With apologies for the essay:


1. The bard guilds don't have a lot of inherent RP value, and that's probably a fair bit of the problem. Every other guild started off with an admin-granted well-defined RP niche in its nation. Geomancers aren't just evil mages: they're insane mages corrupted by the taint and their association with Gorgulu. Hartstone aren't just druids: they're the close followers of White Hart, dedicated to protecting the "pure" forest. Even when the Glom guilds were released, they were given a lot of admin direction as to their RP - the teachings of Night and Crow are wonderful starting points.

The bard guilds were given no mandate or niche by the admin, weren't integrated in any way into Lusternian national RP. The only specific flavour came from the skills, which play on RP concepts already present, or from the Dead Voices, which never say anything. When Nirrti asked Lyreth what Mahalla (former buddy of His!) had been like, the only answer she got was "Morose." RP was left wholly up to the players, who were handed a blank slate and needed to come up with new material, new content. The burden may have been too high, since it takes a lot of thought and effort to do that. (I'm still impressed by the amount of player-led RP development after the release of the BT. The Docet, Crow Tongue, the Seven Wraiths and Black Flame, a whole ritual system, all player-designed, were a pretty nifty bit of work.)

This was the task we faced early on in the development of the Harbingers, and we realised quickly that retreading ground by focusing on Night and Crow was redundant. If a player wanted to be a follower of Night... they'd be better off joining the Shadowdancers. The guild needed its own specific culture and raison d'etre. We created advancement paths entirely unrelated to Night and Crow and focused on aspects of music and Glomdoring's atmosphere. (The fact that none of us had any musical knowledge didn't help.) We never did get to a specific culture, though, and it seems like none of the bard guilds have yet. I think specific concepts and cultures for each guild are probably very important in terms of attracting players.

2. The class requires a lot from players, RP-wise. No other class requires you to do creative writing in order to enter combat at all. Bards' main job, RP-wise, is to be performers. Performance requires thought, creative writing, time put into developing your performances OOC, and oftentimes incurs scheduling difficulties. That may be attractive to those players who are both A.) dedicated RPers and B.) interested in playing bards, but that's a small subset of a subset. (Frankly, I'm not one of those people. I enjoy putting on performances, rituals, etc... but I don't enjoy doing that as a full-time role, nor playing a character whose primary interest is that.) For the casual player, and for the combat- or bashing-focused player, it's too much bother. I don't believe bard guilds will ever have as high a population as other guilds in their nations, and that would be fine if their base population was just enough to be viable.

3. Bards don't even have more RP tools than Mages, and in fact have to sacrifice their chief RP tool (Illusions) if they want to be viable in combat at all.

Re: "bards don't fit into Magnagora" - Artsy, poncy bards sure don't. Maybe instead of focusing on public performance, you could focus more on the dirgesinger aspect - the dark, dramatic figure rallying the troops and spurring them on in combat? Great empires also used to patron the arts in a somewhat condescending fashion, that could be the take on public performance. Lord So-and-So of House Such-and-Such comissions a bard to pen an ode to his achievements or hold a concert to celebrate his noble ancestry.

I have mostly only skimmed through this topic, but I'd like to throw my own 2 cents in.

1. The argument that the introduction of monks implies the abandonment of bards is simply foolishness. Anyone who has ever worked on a development team knows that a specific set of people are assigned to a given project. Most likely, there are specific admin who work on bards and who will continue to work on bards regardless what else is going on around the game. In addition, it is the envoy's job to suggest those changes via envoy reports, which are and will still be worked on. Roark seems to be taking the lead with the monks, and so far as I know he was not deeply involved with bards to begin with, so most likely he is not taking anything away from the changes you expect.

2. Bards suck one-on-one, and they need some work. They do not need (nor will they get) a complete redesign. If you're holding out for that, and getting upset because the introduction of monks will take away from the bard redesign, let me assuage your fears: the redesign was not coming anyway.

3. You can both RP and be a fighter, but there are very few people who do both effectively. In order to be one of the Basin's best fighters, most people get caught up in metagaming and lose the RP aspect (Geb and Daevos seem to be exceptions, and there may be others, but not many). The problem is that people tend to categorize RP: "If you don't host rituals, you're not really RPing," "If you don't sing and do performances, you're not RPing," etc.. It is entirely possible to RP a bloodthirsty brigand who doesn't care about performances or rituals. On the other hand, if you are a bard that doesn't care at all about performances, then you have a LOT of work to do to explain how or why your character ever became a bard in the first place.

4. The bards who decide to leave the bards to go join the monks have very little right to complain about the condition of bards. The archetype will never improve unless people like visaeris stay around to work out the kinks and make it better. Jumping ship contributes to the problem, and robs you of your complaining rights.

Umm... the Ebonguard were not given ANY direction at all.

I asked if I could create some "warrior past" with the admin, and they told me no, because warrior guilds never existed in Glomdoring before.

True, but Ebonguard did get Night and Crow specs, and therefore could draw on some of that material too. Yes, the Ebonguard also did a great job of developing new material early on - the mystical tribal warrior concept, the incredible guildhall, etc. That's what the bard guilds need and I don't think any of them have done it yet and I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to do that for the Harbingers.

When I say "admin direction", I don't mean that they told you how to RP and set up your guild. I mean that they gave you fresh new material as a starting point on which to base a culture - like the teachings of Night and Crow, a creed. Bards got nothing new to work with that other guilds didn't get first and in a more privileged fashion.

Perhaps you could divulge some of your secret documents to us poor folks? =D I'm like seriously out of ideas O_o

edit : And judging from the amount of people who say they actually don't perform in public, I guess that shouldn't be made into any required tasks then *chin*

Whine, bitch, whine, bitch, whine, bitch moan whine bitch whine bitch moan. I'm sorry, but being able to start a guild without the admin spoon-feeding you your culture and place in Lusternia is a wonderful opportunity, and it's not their fault the bard guilds squandered it.

