This subclass in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft feels...misplaced. It's presented to us in a sourcebook focused on the Horror subset of fantasy adventuring, but its signature ability, Tales from Beyond, is way too chaotic to be reliable in a campaign where death is supposed to be just around the corner. The high dependence on RNG harkens back to the Wild Magic Sorcerer, which has often been regarded as the Liability subclass for Sorcerers. And while there is nothing on the Tales from Beyond list that is as destructive as dropping a random Fireball at the caster's own feet, the theme and lore definitely feel off to me. Wouldn't a Randomness Bard be better in a book about the Feywild?
Speaking of theme, I don't understand how "tales" are supposed to be spoken as a bonus action. If a round is 6 seconds, then each Tale from Beyond can't be longer than 6 seconds, right? While I like the idea of a Bard whose stories have magical effects - since it reflects the role of Bards in general fantasy fiction more than the full spellcaster we have adapted to in 5th edition - I am confused to as why they would name the feature "Tales" when 6 seconds is hardly enough time to say one or two sentences, let alone tell an entire story.
All of this is even before we start talking about the mechanical strangeness of the Spiritual Focus, which RAW, does not apply to many Bard spells since their spell-kit is mostly centered on control, social encounters, and buffing/debuffing. Yet, College of Spirits get no more Magical Secrets with which to procure spells from other classes than most other Bards.
How would you improve the College of Spirits? Would granting more Magical Secrets save this subclass? How about Mystical Connection as an earlier feature?
It's not as much about randomness as the Wild Magic Sorcerer, rather it's about the will of the spirits. You realize that the effect doesn't just go off, you get to pick the most advantageous recipient of the tale. I don't think the Spirits Bard needs fixing, though I do think the Spiritual Focus needs clarification.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You don't tell a tale to get the effect, necessarily. I see the bonus action as pulling a card or peering into a crystal ball to mentally call up a spirit.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
All of this is even before we start talking about the mechanical strangeness of the Spiritual Focus, which RAW, does not apply to many Bard spells since their spell-kit is mostly centered on control, social encounters, and buffing/debuffing. Yet, College of Spirits get no more Magical Secrets with which to procure spells from other classes than most other Bards.
How would you improve the College of Spirits? Would granting more Magical Secrets save this subclass? How about Mystical Connection as an earlier feature?
Thoughts?
The first thing I would do is define "casting through a focus", ideally in a way that would let Spirits Bards use their Spiritual Focus on the 4 Bard spells that heal, instead of the 0 some DMs interpret it to be due to the rule's word salad.
The second thing I would do is give Spirits Bards a way to sling more spells that damage or heal. The low-hanging fruit here is inspiration dice, and since the Tales table is so incredibly bad, I don't need to feel guilty about giving Spirits Bards a new way to spend inspo dice - all I'm doing is helping them avoid their godawful RNG table. Observe:
"When you cast a spell, you can choose one target of the spell and roll a Bardic Inspiration die; the spell's target heals that amount. When you cast a spell, you can instead choose one target of the spell that the spell hit and roll a Bardic Inspiration die; the target suffers psychic damage equal to the amount rolled. When you cast a spell, you can instead choose one target of the spell and roll a Bardic Inspiration die; if the target failed their save against the spell, they suffer psychic damage equal to the amount rolled." Wham, now you can pay inspo dice to force almost any spell to heal or do damage.
If I may, what's so bad about the tales table, in your opinion?
Yeah, I dont get it either. People dislike the Wild Magic Sorcerer and Barbarian for the same reason. The Sorcerer I get because at least there there are detrimental effects (although those are not nearly as common as the beneficial/neutral ones), but for these other two there isnt anything bad that is going to happen.
The only downside is that you can't "build" around any particular effect because you cannot predict when you will get it. Otherwise though its flavorful and a unique mechanic in how it is used, especially for bards (since unlike the Wild magic subclasses the ability doesnt activate immediately).
