The bard looks like a fun class to play, but why do DMs like to ask people who play a bard to sing something?
Bard: I'll sing the Song of Rest.
DM: Ok, sing it for us.
Bard: I'm going to give the fighter Bardic Inspiration.
DM: Ok, what does the song sound like?
Bard: It does not have to be a song, I'm just going to inspire him.
DM: Ok, say something inspiring for the fighter then.
Bard: Uhh...hang in there?
It would make more sense if DMs did the same thing for every character class. Your fighter wants to kick down the door? Let's lock you outside and show us how you kick the door in. You're monk is going to use Flurry of Blows? Smack Tom three times to show us what it looks like.
Am I the only one afraid to play a bard because I may be asked to sing?
I've had 2 DMs that liked to do that sort of thing. To be fair, one of them also asked the rogue player to describe how he was picking locks (going so far as to create a lockpicking mini-game when he was unsatisfied with the rogue player's answer) and was upset when the fighter player didn't describe how he swung his sword.
I think the exception for the bard with most DMs comes primarily from the thinking that bardic abilities are based on music (at least in previous editions) and most songs have a general theme, if not lyrics.
I typically respond to this type of probing by describing my character singing wordless arias.
MrHotter wrote:
I ask for songs. And I do lock pick minigames. And mazes. And puzzles. Riddles. Simon, Jenga, boggle.
My games have a lot of games in them.
MrHotter wrote:
There are a few people in my past that I often wished didn't play bards because they would insist on singing...
I would never ask a player to sing a song... ever. I do bring mini games in, but they are more for extra credit and flavor. And I love puzzles.
It's a bit difficult to do things in a role playing game as a person. That is why you play a game and don't do it for real. Your GM isn't going to ask you to swing around a great sword and cut off the head of someone else at the table, so I am not sure why they should ask you to sing.
Just the same as a it's going to be hard to play a wizard with a Int of 20 if your intelligence is an average 12. Or a Charimsa of 20 if you can barely talk to people.
Describing actions is a cool bonus and in Dnd next the GM should give you a floating advantage if they like it. If you wanted to sing, then that would be your choice and again you should receive a role play award.
Games that had a reward system for descriptive actions like "exhalted" are cool where you get bonus dice if you describe your action in a good way. But you were never forced to provide a descriptive text or narrative.
Not to sound like I endorse DMs putting players on the spot to sing, but a player singing a song and benchpressing refrigerators, building bombs, or decapitating a fellow player really aren't in the same ballpark.
I know a player who likes to sing showtunes when his 4e bard would use powers and class features. It was a warforged bard named Jerusalem S.L.I.M. and he was composing a musical called "Les Miserobots." It was pretty awesome. This character was one of the stars of my adventure, "Star*Juice," a Spelljammer-esque scenario.
Bard Player: I use "Song of Rest"
DM: Ok. Sing it for us!
Bard Player: AAAAIIIEEEE!! *bursts into flames at the agonizing demand placed on them, perishing horribly*
...said no one ever.
It actually happens as follows.
Bard Player: I use "Song of Rest".
DM: Ok. Sing it for us!
Bard Player: Bite me.
DM: Fair enough.
iserith wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Oh man, never encountered that. I love playing bards and I’ve been singing in bands for, jeez, 20+ years now, so it wouldn’t be much of a problem. But I agree it’s not fair to call on the player to do such a thing on the spot all the time, especially when the other players don't have to do so. It might be funny a few times, but after a while, as ChrisCarlson said, it'd be worn into the ground after a while.
Me, I always say “my bard recites an epic poem," or "plays a tone poem drum solo to give bardic inspiration," rather than just saying “I use bardic inspiration.”
I never ask bard players to sing. Funny thing is all of my bard players have horrible singing voices in real life, then again to my ears most people should never try to sing.
My players would bring bagpipes, then the only thing that could be done would be to ban bards.
I remember "players playing bards must sing" from back in the day, and I kind of hoped it went away like alignment restrictions on classes.....
I usually give the bard player (limited) control of the background music while their PC's are performing (as long as the volume doesn't interfere with the game). [I downloaded a lot of Two Steps from Hell and WWE theme music.]
I do offer bard's players (and tomelocks) the chance to give out a viscous mockery when use the cantrip, and I haven't been turned down yet.
Playing charisma based characters can be challenging too because the GM will usually ask you what you say to the guy to try to win someone over. What if in real life you are horrible at social skills, you’re probably going to say something inappropriate or something dumb, but your character would actually say something interesting and compelling. Many times, what you actually say might have more of an impact than your dice roll for say a deception or a persuasion check.
