Bards - The Greatest of All Classes

[Klaus]

Gizmo,

Yes, we know celtic bards followed a long line of oral tradition. Does that means he WON'T read about something just because it's written?

If so, can he bring along a cohort to read stuff out loud for him?

I never thought I would see bards get the same treatment usually reserved for ninja (ultimate power!) and katana (can slice neutrons out of an atom!)...

 

[tarchon]

IMO you say this as a modern who equates bardic lore with "oblique" riddles the same way a cave man would confuse a math textbook with magic.

So are you claiming you aren't a modern then, or just that you know better than I do?
I've read the riddles of the Exeter Book the original, so I know what a riddle looks like, and that wasn't a riddle. I'll post some examples tonight if you want, since I have a copy in the OE section of my library.
In fact, it was a pretty typical example of the kind of "lore" that medieval scholars usually had to rely on, often fragmentary and usually obscure. You have to remember that historians of the time were fairly unsophisticated, so a 10th century fili would not have a lot of context to interpret, say, a 5th century reference. For example, do you really believe that the first Jutes to invade Britain were brothers named Hengist (stallion) and Horsa (horse), or do you think it's more likely that that's some weird misinterpretation or conflation of several myths or stories? Are you familiar with the source of the word "Demogorgon," as another example?

 

[fusangite]

I think that because D&D tech tends to point towards the Late Middle Ages, the designers weirdly combined the essentially Celtic bard with the medieval troubador in a way that is less than 100% satisfactory. I think weapon proficiencies, flavour text and less focus on written (vs. oral) knowledge could centre the Bard where it belongs, in the early/pre-medieval period with the Barbarian instead of the Late Medieval period with the Paladin.

 

[fusangite]

And have you read nothing of the ravings of the lunatic Gizmo? Why must you all continue to insist that bardic lore takes a back seat to written knowledge? Or imply that bardic knowledge derives from written knowledge when bards hold the opinion that the exact opposite is true! The bards knew the exact and full meaning of the verse. It started out life as a bardic saga, written down by a scribe who barely understood it's meaning because if he did he'd be a bard and would have no reason to have written it down. It would be like a wizard memorizing a spell out of a spellbook written by a barbarian.

Gizmo,

We don't know you very well here so we don't really know how to "take" declarations like this.

 

[focallength]

wow I learned something new, I had no idea that the meaning of illiterate had changed to mean un-educated, here I thought un-educated meant un-educated and illiterate was the inability to read. (sorry just some random sarcasm)

 

[sullivan]

...I've read the riddles of the Exeter Book the original, so I know what a riddle looks like, and that wasn't a riddle. I'll post some examples tonight if you want, since I have a copy in the OE section of my library....

Books, books, books! Always with the filthy books! Dare to not read and you'll learn to fly!

I don't know about Bards, but I do see a pack of Jesters. Then again Bards have to eat too, and in the words of Cosmo Brown:
Now you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite
And you can charm the critics and have nothin' to eat
Just slip on a banana peel
The world's at your feet
Make 'em laugh
Make 'em laugh
Make 'em laugh

 

[kigmatzomat]

And have you read nothing of the ravings of the lunatic Gizmo? Why must you all continue to insist that bardic lore takes a back seat to written knowledge? Or imply that bardic knowledge derives from written knowledge when bards hold the opinion that the exact opposite is true! The bards knew the exact and full meaning of the verse. It started out life as a bardic saga, written down by a scribe who barely understood it's meaning because if he did he'd be a bard and would have no reason to have written it down. It would be like a wizard memorizing a spell out of a spellbook written by a barbarian.

Oh good grief. Look, WLD screwed up and completely nerfed a class ability in a stupid fashion. I can understand being irritated by that. BUT....

Nothing says all cultures' knowledge was originallly sung. Sure, some had a "world song" or some such that had all the knowledge of the universe but not all of them. I'm sure one or two said you would need to "read" the tracks the gods left to understand the world.

In the game bardic lore is an extraordinary ability, not magical. It doesn't stop working in an antimagic field. It is the result of a finely trained mind that does its best to remember everything it can. It models all the fragments of information that the character has picked up outside of in-game events.

If you want to make it a divination ability, go for it. Just realize that for game balance and some small nod to the limitations of mortals that even bards that tap into the All-Knowing Saga should only know a few small fragments of it or else they become gods.

