D&D 5E Bardic Inspiration--How Do You Describe It in-Game?

[FormerlyHemlock]

Bardic Inspiration allows one to use "stirring words or music" to inspire allies as a bonus action. In what ways have you (or other people in your game) described this for role playing purposes? As a round is just 6 seconds long, even if the bonus action runs concurrently, it seems hard to be truly inspiring in the length of a single Vine.

I have tried invoking quick little sayings ("Victory is an angered dwarf!" or "You are a man of action, our foes have only their boasts!"), though throwing out gnomics seems like my character is yelling them almost like battle cries. As such I have found that I am starting to resort to just saying "I give your character 1d6 Bardic Inspiration as a bonus action," which is just....awful.

I could certainly also describe playing or signing a stirring piece of music, though i tend to think of him as more literary than musical.

When you've had bards in play, how was this handled?

Bards are a huge problem from a game description perspective, since I really can't have the bard giving a pep talk (Inspiration) and casting a spell with his flute and mocking an enemy (Cutting Words) all in the same six seconds. In-game, I've given up on the music/morale angle and just said that the bard "speaks a word of power", a la Ged/Earthsea, or hums a musical chord. Basically, Bardic Inspiration is a non-Vancian spell.

Ideally 5E would have focused less on the gamist elements like "bards can Inspire with a bonus action" and more on what that physically means, but it's too late for that now. It's easier to keep the mechanics and rewrite the fluff. Besides, I don't really like chatty, musical bards anyway.

 

[Lord Twig]

Bardic inspiration in 5e is a little funky. The description doesn't really match the effect. There's a disconnect.
The narrative describes the bard cheering the hero to victory, giving them that last little boost of morale or encouragement.
In practice, the bard cheers the hero. And then 1-100 rounds later the character suddenly chooses to feel inspired and gets a buff. It's not the next time they fail, but the next time they know they failed by a certain amount.
It's weird.

Hence, magic.

Also, why do you get a boost from the Bard saying "You can do it!" but if anyone else says the same thing it doesn't help at all?
Reason: Because the Bard says it with magic behind it.

 

[Arryn]

Watch Critical Role on Thursday nights and learn from Scanlan the proper way to inspire.


www.critrole.com

 

[Mephista]

I forgo the music and just do shouts. Music would affect the entire audience. Bardic Inspiration feels nothing like music. Its too instant, and too targeted, for me to feel like its anything but spoken words.

 

[Celtavian]

Watch Critical Role on Thursday nights and learn from Scanlan the proper way to inspire.


www.critrole.com

Scanlan is hilarious. Riegel's ability to improvise to pop songs is amazing. I hope they have a montage of Scanlan songs at some point.

 

[Coredump]

The 6 second round just doesn't make sense.... so don't sweat it. Do something fun to inspire folks and don't worry if it takes 2 seconds or 12 seconds, or whatever...

 

[Celtavian]

The 6 second round just doesn't make sense.... so don't sweat it. Do something fun to inspire folks and don't worry if it takes 2 seconds or 12 seconds, or whatever...

I tossed out that stuff too. I use rounds to keep track of combat. I don't worry a whole lot about real time.

 

[Pandaemoni]

"Remember what we talked about earlier!!!"

That, right there, is inspired.

 

[sleypy]

During the playtest before the Bard became full casters (which made me sad), I took two levels of Bard for the inspiration feature. I wasn't using it as magic just me rooting them on my cheering for a previous action. Like if they hit them I would shout something like You have them right where you want them, "that blow is worth of a song", "Remember that time when <random person> did that <random thing>, etc.

I have also had characters that treat it as magic as well. It comes down to does it fit as magic or non-magic for this character in this game.

 

[Arryn]

Scanlan is hilarious. Riegel's ability to improvise to pop songs is amazing. I hope they have a montage of Scanlan songs at some point.

I tried looking for a montage to link to my reply so people would know what I was talking about. I agree, someone more talented than I when it comes to editing needs to make this happen.