If I had a GM that wanted me to sing, next time I would bring a long knife and ask if I can make attack rolls with my kitchen Cleaver. Maybe I can throw it at the wall and see if I can hit his clock :-)
I can bring a huge handful of sulfur and bat poop, and say, I cast fireball and throw it on everyone at the table :-)
I think descriptions are cool but should only be used as a bonus not as a detraction of the mechanics of the game.
To prevent this thread from solely falling into talk about requiring a performance from bard characters, I'd like to reiterate that granting a bonus for a player performance can be a very cool way to add fun to a gaming session.
In 3.5e I had a bard character attempt to distract and lure away a guard with a seductive dance, which I punctuated by belly-dancing around the gaming table (rather poorly I must admit, as I'm not a great dancer). The DM had the guard automatically fail his Will save without a roll because I went the extra mile to try to bring the character to life.
Jared711 wrote:
If a Bard Player comes up with a good song that fits the moment and purpose and would achieve what the Bard is going for, I would definitely give the Player inspiration as per the rules of inspiration. Even if the Bard was trying to grant Bardic Inspiration, the player would ALSO get inspiration. I would not require this of the Bard's Player; the Player can just describe that he or she is singing a song, or urging an action, or speaking words of wisdom, or whatnot.
iserith wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
I've never did that to a bard playing character but I did give the cleric 5 minutes to prepare a prayer for a recently departed party member at the memorial service, which was fun for us all and he did a admirable job with it. He then did the same to me when he was DMing to return the favor 
I made a 4e Invoker and decided his power came from Truenaming. This was fluff-only, no mechanical benefit.
Here is his "Rebuke Undead" Channel Divinity:
Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!
Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,
Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!
Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!
Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,
Where gates stand forever shut, till the world is mended.
(Yes, I just copied Tom Bombadil (LotR) chasing off the barrow wight.)
I planned for his top-end Daily to use the One Ring poem, in Sauron's Black Speech. (Spoken by Gandalf at the Council of Elrond; causes the thunderclouds come out of nowhere.)
And, except for his at-wills (which I figured would get stale fast), I DID intend to read out what he was saying to invoke his power.
MrHotter wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
MrHotter wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Remember that D&D is meant to be fun, so if a player doesn't enjoy doing this, they shouldn't feel like they did anything wrong.
I finally got to play for the last couple sessions when one of my players took over DMing for an adventure. I used what may be the first ever true DMPC, using an ogre NPC for my character. His one skill was "dirty limericks" and I tried hard to improv some terrible poetry.
There once was a dwarven lass
Stared into a magic looking glass . . .
Yeah, but I would never want to pushed into it, or to sing. A player needs to be comfortable with his participation in the game.
MechaPilot wrote:
BRJN wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
DoctorBadWolf wrote:
One time I played a bard and the DM asked me to sing my song in game, or my spell wouldn't go off. So I sang a Sucidal Tendencies song. "ALL I WANTED WAS A PEPSI!!! JUST ONE PEPSI"
Okay, so yeah I never actually play Bards, but that would have been funny. My group hates bards, but I have put them into the game I currently run as story tellers and not singers necessarily.
If a DM enforces singing... that is lame. But you should sing your head off and annoy the crap out of them to see if they ask again.
Enforcing singing is unacceptable, unless that requirement was established before the campaign started.
Requesting singing is harmless, because the player can just say no.
The same thing applies to any other "real life" representation of social encounters,
I'm not certain why this is controversial.
DemoMonkey wrote:
I've been playing my dwarf valor bard in AL for a while now. Having a blast.
Although I don't actually sing, per se, I do have a bunch of heavy metal tunes on my phone that I can cue up if the need arises.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Actually, the song "Church of No Return" has that as part of its chorus.
Noon wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
I would love a list of vicious mockeries. A long series of short sentences a bard can use to accompany their cantrip, intended to distract a foe with the cruelty of their mockery.
For my dwarf bard, I use a handy printout of an ol' tried-and-true dwarven insult generator for inspiration.
You could find a short series of long sentences from The Bard perfect for that, I'm sure.
All you whiners sound like your singing the blues already! 
When I sit at the table
(wah wah wahwaw)
I fear what can go wrong
(wah wah wahwaw)
Play bards best as I’m able
(wah wah wahwaw)
But DM wants a song!
(wah wah wahwaaaawwww)
It’s a terrible terrible terrible terrible thing…
I’m the bard that can’t sing.
