@@chrisprescott2273 I guess, I was joking becuase bards are obviously annoying and pretty useless as well in a fight. You must be the takes everything seriously guy.
A take I really liked when I was a kid was the Harpers (bards) of the Dragon Riders of Pern series where Harpers took on the role of educators; harpers were there to speak to current news and popular culture; but their most important role was basic (like K through 6grade) education of children even in really remote places.
I like that the single most "powerful" person on the whole planet is Masterharper Robinton. He is in a unique position to know everything in their society, past and present, and act on it providing the guiding hand for the whole culture. The Harper Hall also is the only organisation on Pern with formally established espionage agents.
The reason music helps with memory is it employs a different part of the brain from storytelling/listening. The same is true with reading paired with writing, which is why taking notes on what you hear helps cement the memory, even if you never read the notes. Engaging different areas of the brain in a single pursuit helps memory get a better record.
You can also find yourself doing this in reverse sometimes, recalling music using language. You've done this any time you forget the tune of a song and then use the lyrics to recall it.
It's a lot to do with engaging different senses as well. Music literally engages a different sense with the auditory system. But descriptions of taste, feel, sight, and smell all have their place. The more of these are combined the better a memory "sticks".
In a largely pre-literate society bards are the keepers of lore. They're historians, news anchors, and rock stars in one. Something that is sadly largely forgotten these days.
3rd edition did it best, where the Skald prestige class would literally recite heroic epics during battle to inspire their allies. But all in all, what the bard is in modern D&D is an adventurer who is also an entertainer - and most people are going to find it easiest to play their bard as a rock star: trashing hotel rooms and sleeping with groupies when they're not making music. Which, of course, in a magical world is magical as well.
I was coming here to say this exact same thing. Though the earliest AD&D bard was a bit crazy, the 2nd Edition "Rogue with a Lute" bard was starting into the right direction, with a chance to just know random facts about anything, etc. Making the bard's song have magical powers I guess is in keeping with the "Fantasy" part of Fantasy RPG, though turning them into song sorcerers feels a little odd to a grognard like me.
"Roll For Seduction" sounds very appropriate for the first troubadour, William Duke of Aquitaine (grandfather of the famous Eleanor), who apparently spent his spare time seducing noble ladies, or their maids when he got the wrong window. Of course, there is also Cathbad the Druid from the Ultonian Cycle (Men of Ulster cycle) of epics.
The Faroese Islands have kept their bardic tradition alive up until now. The islands used to be extremely isolated and also poor, so both writing and instruments were rare. People dance in a simple circle continuously left and right. You either have a bard singing the verse, or all the participants if they knew the story, and then all sing the chorus. It is very lovely and hypnotic. The songs/stories can have 500 verses and often tell of important events in Faroese history. Like battles and heroes. The stories go back to Viking times when the islands were settled by them.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is the only song of his I've heard, but yes, Gordon Lightfoot would be *perfect* for the "Bard singing in the background of the tavern" setting, I feel, just based on that one song alone. He really "takes you there" like how a Bard should. (And furthermore, I don't usually listen to music like Lightfoot's, but I've heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald about 2 dozen times, haha, so he must be doing something right!)
Jess. Never stop making these videos! Also, as to music making things easier to memorize, I know exactly what you're talking about. I grew up memorizing most of my school work by putting it to music. Everything from history to math and geography. And to this day I still remember that William the Conqueror defeated King Herald in 1066 and that 14 × 15 = 210, all because I memorized it by singing. I don't know why it works so well but it does. (Wait. Did that mean I was a "bard" when I was in grade school?😄)
The D&D Bard was largely based on the character "Silver" John, from the stories of the author Manly Wade Wellman. He had a guitar with silver strings, he had been in the Army where he learned how to fight if he had to, he knew all of the old songs, stories, and backwoods lore, and he knew a little white magic from a rare book he picked up once.
So not Amergin, one of the Sons Of The Mil (Champion), brothers who led the settlement of Ireland from what is now Northern Spain, displacing the previous rulers, the Tuatha de Danaan (at least according to The Book Of Invasions and some preserved poems ascribed to him)?
Listening to you define a bard, i immediately thought of Thom and how spot on Robert Jordan wrote a bard. (Though Thom does accel in intrigue and knife skills in a DnD kind of way. Thank you for acknowledging this character in your video.
Thom definitely takes after Gandalf early on who was also very bardic. It was his public disguise. Similarly, spoiler alert but, Thom turns out to basically be Jordan’s fictional version of Marco Polo in disguise. Marco Polo carried a knife which is surely where he got the connection from. Robert Jordan was really up on military tactics and history and his references come from that as much as DnD, I’d say.
I would go one step farther than that. The first known curse in Ireland was a traveling bard (whose name I forgot) was not given food nor hospitality when he asked for it (as was his due as a bard in ancient Ireland). So upon his departure the following morning he uttered the first recorded curse, causing King Bran to break out in blemishes, making him unfit to be king. Bars, to me, is not just a storyteller, but someone who is also an entertainer, capable of evoking things (emotional or physical) in the listener. And in that line, I dare say Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, might well be the last bard in the world. If you watch his live performances (circa 70s and early 80s).
I feel like it should be noted that Jaskier does not really translate to Dandelion. That is what the translations for the English version of the novels chose to call him, but his name actually means "Buttercup."
I think it's translated in the spirit of it's meaning, not just in the literal word of language Dandelion, in English, better conjures up the image of the character rather than Buttercup, it's a more accurate set of connotations
In Czech those muppets translated Jaskier to Marigold ... imagine the confusion when Triss Merigold entered the cast ... So they swiftly retitled her Triss Ranuncul (Latin for buttercup/jaskier) ...
@@sblinder1978 Well, in Italian Buttercup in The Princess Bride was translated "Bottondoro" (literally "gold button", "gold bud") that is a common name for another species of ranunculus. They could name Jaskier "Bottondoro" too...
I don't know if this has been pointed out already (comments TLDR), but the D&D Bard was much closer to the historical Bard back in 2ed & 3ed. There were more skills/proficiencies back then and a Bard character could specialize in having access to lots of knowledge about the world, history, current events, legends and lore. One aspect you kind of glossed over, Jess, was the the gallic tradition of the Silver Branch which were the Celtic skalds. They were related to the Green Branch or Druids and the Red Branch warriors ( if I'm remembering my own research correctly from 20 years ago )
This. I started off with 2e and am now a fresh dip on my rogue into a bard in a 3.5 campaign, and this definitely rings true. I did mostly discard a lot of the bardic knowledge focus, as it became redundant this late in the game with an information-obsessed scholar wizard in the party, but the love for and drive to experience and gather performances and musical traditions of other cultures was in huge part a reason for why she ended up choosing this path - and is now pending using some of what she learned to rally troops during a siege we are currently in the middle of with a small help of cleric-provided Resounding Voice spell to aid her bardic performance. She's also already used some of the things she learned along the way to help in interactions with informants and diplomats as well.
What about the celtic Bards? They gave the name to the modern interpretation of bards and this was the first step to become a druid. The image of a bard with a lute is based on the Troubadour of Occitan France.
The Celtic tradition is exemplified by the Seanchai, which originated as those who kept the genealogical records for Chieftains but also came to encompass the (often nomadic) storyteller and keeper of tradition, especially after the obliteration of the Celtic nobility and the multiple attempts at genocide attempted by the English, both in Scotland and Ireland. These bear remarkable similarities to the African examples mentioned in the video, though performing to or with music wasn't a part of their tradition. Sean Nos singing and Seanchai storytelling were completely independent. Most scholars of Irish literature suggest that the Irish literary tradition owes a huge debt to the tradition of the Seanchai.... Without disparaging Jess or Tolkien, English people and Anglophiles too often continue the ancient English tradition of either ignoring or stomping all over Celtic peoples and traditions....
Unfortunately, you left out one of the most important sources for what we think of as bards: namely, the bardic roles in Insular Celtic cultures, i.e. the Irish and Welsh bards and the other poetic roles that are assimilated to them in the common parlance of those cultures. A king's poet, and really any mature male in a tribal group, was expected to fight alongside their king, and they had to master a great deal of knowledge across a variety of different subjects and disciplines, which is where the "bard as jack-of-all-trades" idea comes from. The scop is Anglo-Saxon; the skald is Old Norse/Icelandic. Their roles are similar, but they are not the same!
I've spent the longest time HATING D&D bards because of how cringy they're often portrayed but it's ironically the idea of playing a more faithful to real life bard who writes and narrates his attacks and magic as a story and a performance inside the overarching story of an adventure has completely shifted my feelings and now Bard has become my most anticipated class to play the next time I get chance to be a player instead of a DM.
You could always just play one as a regular NPC. I think one of my favorite bards I played was an attaché to the party in a one night game. He was so popular that the other prayers started using him as a reoccurring NPC when they ran games.
So bard is from Celtic? I didn’t even know that. It appears to be one specialty, that of glorifying renowned deeds. More generally I think that the term was fili(dh) or poet. The words generally came from the north, the music from the south. Robert Jordan really had some fun with how they mix and match. Shakespeare was not only bard-like he was a crazy fan of the whole bardic tradition, especially tales of Robin Hood, and very much the last bard. No mention of ballads of Robin Hood there is simply unforgivable to me. That is the height of the English bardic tradition, and the whole basis for our modern English language.
@@Sean-tb2zz Agreed, and you make a good case for Shakespeare being the last bard, though I was a little incredulous of this before as I just considered him to be an inspired and successful playwright before. Yes, the name “bard” is of Celtic origin as I understand it. Will find you a link.
@@richardknowles6287 it's from Proto-Celtic *bardos, so Scottish Gaelic bàrd, Old Irish bard, Welsh bardd and similar in Cornish and Breton. The Brythonic and Irish traditions differ, so @Sean-tb2zz is correct that the Irish also use the term filidh and the Scottish have seanchaidh. It's similar to using "shaman" as a general term, but it originates from Tungusic / Evenki religion (via Russian). Bards were originally poets, singers and storytellers in the culture and spiritual traditions of Celtic peoples, traditions that continue into the modern day.
Class Role in Society: Bards serve as entertainers, teachers, and also sometimes as general troubleshooters. Some of the most important bards have had a deep and durable effect on society as a whole, not only in the songs but also in the legends and musical instruments, and many a bard we have to thank for certain words and writing systems. -from my MERPG (Middle-Earth Roleplaying Guide)
For those wanting a more direct connection between LotR and 'bardic' history make sure you check out the Kalevala, a collection and retelling of Karelian and Finnish folklore. Printed a mere century before Tolkien published his own works it set out to put to pen that oral tradition, passed from storyteller to storyteller and in turn helped formalise the Finnish national identity, in the same way Tolkien wished to create a national mythology for England. In addition to Elvish having heavy Finnish leanings a number of tales in the Silmarillion are born from stories in the Kalevala too.
I really enjoyed the story of the Viking (think it was a Viking, could have been Saxon) who got his revenge on the lord that killed him. The lord tied his head to his horse and as it rode along the bard's teeth bit into his leg, infected him and eventually killed him. A long revenge but a good reason not to cross a bard!