Really? I'm curious how we're managing that, considering I can count on one hand the amount of members I've seen, including the other novice. Estwald, Linaeve, Ibycus, Myself, and Ensua. Let me guess, it's mostly because they're the ones disagreeing with you?
And a Theatre, unless peaced, would turn into a killing field.



battle of the bands?

I wish commune Bards had Tarot. I wish we didn't have to give up our RP skill to actually kill someone.

RP skill being? Illusions?

Well, if you ask me, illusioning things can be replaced in most cases by creative emoting. There will still be exceptions, unfortunately...

Illusions can be used in combat though - but they don't mix well with Music, true.

Well, a Bard's choice for PvP is like that of a Wiccan - you have the options between choosing Hexes (Ecology/Tarot for bards), and having no offense.

Whooooa, who's bitching? I certainly wasn't. I enjoyed that opportunity a lot, and I think the Harbingers were well on their way to developing that culture before all three guild leaders were pretty suddenly yanked away by OOC business. That killed their momentum and a lot of direction got lost in the process, and I'm sorry. I know Ialie also tried to come up with an original and detailed culture for the Spiritsingers. (Incidentally, I've heard less of that regarding the Cacophony.) Placing the onus on players to design the cultural role of the guilds was a bit of a risk, though, and unfortunately I don't think it's paid off so far. It's a risk partly because players might not have a clear idea of what needs done, and partly because they might not have time to do it. It's incorrect to say that there's a lot of RP value in the guilds; there's a blank-slate potential, and it hasn't been realised to the best of my knowledge.

Players also have the disadvantage that they can't come up with anything terribly big or presumptuous, or they'll likely get overruled by the Divine later. For instance, it would've been very useful to draw on Mahalla as a source of RP culture, but making stuff up about her was risky in case she featured in a Book of an Elder God. The admin definitely have more *range* in creating RP.

I illusion all of my songs, because the composition mechanic is dreadfully constricting. Inside combat, wtf cares, but I couldn't sit around and sing without Illusions.

Arn't illusions supposed to be split so its viable soon?

It would have to be VERY creative emoting, if it was to circumvent the fact that, well, your character can't use illusions.

I generally prefer creative emoting. Having people spot your illusions when you're using them as RP tools is very unimmersive.

I know, but using creative emoting as an illusions only makes any RP sense whatsoever if your character can actually use illusions.

Guy 1: *emotes raising his arm and having a massive black pegasus leap out of it and breathe fire to the skies"
Guy 2: Wow, but you're a tarotist! How did you do that?
Guy 1: Um... I can use both, yeah...let's go with that...

Someone who can't use illusions using illusions can also be unimmersive and shoddy. I admit the above scenario is unlikely, but it's still a break in RP and can jar those who know that the person actually uses tarot. *speaks from personal experience*

Nothing wrong with that. As a Celestine I'm pretty sure I've emoted something minor (and useless) that I've retained from my decades as an Aquamancer.

Well, I guess it depends on the person spotting the illusion, wouldn't it? I mean, when you watch tv you know you're just watching a bunch of artificially generated lights and sounds, those aren't real people moving around in that little box! But you focus on the story the lights and sounds are creating and you enjoy the show. Surely anyone spotting the Illusion can do the same... and if they don't, then they're just like the annoying family member who talks while you're trying to watch tv and points out every flaw and ruins the fun for everyone.

Or maybe the person who knows the street magician's secret and instead of letting the crowd enjoy the show, the run up and point out how it was done.

Or something really uncool like that!

It appears (to me) that with monks coming out, this has been placed on the back burner. I think that may be the source of the "bards being ignored for the sake of monks" arguments, or at least a heavy contributor. However, if as others have indicated, different people are working on the two, then perhaps the monk situation isn't effecting the bard situation at all. In either case, there isn't much the players can do about it, nor are the admins obliged to explain every little thing they do to the players, so I do not understand why people are fruitlessly complaining at all.

I, personally, adore being a bard. I'm one of the largely passive, RP-loving people Daedalion hates. I think, however, that the arguments made by several people regarding the potential for nearly any class to fill the same "niche" that bards do (particularly when crafting and artistry skills are taken into account), have some truth in them. I also agree that, currently, Lusternia's population doesn't really support four individual bard guilds, and it would almost be worthwhile to combine those into one or two. Lendren, for example, has worked tirelessly to promote strong RP within the Spiritsingers (I can't speak for the other guilds, unfortunately, though I'm sure their leaders have done no less), to help foster a sense of identity within the Serenwilde, but the general attitude in Lusternia seems to be, "Oh, great. Y'know, everything you bards can do, we can do, too, and probably more efficiently." It's difficult for me to understand why, beyond a desire not to leave anyone out, we have four tiny guilds instead of one or two larger ones that could branch out as the populace grows and/or their role and presence become more cemented in game.

If this has been detailed previously, I apologize- just point me in the direction of the pertinent post.

I can disagree... I mean, if I were to create a bard right now in mag, or even just pay my fines and change guilds/cities/ rp, then I will show you how bards fit...

Novice A tells you, "Sir, what do I need to do?"
you tell Novice A, "There is no need. You will do this. Then you will do that... If you do none of that, I will personally see you flayed alive."

or...

Introduce death metal lyrics into the songs.

...


But then going back to the topic, you start a project called bards. You don't finish that project, it's "half-done" to be generous. Then you start another one called Monks. Now saying you are going to put the same amount of effort in one as the other, both will be half-done. But then you could focus all your energy in one thing, and screw over the other...

Finish what you have now. THEN move on. You don't start a new project every time you can, and leave everything behind for who? to finish up?