Rock n Roll n DnD

The other day, I talked about the general concept of music in a magical world and claimed that the sonic landscape would evolve beyond the generic, vaguely-medieval soundtrack to every fantasy movie. Today I want to toss some ideas out there for Dungeons & Dragons or other fantasy roleplaying settings.

My impression of the Bard class in DnD has always been this: Crappy sorcerer who can also play music, emphasis on the “crappy sorcerer” part. I have a different sort of vision for the bard, one that involves much more focus on the music and less on the lame spellcasting.

Draw a Crowd
When the bard is in an inhabited area, he should be able to break out his instrument and bring people out to hear him play. In battle, this kind of ability could be used to get bystanders riled up enough to jump in the fray. However, getting people to risk life and limb would only be successful if the battle revolved around something important to the bystanders, e.g. invading soldiers are here to pillage their homes.

Get Everyone Pumped
Songs that move people don’t differentiate between friend and foe — if the bard is playing something moving, it will move everyone within a certain radius. The effects will last longer than the song’s duration, so the bard could sing before a battle and have it last for several rounds of combat; or he could try to sing during the battle, but run the risk of giving an enemy a bonus.

Dissonance
The enemy has surrounded the bard! What does he do? He turns on a random mish-mash of sound effects and unleashes a banshee’s wail on nearby creatures. The noise is like being stabbed in the brain, and they take a penalty to hit, or they are dazed, or something of that nature. Again, this affects everyone within a certain radius, so be careful about using it when your friends are nearby.

Setting the Mood
The bard may opt to play The Saddest Song, Ever. This makes everyone weepy, and may even cause them to see their common humanity and put an end to the conflict. Or maybe he wants to make everyone happy, so they turn the fight into a sporting event rather than a bloodbath. Who knows!

Persuasion
The bard is so cool that people just might do what he says, especially if he does something intricate and impresive.

What would you like to see a bard do?

Magic & Music

As far as the range of musical sounds goes, fantasy movies always seem to have the same vaguely medieval palette, mostly strings and wind instruments. If you ever look at how music is handled in the DnD books, it’s much the same – your character can buy harps, lyres, flutes, and things of that nature.

Not that I have anything against flutes and lyres.

In fantasy worlds, you have all manner of attack and defense spells. That’s obvious to any reader/viewer/player. Additionally, you start seeing some other crazy stuff, including:

• Magically-enhanced weapons and armor
• Animals that have been enchanted to communicate with humans
• Magic-powered airships
• Portals that instantly transport people great distances
• Pens that can transcribe what a person is saying

So, with all of this stuff, why is the entirety of bardic magic (if it even exists) focused around buffing the party or debuffing the enemy?

You know what a bard would want? Make me louder so more people can hear me.

Or self-playing instruments. Or a unique melody that is used as a password to get into a secret room. Or — and this is what I really want to see — ways to change the sound of his instrument.

Now, rad as it would be, I’m not saying that a traveling minstrel should be packing a Marshall half-stack with which to rock His Majesty. What I’m saying is that, when there is an advance in technology, it gets applied to just about everything (think about how many things have computers in them).

If magic is being used to create floating cities, you bet that some guy is going to want to start messing with the sound of his harp. It’s the nature artists — whatever tools exist will eventually be used to change the face of art.

So, I’m curious: What styles of music do you think could come to exist in a world filled with magic? What kinds of sounds would the bards be creating? What would their performances be like?

I’m thinking I should figure out how to make this relevant to a DnD session.

Facing the Unkillable Foe

Facing the Unkillable Foe

The last song I heard before I sat down to start writing music was “The Whaler” by Thrice, which is why I went with 5/4 as the time signature. Thankfully, I didn’t just rip that song off.

When I showed the first minute and a half to my friend Don, he said it sounded like “a prelude to an epic boss fight,” hence the title.

This whole thing came about because of the list I made a couple weeks ago (more on that list this week).

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Facing the Unkillable Foe by Matt Smyczynski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.