I liked the original D&D bard. Was such a hard class to achieve. A fighter, a thief, and a musician all rolled into one. Very much like a rocker of the day.
The 1st Edition Bard having Druidic makes sense, since Celtic Bards were part of the Druidic tradition. The word bard comes to us from Gealic, which is a Celtic language.
Very nice video, but you missed the Welsh prophetic bards like Taliesin and Myrddin, who directly inspired more druidic characters like Merlin and Gandalf.
One of the best representations of bards I’ve seen is in John Gardner’s ‘Grendel’. Even the monster is moved to tears by the skald’s artistry, and appreciates his place as a shaper of culture
I have composition degrees, so I must also request some grains of salt, but the reason music therapy is so effective (used in such high-profile instances as the rehabilitation of Gabby Giffords), is that music distributes its components throughout the brain. For instance, though her speech centers were damaged by her gunshot wound, Rep. Giffords was able to communicate musically because its mechanics were diffused into different parts of the brain. There are documentary videos about this case specifically that go into more accurate detail than I can.
Bardic Inspiration? You mean referencing a heroic story tradition to remind your party-members of great deeds of the past so they can replicate them in the present?
Or even tie it to the military tradition of having musicians as signaling units to relay orders over the sound of battle with the bard bringing up a battle tune or similar to that a shanty or workers song.
I'd just like to say that you might want enjoy the take - and breadth of variations - of the older editions on the Bard for D&D. While obviously the combat capability and spellcasting were still there (which, to be fair, I'd say is not completely out of touch with Bards being wordly travellers with a lot of practical experience and knowledge under their belts - pretty much every single class in D&D gets some level of fighting prowess and for a good reason, given the setting), the old edition bards focused far more on the music and lore aspect, down to being pretty much the only ones capable of identifying magical items without the need to resort to spells; Bardic Knowledge in 3.5 was a class-exclusive skill that granted greater insight into any sort of lore pertaining to places, people, history and items than the general "knowledge" skill checks did; bardic performances were capable of providing a variety of effects that affected all who listened (currently getting ready to use it myself in the middle of a siege to boost soldier morale, combine it with an item that boosts the range of your voice and it becomes a true rallying boon!). Being skilled as a performer was directly tied to whether you were successful in using your music to a specific effect. Then there are lots of offshoot classes for specific types of bard, including ones that use speech over music, or ones that have tapped into their search and spread of knowledge as their primary focus... One of my biggest pet peeve with how modern generations of players tend to interpret the Bard though is that the 5e version has handwaved any of the importance of music to the point where I know more people playing "bards" who are just dancers or painters or "insert any artsy activity here" and use their preferred artistic medium to achieve magical effects. And while I appreciate the creativity of it, it's.... it's not a bard. It misses every point of what a bard is at its core. If the intent was just to have a general artist, they would have named the class something less specific dammit; if you are a bard, it comes with as specific of a territory as being tied to nature as a druid. It irks me to a ridiculous degree, to be honest.
I want to know about the druids! Of course! And then the wizard, sorceror, warlock, and maybe clerics and pallys. Druids are certainly a must, ive read about them somewhat and its a lot of info and hear say.
Clerics are kinda like religious knightly orders mixed with Van Helsing. The story I read said one player became a vampire and the cleric was developed to fight them. Paladins link back to Charlemagne. It’s what his royal knights were called. Kinda like the knights of the round table. The book three hearts and three lions informs lots of the flavor as well particularly the parts about the horse.
The best example I've read of a musician-as-fighter was in the Song of the Niebelungs, in which there is a scene where a minstrel engages in combat, using a sword, but also at times using his violin bow as a weapon, I think.
I've played Bards in many different games dating back to the early 80s. A lot of games get Bards wrong and some games get more wrong than others. I can name at least 4 games that can do a bard justice because they are not level/class based. BRP (Basic Role Play) from Runequest and Call of Cthulhu, Hero System, GURPS, Cyberpunk2020s Rockerboy. D&D can't get the bard right because D&D can't get anything right.
For modern Bardic work, you may enjoy Robin Williamson, particularly " Five denials on Merlin's grave" or Fiona Davidson particularly "The language of birds" wonderful Storytelling and musicianship. Thanks for the content. Atb
Anaïs Mitchell is a folk singer and writer whose music eventually became the hit musical Hadestown, a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Definitely a true bard.
Thank you for this, I'm a rl bard (no really, check my channel). The first ten minutes of this were brilliant, unfortunately you totally breezed over the most important bit, completely failing to mention Druids. I also think you should have mentioned Orpheus, but thanks for the info about Rhapsodes, I didn't know that. The word "Bard" is borrowed into English from the Welsh language and bards were an important feature of British Iron Age and Celtic language culture. The bards of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany still perform an important role in maintaining and promoting their native languages. Scotland and Ireland also have bardic traditions. You are correct that the Griots and Skalds perform a very similar function, but the term originates in British pre-Christian culture (not English). So yeah, you just picked the flowers and didn't pay attention to the roots. I'd be more than happy to fill in the blanks, perhaps I should do a video on this subject myself. I also recommend Ronald Hutton on the modern history. I agree that Gygax's idea of Bards was a bit weird, especially as he did Druids well - why multiclass? It's a lifetime's pursuit. Perhaps I should explain that Bards are a subclass of Druids.
humans are really good at pattern recognition, to the point where we have some people with pattern recognition so good it becomes a disability. music, rhythm, prose, rime, ectra are all really strong tools for taking a linear story and creating patterns with in it for us to memorize and build from. hence the use of music as a memorization tool. Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, for instance, is a powerful tool for creating rhythm in speech. which in turn makes memorizing lines and queues far easier. in the words of Adam Neely, repetition legitimizes. if you can repeat patterns as a tool for story telling you can further that story telling. we see this everywhere in art and music. Leitmotif is an excellent example of this principle. it is probably one of the strongest tools for raw musical storytelling in media simply because the pattern of a motif is memorable and thus the context of that pattern sticks with us, allowing for easy reference to the original context without spelling it out for the audience. Music in games like Undertale are almost entirely built on leitmotif. while games like kingdom hearts utilize it to connect their convoluted character relationships and communicate broader story beats, even using instrumentation to further communicate these beats. in films like Star Wars the motif of the imperial march can set tone and tell vast parts of a story all on it's own. music acts as a repeatable pattern our minds can latch on to, honestly that is one of the most beautiful parts of the human experience.
Hi Jess, Firstly, if you're interested in the neurological side of music, Oliver Sacks has written a book called Musicophilia. I don't know if it is any good, but I have read other books of his ("Awakenings", "A Leg To Stand On", "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" and "Anthropologist on Mars") and enjoyed all of them. A big problem with DnD is that it is essentially a combat system that has been stretched to cover other things. It originated in a tabletop wargame called Chainmail, and you'll see why it is a lot stronger dealing with a certain type of story than more modern systems. I enjoyed playing it for a while when I was younger, but would never play it now. I've realised that a lot of things I despise in games like Oblivion and Skyrim are things that ultimately trace back to DnD - characters having classes and levels, monsters having levels, random encounters linked to levels, hit points... The fist character I tried playing in Oblivion was a bard, but I had to abandon him as I could no longer travel outside of the city - as I had levelled up using his speech skill, and other social traits, the game levelled up the creatures I would fight which didn't account for the fact I had very weak combat skills. If they had wanted to talk I would have been fine. Instead they wanted to kill me and did so repeatedly... I feel like most fantasy/historical role play systems follow this combat heavy streak that DnD pioneered sadly. They're not easy to get hold of in physical form, but there was a series of Forgotten Realms novels written by Elaine Cunningham (The Songs & Swords series) and the second book 'Elfsong' featured a few different types of bard, though in the books they were closer to singers looking for chances to perform than the idea of them as a news source. I enjoyed the books I read in the series, but I think you may only be able to get them in electronic format these days. They have quite a bit of charm and humour in them, and don't go overboard in trying to present the DnD mechanics as part of the story Thanks for an interesting video
The monsters matching your level isn’t DnD. That really grew out of open world gaming at the time. Older DnD set the challenges based on the area(lower dungeon levels were harder) or by the treasure they guarded with slight edits for party size if appropriate. Later additions pushed CR and balanced combat encounters but those weren’t really what elder scrolls did because DnD just balanced the combat and Elder scrolls would make combat harder after you leveled alchemy 10 times. This only happened since oblivion. Morrowind had a different system. Elder scrolls also uses a skill based system instead of a class based system which has been a popular edit that modern DnD has not picked up. When you look at gaming lots of things were influenced by DnD it’s kinda crazy but the issues you mentioned lay solely with those games. Even if balanced encounters are a design goal of a tabletop game, there’s a person there to smooth out the edges and make combat harder or easier based on the players. A game program can’t do that.
One other thing I’d add is modern DnD starts encounters with an initiative roll which means combat. Older games started with a reaction roll which would often allow for negotiation. The exp system also greatly rewarded avoiding combat because most exp was gained from treasure and combat was seen as a negative. Older DnD didn’t have skill systems so it was mostly done with role play. The skill systems were brought in to standardize things but they aren’t the most interesting systems.
@@jeremymullens7167 The monsters matching your level was in ADnD 2nd Edition as the random encounter tables used the party level as a reference value. It wasn't a new innovation it has been around for years in DnD, and was the system that many programmers who went on to make computer RPGs had been exposed to. Oblivion and Skyrim both used level systems that were driven by skills, they weren't a purely skill system like the Storyteller system or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. In fact Oblivion had a level system where only class skills mattered - you could level non class skills indefinitely if you were patient enough. Skyrim uses levels of any skill but still pegged random encounters to that level which makes it closer to ADnD 2e, even if the level progression appears different. The point is, although later editions of DnD tried to standardise the checks, the combat system for DnD was by far the most developed ruleset in the game. It is a combat system with somewhat optional roleplay which is partly how it became the default computer RPG system, even in titles like Knights Of The Old Republic. Ultimately this is why DnD bards are not a very well defined class. It is a system for dungeon crawls, and even in the last iterations of the system I bothered with the social mechanics were really lacklustre. If I ever go back to playing RPGs I'm going to look at systems like Fate, or Genesys (PbtA I'll avoid as it is too simplified), I have no desire to go back to what is a very weak system for me.
I checked the 2e dungeon master guide’s info on random encounters. The level they talk about is the dungeon level. Which also matches the player level but they even gave advice for rolling on a higher level table with a certain chance. I will say the odds of stronger monsters coming was lower but it wasn’t 0. The big thing is DnD is made for a dungeon crawl and in this case you cater encounters by dungeon level. In an open world west marches type thing you set levels for different areas. The players set the difficulty and things are communicated to avoid unfair surprises (dead bodies littered around the cave). Oblivion did have classes but not like DnD. Oblivion had major skills and minor skills that you could freely pick and would award exp for level up. There is no DnD system that I know of that uses that type of skill based leveling and DnD has a lot of different leveling systems. What really makes them different is everyone one can do everything in oblivion where DnD has hard classes that have distinct advantages and disadvantages. The fighter gets better at fighting in DnD by getting exp and raising his class level. In oblivion the fighter gets better at fighting by using the appropriate weapon skill. This may level them up and the level up gives you stats and hp. DnD very rarely gave stat increases and not tied to skill use(usually was player choice and then only 1 point(gygax suggested 1/10 a point lol). The system in oblivion worked in morrowind. It was the same weird don’t pick the skills you want to use as major skills issue but it didn’t have a global level matching system. The error with oblivion was that they wanted a more free form do anything game. Lots of things are voluntary and they didn’t want quest lines you picked up later to be too easy. The solution in morrowind was grinding. In general things and places were difficult and you’d have to level your skills to progress. They wanted to smooth the curve. None of those problems exist in any edition of DnD even the ones that have balanced encounters. In older DnD they generally just used monster exp as the guideline for appropriate challenges. But in general the challenge was set to location more than the party. The party was expected to bravely run away. I will say modules started to change in 2e which is where the balanced encounters came from. Which is very much setup in a way you could code a game. In older modules they sold dungeons and locations you could put into your world and in 2e they started a more heavy narrative structure. Those narrative modules will be balanced to give the appropriate challenge to parties and award them with enough exp to level up. The first module will be for levels 1-4 and module 2 was for 4-8. That is not the style oblivion went with. DnD will give you progressively harder enemies. Oblivion leaned on their custom character creator to level up every bandit to crazy levels and put them in daedra armor. Oblivion’s faults are its own. It only shares with DnD that it’s an rpg. There are a lot of innovations in elder scrolls you’re not recognizing and that includes the magic and enchanting system. I picked up DnD with pathfinder which a homebrewish 3rd edition. I played Neverwinter nights which is 3rd edition and did not have the same issues that were in oblivion and Skyrim. Game makers were trying to make a sandbox without a DM to manage things. They took out the grinding and set the level to the player level. Published DnD modules are very linear. They can only have branching paths that you can come back to in one book. Everything was expected to be managed by a DM. And finally DnD did have challenges set by player level at times but the level said things about the combat capabilities. Oblivion’s biggest problem is you can raise in level without your combat power also increasing. Which would be fine if non combat options were available. I could go on and talk about spell casting in oblivion but will just say anytime you level after your primary damage skill is maxed out Your damage output is decreased.
The 2nd Ed Bard was able to become more like a traditional bard with the red Handbooks. As such we fouind that certian types of bards were better tanks than most fighter classes. Though I cannoy comment on editions upto 5th in my opinion the simplifacatiom of the skills/NWP's really took something away from the bard.
Leslie Fish is a great living bard, back in the 8os & 9os she travelled performing songs & stories about practical knowledge from making medicines & treating basic illnesses to making explosives & alcohol to why we shouldn't dig up radioactive waste
In Germany bards were called Minnesänger like Wather von der Vogelweide in the 12th century And Wheel Of Times Thom Merrelin is a fine example for a bard , but the books really lost me after the fifth, to repetitive
I like the video, but i like the way d&d made the bard. It is important to look at the value that music, history, and entertainment brings to people. In d&d, they give inspiration, raise morale, and tell jokes. But they also mock, whisper horrors, and tell bad omens. With a little bit of magic woven in and passed down throughout the magical history of the d&d world, there is endless potential of how they could be portrayed. It was pretty well thought out, but it also left a lot to interpretation. That way, you can really make the character yours.
Folk Musicians look a lot like bards. You can't listen to David Rovics and not learn or be reminded of some history. They also resemble bards in how the songs get passed around.
D&D didn't get it wrong idiots who thought they knew DMV got it wrong the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons had bardes B these massive storytellers of ancient lore they were the most difficult class to get into because the requirements were so high you had to basically be a God to become a bard
The Vadic teachings are one of the oldest verbally transmitted scriptures we have now. It has not changed science it inception due to the specific training of the monks who learned these. These monks learned the hundreds of passages perfectly, even down the the inflection a specific word in a specific passage must have. They must do all this with no mistakes to be able to complete their training.
I would like to comment on the notion of agricultural surpluses allowing for leisure time--this is a pretty widespread idea but modern archeology and sociology calls it into question. It seems that hunter gatherers spent far less time acquiring food than early farmers did so they had plenty of time for storytelling. And Indigenous peoples who were recently nomadic have rich oral traditions of storytelling and lore, and also shamans and elders who are knowledge keepers.
Consider before electricity, people had to gather around the fire as soon as the sun went down. Listening to stories or songs was the only entertainment at night.
There are only Seven stories...we just tell them in slightly different ways generation after generation. I LOVE the knowledge that Tolkien was in a way aware of this. 'Cauldron of stories'.... what a great way of visualizing that!
This was a refreshing breakdown and introspection of the term bard . As a seasoned D&D player who has played a non-suducing bard I appreciate it and would love to see other classes broken down too. May I suggest Barbarian as the next class. The games tend to lean on Conan as the archetype but as a class it's more, I think, about the "primitive" culture aspect.
I think I would place the Troubadours of medieval Provence (circa1100-1270s) in the Bardic tradition. I've always considered the Bards an English and Viking phenomenon. Yes the horrific Albigensian crusade pretty much destroyed them, but they were spreaders of culture, including Catharism and the new concept of courtly love (what we now call 'romance love' as well as news carriers ) Bernart de Ventadorn is a perfect of example of that art. The Troubadours of northern France were called Troveres. "Can Vei Lauzeta Mover" Is a favorite of mine. There were many songs in my youth that could be called stories set to music. Horse with no name. America Wildfire - Michael Martin Murphy Ghost riders in the sky - the Highway men The Highway man - also by the highway men - my favorite because I believe in reincarnation Hotel California The Eagles Oh, as someone else mentions "The Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gorden Lightfoot.
Lowkey sad you didn't bring up Biwa Houshi when talking about Japanese forms of musical storytelling, as the practice dates back to the late Heian era and is notably how Japan's greatest war epic, the Heike Monogatari, was first told.
It probably doesn't help that virtually all RPG games, that includes a bard, has the weakest character stats. In fact, the Final Fantasy series even mocks the bard by having him carry a useless harp as their only available weapon.
The history in this is really bad. Bards are not a universal thing. Bard is a specific office particular to the Brythonic diaspora with comparable offices in throughout much of Indo-European cultures, although especially Celtic (bards, filli, etc) and Norse (skalds). Calling them foremost 'storytellers' is anachronistic as well; their primary role was record keeping and secondarily artistic performance or entertainment. Priestly offices were often explicitly separate and often at different levels of class/caste strata. Modern notions of 'bards' owe far more to Middle Ages minstrels and troubadours than to bards which, whike comparable, are not the same. Hunter-gatherers did support elderly figures whose principal roles were not physically involved. The primary advantage of intensive agriculture is not food surplus but consistency and reliability. Music, story, and so on were not limped into a single ritual category. While they were often used together for such purposes, they were not exclusive to it. We see them combined together in ritual use because 1) they can all contribute and 2) priestly and bardic roles took an enormous amount of material and temporal investment.
Paper was not present in Europe until the Late Middle Ages and was not particularly expensive once it was (especially combined with woodcuts and the printing press). Vellum is what was expensive. Bards often were not traveling but served at a specific court. You are mixing up bards, minstrels, and troubadours into a single profession.
Sort of related story: There was a battle during the Peninsula war, the British were attempting to relieve a French siege on a Spanish city, but things didn’t quite go to plan so they tried to return to the city. On the march back they were surprised by the French and the British pulled off one of the luckiest and most impressive victories in military history, which unfortunately was of absolutely zero strategic significance in the end, but that’s another story. During this battle there was a hill on the right flank of the British position that they needed to hold to prevent the French from being able to get behind their main line and surround them. Losing the hill would have lost the battle. Unfortunately the British only had 500 men to hold the hill with, and the French sent 5,000 men to take it, so naturally they retreated down the hill. They were met at the bottom by one of the General staff with compliments and we’re ever so sorry but you need to retake the hill. Obviously this was not possible, but there was no other choice. So the Major in charge formed his men up in skirmish order at the bottom of the hill, began singing “Hearts of Oak”, and led the way back up the hill to certain death. Those 500 men got nearly to the summit of the hill, and not only held their position, but actually managed to repulse an attack by multiple French companies. By the time British reinforcements arrived they had been reduced to less than half their number, but they still held. Reportedly the Major continued singing to his troops for the entire duration, having nothing else better to do than angrily shake his sword at the French and call them names between songs. When a second full regiment of British infantry arrived, by some miracle they succeeded in driving the French back off the hill, securing the flank and ensuring that the main line in the field below could accomplish the task of defeating the French centre unhindered, a task which they performed admirably. Unfortunately the French army, though temporarily defeated, still outnumbered the British forces, and once it reformed was able to reinvest the siege, meaning the entire battle accomplished absolutely nothing. As usual during the Peninsula war, this was thanks to Spanish ineptitude, who in this instance took the day off and refused to either aid the British during the battle, or pursue the defeated French army, because it was a Sunday, and God wouldn’t like it.
TBF D&D is a high-fantasy superhero game, so pure medieval bard would just ... not work. So when I rolled my new bard for this campaign, the only really bard-y thing was that he had, prior to his adventuring life, worked as a traveling musician. But overall the D&D bard as a fantasy hero is still best understood as deriving its magic from spoken word OR music, art, dance, or just expression, and I lean into the spoken word and gesture/expression. Think of Gandalf dispelling the magic Grima* wrought against Theoden and Edoras, not by studying from a book like a wizard (although he does love books and tomes of lore), or just innate exposure to some source of magic like a sorcerer, or from a call to the divine or to nature like a druid or cleric, but through sheer persuasion and presence and inspiration to Theoden to succeed on his wisdom save against Grima's spells. I don't do horny bard. So most of my magic is enchantment or illusion or divination based (it's a big party so we've got a Cleric, Wizard, and Artificer to do blasty/damagy if necessary), all aimed at getting the info we need or convincing our enemies to do the wrong thing. Which... the one thing that sucks about Eloquence bard is that you don't have spell attacks because you're mostly making them do saving throws, and it's almost impossible to fail a Persuasion or Deception check (min 21 or 18) so about the only ability checks I make that have much chance of rolling badly on are initiative rolls. So I've had an inspiration point for three sessions now and not been able to use it. But the RP options are endless, at least as long as you talk to your DM and make sure that you're not going to spend weeks crawling through Tomb of Annihilation or something, because building your bard as a party face becomes really useless if you don't meet any sentient creatures. Learned that the hard way. *clearly a warlock, with Saruman as his patron, but at this point is Saruman a Celestial, or a Fiend, or a Great Old One who's just super not un-fathomable?
You have greatly underestimated the importance of story in the oldest human societies. Stories are how knowledge was passed down through the generations since time immemorial. People could not have survived without them.
14:20 In Swedish folk music it's customary when giving a concert to insert tales in-between tunes. Often we tell about the story of the tune we're going to play, or of the person it's known after. Sometimes the tale can be longer than the tune ! A bit bummed you didn't at least mention Celtic bards - where the name comes from. Great video otherwise, sharing it with my fairy tales enthusiasts !
I'm SO glad I found your channel! I am loving your content so far and am devouring it. I'm obsessed with pencil and paper RPGs and it's my main hobby, and I've always felt Bards were misplaced.
Were they more powerful than a wizard? You couldn’t be one till name level anyway it’s a super late game class by the standards at the time which is what I see as the biggest problem. They basically came out at the end of the game. If you allow multi classing like that I assume other combinations would be just as strong once they came online.
Pete Seeger was a modern Bard, along with his inspiring figures and contemporaries such as Joe Hill, Woodie Guthrie, his sister Peggy, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and other folk singers.
Thank you very much for this inspiring presentation into international history of bards, I enjoyed every minute of it. Today we have so many singers, musicians, writers, actors and other performers... but most of them focused on "entertainment" or entertainment business only and they are missing the point. We need more true bards to make this world a better place for everyone.
if one is looking for Modern "Bards", one should begin by exploring "Modern" folk singer/songwriters. Going from Woody Guthrie, through early Bob Dylan and James Taylor, on comes to artists like early Suzanne Vega and Tracy Chapman. One might also look at the "Parody" artists on RUclips, who use familiar tunes to poke fun at Political and business big-wigs.... Because an oft forgotten function of the Bards was as a safety valve, to funnel public anger into laughter (see Cheech and Chong "Born in East LA" or most of the music of "Weird" Al Yankovic...)
Bards from DND are sculpted in those stories by players over the years abusing the skillsets of persuasion, charisma, and powers granted by the game to fascinate things in the game world into licentious action, mainly for comedy. And that, too, is part of the cauldron of stories.
Brilliant! Thank you! I loved this video and please do another on a gaming class. Personally, one class I've come back to on every rpg or mmorpg is Paladin. Obviously the magic side is ahistorical, but the warrior/priest combination has occurred in many cultures. Examples besides the Knights Templar and Warrior Monks of the far east include the Assyrian priestesses of Ishtar, who accompanied the armies on campaign and blessed them before battle. Their ceremonial gear on campaign was full battle gear with a bow, which they could use in battle if needed. Anyway, just a thought.
See, i wanted to play a bard my last campaign since i think i could do it justice, being a slam poet, a history fanatic, and a musician. I have fairy pipes that would have been super cool to use or even my skin drum in true beatnik fashion. but i just went with a ranger because the character i had in mind didn't really fit a bard. But I'm going to try whenever i find a new group of people to play with. Maybe I'll even branch out and create a character that isn't an elf, half elf, or drow lol.
Since u mention JRRT, Jess [& have u read "The Road to Middle earth, a must READ] it strikes me that Bards are Spell casters. Glamour, which, very, very many moons ago, meant, among other things, "magic". So, spell caster ... magician. Though not the type of magician we know today, instead, I suspect, one who worked with past works to enchant (spell cast) her audience. As for "glamour" & a bunch of other word's etymologies, see Shippey' The Road to Middle earth."
5:55 Ahhh yes; Polynesia my people (New Zealand Maori 🇳🇿). We used stories, recitals, dance & carvings; to memorize stars, currents, winds, weather patterns and animals to navigate the Pacific Ocean. The biggest ocean in the world 🌎 And we navigated the Pacific through our myths & legends, with nothing but sticks & stones. No metal tools required. Fact 😊😊
12:28 If you sing something, you get the meter. For example: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a… um… um… You automatically know it is a 2 syllable word. It can’t be “torrential downpour” it can’t be “Big Mac with cheese”. So it narrows the possible answers, thereby reducing brain workload.
As an old DM I give great leeway on 5e bards. I refer to them as a lump of all entertainers from the medieval era which mixes in the 1st edition character class of "Jester" from Dragon magazine #60 as well as the 1st edition Thief-Acrobat from Unearthed Arcana. Thus a "Bard" can be: an acrobat, a juggler, a minstrel/troubador, a thespian, a jester (joke-teller),or a story-teller. Essentially it allows flexibility in the class by offering a subclass specialty. Yes, it waters down the pure idea of a bard, but it gives a wider range of options for the player by thinking of bards more generally.
Re Thom Merrilin - Thom is an interesting example of a Bard, because he not only (as a career) repeats and retells old legends, he also (as a character) creates New Legends, which will (probably) be retold by Bards in "Ages still to come..."
Love the video. It digs into what tropes bards draw from, that they historically existed (still do!), and I'll use that to rant for a bit about the class. My issue with D&D bards is that they're kind of one-note for the fantasy role they open up. I know you can express different things through roleplay, but we're dealing with mechanical expression here, how the rules allow you to *competently* express what you are; and bards are tied to high charisma. I studied musicology and do music and poetry, so when I want to make a bard self-insert of myself, the bard is very much disconnected from what artistry entails. Remember that charisma as your attribute is part of your "basic" bodily expression, kind of your biology, in D&D. It's what you're good at even if you weren't the class you were playing. This is important. Barbarians smash things, so they benefit from high strength, rogues sneak and steal, so they benefit from high dexterity, druids listen to the world in a subtle way, so they benefit from high wisdom, wizards are self-taught magicians, spending ages pouring over tomes for research, so they benefit from high intelligence. Stuff like that. So why, exactly, does a bard have high charisma? Why are they often mechanically inclined as if they're travelling circus artists? Why does the background in performer give you acrobatics? *Why is the bard so roguish and innately extrovertedly charming?* Now, music and art is charming and draws you in. A lot of it makes sense being tied to charisma. But like your examples in the start of your video, D&D's portrayal of magical art is kind of schewed. The stereotypical D&D bard is a jovial, extroverted, charming traveler that rides the social environment as if it's just a merry-go-round. It kind of fits with the Greek poets, of course, but not with the village storyteller. The bard's role as a storyteller and history-keeper holds up, because that's truly something they could do and what they do in D&D. But in real life, bards are more stereotypically like sages or hermits. Poets aren't like bang bros, they hang out by their clay, papyrus, paper, typewriter, computer, whatever, and sit there for hours alone doing their craft. I've talked a lot with other artists that play D&D, and musical competence is not as much charisma as other things. Some music is very much charisma-based - like punk - but a lot of classical is highly mathematical, which would be intelligence, being a performer is somewhere between dexterity (demanding performances) and wisdom (kind of "sensing" what "sounds right"). Musicians can be and often are lovely people, of course, but they're most usually quite introverted and brooding about their craft. Even modern art that is often not technically demanding, like stacked bricks in minimalist sculpture, generally work not because they're innately charismatic, but because they make you think about the world; in D&D, rolling to get a hint for a puzzle is not charisma-based, it's intelligence based. It's just weird that D&D has tied bards to basically be Homeric rock musicians, instead of what most art entails, which is more akin to what the wizard stereotypically does in between adventures; slowly practicing, researching, figuring out what sounds right. I'm aware that D&D wants your character to be actively acting characters that change the world, and that's good, but it's weird that the avenue to magic-through-art is tied to being a social butterfly, not being tied to having a material, hard-to-acquire, hard-to-perfect, technical skill. Like, even being a Homeric storyteller is tied to memory, that would be intelligence, I believe; if not, it'd be wisdom; it would've definitely NOT been charisma. All D&D classes have some problem of linearity in this way (like how fighters are better because they're stronger, not smarter), but at least, like, the wizard is mechanically expressed as skilled because he researches and works a lot. It's the same for artists. Artists are not Han Solos. They're nerds. You bring up Tolkien as an example of a bard, and it's on point.
I'm 100% convinced that Edgin isn't a bard, he's a Rogue. Bards are magic casters the same as Sorcerers and Wizards yet he never does anything magic like even a 1st level Bard could do. (Also, the Druid never does anything but spam wildshape for some reason but at least that's magical and a class feature). Meanwhile what does Edgin do?? ... He uses sneak attack. Any time he ever does anything, he's essentially using a sneak attack. So he's just a Rogue with proficiency in using a lute.
I have to agree that D&D 5th Edition disincentivizes players from playing their bards in a particularly bardy way. It has to do with the fact that 5e mostly only cares about combat. I mean, you can DO it, but you're kinda fighting the system. Third edition did bards a lot better. Third edition did a lot of things a lot better, actually.
"When evil reared its ugly head
Sir Robin turned his tail and fled. The brave brave brave Sir Robin" -Monty Python
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and valiantly, he chickened out.
@@blackshard641"I didn't!"
LOL The Ballad of Sir Robin was always my favorite part.
Those were minstrels. They're useless and very annoying, unlike the bard.
@@SavantApostle Are you the "um actually" guy? Sorry but all I could think about while watching this video was Monty Python.
@@chrisprescott2273 I guess, I was joking becuase bards are obviously annoying and pretty useless as well in a fight. You must be the takes everything seriously guy.
A take I really liked when I was a kid was the Harpers (bards) of the Dragon Riders of Pern series where Harpers took on the role of educators; harpers were there to speak to current news and popular culture; but their most important role was basic (like K through 6grade) education of children even in really remote places.
I like that the single most "powerful" person on the whole planet is Masterharper Robinton. He is in a unique position to know everything in their society, past and present, and act on it providing the guiding hand for the whole culture. The Harper Hall also is the only organisation on Pern with formally established espionage agents.
Dragon Riders of Pern is one of the best.
The reason music helps with memory is it employs a different part of the brain from storytelling/listening. The same is true with reading paired with writing, which is why taking notes on what you hear helps cement the memory, even if you never read the notes. Engaging different areas of the brain in a single pursuit helps memory get a better record.
You can also find yourself doing this in reverse sometimes, recalling music using language. You've done this any time you forget the tune of a song and then use the lyrics to recall it.
It's a lot to do with engaging different senses as well. Music literally engages a different sense with the auditory system. But descriptions of taste, feel, sight, and smell all have their place. The more of these are combined the better a memory "sticks".
Chinese is good for this because it's melodic and easy to make rhymes and rhythms.
Also associating tones with word pictures help cement memorization.
In a largely pre-literate society bards are the keepers of lore. They're historians, news anchors, and rock stars in one. Something that is sadly largely forgotten these days.
Maybe that's why some people have a propensity to revere musicians and actors, even politicians today (all public figures).
@@haidner and also why content piracy seems to be in our blood forever
@@infinitestare i call "sharing:, a habit i picked in Sunday School
Bards were more true to their origins in early versions of D&D before "roll for seduction" became a cliche
So are you saying the Gamers 2 Dorkness Rising bard isn´t your typical bard :P
The Bard I play is actively not the "roll for seduction" type, despite him being a tiny bunny person.
3rd edition did it best, where the Skald prestige class would literally recite heroic epics during battle to inspire their allies. But all in all, what the bard is in modern D&D is an adventurer who is also an entertainer - and most people are going to find it easiest to play their bard as a rock star: trashing hotel rooms and sleeping with groupies when they're not making music. Which, of course, in a magical world is magical as well.
I was coming here to say this exact same thing.
Though the earliest AD&D bard was a bit crazy, the 2nd Edition "Rogue with a Lute" bard was starting into the right direction, with a chance to just know random facts about anything, etc.
Making the bard's song have magical powers I guess is in keeping with the "Fantasy" part of Fantasy RPG, though turning them into song sorcerers feels a little odd to a grognard like me.
"Roll For Seduction" sounds very appropriate for the first troubadour, William Duke of Aquitaine (grandfather of the famous Eleanor), who apparently spent his spare time seducing noble ladies, or their maids when he got the wrong window. Of course, there is also Cathbad the Druid from the Ultonian Cycle (Men of Ulster cycle) of epics.
The Faroese Islands have kept their bardic tradition alive up until now. The islands used to be extremely isolated and also poor, so both writing and instruments were rare.
People dance in a simple circle continuously left and right. You either have a bard singing the verse, or all the participants if they knew the story, and then all sing the chorus. It is very lovely and hypnotic.
The songs/stories can have 500 verses and often tell of important events in Faroese history. Like battles and heroes. The stories go back to Viking times when the islands were settled by them.
Ballad dances ! These are beautiful !
There’s one Canadian singer/storyteller that really epitomizes the definition of a bard, I would recommend the songs to anyone, Gordon Lightfoot.
absolutely. Also..there were some very remarkable songs in my youth that i would definitely suggest are in bardic tradition.
likewise jethro tull, steeleye span, loreena mckennitt, fotheringay… id consider them in the bard genre
Joanna Newsom as well
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is the only song of his I've heard, but yes, Gordon Lightfoot would be *perfect* for the "Bard singing in the background of the tavern" setting, I feel, just based on that one song alone.
He really "takes you there" like how a Bard should.
(And furthermore, I don't usually listen to music like Lightfoot's, but I've heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald about 2 dozen times, haha, so he must be doing something right!)
@@RedSpade37 Lightfoot told great stories with his lyrics. He was much admired by another bard, Bob Dylan.
Jess. Never stop making these videos!
Also, as to music making things easier to memorize, I know exactly what you're talking about. I grew up memorizing most of my school work by putting it to music. Everything from history to math and geography. And to this day I still remember that William the Conqueror defeated King Herald in 1066 and that 14 × 15 = 210, all because I memorized it by singing. I don't know why it works so well but it does.
(Wait. Did that mean I was a "bard" when I was in grade school?😄)
I think we all have a bit of bardish-ness in us!
The D&D Bard was largely based on the character "Silver" John, from the stories of the author Manly Wade Wellman. He had a guitar with silver strings, he had been in the Army where he learned how to fight if he had to, he knew all of the old songs, stories, and backwoods lore, and he knew a little white magic from a rare book he picked up once.
Thank you for that comment. I was unaware of this origin, which turns out to be perhaps relevant to my own writing.
"The Long Lost Friend" by Albertus Magnus, which is an actual book of "White Magic," that was copied and known on the 18th Century Frontier.
So not Amergin, one of the Sons Of The Mil (Champion), brothers who led the settlement of Ireland from what is now Northern Spain, displacing the previous rulers, the Tuatha de Danaan (at least according to The Book Of Invasions and some preserved poems ascribed to him)?
Listening to you define a bard, i immediately thought of Thom and how spot on Robert Jordan wrote a bard. (Though Thom does accel in intrigue and knife skills in a DnD kind of way. Thank you for acknowledging this character in your video.
Thom definitely takes after Gandalf early on who was also very bardic. It was his public disguise. Similarly, spoiler alert but, Thom turns out to basically be Jordan’s fictional version of Marco Polo in disguise. Marco Polo carried a knife which is surely where he got the connection from. Robert Jordan was really up on military tactics and history and his references come from that as much as DnD, I’d say.
I would go one step farther than that. The first known curse in Ireland was a traveling bard (whose name I forgot) was not given food nor hospitality when he asked for it (as was his due as a bard in ancient Ireland). So upon his departure the following morning he uttered the first recorded curse, causing King Bran to break out in blemishes, making him unfit to be king.
Bars, to me, is not just a storyteller, but someone who is also an entertainer, capable of evoking things (emotional or physical) in the listener. And in that line, I dare say Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, might well be the last bard in the world. If you watch his live performances (circa 70s and early 80s).
I feel like it should be noted that Jaskier does not really translate to Dandelion. That is what the translations for the English version of the novels chose to call him, but his name actually means "Buttercup."
In Italian it's "Ranuncolo", that's a way better translation (buttercup being the Ranunculus bulbosus).
I think it's translated in the spirit of it's meaning, not just in the literal word of language
Dandelion, in English, better conjures up the image of the character rather than Buttercup, it's a more accurate set of connotations
In Czech those muppets translated Jaskier to Marigold ... imagine the confusion when Triss Merigold entered the cast ... So they swiftly retitled her Triss Ranuncul (Latin for buttercup/jaskier) ...
This confirms that Witcher is definitely part of The Princess Bride Cinematic Universe
@@sblinder1978 Well, in Italian Buttercup in The Princess Bride was translated "Bottondoro" (literally "gold button", "gold bud") that is a common name for another species of ranunculus. They could name Jaskier "Bottondoro" too...
I don't know if this has been pointed out already (comments TLDR), but the D&D Bard was much closer to the historical Bard back in 2ed & 3ed. There were more skills/proficiencies back then and a Bard character could specialize in having access to lots of knowledge about the world, history, current events, legends and lore.
One aspect you kind of glossed over, Jess, was the the gallic tradition of the Silver Branch which were the Celtic skalds. They were related to the Green Branch or Druids and the Red Branch warriors ( if I'm remembering my own research correctly from 20 years ago )
cool
This. I started off with 2e and am now a fresh dip on my rogue into a bard in a 3.5 campaign, and this definitely rings true. I did mostly discard a lot of the bardic knowledge focus, as it became redundant this late in the game with an information-obsessed scholar wizard in the party, but the love for and drive to experience and gather performances and musical traditions of other cultures was in huge part a reason for why she ended up choosing this path - and is now pending using some of what she learned to rally troops during a siege we are currently in the middle of with a small help of cleric-provided Resounding Voice spell to aid her bardic performance. She's also already used some of the things she learned along the way to help in interactions with informants and diplomats as well.
What about the celtic Bards? They gave the name to the modern interpretation of bards and this was the first step to become a druid.
The image of a bard with a lute is based on the Troubadour of Occitan France.
The Celtic tradition is exemplified by the Seanchai, which originated as those who kept the genealogical records for Chieftains but also came to encompass the (often nomadic) storyteller and keeper of tradition, especially after the obliteration of the Celtic nobility and the multiple attempts at genocide attempted by the English, both in Scotland and Ireland. These bear remarkable similarities to the African examples mentioned in the video, though performing to or with music wasn't a part of their tradition. Sean Nos singing and Seanchai storytelling were completely independent. Most scholars of Irish literature suggest that the Irish literary tradition owes a huge debt to the tradition of the Seanchai....
Without disparaging Jess or Tolkien, English people and Anglophiles too often continue the ancient English tradition of either ignoring or stomping all over Celtic peoples and traditions....
Unfortunately, you left out one of the most important sources for what we think of as bards: namely, the bardic roles in Insular Celtic cultures, i.e. the Irish and Welsh bards and the other poetic roles that are assimilated to them in the common parlance of those cultures. A king's poet, and really any mature male in a tribal group, was expected to fight alongside their king, and they had to master a great deal of knowledge across a variety of different subjects and disciplines, which is where the "bard as jack-of-all-trades" idea comes from.
The scop is Anglo-Saxon; the skald is Old Norse/Icelandic. Their roles are similar, but they are not the same!
I've spent the longest time HATING D&D bards because of how cringy they're often portrayed but it's ironically the idea of playing a more faithful to real life bard who writes and narrates his attacks and magic as a story and a performance inside the overarching story of an adventure has completely shifted my feelings and now Bard has become my most anticipated class to play the next time I get chance to be a player instead of a DM.
You could always just play one as a regular NPC. I think one of my favorite bards I played was an attaché to the party in a one night game. He was so popular that the other prayers started using him as a reoccurring NPC when they ran games.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Celtic origin of the name “bard” as they relate to druids and ovates, nor one of the most famous bards, Taliesin.
You kind of do have to mention Taliesin
So bard is from Celtic? I didn’t even know that. It appears to be one specialty, that of glorifying renowned deeds. More generally I think that the term was fili(dh) or poet. The words generally came from the north, the music from the south. Robert Jordan really had some fun with how they mix and match.
Shakespeare was not only bard-like he was a crazy fan of the whole bardic tradition, especially tales of Robin Hood, and very much the last bard. No mention of ballads of Robin Hood there is simply unforgivable to me. That is the height of the English bardic tradition, and the whole basis for our modern English language.
. . . Taliesin for Welsh bards (and the Eisteddfod, I’d say), and Robert Burns as the Scots bard maybe for contrast would also have been nice.
@@Sean-tb2zz Agreed, and you make a good case for Shakespeare being the last bard, though I was a little incredulous of this before as I just considered him to be an inspired and successful playwright before. Yes, the name “bard” is of Celtic origin as I understand it. Will find you a link.
@@richardknowles6287 it's from Proto-Celtic *bardos, so Scottish Gaelic bàrd, Old Irish bard, Welsh bardd and similar in Cornish and Breton. The Brythonic and Irish traditions differ, so @Sean-tb2zz is correct that the Irish also use the term filidh and the Scottish have seanchaidh. It's similar to using "shaman" as a general term, but it originates from Tungusic / Evenki religion (via Russian). Bards were originally poets, singers and storytellers in the culture and spiritual traditions of Celtic peoples, traditions that continue into the modern day.
Class Role in Society: Bards serve as entertainers, teachers, and also sometimes as general troubleshooters. Some of the most important bards have had a deep and durable effect on society as a whole, not only in the songs but also in the legends and musical instruments, and many a bard we have to thank for certain words and writing systems.
-from my MERPG (Middle-Earth Roleplaying Guide)
For those wanting a more direct connection between LotR and 'bardic' history make sure you check out the Kalevala, a collection and retelling of Karelian and Finnish folklore. Printed a mere century before Tolkien published his own works it set out to put to pen that oral tradition, passed from storyteller to storyteller and in turn helped formalise the Finnish national identity, in the same way Tolkien wished to create a national mythology for England. In addition to Elvish having heavy Finnish leanings a number of tales in the Silmarillion are born from stories in the Kalevala too.
I really enjoyed the story of the Viking (think it was a Viking, could have been Saxon) who got his revenge on the lord that killed him. The lord tied his head to his horse and as it rode along the bard's teeth bit into his leg, infected him and eventually killed him. A long revenge but a good reason not to cross a bard!
I liked the original D&D bard. Was such a hard class to achieve. A fighter, a thief, and a musician all rolled into one. Very much like a rocker of the day.
And a druid, with knowledge of arcane lore.
The 1st Edition Bard having Druidic makes sense, since Celtic Bards were part of the Druidic tradition. The word bard comes to us from Gealic, which is a Celtic language.
Very nice video, but you missed the Welsh prophetic bards like Taliesin and Myrddin, who directly inspired more druidic characters like Merlin and Gandalf.
This video was great!
If you're still deciding on another character class to cover, how about the paladin?
One of the best representations of bards I’ve seen is in John Gardner’s ‘Grendel’. Even the monster is moved to tears by the skald’s artistry, and appreciates his place as a shaper of culture
I have composition degrees, so I must also request some grains of salt, but the reason music therapy is so effective (used in such high-profile instances as the rehabilitation of Gabby Giffords), is that music distributes its components throughout the brain. For instance, though her speech centers were damaged by her gunshot wound, Rep. Giffords was able to communicate musically because its mechanics were diffused into different parts of the brain. There are documentary videos about this case specifically that go into more accurate detail than I can.
Bardic Inspiration? You mean referencing a heroic story tradition to remind your party-members of great deeds of the past so they can replicate them in the present?
Or even tie it to the military tradition of having musicians as signaling units to relay orders over the sound of battle with the bard bringing up a battle tune or similar to that a shanty or workers song.
I'd just like to say that you might want enjoy the take - and breadth of variations - of the older editions on the Bard for D&D. While obviously the combat capability and spellcasting were still there (which, to be fair, I'd say is not completely out of touch with Bards being wordly travellers with a lot of practical experience and knowledge under their belts - pretty much every single class in D&D gets some level of fighting prowess and for a good reason, given the setting), the old edition bards focused far more on the music and lore aspect, down to being pretty much the only ones capable of identifying magical items without the need to resort to spells; Bardic Knowledge in 3.5 was a class-exclusive skill that granted greater insight into any sort of lore pertaining to places, people, history and items than the general "knowledge" skill checks did; bardic performances were capable of providing a variety of effects that affected all who listened (currently getting ready to use it myself in the middle of a siege to boost soldier morale, combine it with an item that boosts the range of your voice and it becomes a true rallying boon!). Being skilled as a performer was directly tied to whether you were successful in using your music to a specific effect. Then there are lots of offshoot classes for specific types of bard, including ones that use speech over music, or ones that have tapped into their search and spread of knowledge as their primary focus...
One of my biggest pet peeve with how modern generations of players tend to interpret the Bard though is that the 5e version has handwaved any of the importance of music to the point where I know more people playing "bards" who are just dancers or painters or "insert any artsy activity here" and use their preferred artistic medium to achieve magical effects. And while I appreciate the creativity of it, it's.... it's not a bard. It misses every point of what a bard is at its core. If the intent was just to have a general artist, they would have named the class something less specific dammit; if you are a bard, it comes with as specific of a territory as being tied to nature as a druid. It irks me to a ridiculous degree, to be honest.
I want to know about the druids! Of course! And then the wizard, sorceror, warlock, and maybe clerics and pallys. Druids are certainly a must, ive read about them somewhat and its a lot of info and hear say.
Clerics are kinda like religious knightly orders mixed with Van Helsing. The story I read said one player became a vampire and the cleric was developed to fight them.
Paladins link back to Charlemagne. It’s what his royal knights were called. Kinda like the knights of the round table. The book three hearts and three lions informs lots of the flavor as well particularly the parts about the horse.
Druids would be a good topic for the next one
The best example I've read of a musician-as-fighter was in the Song of the Niebelungs, in which there is a scene where a minstrel engages in combat, using a sword, but also at times using his violin bow as a weapon, I think.
The idea of a bard buckling some swash likely comes from Robin Hood's Alan-a-Dale.
You're quickly becoming my favorite Tolkien RUclips channel
I've played Bards in many different games dating back to the early 80s. A lot of games get Bards wrong and some games get more wrong than others.
I can name at least 4 games that can do a bard justice because they are not level/class based. BRP (Basic Role Play) from Runequest and Call of Cthulhu, Hero System, GURPS, Cyberpunk2020s Rockerboy. D&D can't get the bard right because D&D can't get anything right.
For modern Bardic work, you may enjoy Robin Williamson, particularly " Five denials on Merlin's grave" or Fiona Davidson particularly "The language of birds" wonderful Storytelling and musicianship. Thanks for the content. Atb
Also Dr Gwilym Morus-Baird's channel "Celtic Source" here on YT.
Anaïs Mitchell is a folk singer and writer whose music eventually became the hit musical Hadestown, a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Definitely a true bard.
Thank you for this, I'm a rl bard (no really, check my channel). The first ten minutes of this were brilliant, unfortunately you totally breezed over the most important bit, completely failing to mention Druids. I also think you should have mentioned Orpheus, but thanks for the info about Rhapsodes, I didn't know that. The word "Bard" is borrowed into English from the Welsh language and bards were an important feature of British Iron Age and Celtic language culture. The bards of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany still perform an important role in maintaining and promoting their native languages. Scotland and Ireland also have bardic traditions. You are correct that the Griots and Skalds perform a very similar function, but the term originates in British pre-Christian culture (not English). So yeah, you just picked the flowers and didn't pay attention to the roots. I'd be more than happy to fill in the blanks, perhaps I should do a video on this subject myself. I also recommend Ronald Hutton on the modern history. I agree that Gygax's idea of Bards was a bit weird, especially as he did Druids well - why multiclass? It's a lifetime's pursuit. Perhaps I should explain that Bards are a subclass of Druids.
humans are really good at pattern recognition, to the point where we have some people with pattern recognition so good it becomes a disability. music, rhythm, prose, rime, ectra are all really strong tools for taking a linear story and creating patterns with in it for us to memorize and build from. hence the use of music as a memorization tool.
Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, for instance, is a powerful tool for creating rhythm in speech. which in turn makes memorizing lines and queues far easier. in the words of Adam Neely, repetition legitimizes. if you can repeat patterns as a tool for story telling you can further that story telling. we see this everywhere in art and music. Leitmotif is an excellent example of this principle. it is probably one of the strongest tools for raw musical storytelling in media simply because the pattern of a motif is memorable and thus the context of that pattern sticks with us, allowing for easy reference to the original context without spelling it out for the audience. Music in games like Undertale are almost entirely built on leitmotif. while games like kingdom hearts utilize it to connect their convoluted character relationships and communicate broader story beats, even using instrumentation to further communicate these beats. in films like Star Wars the motif of the imperial march can set tone and tell vast parts of a story all on it's own.
music acts as a repeatable pattern our minds can latch on to, honestly that is one of the most beautiful parts of the human experience.
Hi Jess,
Firstly, if you're interested in the neurological side of music, Oliver Sacks has written a book called Musicophilia. I don't know if it is any good, but I have read other books of his ("Awakenings", "A Leg To Stand On", "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" and "Anthropologist on Mars") and enjoyed all of them.
A big problem with DnD is that it is essentially a combat system that has been stretched to cover other things. It originated in a tabletop wargame called Chainmail, and you'll see why it is a lot stronger dealing with a certain type of story than more modern systems. I enjoyed playing it for a while when I was younger, but would never play it now. I've realised that a lot of things I despise in games like Oblivion and Skyrim are things that ultimately trace back to DnD - characters having classes and levels, monsters having levels, random encounters linked to levels, hit points... The fist character I tried playing in Oblivion was a bard, but I had to abandon him as I could no longer travel outside of the city - as I had levelled up using his speech skill, and other social traits, the game levelled up the creatures I would fight which didn't account for the fact I had very weak combat skills. If they had wanted to talk I would have been fine. Instead they wanted to kill me and did so repeatedly... I feel like most fantasy/historical role play systems follow this combat heavy streak that DnD pioneered sadly.
They're not easy to get hold of in physical form, but there was a series of Forgotten Realms novels written by Elaine Cunningham (The Songs & Swords series) and the second book 'Elfsong' featured a few different types of bard, though in the books they were closer to singers looking for chances to perform than the idea of them as a news source. I enjoyed the books I read in the series, but I think you may only be able to get them in electronic format these days. They have quite a bit of charm and humour in them, and don't go overboard in trying to present the DnD mechanics as part of the story
Thanks for an interesting video
The monsters matching your level isn’t DnD. That really grew out of open world gaming at the time. Older DnD set the challenges based on the area(lower dungeon levels were harder) or by the treasure they guarded with slight edits for party size if appropriate. Later additions pushed CR and balanced combat encounters but those weren’t really what elder scrolls did because DnD just balanced the combat and Elder scrolls would make combat harder after you leveled alchemy 10 times. This only happened since oblivion. Morrowind had a different system.
Elder scrolls also uses a skill based system instead of a class based system which has been a popular edit that modern DnD has not picked up.
When you look at gaming lots of things were influenced by DnD it’s kinda crazy but the issues you mentioned lay solely with those games. Even if balanced encounters are a design goal of a tabletop game, there’s a person there to smooth out the edges and make combat harder or easier based on the players. A game program can’t do that.
One other thing I’d add is modern DnD starts encounters with an initiative roll which means combat. Older games started with a reaction roll which would often allow for negotiation.
The exp system also greatly rewarded avoiding combat because most exp was gained from treasure and combat was seen as a negative.
Older DnD didn’t have skill systems so it was mostly done with role play. The skill systems were brought in to standardize things but they aren’t the most interesting systems.
@@jeremymullens7167 The monsters matching your level was in ADnD 2nd Edition as the random encounter tables used the party level as a reference value. It wasn't a new innovation it has been around for years in DnD, and was the system that many programmers who went on to make computer RPGs had been exposed to.
Oblivion and Skyrim both used level systems that were driven by skills, they weren't a purely skill system like the Storyteller system or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. In fact Oblivion had a level system where only class skills mattered - you could level non class skills indefinitely if you were patient enough. Skyrim uses levels of any skill but still pegged random encounters to that level which makes it closer to ADnD 2e, even if the level progression appears different.
The point is, although later editions of DnD tried to standardise the checks, the combat system for DnD was by far the most developed ruleset in the game. It is a combat system with somewhat optional roleplay which is partly how it became the default computer RPG system, even in titles like Knights Of The Old Republic.
Ultimately this is why DnD bards are not a very well defined class. It is a system for dungeon crawls, and even in the last iterations of the system I bothered with the social mechanics were really lacklustre. If I ever go back to playing RPGs I'm going to look at systems like Fate, or Genesys (PbtA I'll avoid as it is too simplified), I have no desire to go back to what is a very weak system for me.
I checked the 2e dungeon master guide’s info on random encounters. The level they talk about is the dungeon level. Which also matches the player level but they even gave advice for rolling on a higher level table with a certain chance. I will say the odds of stronger monsters coming was lower but it wasn’t 0.
The big thing is DnD is made for a dungeon crawl and in this case you cater encounters by dungeon level. In an open world west marches type thing you set levels for different areas. The players set the difficulty and things are communicated to avoid unfair surprises (dead bodies littered around the cave).
Oblivion did have classes but not like DnD. Oblivion had major skills and minor skills that you could freely pick and would award exp for level up. There is no DnD system that I know of that uses that type of skill based leveling and DnD has a lot of different leveling systems.