Its hard to plan and strategize around, but not "godawful" by any means. Its just one more random thing in a game dictated by rolling dice. How well it works for you depends on how well you can apply what the spirits gave you to the issue at hand.
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It doesn't say the time it takes to tell the tale is the length of a bonus action. It doesn't specify how long it takes to tell the tale at all. In the span of a bonus action you use up a bardic inspiration to contact a spirit though your Spirit Focus and learn its tale. In the span of an action, you can bestow the effect of that spell on a target. It's possible that actually completing the telling of the tale is unnecessary for the effect to take root in a target—telling the tale is just what the spirit gets out of the deal.
If the length of time to tell the tale is Not a bonus action, or an action, or a bonus action + an action, what is it? And even if it was a bonus action + an action, that is still just 6 seconds. I get that the devs were trying to prod some new life into the concept of Bardic Inspiration, but calling mechanics don't match the theme. Does a seance or other communion with ghosts usually take just 6 seconds? There is no implication that the Bard using this ability time travels while communing with whatever random spirit is being rolled up. If telling the tale doesn't happen during the bonus action tied to the die roll or the action to bestow the effect, when does it occur?
You don't tell a tale to get the effect, necessarily. I see the bonus action as pulling a card or peering into a crystal ball to mentally call up a spirit.
Then why call it a Tale?
IF they had said that you can use your Bardic Inspiration during a short rest to tell the tale and THEN store the value of the tale for use later, that would make a lot more sense.
Also, nobody who has ever used Tarot cards or any other divination method - throwing dice, reading tea leaves, palmistry - would try it in the middle of combat. That's tantamount to suicidal behavior.
If I may, what's so bad about the tales table, in your opinion?
I don't think the Tales table is inherently bad. I just don't think the mechanics mesh well with the theme and I don't like that you are still expected to rely on it at Level 14 - at which point most adventurers are strong enough to slay a pair of Ancient Dragons or a team of Cloud Giants. It feels like bad design. I would much rather have College of Valor's Battle Magic (because it can synergize with spells if you choose the right Magical Secrets) or College of Swords unlimited Flourishes. Look at it this way: how useful is a Cadillac convertible if the engine isn't reliable?
Someone in a group I'm friends with plays a Spirit Bard and gets possessed by whatever spirit she rolls for so they can use the ability, then back to normal.
My own Spirits bard randomly pulls a card from her Tarokka deck for the feature, then holds onto it until she needs to use it.
You don't tell a tale to get the effect, necessarily. I see the bonus action as pulling a card or peering into a crystal ball to mentally call up a spirit.
Then why call it a Tale?
No, you're focusing on the wrong part. It's not that it's not a tale, it's that *you* don't tell the tale. You are just a medium for the *spirits* to tell a tale in whatever ways spirits tell tales.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You don't tell a tale to get the effect, necessarily. I see the bonus action as pulling a card or peering into a crystal ball to mentally call up a spirit.
Then why call it a Tale?
No, you're focusing on the wrong part. It's not that it's not a tale, it's that *you* don't tell the tale. You are just a medium for the *spirits* to tell a tale in whatever ways spirits tell tales.
Okay, but that still doesn't answer the question: how is the tale told in 6 seconds or less? Aren't you at this point, just trying to create a justification for something that makes no sense? Tell me, when was the last time you heard anybody tell a story in 6 seconds? Even assuming that there a few human beings or ghosts able to talk that fast, why would ALL the ghosts that happen to talk to the CoS Bard in a way that grants the powers mentioned talk that quickly?
And nobody has addressed how a Bard dependent on Random effects for a large part of their powers is somehow fitting a role in Ravenloft lore. So ghosts randomly tell you their stories...but you won't actually understand those stories because they are told to you in 6 seconds...while the other party members likely won't care what the tale IS anyway because to them it's just an interchangeable magic effect, like any other spell that takes an action to cast. How very anti-thematic. At least the Spirit Session ability is attached to Divination or Necromancy spells and has a realistic casting time of 1 hour. Why the game devs couldn't have created a better justification for Tales from Beyond when they managed to write something that gelled thematically in the case of Spirit Sessions is beyond me.
And nobody has addressed how a Bard dependent on Random effects for a large part of their powers is somehow fitting a role in Ravenloft lore. So ghosts randomly tell you their stories...but you won't actually understand those stories because they are told to you in 6 seconds...while the other party members likely won't care what the tale IS anyway because to them it's just an interchangeable magic effect, like any other spell that takes an action to cast. How very anti-thematic. At least the Spirit Session ability is attached to Divination or Necromancy spells and has a realistic casting time of 1 hour. Why the game devs couldn't have created a better justification for Tales from Beyond when they managed to write something that gelled thematically in the case of Spirit Sessions is beyond me.
Is there something about Ravenloft lore that makes a random effect unfitting? I have run Curse of Strahd and read a few of the old Ravenloft novels and nothing about them seemed to suggest to me that an "unpredictable" ability would at all clash with the lore. If anything, the art of storytelling and the magic it carries with it is something that ties pretty well with the Vistani lore.
As for the issue of "how do you tell a tale in 6 seconds," it is definitely a bit wonky to think about, but I dont think it is worth making a big deal out of. Other people in the thread have already suggested alternate ways to think about it to try and make it fit, but ultimately it is just a disconnect between game flavor and game mechanics, which I understand can be frustrating.
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Okay, but that still doesn't answer the question: how is the tale told in 6 seconds or less? Aren't you at this point, just trying to create a justification for something that makes no sense? Tell me, when was the last time you heard anybody tell a story in 6 seconds? Even assuming that there a few human beings or ghosts able to talk that fast, why would ALL the ghosts that happen to talk to the CoS Bard in a way that grants the powers mentioned talk that quickly?
You are thinking much too logically and very un-spiritlike. It could be as simple as the spirits imparting the tale telepathically into the bard's mind and then manifesting momentarily to act out the climax of the tale, phantasmally superimposed over the target. Alternately it could be as weird as reality suddenly warping, dreamlike, into an epic mystery play that compresses an entire saga into mere moments. Time often doesn't mean very much to beings who exist somewhat outside of it.
And nobody has addressed how a Bard dependent on Random effects for a large part of their powers is somehow fitting a role in Ravenloft lore.
I don't know, a witchy Spirits Bard consulting the spirits and then later on having their readings come into effect in the world seems very appropriately spooky. It's like a Divination Wizard, but eerier. The Bard can start the day by doing a reading of the cards and later on their reading just happens to come true, much like how the Divination Wizard's Portent is a vision of the future, but mechanically is just a die result held in suspension.
but you won't actually understand those stories because they are told to you in 6 seconds...while the other party members likely won't care what the tale IS anyway because to them it's just an interchangeable magic effect, like any other spell that takes an action to cast. How very anti-thematic.
Come on! You have to use your imagination just a little bit here. When I play a Spirits Bard I'm totally going to tell a short little tale, probably in rhyme, in a monologue that breaks how much I will be able to say in 6 seconds, like Storm monologuing for a whole paragraph in the time it takes to summon one thunderbolt. Or at the very least I'm going to describe a vision of the moral of some fairytale and tell everyone, "You recognize the protagonists of popular folktale [X] reenacting their famous sword fight scene" or some such.
Why the game devs couldn't have created a better justification for Tales from Beyond when they managed to write something that gelled thematically in the case of Spirit Sessions is beyond me.
I dunno, it gelled perfectly thematically for me.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm playing one right now. (Started level 1, now I'm 4.) The Tales From Beyond feature is definitely weird but I think of it being loosely defined on purpose, to guide you into filling out the theme of your Bard. For me, it immediately screamed "you should tell these stories during rests and/or downtime, and think of the actual feature like a reminder or refrain, a callback to or teaser for the story rather than the story itself." Because ultimately the College of Spirits Bard is still a Bard, and should probably be putting on shows in towns using these tales. That's what the spirits want, that's why they're hanging around and helping you.
I went the extra mile and wrote the stories from my character's backstory. Classic tragic hero stuff, all my friends are dead, but rather than just letting it rot in my mysterious past that no one asks about, I'm bringing those stories into the spotlight. In order to keep it from overwhelming everyone, they only get a little bit of it at a time, whenever I roll on the table. Yes?
I know this is an old discussion. But I wanted to add my 2 cents. I am planning to play one now. The way I plan to do it is I roll on the table as early as possible and react to what I get. For me its a memory of an old story. Then throughout the day I "remanence" to my party members about the tale. Or, afterwards I tell them where the power came from. It doesn't have to be in the moment. Its just all about the story. And Bards "typically" love to entertain through song or story. So having a story for each tale is what makes is special and fun!
I will say the wording is different in a few sources though. I still don't really know if I can hold it, use an action to give it to the "Target" and they use it immediately OR they can hold it as well and use it as they please. Some of the Tales say they "can" use it. So I don't take that as a mandatory useage when the bard gives it to them.
The effect happens when you use an action to make it happen. Some of them happen to you, or from you, and others happen to someone else, but it's still the same timing.
Edit: I think your idea of how to play it is good. Though, since you have a lot of Bardic Inspiration, it will feel strange and unnecessarily limiting to only use the feature once a day.
This subclass in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft feels...misplaced. It's presented to us in a sourcebook focused on the Horror subset of fantasy adventuring, but its signature ability, Tales from Beyond, is way too chaotic to be reliable in a campaign where death is supposed to be just around the corner. The high dependence on RNG harkens back to the Wild Magic Sorcerer, which has often been regarded as the Liability subclass for Sorcerers. And while there is nothing on the Tales from Beyond list that is as destructive as dropping a random Fireball at the caster's own feet, the theme and lore definitely feel off to me. Wouldn't a Randomness Bard be better in a book about the Feywild?
Speaking of theme, I don't understand how "tales" are supposed to be spoken as a bonus action. If a round is 6 seconds, then each Tale from Beyond can't be longer than 6 seconds, right? While I like the idea of a Bard whose stories have magical effects - since it reflects the role of Bards in general fantasy fiction more than the full spellcaster we have adapted to in 5th edition - I am confused to as why they would name the feature "Tales" when 6 seconds is hardly enough time to say one or two sentences, let alone tell an entire story.
All of this is even before we start talking about the mechanical strangeness of the Spiritual Focus, which RAW, does not apply to many Bard spells since their spell-kit is mostly centered on control, social encounters, and buffing/debuffing. Yet, College of Spirits get no more Magical Secrets with which to procure spells from other classes than most other Bards.
How would you improve the College of Spirits? Would granting more Magical Secrets save this subclass? How about Mystical Connection as an earlier feature?
Thoughts?
It's not as much about randomness as the Wild Magic Sorcerer, rather it's about the will of the spirits. You realize that the effect doesn't just go off, you get to pick the most advantageous recipient of the tale. I don't think the Spirits Bard needs fixing, though I do think the Spiritual Focus needs clarification.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You don't tell a tale to get the effect, necessarily. I see the bonus action as pulling a card or peering into a crystal ball to mentally call up a spirit.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The first thing I would do is define "casting through a focus", ideally in a way that would let Spirits Bards use their Spiritual Focus on the 4 Bard spells that heal, instead of the 0 some DMs interpret it to be due to the rule's word salad.
The second thing I would do is give Spirits Bards a way to sling more spells that damage or heal. The low-hanging fruit here is inspiration dice, and since the Tales table is so incredibly bad, I don't need to feel guilty about giving Spirits Bards a new way to spend inspo dice - all I'm doing is helping them avoid their godawful RNG table. Observe:
"When you cast a spell, you can choose one target of the spell and roll a Bardic Inspiration die; the spell's target heals that amount. When you cast a spell, you can instead choose one target of the spell that the spell hit and roll a Bardic Inspiration die; the target suffers psychic damage equal to the amount rolled. When you cast a spell, you can instead choose one target of the spell and roll a Bardic Inspiration die; if the target failed their save against the spell, they suffer psychic damage equal to the amount rolled." Wham, now you can pay inspo dice to force almost any spell to heal or do damage.
