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Who Is Ellen - 40 - HD
🕑 Added 2022-09-29 03:00:06 +0000 UTCClassicalness continues.
Commentary
As previously mentioned, I am cheating the heck of character positioning to show everyone's faces. The first panel of this comic is defying all known laws of our universe to show both of their faces with Ellen on the right AND keeping Nanase out of the way.
It's possible I shouldn't have bothered showing where everyone was seated given that I will bend reality however I see fit to show any given two characters talking in the order I want with their faces visible.
Bard!
I'm not sure who said "there should be a class that does cool stuff by singing", but it seems like a recurring thing, so I'm just going to assume it's somehow Tolkien's fault (writer of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings).
It's a pretty safe bet with fantasy-related fiction, though I wouldn't be surprised if I was told otherwise in detail after this.
ANYWAY, I have heard stories of gaming groups insisting that bards actually sing, or recite poetry, while doing Bard-stuff. To me, that's a bit much.
One can argue "if you're going to play a class that sings, you should sing", but imagine applying that logic to a wizard or a barbarian. Seems a bit silly.
That said, if a player has a lute handy and that's what they want to do (and it's not disruptive), that sounds fine to me.
Comments
Hurley
Fflewdur was in many ways an excellent king. He knew full well he wasn't a good leader and so he let skilled underlings do the job better than he would have without getting bent out of shape about it. He's a loyal companion, kind, brave, and a skilled warrior. He also never abandons his throne or his Kingdom, he just leaves the daily governing to more suitable people.
Daryl Sawyer
I like RPing mind control like I'm drawing them into a musical number against their will. Like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit or something.
KC
Ah yes. The favorite class of the "Leeroy Jenkins" player. I know someone who played with someone like that way back when. Would always charge into combat without consulting the rest of the party and whenever someone tried to call him out on it he would always just smirk and go "It's what my character would do." Apparently he was someone the DM's girlfriend knew and felt sympathy for and just "Wanted him to feel like he was part of a group" or something
A Red Mage Named Blue
Dunno, the Barbarian tendency to solve every problem with an axe to the face is just as frustrating
KC
Yep. In the Tolkien-verse, pretty much everyone knows how to sing because that's how the various races preserve their history and culture.
KC
Yep. Bard, Paladin, and Rogue, or as they're perhaps better known as in the "problem players" circle: "seduces anything that moves," "stick up the butt," and "OG edgelord murder hobo that steals and kills everything."
Some Ed
The earliest author I'm aware of making a Bard class was Lloyd Alexander, in The Book of Three (1964). He has all of the elements there: Singing, Fighting, Healing, Persuasion, Being A Useless Git, Being Stupidly OP. Oh, and also having a role that's specifically referred to as Bard. This is incidentally a single character, despite two of those features seemingly being mutually exclusive. It's possible that some of those elements only came out in later Chronicles of Prydain. But I feel like the bit where Fflewddur Fflam (spelling is correct) is actually a king somewhere is one of those chef kisses for defining the archtype. If I recall correctly, when I first read The Book of Three, I did not believe Fflewddur's claim, despite him having a harp that would point out his lies not point that out as a lie. But a later book (The Castle of Llyr? I can't recall for sure) showed that he was, in fact, telling the truth about that. He's just not necessarily a very good one. To be clear, I have read works that predate that which had singing fighters and singing healers and adventurous minstrels and such. But I'm not recalling any earlier work in which a single character represented all of the traits of the Bard class.
David Fenger
Our usual campaign group's terrible punster built a bard whose performances were based on puns, for much the same "giving an excuse" reason.
David Howe
Fair enough; if you can get a skillcheck bonus for actual singing ability, Ellen will cakewalk the entire unit....
Thisguy
Bard. Probably the 3rd most potentially problematic class next to Paladin and Rogue. At least as far as RP goes. For managing a Bard, never let them use persuasion like mind control. That’s not how it works. And for those times when they use magic for actual mind control, use a session zero for establishing what is and isn’t ok. And if they cross that line, shut them down.
Prof Sai
Oh I forgot about that! Ellen has a really good singing voice, and scored a “flawless victory” at karaoke. Maybe this should be in Q&A instead.
Casey
I sing when I'm playing a bard. Then again, I often sing when I'm not playing a bard. Playing a bard just gives me an excuse.
Michael Chui
So, let me tell you about Final Fantasy XIV's jobs. (Specifically, Archer is a starting job and it evolves to Bard at level 30.)
Jonnie Irvine
This one you can blame on 1E and a Taliesin fanboy making an optional super-class with requirements of being a fighter then a thief before picking up music and magic. It was a huge pain and mostly there because Gygax or someone *really* liked old Welsh legends (with some fact backing them, as all great legends do). Anyway, a lot of what comes in the later editions is basically boiling that long slow slog to neato into a class you can start with on day one. 😉 Edit: dang but I'm dating myself here. 😆
Adama
While there's plenty of singing in Tolkien, I don't think there was anyone who did it as a job.
Astariel
Ironically, the character in Tolkien's work actually named Bard is an archer.
