Loremaster? Just a bard who doesn't sing. The diplomat? Loved to spin stories and host parties. My magic-user? Was also a chef. Even my straight fighter with low wisdom is basically a failed bard. He tells himself stories about how he's a great leader and is, like, super heroic. One of my current characters is in Runequest and is basically a lorist ... and has a high appearance and can act as the face of the party. My newest character is a monk ... who likes everyone.
So, yeah, I have almost exclusively played bards or bard-like characters. I might buy into the conception that Bards are generally weak ... at straight up fighting ... but if you play in a campaign where it's possible to get your way by getting other people to do what you want, bring along a bard.
And now, time to bore you with character stories! When it comes to roleplaying, I am a power gamer and a method actor. I love to have a character that really excels at something, being amongst the best (power gamer) and I love to lose myself in the mind of my character (method actor) and react the way that character would react. I have also lost a lot of my taste for combat in RPGs. It just takes a lot of time and, relative to character interactions or exploring the world, is overall less interesting per time spent. SO, in recent years I've focused my power gaming interests on non-combat attributes. That's led to things like my Loremaster who had such high knowledge checks in Pathfinder that he almost always knew whatever needed to be known and to my Traveller character who was so well connected, with a social score that made him a Duke, various strong networks, and an almost unheard of skill in making deals, that he could get the party into and out of most situations just by calling up his contacts and having some conversations. On top of that, because of my interest in method acting, I've realized over time that it's important for me to design personalities for my characters that help me rather than hurt me as I inhabit them. It's poisonous to design someone evil, as I'm going to be letting those thoughts sink into my psyche. So I try to create characters, however, flawed, that are striving to be good, at least, and often who have characteristics that I'd like to have in real life. Thus my monk, who likes and trusts everybody. He will certainly get burned by that, but it's going to be good for me to play it.
I think I'm in the same place as arenson, where any character I build somehow ends up in the role of party face.
I always liked how Dragon Age (Schmagon Schmage?) handled Bards.
In Orlais, Bards are the players of The Great Game--the skulduggery, diplomacy, and betrayals that surround Orlesian station and politics. A bard may sing or entertain, but their real purpose is to spy, to gather blackmail, to steal, and to assassinate. That dancer? She just seduced your personal guard and is interrogating him about your own indiscretions. That actor? He just slipped some Deathroot extract into that dowager's goblet. That musician on her break? She just bought the key to your personal vault from one of your servants...
Yeah, you don't mess with Bards in Schmagon Schmage...
I tend to always want to make skill monkey PCs who specialize in non-violent solutions, so between that and my love of music in general, bards frequently fit well into that.
Plus my RP group was people who were a combo of the Loonie and Real Roleplayer archetypes who were the few people who also actively liked bards, so they kinda showed up in general amongst our PCs. I particularly remember the guy who played a ventriloquist.
Can we get a topic split from a mod, please? Pretty sure the Oblivaeon update month didn't have anything to do with bards. :)
Convincing someone that it's a good idea to do work for you...
How bardly...:)
My favorite of my bard's main role in the party was to convince towns and villages to let the Troll in our group come inside. It was great fun, the Troll was a pet, comedic actor, loyal servant, whatever seemed likely to work. It was fun coming up with new explanations.
My first ever D&D character was a human bard who was basically trying to find people/groups with really awesome stories she could shamelessly steal so she could get rich and famous performing them.
I'd say she picked the wrong group (unless you're going for getting famous performing sitcoms), but she ended up falling in love with the party's half-orc barbarian, so, some kind of useful result? (The general consensus of the group, including me, was that it was both adorable and something they didn't want to think about too closely at the same time.)
I luckily never caught flack for playing bards. Especially in the one evil D&D 3.5 campaign I played in... Which I'll share my favorite story from if anyone is interested.
For the short version, never let me play an evil bard if you don't want me to tear the DM's plans and encounters appart.
I forgot to mention that now the title of this thread reads like some really weird romance novel. Or possibly the plot of various Irish folk songs.
About time.
I was impressed by your willpower, though…
I love Face characters, the ones whose job it is to charm their way through any social situation. But my own social skills are so poor, I can't actually roleplay them unless mechanics are given full reign. D: