afallenwolf:

feebledungeons:

fuckyeahdnd:

feebledungeons:

fuckyeahdnd:

feebledungeons:

What’s with the Bard hate?

Hey GMs/DMs I’ve seen a few posts now from players saying they’ve been banned from playing a certain class (bards). I’m at a loss as to why?

Have any of you banned a class/race/playstyle from your games? Why?

I can totally understand limiting character options to ensure a specific tone is met (I.e. we’re running a hardcore survival horror game with no magic so no spellcasters) for certain games.

But in general, why would you need a blanket ban?

This isn’t a dig, I’m genuinely curious.

I think a part of it has to do with a sort of a mistaken assumption that Bards are always “that player that always tries to have sex with the NPCs” as a class, and while that player type is bad and please okay we’ve all seen the pictures of that Bard who had sex with the monsters and we all laughed but you don’t have to do that all the time ANYWAY we shouldn’t let them tarnish the reputation of Bards

And I love Bards if I’m going to be banned from playing Bards I will face God and walk backwards into Hell

OK sure that makes sense if someone’s acting skeevy at the table and making people uncomfortable. Surely, though that’s just a questions of either:

• Asking the player to tone down the sexual stuff since it’s making people feel bad.
• Implementing a ‘fade to black’ rule. As in, sure you’ve seduced them and we now go to the other players and pick up after a few minutes with the assumption the the biznezz is done.
• Introducing in game consequences such as: you had sex with a ghoul and now your nether regions are rotting away OR you had sex with a dragon, it’s obsessed with you and has kidnapped your character to its love cave OR you seduced the barmaid and now she’s pregnant and her 20 ruffian brothers are after you. Meanwhile the BBEG is running amok in the game world and your PCs are being hassled by increasingly stronger minions.

But the ‘seduce ALL the things’ playstyle could be accomplished with any high CHA character? Why bards specifically?

I blame that one Bard from the pictures

@thedungeonofbaddecisions talked about that player recently in a video of hers which I recommend.

Like I’m not sure if this is the reason for Bard hate, but it brings me back to the early aughts when people were banning Paladins left and right, not because of anything wrong with the class, but because they had bad experiences with Paladin players. I think high Cha classes for some reason tend to attract a certain type of player who take a high Cha as an excuse to play an annoying and overbearing personality

Yeah could be. I still think it’s a problem of player behaviour, rather than game mechanics though so would be better off addressing player behaviour through house rules and discussion of comfort levels.

If a DM was dead set on addressing it in game, though, I feel that the best route is in game consequences. A high CHA roll doesn’t mean you can automatically seduce a princess by sending her the fantasy equivalent of a dick pic. It just means she won’t have you immediately executed on the spot.

Maybe.

Depends on the DC and the DM has controls of those.

Also to these:

Yeah. There’s loads of ways to go with bards that are rad and don’t rely on seduction. Off the top of my head:

• Con artist who uses deception to swindle tyrants out of their ill gotten gains for a song
• A mute musician who is completely socially inept but whose music can touch even the hardest of hearts
• Wizened hag whose ghost tales terrify all who hear her
• Viking warrior whose tales of old stir their companions to feats of bravery they didn’t know were possible
• Tortured kenku survivor who sings in the voices of his lost loved ones to drive his enemies mad

There’s one example for how incredibly amazing a bard can be…

Also, the dm can make characters unseducible. The bard in my campaign has never successfully seduced someone because he keeps trying to seduce goddesses and dragons and lesbians.