What really makes them different is everyone one can do everything in oblivion where DnD has hard classes that have distinct advantages and disadvantages. The fighter gets better at fighting in DnD by getting exp and raising his class level. In oblivion the fighter gets better at fighting by using the appropriate weapon skill. This may level them up and the level up gives you stats and hp. DnD very rarely gave stat increases and not tied to skill use(usually was player choice and then only 1 point(gygax suggested 1/10 a point lol).
The system in oblivion worked in morrowind. It was the same weird don’t pick the skills you want to use as major skills issue but it didn’t have a global level matching system.
The error with oblivion was that they wanted a more free form do anything game. Lots of things are voluntary and they didn’t want quest lines you picked up later to be too easy.
The solution in morrowind was grinding. In general things and places were difficult and you’d have to level your skills to progress. They wanted to smooth the curve.
None of those problems exist in any edition of DnD even the ones that have balanced encounters. In older DnD they generally just used monster exp as the guideline for appropriate challenges. But in general the challenge was set to location more than the party. The party was expected to bravely run away.
I will say modules started to change in 2e which is where the balanced encounters came from. Which is very much setup in a way you could code a game. In older modules they sold dungeons and locations you could put into your world and in 2e they started a more heavy narrative structure.
Those narrative modules will be balanced to give the appropriate challenge to parties and award them with enough exp to level up. The first module will be for levels 1-4 and module 2 was for 4-8.
That is not the style oblivion went with. DnD will give you progressively harder enemies. Oblivion leaned on their custom character creator to level up every bandit to crazy levels and put them in daedra armor.
Oblivion’s faults are its own. It only shares with DnD that it’s an rpg. There are a lot of innovations in elder scrolls you’re not recognizing and that includes the magic and enchanting system.
I picked up DnD with pathfinder which a homebrewish 3rd edition. I played Neverwinter nights which is 3rd edition and did not have the same issues that were in oblivion and Skyrim.
Game makers were trying to make a sandbox without a DM to manage things. They took out the grinding and set the level to the player level.
Published DnD modules are very linear. They can only have branching paths that you can come back to in one book. Everything was expected to be managed by a DM.
And finally DnD did have challenges set by player level at times but the level said things about the combat capabilities. Oblivion’s biggest problem is you can raise in level without your combat power also increasing. Which would be fine if non combat options were available.
I could go on and talk about spell casting in oblivion but will just say anytime you level after your primary damage skill is maxed out Your damage output is decreased.
The 2nd Ed Bard was able to become more like a traditional bard with the red Handbooks. As such we fouind that certian types of bards were better tanks than most fighter classes. Though I cannoy comment on editions upto 5th in my opinion the simplifacatiom of the skills/NWP's really took something away from the bard.
Ok so you can’t just casually mention how Skater Boi and the Epic of Gilgamesh are related and NOT make a video about it…
Leslie Fish is a great living bard, back in the 8os & 9os she travelled performing songs & stories about practical knowledge from making medicines & treating basic illnesses to making explosives & alcohol to why we shouldn't dig up radioactive waste
In Germany bards were called Minnesänger like Wather von der Vogelweide in the 12th century
And Wheel Of Times Thom Merrelin is a fine example for a bard , but the books really lost me after the fifth, to repetitive
You're essentially a Bard ... you telling the story of bards is like Bard-ception
watching this entire video, I was thinking of how you're something of a bard yourself; and you sure have the charisma and knowledge of one.
I like the video, but i like the way d&d made the bard. It is important to look at the value that music, history, and entertainment brings to people. In d&d, they give inspiration, raise morale, and tell jokes. But they also mock, whisper horrors, and tell bad omens. With a little bit of magic woven in and passed down throughout the magical history of the d&d world, there is endless potential of how they could be portrayed. It was pretty well thought out, but it also left a lot to interpretation. That way, you can really make the character yours.
This is quality content! Btw You would look EPIC with elf ears! :D
Folk Musicians look a lot like bards. You can't listen to David Rovics and not learn or be reminded of some history. They also resemble bards in how the songs get passed around.
To crunch it down in as few words as possible. Patterns. Your brain likes patterns and music makes anything a pattern.
I’m disappointed you didn’t mention Taliesin as a bard who wrote himself into history and legend.
You should totally do Druids next
D&D didn't get it wrong idiots who thought they knew DMV got it wrong the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons had bardes B these massive storytellers of ancient lore they were the most difficult class to get into because the requirements were so high you had to basically be a God to become a bard
The Vadic teachings are one of the oldest verbally transmitted scriptures we have now. It has not changed science it inception due to the specific training of the monks who learned these. These monks learned the hundreds of passages perfectly, even down the the inflection a specific word in a specific passage must have. They must do all this with no mistakes to be able to complete their training.
I would like to comment on the notion of agricultural surpluses allowing for leisure time--this is a pretty widespread idea but modern archeology and sociology calls it into question. It seems that hunter gatherers spent far less time acquiring food than early farmers did so they had plenty of time for storytelling. And Indigenous peoples who were recently nomadic have rich oral traditions of storytelling and lore, and also shamans and elders who are knowledge keepers.
The principal advantage of intensive agriculture over h-g-at least until much later developments-was consistency and reliability, not surplus.
steeleye span is totally a band of bards. they take really old folk poems and songs and modernise them. fotheringay, too!
Consider before electricity, people had to gather around the fire as soon as the sun went down. Listening to stories or songs was the only entertainment at night.
You stiff see bards at some gaming conventions as well as at Renn Faires :)
Besides Tolkien, who are some of your favorite authors?
D&D Bard became a Minstrel class in 2e AD&D, and stayed there.
This! 100% true.
There are only Seven stories...we just tell them in slightly different ways generation after generation. I LOVE the knowledge that Tolkien was in a way aware of this. 'Cauldron of stories'.... what a great way of visualizing that!
This was a refreshing breakdown and introspection of the term bard . As a seasoned D&D player who has played a non-suducing bard I appreciate it and would love to see other classes broken down too. May I suggest Barbarian as the next class. The games tend to lean on Conan as the archetype but as a class it's more, I think, about the "primitive" culture aspect.
I think I would place the Troubadours of medieval Provence (circa1100-1270s) in the Bardic tradition. I've always considered the Bards an English and Viking phenomenon. Yes the horrific Albigensian crusade pretty much destroyed them, but they were spreaders of culture, including Catharism and the new concept of courtly love (what we now call 'romance love' as well as news carriers ) Bernart de Ventadorn is a perfect of example of that art. The Troubadours of northern France were called Troveres.
"Can Vei Lauzeta Mover" Is a favorite of mine.
There were many songs in my youth that could be called stories set to music.
Horse with no name. America
Wildfire - Michael Martin Murphy
Ghost riders in the sky - the Highway men
The Highway man - also by the highway men - my favorite because I believe in reincarnation
Hotel California The Eagles
Oh, as someone else mentions "The Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gorden Lightfoot.
I love that you bring up fan culture as part of the bardic tradition ❤
definitely finish wheel of time you will love Tom's full arc
Lowkey sad you didn't bring up Biwa Houshi when talking about Japanese forms of musical storytelling, as the practice dates back to the late Heian era and is notably how Japan's greatest war epic, the Heike Monogatari, was first told.
It probably doesn't help that virtually all RPG games, that includes a bard, has the weakest character stats. In fact, the Final Fantasy series even mocks the bard by having him carry a useless harp as their only available weapon.
The history in this is really bad.
Bards are not a universal thing. Bard is a specific office particular to the Brythonic diaspora with comparable offices in throughout much of Indo-European cultures, although especially Celtic (bards, filli, etc) and Norse (skalds). Calling them foremost 'storytellers' is anachronistic as well; their primary role was record keeping and secondarily artistic performance or entertainment. Priestly offices were often explicitly separate and often at different levels of class/caste strata. Modern notions of 'bards' owe far more to Middle Ages minstrels and troubadours than to bards which, whike comparable, are not the same.
Hunter-gatherers did support elderly figures whose principal roles were not physically involved. The primary advantage of intensive agriculture is not food surplus but consistency and reliability.
Music, story, and so on were not limped into a single ritual category. While they were often used together for such purposes, they were not exclusive to it. We see them combined together in ritual use because 1) they can all contribute and 2) priestly and bardic roles took an enormous amount of material and temporal investment.
Paper was not present in Europe until the Late Middle Ages and was not particularly expensive once it was (especially combined with woodcuts and the printing press). Vellum is what was expensive.
Bards often were not traveling but served at a specific court. You are mixing up bards, minstrels, and troubadours into a single profession.
I highly recommend watching Tiger and Dragon dorama. It's about a yakuza who wants to learn rakugo, its 12 episodes long and pretty funny overall.
Sort of related story:
There was a battle during the Peninsula war, the British were attempting to relieve a French siege on a Spanish city, but things didn’t quite go to plan so they tried to return to the city.
On the march back they were surprised by the French and the British pulled off one of the luckiest and most impressive victories in military history, which unfortunately was of absolutely zero strategic significance in the end, but that’s another story.
During this battle there was a hill on the right flank of the British position that they needed to hold to prevent the French from being able to get behind their main line and surround them. Losing the hill would have lost the battle. Unfortunately the British only had 500 men to hold the hill with, and the French sent 5,000 men to take it, so naturally they retreated down the hill.
They were met at the bottom by one of the General staff with compliments and we’re ever so sorry but you need to retake the hill. Obviously this was not possible, but there was no other choice.
So the Major in charge formed his men up in skirmish order at the bottom of the hill, began singing “Hearts of Oak”, and led the way back up the hill to certain death.
Those 500 men got nearly to the summit of the hill, and not only held their position, but actually managed to repulse an attack by multiple French companies. By the time British reinforcements arrived they had been reduced to less than half their number, but they still held.
Reportedly the Major continued singing to his troops for the entire duration, having nothing else better to do than angrily shake his sword at the French and call them names between songs.
When a second full regiment of British infantry arrived, by some miracle they succeeded in driving the French back off the hill, securing the flank and ensuring that the main line in the field below could accomplish the task of defeating the French centre unhindered, a task which they performed admirably. Unfortunately the French army, though temporarily defeated, still outnumbered the British forces, and once it reformed was able to reinvest the siege, meaning the entire battle accomplished absolutely nothing.
As usual during the Peninsula war, this was thanks to Spanish ineptitude, who in this instance took the day off and refused to either aid the British during the battle, or pursue the defeated French army, because it was a Sunday, and God wouldn’t like it.
I feel like if you're going to design a bard class for RPG heroes, that major is exactly what you should be aiming for.
first edition bard was a druidic lore master, not an entertainer.
Bards in Merp were way better:) Even though the magic system is totally unfitting, I still like to use Merp for Middle Earth ttrpgs best.
TBF D&D is a high-fantasy superhero game, so pure medieval bard would just ... not work. So when I rolled my new bard for this campaign, the only really bard-y thing was that he had, prior to his adventuring life, worked as a traveling musician. But overall the D&D bard as a fantasy hero is still best understood as deriving its magic from spoken word OR music, art, dance, or just expression, and I lean into the spoken word and gesture/expression.
