It is a very scary world when me and Verithrax agree... I am compelled to disagree with myself just to return to a state of normalcy....

The fact that I am always right would cause everybody to agree with me at least occasionally. This is perfectly normal.

You are assuming too much. Not everyone has the time or ability to create culture. I also wonder why you think you can speak for four champions.

Frankly, I'm insulted you think I'm not dedicated to the success of my guild. Lack of players is what is hurting us most right now, but those of us who are around do what we can. I'm not going to stick with a class when there are fundamental problems and the only method to fix those is the envoy system, which, at the moment, is being used for bug fixes (at least for Cacophony).

Estarra, or whichever godh appens to read it - I'm curious what you think bards were supposed to do for offence. I'm not actually picking a fight with you (for a change) but I'd like to take your basic theory and try to apply it.

..and, if it fails miserably, claim it's your fault and not my own lack of skill and crow about it to anyone who will listen.

Forgive me saying every champion, I misread the original posters comment about fighter, thought he meant champions. However, I just talked with another Bard jumping ship.

It takes more the one person to build culture. If two people are having a good time, a third will join, then a fourth, so and so forth. You don't need to have fifty people to have fun. If all you can get are two, then have fun. Invite others to watch a little skit. If no one shows up, do it anyways. If only one person shows up, do it anyways. You have to OFFER something in order for others to take it, and as is true with all new things, no one knows what to do with new things. You can go the way of Beta, or you can go the way of the DVD. You have to try and merge yourself in the established market and thrive in it. If you can't, then you will obviously fail.

To quote Yoda, "Do or do not." As long as you try, you will succeed. If you don't bother, or give up when it is tough... then it is your fault. Not the admins, not the players. Yours. This goes to all current Bards.

You won't get much out of Bards, though, because firstly and most importantly, they are not a viable class.

A Bard can bash somewhat okay, since Minorsecond does decent damage and has decent speed at Maestro. That's...really about it.

Like Visaeris said, if they want to go anywhere, they have to have a damned good tertiary skill. If a Bard picks Illusions, they are up a particular creek sans paddle. Illusions is fun and nifty for roleplay, but worthless for a Bard in combat. They can at least back up a mage's demesne, but without the demesne, you might as well do nothing but throw sparkles in someone's eye.

Nobody wants to play the non-viable class unless they're trying to prove that A: the class truly isn't viable, or B: the class can be viable, or C: they see some sort of roleplay potential in it. This generally rules out the casual player, and without the casual player, the guild can't survive. We sort of had this problem before with Axelords until they were changed, but they could still stand somewhat of a chance in combat and there was no guild completely made up of Axelords, let alone four of them.

So, now that we have very few casual players, a handful of combatants trying to prove that either the class can be useful or that the class is completely foobared, and one or two roleplayers, what do we have? We have a guild with six members. Or fewer. And any time something shiny pops up, away the members go, because there's something better than the sinking ship of the Bard guild.

Sure, offer performances, sermons, songs, what have you. They'll entertain the people not off raiding or killing things in the shiny new Undervault. But it won't save the guild from being doomed by a lackluster class.

Make the class worth playing, and people will play it. Leave it unfinished, and the theatres of the Basin will remain empty.

Re-read my post. Not everyone wants to fight. Everyone was always whining wanting a pacifism class, and then they are given one. This class has SOOO much RP value.

However, I do believe they need work. But for every amount of work the admins need to do on it, the players need to do equal amount of work of making being a bard fun. Don't be a bard for the skills, be a bard for the fun of it. I made the mistake of becoming a Wiccan for the skills, and I quickly found myself in series straights with the whole Wilde. So I left, and I joined the Paladins, liking the idea of becoming a Knight and fighting for a cause bigger then me, and I am REALLY loving Callia now.

I can't fight worth a damn... I can stay alive, but every practice spar has resulted in a time out because I just can't stack wounds, but I don't care. Iti s a fun class, and a fun race. I am loving it.

That is what the bards need to do, they need to love being a bard, and work on finding ways to improve themselves, in more then just mechanics.

Again, you'll get the one or two people who love being a bard.

But you won't keep anyone else. Let's say I really enjoy writing. Essays, poetry, songs, plays, sermons, you name it, I'll write it and get it published. Should I be a bard and commit myself to a class I abhor, or should I go join the guardians/wiccans or druids/mages, where I can have a class I will enjoy and still be able to write in the manner of my choosing?

Currently, the bards offer nothing in terms of roleplay that cannot be provided in spades by another archetype. Songs? Hymns of praise to Celestia/Nil/Mother Moon/Night. Rituals? Druids/Mages. Sermons? Celestians/Nihilists. Warchants? Warriors, obviously. Must I go on?

With the easily obtained substitute for bardic roleplay available in every archetype in the game, regardless of city/commune, the only thing to lure a bard into the profession is the class, and we know how much that works.