If I may, what's so bad about the tales table, in your opinion?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Yeah, I dont get it either. People dislike the Wild Magic Sorcerer and Barbarian for the same reason. The Sorcerer I get because at least there there are detrimental effects (although those are not nearly as common as the beneficial/neutral ones), but for these other two there isnt anything bad that is going to happen.
The only downside is that you can't "build" around any particular effect because you cannot predict when you will get it. Otherwise though its flavorful and a unique mechanic in how it is used, especially for bards (since unlike the Wild magic subclasses the ability doesnt activate immediately).
Its hard to plan and strategize around, but not "godawful" by any means. Its just one more random thing in a game dictated by rolling dice. How well it works for you depends on how well you can apply what the spirits gave you to the issue at hand.
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Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
If the length of time to tell the tale is Not a bonus action, or an action, or a bonus action + an action, what is it? And even if it was a bonus action + an action, that is still just 6 seconds. I get that the devs were trying to prod some new life into the concept of Bardic Inspiration, but calling mechanics don't match the theme. Does a seance or other communion with ghosts usually take just 6 seconds? There is no implication that the Bard using this ability time travels while communing with whatever random spirit is being rolled up. If telling the tale doesn't happen during the bonus action tied to the die roll or the action to bestow the effect, when does it occur?
Then why call it a Tale?
IF they had said that you can use your Bardic Inspiration during a short rest to tell the tale and THEN store the value of the tale for use later, that would make a lot more sense.
Also, nobody who has ever used Tarot cards or any other divination method - throwing dice, reading tea leaves, palmistry - would try it in the middle of combat. That's tantamount to suicidal behavior.
I don't think the Tales table is inherently bad. I just don't think the mechanics mesh well with the theme and I don't like that you are still expected to rely on it at Level 14 - at which point most adventurers are strong enough to slay a pair of Ancient Dragons or a team of Cloud Giants. It feels like bad design. I would much rather have College of Valor's Battle Magic (because it can synergize with spells if you choose the right Magical Secrets) or College of Swords unlimited Flourishes. Look at it this way: how useful is a Cadillac convertible if the engine isn't reliable?
You could flavor it a few different ways.
Someone in a group I'm friends with plays a Spirit Bard and gets possessed by whatever spirit she rolls for so they can use the ability, then back to normal.
My own Spirits bard randomly pulls a card from her Tarokka deck for the feature, then holds onto it until she needs to use it.
The implication that the subclass needs saving feels... misplaced. It seems fine.
No, you're focusing on the wrong part. It's not that it's not a tale, it's that *you* don't tell the tale. You are just a medium for the *spirits* to tell a tale in whatever ways spirits tell tales.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Okay, but that still doesn't answer the question: how is the tale told in 6 seconds or less? Aren't you at this point, just trying to create a justification for something that makes no sense? Tell me, when was the last time you heard anybody tell a story in 6 seconds? Even assuming that there a few human beings or ghosts able to talk that fast, why would ALL the ghosts that happen to talk to the CoS Bard in a way that grants the powers mentioned talk that quickly?
And nobody has addressed how a Bard dependent on Random effects for a large part of their powers is somehow fitting a role in Ravenloft lore. So ghosts randomly tell you their stories...but you won't actually understand those stories because they are told to you in 6 seconds...while the other party members likely won't care what the tale IS anyway because to them it's just an interchangeable magic effect, like any other spell that takes an action to cast. How very anti-thematic. At least the Spirit Session ability is attached to Divination or Necromancy spells and has a realistic casting time of 1 hour. Why the game devs couldn't have created a better justification for Tales from Beyond when they managed to write something that gelled thematically in the case of Spirit Sessions is beyond me.