 

[gizmo33]

So are you claiming you aren't a modern then, or just that you know better than I do?

Neither. I'm talking about both a mythological past and a historical one, combining it in such a way that makes the bard lore ability. I'll stop it with the "modern man" stuff, I didn't expect that to be inflamatory.

For example, do you really believe that the first Jutes to invade Britain were brothers named Hengist (stallion) and Horsa (horse), or do you think it's more likely that that's some weird misinterpretation or conflation of several myths or stories? Are you familiar with the source of the word "Demogorgon," as another example?

At the risk of repeating myself (understandable given the complications here) - it is the modern reader (which includes myself) who is confused about who Hengist and Horsa were. I think in terms of a fantasy universe as based on the beliefs of the culture from which the term "bard" originates, they would have never considered that there was anything to be confused about here.

I think you could make the same argument about magic. Reference some manuscript from Cordoba about magic and then say that it doesn't work. Of course that's a reasonable thing to say. But to design a campaign from the perspective of a person who believes that these myths are real, I think that designers short-change the bard, because that kind of reasoning was never applied to the fighter or the wizard.

 

[gizmo33]

Oh good grief. Look, WLD screwed up and completely nerfed a class ability in a stupid fashion. I can understand being irritated by that. BUT....

I believe that their nerfing of the ability stemmed from the fact that the bards are the unwanted outsiders of DnD classes. Can you imagine "wizards can't use spells in the WLD?" That would certainly raise a few eyebrows.

In the game bardic lore is an extraordinary ability, not magical. It doesn't stop working in an antimagic field. It is the result of a finely trained mind that does its best to remember everything it can. It models all the fragments of information that the character has picked up outside of in-game events.

And jumping off a 100 ft cliff and surviving is an "extra-ordinary" ability of high level fighters. The fantasy character can perform some pretty amazing feats, nothing I was suggesting regarding a bard's memory need be magical in nature.

If you want to make it a divination ability, go for it. Just realize that for game balance and some small nod to the limitations of mortals that even bards that tap into the All-Knowing Saga should only know a few small fragments of it or else they become gods.

True, and game balance would certainly have to be taken into account before a person's campaign culture would ever adopt my recommendations. It would be like introducing thieves into your campaign world if you never had them before - all of the sudden people start sneaking around obstacles in completely unconventional ways. You might be tempted to nerf thieves at that point ("monsters in the WLD are paranoid, so nothing in the WLD can be snuck past") but the better choice would be to adapt.

I will recognize that there is very little in the 3E rules to help DMs rule on this. It would be as if the magic rules said: "roll a 1d20+your wizard level, then the DM decides what the effects are of your spell".

 

[kigmatzomat]

IMO you say this as a modern who equates bardic lore with "oblique" riddles the same way a cave man would confuse a math textbook with magic. I would suggest that to a bard, such statements would not be as oblique as they are to the uninitiated, and that a bard with a good grasp of his lore would know the exact meaning of the verse describing the "flaming elves" was specifically referring to (assuming a bardic knowledge check, of course).

You seem to misunderstand the word "oblique." Ignoring the mathematical definitions it means "indirect or evasive; devious, misleading, or dishonest." Any such statement remains misleading or evasive regardless of the reader. However riddles are to bards as math is to physicists: stock in trade to both. That doesn't mean that they are right all the time though.

There's nothing imprecise about bardic lore but it requires an education in the analogies and metaphors of a culture that modern people aren't familiar with.

Careful, your bias is showing. You have an idea of bards as seen through a british lens. To the mythic world there will be many races that do not speak as mortals do. Mute people would not use songs. Deaf gods would not listen to sagas. Bardic lore requires some understanding of other culltures, plural, means of storing knowledge. A proper bard should know of cuneiform, heiroglyphics, sagas, and epic poems.

and that suggesting that orally transmitted lore is imprecise is a bias of a modern, literate age that understandably believes in it's own superiority as have all other socieities. And whose mundane opinions, I find, should not be taken too seriously when designing classes for a fantasy roleplaying game.

All non-divine knowledge is imprecise. The finite nature of man alone ensures that. Written lore has one advantage over oral: it remains static. Oral tradition has an advantage over written lore: it can be explained. Both have errors introduced by the writer/speaker and reader/listener. Only true mind-to-mind communication could perfectly duplicate knowledge 100% of the time.