Ok Roleplay, Magnagora, they're the big angry city near the bottom of the Basin, they are big, angry, and usually very mean. Bards do not in any way fit in there and never will. The rest of the places yes, fine, that's ok. What fun is there to being a bard, to have your songs, you need to actually work on the lyrics, that's already more creativity then most of the other guilds have. Then you actually get to performances, woo, emotes, illusions, a lot more trouble than it is worth.

Second, what can they do, we can go around and yell a bit, then have a big emote fest, of which is hard to organize and plan, if you don't have the players, how can you attract new ones? If you don't have enough people, how can do performances? I have tried doing this kind of thing, but do you know what happens, you get some people wanting to help, and then they disappear, you don't know what happens, and then you have to start over, or you don't have enough people to actually make it work, the only thing that could actually make bards better roleplay wise is a proper theater like the one they had in Achaea, give bards something like that which actually is good to play with and create things, and you have yourself fun.

Sure you can say, people want a pacifism class, that is the minority, the very small minority, and even if there are a lot of them, even for a pacifism class, bards are really not that great. Bashing is pretty sub-par, the only thing we get for influencing is BardicPresence which is +2 cha, which doesn't really matter that much, all it does is give a bit more ego, great fantastic, one more attack before you sip.

Agreed. Additionally, there isn't much you can do to be artsy in Magnagora; it has to connect back to the Taint or Nil in some form or fashion, in which case, a Geomancer or Nihilist (who actually has access to those things and can learn so much more about them) is more suited for the role.



Bard bashing wasn't too bad. MinorSecond has some power behind it, and the balance is quite good. You're not tanky like a mage nor do you critical as fast as a warrior, but if you go Illusions and whore Reflections, you can most likely handle most things this side of a gorgog.

Agreed. The path requirements, while our fault, are also bloody stupid. Point me to a Magnagoran who wants to see a performance (I mean wants, not wants to just go "meh, might as well, nothing else to do)") and I'll show you a pacifist roleplayer who's probably fairly disliked in the city.

All I am hearing is a lack of creativity... not a problem that the admins can fix. YOU need to find a way of bringing your guild into line with the city. That is YOUR choice.

So just to clarify, not only the guild problems itself (which aren't relevant to the skills) but the skills as well are also all our fault?
Work time, so no more posting for me for a bit.

No, but that is how you chose to read it, and quite frankly I am beginning to think out of the three bards guilds, Magnagora is the one causing the most problems for the other three...

I doubt that, from my time was the Cacophony GM, and from my time as a Spiritsinger, honestly, I saw a lot more effort put into doing performances and such from the Cacophony, the only problem is why should they do it? There is no need to do it, there is no want, so there is no point to doing it. No one would actually want to go to one of these events, because most likely they would suck, you have to rely on everyone being there at the same time, everyone remembering what they have to do, and a very poor way to do characters. Again I point you to the Achaea theater on the Isle of Delos, good creation, you could make proper characters, proper scripts, proper effects, and it actually made a difference, people went, yes lets write plays, and they have. Give us something like that to work with and sure, it will be a lot better.

It's its own reward. It's done for the fun and enjoyment of it. To make people laugh or simply to do something interesting. If you think the only motivations that exist in Lusternia are gold and experience, then why were you bard GM at all? Then again I'm not surprised when the Cacophony sucks.

Real, working stages would be nice though.

True, but when no one actually goes to see something you put effort into, why would you bother doing it again and again?

If there is no want or need for performances, no one bothers to do them, and even if someone does take the initiative, no one will actually turn out to them.

keep doing them. The Admins wont code a theater if thee is no evidence it will be used.

I do apologise for that, but frankly, rhetoric is one of my specialties! (I'm actually going to get into politics. I want to write speeches).

on topic, however, I do recall the bard report, and we put together something that, personally, I felt was very strong. Unfortunately it didn't mesh with a lot of your visions on the topic: that's fine, it's certainly your prerogative.

However, I'm not sure what I was really trying to achieve with this post. I wanted to let off some steam, write something grandiose, and try and call attention to the problem.

The truth is that there's a couple of options that are available that I think could be implemented. It would take a good bit of work, but I think that it's necessary. I'll put something less rhetoric-y and more concrete for the envoys board, but a lot of what I said stems from frustration. As much as I appreciate being an Envoy, on a couple of levels it feels very constraining as to how far we can go to correct some serious problems that bards face.

I think a big thing is that bards are easily the most passive guild in any IRE. That's not a dig at you or anyone else, Estarra, just a fact. Our primary skillset really lacks anything to.. you know.. do. I donno, there's a few channels that could be viable, but honestly it would take a lot of work and I've never wanted to suggest it because it seems like sometimes it's hard enough to get coding focus on fixing simple stuff, much less doing some major surgery on the bard archetype.

Edit: I also just want to say that I think that bards would be relatively easy to fix. There's two fundamental directions to take the archetype that would, conceivably, not take that long to do. As I said, I'll put together a proposal and see what we can do.

People won't do performances without a theatre.

Theatres won't be built without performances.

I feel like I'm a Joseph Heller novel.