Think of Gandalf dispelling the magic Grima* wrought against Theoden and Edoras, not by studying from a book like a wizard (although he does love books and tomes of lore), or just innate exposure to some source of magic like a sorcerer, or from a call to the divine or to nature like a druid or cleric, but through sheer persuasion and presence and inspiration to Theoden to succeed on his wisdom save against Grima's spells.
I don't do horny bard.
So most of my magic is enchantment or illusion or divination based (it's a big party so we've got a Cleric, Wizard, and Artificer to do blasty/damagy if necessary), all aimed at getting the info we need or convincing our enemies to do the wrong thing.
Which... the one thing that sucks about Eloquence bard is that you don't have spell attacks because you're mostly making them do saving throws, and it's almost impossible to fail a Persuasion or Deception check (min 21 or 18) so about the only ability checks I make that have much chance of rolling badly on are initiative rolls. So I've had an inspiration point for three sessions now and not been able to use it.
But the RP options are endless, at least as long as you talk to your DM and make sure that you're not going to spend weeks crawling through Tomb of Annihilation or something, because building your bard as a party face becomes really useless if you don't meet any sentient creatures. Learned that the hard way.
*clearly a warlock, with Saruman as his patron, but at this point is Saruman a Celestial, or a Fiend, or a Great Old One who's just super not un-fathomable?
This is my favorite channel
You have greatly underestimated the importance of story in the oldest human societies. Stories are how knowledge was passed down through the generations since time immemorial. People could not have survived without them.
The history is really bad in general.
14:20 In Swedish folk music it's customary when giving a concert to insert tales in-between tunes. Often we tell about the story of the tune we're going to play, or of the person it's known after. Sometimes the tale can be longer than the tune !
A bit bummed you didn't at least mention Celtic bards - where the name comes from. Great video otherwise, sharing it with my fairy tales enthusiasts !
I'm SO glad I found your channel! I am loving your content so far and am devouring it. I'm obsessed with pencil and paper RPGs and it's my main hobby, and I've always felt Bards were misplaced.
"Shanachie" in Gaelic or Irish . . . .
early 1st AD&D bards were too powerful and so became sort of a cul de sac that no one wanted to drive into. it's been trying to recover ever since.
Were they more powerful than a wizard? You couldn’t be one till name level anyway it’s a super late game class by the standards at the time which is what I see as the biggest problem. They basically came out at the end of the game.
If you allow multi classing like that I assume other combinations would be just as strong once they came online.
Love this little detour into RPG. Keep it up the good work, Bards are great!
First of all you are a great communicator and very charismatic! And yes it would be great to see more of these videos!
Current example would be arlo guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant. 20+ minutes of story told with musical harmony.
Thank you for this entertaining and educational presentation. I always knew bards were important; it was nice to hear the whole story tied together
A friend of mine comes form a long line of African "griots". Who basically play the part of "bards" in African societies, to this day.
Pete Seeger was a modern Bard, along with his inspiring figures and contemporaries such as Joe Hill, Woodie Guthrie, his sister Peggy, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and other folk singers.
I find it so interesting that you mentioned fandom, because that is the first thing I thought of.
Also, no one can tell me Hosier is not a bard.
Thank you very much for this inspiring presentation into international history of bards, I enjoyed every minute of it. Today we have so many singers, musicians, writers, actors and other performers... but most of them focused on "entertainment" or entertainment business only and they are missing the point. We need more true bards to make this world a better place for everyone.
if one is looking for Modern "Bards", one should begin by exploring "Modern" folk singer/songwriters. Going from Woody Guthrie, through early Bob Dylan and James Taylor, on comes to artists like early Suzanne Vega and Tracy Chapman. One might also look at the "Parody" artists on RUclips, who use familiar tunes to poke fun at Political and business big-wigs....
Because an oft forgotten function of the Bards was as a safety valve, to funnel public anger into laughter (see Cheech and Chong "Born in East LA" or most of the music of "Weird" Al Yankovic...)
It's pronounced "rhapsodies", not "rhapsodes". Think of the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" :)
I am recruiting for some bards.
Y gwir yn erbyn y byd
Heddwch â bendithion
Tywysog Craig
Bards from DND are sculpted in those stories by players over the years abusing the skillsets of persuasion, charisma, and powers granted by the game to fascinate things in the game world into licentious action, mainly for comedy.
And that, too, is part of the cauldron of stories.
Brilliant! Thank you! I loved this video and please do another on a gaming class. Personally, one class I've come back to on every rpg or mmorpg is Paladin. Obviously the magic side is ahistorical, but the warrior/priest combination has occurred in many cultures. Examples besides the Knights Templar and Warrior Monks of the far east include the Assyrian priestesses of Ishtar, who accompanied the armies on campaign and blessed them before battle. Their ceremonial gear on campaign was full battle gear with a bow, which they could use in battle if needed. Anyway, just a thought.
See, i wanted to play a bard my last campaign since i think i could do it justice, being a slam poet, a history fanatic, and a musician. I have fairy pipes that would have been super cool to use or even my skin drum in true beatnik fashion. but i just went with a ranger because the character i had in mind didn't really fit a bard. But I'm going to try whenever i find a new group of people to play with. Maybe I'll even branch out and create a character that isn't an elf, half elf, or drow lol.
Since u mention JRRT, Jess [& have u read "The Road to Middle earth, a must READ] it strikes me that Bards are Spell casters. Glamour, which, very, very many moons ago, meant, among other things, "magic". So, spell caster ... magician. Though not the type of magician we know today, instead, I suspect, one who worked with past works to enchant (spell cast) her audience. As for "glamour" & a bunch of other word's etymologies, see Shippey' The Road to Middle earth."
5:55 Ahhh yes; Polynesia my people (New Zealand Maori 🇳🇿). We used stories, recitals, dance & carvings; to memorize stars, currents, winds, weather patterns and animals to navigate the Pacific Ocean. The biggest ocean in the world 🌎
And we navigated the Pacific through our myths & legends, with nothing but sticks & stones. No metal tools required. Fact 😊😊
12:28
If you sing something, you get the meter.
For example:
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a… um… um…
You automatically know it is a 2 syllable word. It can’t be “torrential downpour” it can’t be “Big Mac with cheese”. So it narrows the possible answers, thereby reducing brain workload.
As an old DM I give great leeway on 5e bards. I refer to them as a lump of all entertainers from the medieval era which mixes in the 1st edition character class of "Jester" from Dragon magazine #60 as well as the 1st edition Thief-Acrobat from Unearthed Arcana. Thus a "Bard" can be: an acrobat, a juggler, a minstrel/troubador, a thespian, a jester (joke-teller),or a story-teller. Essentially it allows flexibility in the class by offering a subclass specialty. Yes, it waters down the pure idea of a bard, but it gives a wider range of options for the player by thinking of bards more generally.
Re Thom Merrilin - Thom is an interesting example of a Bard, because he not only (as a career) repeats and retells old legends, he also (as a character) creates New Legends, which will (probably) be retold by Bards in "Ages still to come..."
In re: the Cauldron of Storytelling - I assume you're familiar Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"?
Love the video. It digs into what tropes bards draw from, that they historically existed (still do!), and I'll use that to rant for a bit about the class.
My issue with D&D bards is that they're kind of one-note for the fantasy role they open up. I know you can express different things through roleplay, but we're dealing with mechanical expression here, how the rules allow you to *competently* express what you are; and bards are tied to high charisma. I studied musicology and do music and poetry, so when I want to make a bard self-insert of myself, the bard is very much disconnected from what artistry entails.
Remember that charisma as your attribute is part of your "basic" bodily expression, kind of your biology, in D&D. It's what you're good at even if you weren't the class you were playing. This is important. Barbarians smash things, so they benefit from high strength, rogues sneak and steal, so they benefit from high dexterity, druids listen to the world in a subtle way, so they benefit from high wisdom, wizards are self-taught magicians, spending ages pouring over tomes for research, so they benefit from high intelligence. Stuff like that. So why, exactly, does a bard have high charisma? Why are they often mechanically inclined as if they're travelling circus artists? Why does the background in performer give you acrobatics? *Why is the bard so roguish and innately extrovertedly charming?*
Now, music and art is charming and draws you in. A lot of it makes sense being tied to charisma. But like your examples in the start of your video, D&D's portrayal of magical art is kind of schewed. The stereotypical D&D bard is a jovial, extroverted, charming traveler that rides the social environment as if it's just a merry-go-round. It kind of fits with the Greek poets, of course, but not with the village storyteller. The bard's role as a storyteller and history-keeper holds up, because that's truly something they could do and what they do in D&D. But in real life, bards are more stereotypically like sages or hermits. Poets aren't like bang bros, they hang out by their clay, papyrus, paper, typewriter, computer, whatever, and sit there for hours alone doing their craft. I've talked a lot with other artists that play D&D, and musical competence is not as much charisma as other things. Some music is very much charisma-based - like punk - but a lot of classical is highly mathematical, which would be intelligence, being a performer is somewhere between dexterity (demanding performances) and wisdom (kind of "sensing" what "sounds right"). Musicians can be and often are lovely people, of course, but they're most usually quite introverted and brooding about their craft. Even modern art that is often not technically demanding, like stacked bricks in minimalist sculpture, generally work not because they're innately charismatic, but because they make you think about the world; in D&D, rolling to get a hint for a puzzle is not charisma-based, it's intelligence based.
It's just weird that D&D has tied bards to basically be Homeric rock musicians, instead of what most art entails, which is more akin to what the wizard stereotypically does in between adventures; slowly practicing, researching, figuring out what sounds right. I'm aware that D&D wants your character to be actively acting characters that change the world, and that's good, but it's weird that the avenue to magic-through-art is tied to being a social butterfly, not being tied to having a material, hard-to-acquire, hard-to-perfect, technical skill. Like, even being a Homeric storyteller is tied to memory, that would be intelligence, I believe; if not, it'd be wisdom; it would've definitely NOT been charisma. All D&D classes have some problem of linearity in this way (like how fighters are better because they're stronger, not smarter), but at least, like, the wizard is mechanically expressed as skilled because he researches and works a lot. It's the same for artists. Artists are not Han Solos. They're nerds. You bring up Tolkien as an example of a bard, and it's on point.
I'm 100% convinced that Edgin isn't a bard, he's a Rogue. Bards are magic casters the same as Sorcerers and Wizards yet he never does anything magic like even a 1st level Bard could do. (Also, the Druid never does anything but spam wildshape for some reason but at least that's magical and a class feature).
Meanwhile what does Edgin do??
... He uses sneak attack.
Any time he ever does anything, he's essentially using a sneak attack.
So he's just a Rogue with proficiency in using a lute.
I have to agree that D&D 5th Edition disincentivizes players from playing their bards in a particularly bardy way. It has to do with the fact that 5e mostly only cares about combat. I mean, you can DO it, but you're kinda fighting the system. Third edition did bards a lot better. Third edition did a lot of things a lot better, actually.
Lord and Perry's work in Yugoslavia should be mentioned.