Now my stats are all correct
(wah wah wahwaw)
And my feats they are too
(wah wah wahwaw)
But my voice is a train wreck
(wah wah wahwaw)
And so I’m feeling blue!
(wah wah wahwaaaawwww)
It’s a terrible terrible terrible terrible thing…
I’m the bard that can’t sing.
I tried everything I can
(wah wah wahwaw)
To avoid this danger
(wah wah wahwaw)
So I now have a new plan
(wah wah wahwaw)
I’ll just play a ranger!
(wah wah wahwaaaawwww)
It was s a terrible terrible terrible terrible thing…
To be the bard that can’t sing.
And now it’s terrible terrible terrible terrible luck…
Because rangers? Just suck.
+1000 inspiration dice to DemoMonkey
Mistwell wrote:
TenaciousJ wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen that happen in a game.
The worst thing about playing a bard for me is that no matter how much of that rock and roll charm I have and amazing perfomrances I do the DM never lets me have any hot groupies! WTH!?!?!
So far as i've seen, the worst thing about being a bard is everybody attaches the title "Spoony" to it.
I have a lore bard who cast Vicious Mockery a lot. I do try to come up with good insults, its especially funny when my vicious mockery kills creatures. Also I use Cutting Words alot. Whenever any of the players rolls bad, I let them know how much they suck and are not helping the party with their horrible skills. Basically my bard just likes to make fun of people, sometimes I try to sing whenever I use Inspiring Leader.
The bard in my Tiamat group used Cutting Words on an attack roll I had made (I'm the DM) and debuffed me so badly that I missed with a roll of 19 !
Then she asked me what "cutting words" are. I told her the character is saying stuff like "Yo Momma ! ... wears combat boots".
First watch the movie, then get the book: Much Ado About Nothing, starring Kenneth Branaugh (written by Shakespeare).
Kenneth Branaugh's character and Emma Thompson's character spend most of the movie insulting each other in that colorful way which can only be found in The Bard's works. At the end, somebody else has arranged for them to get married. The kicker? IRL, they were getting a divorce while the movie was being filmed !
Other stuff:
- The Punk Rock song from Star Trek 4 ("...I hate you / And I berate you...")
- What Doesn't Kill You, by Kelly Clarkson
- Song of Rest: "Lullaby / And good night" childrens' tune
- Somebody else is about to pull out his top-end Daily and unleash an industrial-strength can of whoop#%& - use LotR music where Ringwraiths are chasing Frodo / Arwen on horseback, also used in Hobbit when Thorin Oakenshield walks through the burning pine forest to tackle the Boss Orc plus his bodyguards plus worgs all by himself
- "I Roll 20s" (text in the 4e forums somewhere) if you are about to cast Bless, good for a poem-reciter
- Devil Went Down to Georgia, by Charlie Daniels
- Force Theme / Momentous Choice, Star Wars when Luke is looking at the double sunset and thinking
- "What is Your Avenger's Oath" (thread in 4e Character Optimization) has some poems and ditties and inspiring lines
- I'm Alive, by ELO (when casting a heal)
- We're Not Gonna Take It, by Twisted Sister
- The Church of the Poisoned Mind, by Culture Club (when facing Evil clerics)
If you ever need a song for a game, just sit down and play south park stick of truth and take jimmy as your companion.....garented gold there.
I have always had fun with it. I have a bard who I try to only sing Foo fighter songs with, cause we fought a BBEG named Fu and I thought "huh, Fu Fighters". It's all in good fun and to be fair my DM never asked me too, I just think it's funny. Singing monkey wrench for cutting words or learn to fly when I cast fly on myself. Good times man
I have had to convert a warlord from 4th edition to 5th edition. Basically we did a flavor/retouch of Bard. He doesn't even sing, and he can use the perform skill to simply do an inspiring speach for a group of people (the same way it also describes the Gladiator background able to use perform as a way to show off their combat skills for entertainment rather than winning).
Why do I tell you this?
Because you don't even have to play music. He plays a bard that doesn't even play music, and never has, and never will. He's just inspiring, and dabbles in history and magic items/abilities for the purpose of combat aptitude, and he carefully picks his spells so it makes sense with his character and he can role-play as the subtle effects of his inspiration.
Point is, play a bard that doesn't sing, and your DM can't really ask you to sing, can he. The rules are very plyable and adaptable in 5E.
Dude, the worst part about playing a Bard is this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ohk5Swy-04
The worst part about playing the bard is wearing the tights.
I haven't been on the forums for a while, but it is topic like this that I think I miss the most.
The way to solve this problem is to sing like your the lost member of the BeeGees. Your DM will never make that request a second time.