Influencing the Masses with Song

[Quick Leaf]

Willie, you are a bardic genius! That first poem was just epic!!

As for the rules, I'd only go with a perform check if your player is really shy (unlikely for a bard) and refuses to RP the scene. Remember, it probably takes more than one song to sway the whole city, but then again...

A great opportunity is for a dueling bard to be hired by a king in cahoots with the oppressor, the bard's mission is to dredge up facts about the PC bard and put them into song.

 

[WillieW]

Willie, you are a bardic genius! That first poem was just epic!!

Thank you Quick Leaf... ~takes a bow~

It raises an interesting thought. As a bard, the character should be able to compose poetry or lyrics depending on how (s)he wants to perform the satire or rebel song.

Poetry can be compelling, and comes with optional musical accompanyment. Or it might as easily be in the form of a Limerick.

The DM might like to ask how likely something big and complicated will catch on and exactly how this will be accomplished in a (for example) radio-less society. Whereas a naughty or clever rhyme which says it like it is with double-entendre might be popular and spread far and wide like the latest joke.

Typical rebel songs will have as their subject matter a battle (in which the protagonist was defeated and possibly martyred), an unjust murder, the heart-rending pleas of the accused's wife and children for mercy, the last words of the unjustly convicted just before the axe falls or the rope snaps taut. They should effect on an emotional level.

In a less civilised society, where one's reputation might be as valuable as one's material wealth in reckoning power and influence, a satirical poem or ditty might do dreadful damage.

And don't forget that in a civilised society there may well be laws of slander which the offended may bring to bear against the composer of reputation-damaging prose, rhyme, or music. Isn't the known villian at his most infuriating when using the laws of the land to seek vengeance in the most public and sanctimonious way possible? Could our bardic friend's fall at the hand of an unjust law of retribution be a spark which unites the opposition to act?

 

[WayneLigon]

HUmor and jokes are also a way to go. Not of the 'How many followers of evil King Gorish does it take to replace a candle?' jokes, but the kind that make you go 'Hhahahah..hmmm'.

Rumor is good as well. Have old Granny-sit-by-the-fire suddenly 'remember' how good things used to be before evil King Gorish, or before their city was taken over by those Pudmelians.

A way to get around the slander is not to directly attack the enemy. There's a wonderful scene in the movie 'The Hindenburg' where the band is singing a song on a zepplin full of Nazis about how wonderful things are under the Nazis but when you start reading between the lines you can see how everything can be taken a different way...

I can't find the lyrics but they included things like

There's a lot to be said for the Fuher
He's bringing the press into line
He's modernized the cinema, the radio and the Rhine

and ends with...

There's a lot to be said for the Nazis
and I hope it's said in time.

 

[der_kluge]

I got to go with PC on this one - what your Bard needs is Craft (Composition), or Profession (Composition).

I would make such a skill Charisma-based, however, since Int and Wis just don't seem to do it here.

IMC, I have a separate skill called Artistry, which covers this kind of stuff, which you could also use. It would be an artistry skill check, and the success of that check would gauge how successful it was.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I got to go with PC on this one - what your Bard needs is Craft (Composition), or Profession (Composition).

I disagree. With the seperating out of perform skills, bards already have to invest a lot of their skill points in just being bards. I would simply houserule that a bard (and only a bard) may use their perform ranks with their int modifier to 'craft' new songs and stories. You would assign a "price" of songs, masterwork songs, etc for purposes of the time and craft checks needed, but there would be no material component. The price (and thus craft DC), of the work would determine how easily it could be spread, though a dramatic and rousing introduction of it into the popular mind (via perform checks) would help.

A masterwork song or story adds +2 to the perform check, just like any other masterwork aid. (because lets face it, even a marginally compentent street musician can get a crown happy by doing American Pie. )

Kahuna Burger

 

[Stormborn]

Double Post, sorry, see next.

 

[Stormborn]

I disagree. With the seperating out of perform skills, bards already have to invest a lot of their skill points in just being bards. I would simply houserule that a bard (and only a bard) may use their perform ranks with their int modifier to 'craft' new songs and stories. You would assign a "price" of songs, masterwork songs, etc for purposes of the time and craft checks needed, but there would be no material component. The price (and thus craft DC), of the work would determine how easily it could be spread, though a dramatic and rousing introduction of it into the popular mind (via perform checks) would help.

A masterwork song or story adds +2 to the perform check, just like any other masterwork aid. (because lets face it, even a marginally compentent street musician can get a crown happy by doing American Pie. )

Kahuna Burger

I think this may be the way I go with it. The issue got put on hold when the parties benefactor asked them to go out of town to retrieve somethig for him, but it will come back up soon.

 

[BSF]

I disagree. With the seperating out of perform skills, bards already have to invest a lot of their skill points in just being bards. I would simply houserule that a bard (and only a bard) may use their perform ranks with their int modifier to 'craft' new songs and stories.

Ooh! I like this. Of course, that is because my Bard has a 16 Int as well as the 23 Cha. I think I will point my DM toward this thread and see what he thinks.