Is there something about Ravenloft lore that makes a random effect unfitting? I have run Curse of Strahd and read a few of the old Ravenloft novels and nothing about them seemed to suggest to me that an "unpredictable" ability would at all clash with the lore. If anything, the art of storytelling and the magic it carries with it is something that ties pretty well with the Vistani lore.
As for the issue of "how do you tell a tale in 6 seconds," it is definitely a bit wonky to think about, but I dont think it is worth making a big deal out of. Other people in the thread have already suggested alternate ways to think about it to try and make it fit, but ultimately it is just a disconnect between game flavor and game mechanics, which I understand can be frustrating.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
You are thinking much too logically and very un-spiritlike. It could be as simple as the spirits imparting the tale telepathically into the bard's mind and then manifesting momentarily to act out the climax of the tale, phantasmally superimposed over the target. Alternately it could be as weird as reality suddenly warping, dreamlike, into an epic mystery play that compresses an entire saga into mere moments. Time often doesn't mean very much to beings who exist somewhat outside of it.
I don't know, a witchy Spirits Bard consulting the spirits and then later on having their readings come into effect in the world seems very appropriately spooky. It's like a Divination Wizard, but eerier. The Bard can start the day by doing a reading of the cards and later on their reading just happens to come true, much like how the Divination Wizard's Portent is a vision of the future, but mechanically is just a die result held in suspension.
Come on! You have to use your imagination just a little bit here. When I play a Spirits Bard I'm totally going to tell a short little tale, probably in rhyme, in a monologue that breaks how much I will be able to say in 6 seconds, like Storm monologuing for a whole paragraph in the time it takes to summon one thunderbolt. Or at the very least I'm going to describe a vision of the moral of some fairytale and tell everyone, "You recognize the protagonists of popular folktale [X] reenacting their famous sword fight scene" or some such.
I dunno, it gelled perfectly thematically for me.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm playing one right now. (Started level 1, now I'm 4.) The Tales From Beyond feature is definitely weird but I think of it being loosely defined on purpose, to guide you into filling out the theme of your Bard. For me, it immediately screamed "you should tell these stories during rests and/or downtime, and think of the actual feature like a reminder or refrain, a callback to or teaser for the story rather than the story itself." Because ultimately the College of Spirits Bard is still a Bard, and should probably be putting on shows in towns using these tales. That's what the spirits want, that's why they're hanging around and helping you.
I went the extra mile and wrote the stories from my character's backstory. Classic tragic hero stuff, all my friends are dead, but rather than just letting it rot in my mysterious past that no one asks about, I'm bringing those stories into the spotlight. In order to keep it from overwhelming everyone, they only get a little bit of it at a time, whenever I roll on the table. Yes?
You're basically getting a lesser, themed version of Magical Secrets with the séance ability you have. There are some very useful spells to pick from.
You can use it on a cantrip, so you can get Toll The Dead as a bard without using Magical Secrets to get a damage cantrip.
I know this is an old discussion. But I wanted to add my 2 cents. I am planning to play one now. The way I plan to do it is I roll on the table as early as possible and react to what I get. For me its a memory of an old story. Then throughout the day I "remanence" to my party members about the tale. Or, afterwards I tell them where the power came from. It doesn't have to be in the moment. Its just all about the story. And Bards "typically" love to entertain through song or story. So having a story for each tale is what makes is special and fun!
I will say the wording is different in a few sources though. I still don't really know if I can hold it, use an action to give it to the "Target" and they use it immediately OR they can hold it as well and use it as they please. Some of the Tales say they "can" use it. So I don't take that as a mandatory useage when the bard gives it to them.
The effect happens when you use an action to make it happen. Some of them happen to you, or from you, and others happen to someone else, but it's still the same timing.
Edit: I think your idea of how to play it is good. Though, since you have a lot of Bardic Inspiration, it will feel strange and unnecessarily limiting to only use the feature once a day.