Gestalt Bard Campaign: Making Perform Checks More Than A d20 Roll

[Oversquid]

So good people of EN World, I've been brainstorming an idea that I'm sure many have come up with before me, and I need your help making it interesting. To explain...

I'm considering making a campaign where during character creation, everybody makes a gestalt character, however, the second class must be a Bard.

The whole premise will be that the adventurers, in addition to exploring ruins and saving princesses, are also the members of a rock/punk/metal band. So it might be that the adventurers/band will in one day loot the ruins, and then in the same night hurry on over and get their rock on in front of a crowd.

So heres where I need you guys.

1. How can I make the concert part more than a bunch of perform checks?

2. How can I make this idea into a longterm plot, while keeping both the adventuring/band touring interesting? Like should I have the main villain be associated both with adventuring and rock concerts? Just adventuring and the concerts are an added kick? What?

3. Am I forgetting any important questions when it comes to this idea? Anything you would like to add?

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I imagine there would have to be a lot of urban adventures to make the band aspect more obvious. Not all urban, but a majority probably.

As for the concert, how about people who get past the guards and onto the stage, having to deal with crazy stalker fans, copycat bands, and other such things. I'd make most of the main problems of the concert happen either before or after the music personally.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So good people of EN World, I've been brainstorming an idea that I'm sure many have come up with before me, and I need your help making it interesting. To explain...

I'm considering making a campaign where during character creation, everybody makes a gestalt character, however, the second class must be a Bard.

The whole premise will be that the adventurers, in addition to exploring ruins and saving princesses, are also the members of a rock/punk/metal band. So it might be that the adventurers/band will in one day loot the ruins, and then in the same night hurry on over and get their rock on in front of a crowd.

So heres where I need you guys.

Can you elaborate a bit on the setting? I just want to make sure I understand it. Not clear if this is a fantasy setting with modern elements or a modern day setting.

1. How can I make the concert part more than a bunch of perform checks?

One way is to simply put the dice aside and force players to describe things in more detail (i.e. I am going to play a ballad in A minor about the lost child of Yria). Encourage players to compose lyrics, melodies, etc (they don't have to be great, this is just about getting them into the feel of the game). The best bard characters in my campaigns were run by players who did these sorts of things (writing sagas about their party's exploits for instance).

2. How can I make this idea into a longterm plot, while keeping both the adventuring/band touring interesting? Like should I have the main villain be associated both with adventuring and rock concerts? Just adventuring and the concerts are an added kick? What?

The person who pointed to urban adventures is on to something I think. Also maybe put a little scooby-doo style adventure into the game. The adventures should be an extension of the touring. In fact that is a brilliant device for a long-term campaign. You have the whole reason for travel and just need to come up with interesting plot hooks as they go from place to place. You may want a master villain, but I would have him emerge slowly over the course of the campaign.

 

[Oversquid]

Well Bedrock, I'm thinking the general setting so far is the typical pseudo-medieval stuff, EXCEPT, for musical instruments, lighting, speaker systems, and anything to do with making music for performances and concerts, being modern day.

So there will be electric guitars.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well Bedrock, I'm thinking the general setting so far is the typical pseudo-medieval stuff, EXCEPT, for musical instruments, lighting, speaker systems, and anything to do with making music for performances and concerts, being modern day.

So there will be electric guitars.

Sounds like the perfect foundation for all kinds of adventures.

 

[Oversquid]

So far, the suggestions are:

- Involve off-stage things, like crazy fans, and copy-cat bands off to the side, but make the music its own thing.

- Make the general gist of the adventures urban to compliment the feeling of a band...

AND/OR

Make the reason for the adventurers adventuring is because they're touring the country as a band, and find the prospect of adventuring together to be a band thing.

- Get the players to write their own songs. Doesn't matter if they're any good at it or not, but its gotta at least be enough to get the feel down. Get the inspiration from adventures perhaps.



So based on what is said above, perhaps I could give the party something like 30 minutes/1 hour of performance time. From that, get the party to select an amount of songs where the sum of their lengths don't exceed 30 minutes/1 hour.

Then with that song list, find where the guitar solos are, the breakdowns, the chorus in each song. Then from there plot the perform checks from there. Like for example: Theres a guitar solo in a song. When the solo happens, perhaps the Bass guitar player and the Synth player can choose to join in with their perform checks to add to the guitarist to make the guitar stand out even better.

So I guess what I'm saying is make a perform check for every chorus/ solo/ breakdown/ whatever.

Anything I'm leaving out?

 

[Bedrockgames]

So far, the suggestions are:

- Involve off-stage things, like crazy fans, and copy-cat bands off to the side, but make the music its own thing.

- Make the general gist of the adventures urban to compliment the feeling of a band...

AND/OR

Make the reason for the adventurers adventuring is because they're touring the country as a band, and find the prospect of adventuring together to be a band thing.

- Get the players to write their own songs. Doesn't matter if they're any good at it or not, but its gotta at least be enough to get the feel down. Get the inspiration from adventures perhaps.



So based on what is said above, perhaps I could give the party something like 30 minutes/1 hour of performance time. From that, get the party to select an amount of songs where the sum of their lengths don't exceed 30 minutes/1 hour.

Then with that song list, find where the guitar solos are, the breakdowns, the chorus in each song. Then from there plot the perform checks from there. Like for example: Theres a guitar solo in a song. When the solo happens, perhaps the Bass guitar player and the Synth player can choose to join in with their perform checks to add to the guitarist to make the guitar stand out even better.

So I guess what I'm saying is make a perform check for every chorus/ solo/ breakdown/ whatever.

Anything I'm leaving out?

You could slip guitar hero in there if you wanted. That might be an interesting way to mix things up.

 

[Sir Robilar]

I had a similar idea and it was discussed here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/270617-band-tour-campaign-idea.html

 

[Oversquid]

You could slip guitar hero in there if you wanted. That might be an interesting way to mix things up.

That could be interesting, the problem though is that my gaming group is an online one...

 

[Niccodaemus]

Ok... so where does the electricity come from? Are the instruments from the future? Is there some sort of time vortex? A giant hamster wheel generating power? (Complete with giant hamsters?)

What other entertainment is available for the crowds? How about an evil marionetteer, with life size marionettes that also play instruments?

If you steampunk things up, it could offer a lot of opportunity for improvisation.