D&D 5E Bards. They are silly. Is there a way to make them NOT silly?

The way I make sure the bard isn't a weird outlier in terms of seriousness is that I don't play any character seriously.

Gardens & Goblins said:

Re-brand them as, 'motivational speakers'.

YOU CAN ACHIEVE SUCCESS IN A DUNGEON - BELIEVE!

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No no no. I said NOT silly. The opposite of this. So I guess the question becomes, "What is the opposite of a motivational speaker?"

Fauchard1520 said:

No no no. I said NOT silly. The opposite of this. So I guess the question becomes, "What is the opposite of a motivational speaker?"

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A de-motivational speaker.

Perhaps a Bard could be a writer of fiction as his creative talent rather than music or poetry? You could make him/her into someone with a mind for strange horror or the macabre like Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, etc. His thing could be that he likes to fashion his stories after real life adventures so this makes him very serious about combat or whatever task is at hand but perhaps adds a little more drama to it than would otherwise be necessary.

CydKnight said:

Perhaps a Bard could be a writer of fiction as his creative talent rather than music or poetry?

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That's the thing. This makes sense in my head as a player. But when it comes time to inspire my companions in battle, how do I describe the action? You can't begin reading fiction at the enemy.

Gardens & Goblins said:

Re-brand them as, 'motivational speakers'.

YOU CAN ACHIEVE SUCCESS IN A DUNGEON - BELIEVE!

Click to expand...

Onward & downward!

Two models jump to mind:

A tribal warrior that inspires his troops through words as they head into battle. This is the core the valor bard. His spells are mystic abilities, similar to what a warlock might have, used to punish his foes and inspire his allies to superhuman feats.

Kvothe from Kingkiller. http://kingkiller.wikia.com/wiki/Kvothe. (As the initial poster mentioned)

Basically, playing a bard is like using a pickup line. The delivery and dedication of the speaker has a huge impact on whether the audience considers their words as silly or sincere. If you go to the bar / game table and apologetically deliver the line, it isn't going to inspire anything but giggles. If you deliver it with conviction and panache, you can get the blood pumping in your audience.

Also, the response of the audience is a big part of the equation. The DM must sell the bard's power through the response of NPCs and monsters. If a player wants to play a non-silly bard, then the DM is responsible to make sure that the audience of the bard treats the bard seriously. Bards, Warlocks and Sorcerers (generally) have high charisma scores and skill in persuasion, deception and/or intimidation. When a player tries to use those skills and deliver a powerful speech, the NPCs should react to it as an awe inspiring event, event if they player's delivery of the character's words is far from what he intends for the character to deliver.

Fauchard1520 said:

That's the thing. This makes sense in my head as a player. But when it comes time to inspire my companions in battle, how do I describe the action? You can't begin reading fiction at the enemy.

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I didn't envision he would be reading lines of fiction from his own work or otherwise. What I envisioned was that he would be creating the material for his books in reality first. Sure he may jot down a few ideas for one line inspiration during downtime or rests but nothing he would have to read from in the heat of battle. More like gruff one liners you might see in your favorite action or horror flicks.

This play style may make him something of a control freak which might otherwise rub off the wrong way on PCs but maybe not with the high Charisma usually obtained by Bards. Something like a Director directing his movie only there are no such thing as movies so he is directing content for his book.

I think the problem stems from how Bards draw their magic from music, so our collective image of a bard is a man in colorful tights prancing around with a Lute. No matter how you slice it, Bardic ability is tied to music and the music of Fantasy lands doesn't inspire bad-assness. Even if you picture someone with a drum, they are still beating on that thing while trying to look menacing. About the only way I see Bards being "cool" is giving them Electric Guitars. Metal-Bards are kinda badass... (Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKgCkP2cnkU )

Personally, I *really* just like the notion of reskinning the Bard as "The Adventurer". Replace their musical magic with standard Wizard Focus or Components, replace their Tools options with 1 Musical Instrument and others like Thieves, Herbalist, etc. And treat them like the wonderful mish-mash class they were meant to be, a class that has picked up a few skills from every other class and cobbled them together well enough to survive in a big scary world.

Tell nasty jokes belittling the enemy. Or Sing. Just sing. Raise your team's spirit*.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?523712-Short-Funny-Bard-Songs-Please

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?307864-FILK-You-EN-World!





* or smell like you do.