Me and a group of fellow theater kid friends are getting together in a few days to play an all or at least mostly musical dnd game. The party will be completely made up of bards, and we are going to try to sing as much of it as possible. I don’t know if descriptions and mechanics and stuff will be sung, but maybe. However I’ve never done this before. How does one do this? Like, does anyone have any advice? Maybe some ideas? Anything helps. Thanks!
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“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.”
Mechanically, an all Bard party is not the worst "all-one-class" party a group can come up with. Bards have both spellcasting and melee options, and their wide range in skills allow players to differentiate themselves fairly well. That said, I would recommend starting the campaign at at least level 3--that way folks can differentiate themselves through subclass selection or multiclassing--if you start at level 1, everyone is going to feel similar to the point of being dull.
Regarding singing during the campaign, improved singing is certainly not impossible, but even for professionals, it can easily miss. Consider, the singing skits in Whose Line is it Anyway are done by extremely talented improve actors--when those skits are good, they are great... but they have the highest rate of missing the mark of any of the skits on the show. I had one professional actor in my group who tried to incorporate a bit of singing into their character--they ended up scaling back as the songs often felt forced, stilted, or unnecessarily slowed down gameplay.
I think caerwyn nailed it with his hard improvised singing is. So, maybe don’t improvise if you don’t have to. Have each player make a playlist to organize some songs and they play them at the right time. Or think of it like a soundtrack where this is my song for melee attacks, this is my song for vicious mockery, this is my song for giving inspiration. They can play a few bars and then move on. Or just sing a few lyrics, but having them ready beforehand seems like it could be much less stressful than having to come up with something on the spot.
I think the biggest risk is it sounding really fun, but getting tedious and being too much work in the end. So, I’d check in with the group periodically over the course of the session and make sure everyone is still having fun with it.
Perhaps have everyone pair up some song lyrics or a riff to their abilities. I had a bard with a Fochlucan Bandore and had each spell be a guitar riff. Like Shillelagh was Seven Nation Army and Fairie Fire was Purple Haze. Dissonant Whispers would have Never Going to Give You Up play in their head.
Mostly I think everyone preparing some ideas ahead of time will work out a lot better than trying to improv everything. But maybe in the moment some inspiration will hit and some improv will happen.
Me and a group of fellow theater kid friends are getting together in a few days to play an all or at least mostly musical dnd game. The party will be completely made up of bards, and we are going to try to sing as much of it as possible. I don’t know if descriptions and mechanics and stuff will be sung, but maybe. However I’ve never done this before. How does one do this? Like, does anyone have any advice? Maybe some ideas? Anything helps. Thanks!
I've played in a party that had a similar makeup -- three bards, plus my Stars druid with the Entertainer background (and a fighter who we dubbed our roadie/security). The campaign basically became us forming a band and Scooby Dooing around solving mysteries between gigs
If you're going full musical theater with it -- where nothing in the plot is forcing you to sing (a la the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example) and singing is simply how you all express yourselves -- I would recommend having everyone prep at least a couple songs connected to specific spells and abilities that they can tweak the lyrics to and fall back on when necessary. For instance, our band was very emo, so in combat I would bust out, say, Jimmy Eat World's The Middle when doing some healing in Chalice form:
It just takes some time [character name], you're in the middle of the fight Everything is gonna be alright Everything, everything will be just fine
There are also actual plays out there that have tried something similar in a limited fashion -- for example, Pixel Circus's Disney princess D&D campaign 'Damsels, Dice and Everything Nice' had a viewer donation level that forced everyone to sing for one minute -- so watching a couple of those might give you some ideas
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.”
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Me and a group of fellow theater kid friends are getting together in a few days to play an all or at least mostly musical dnd game. The party will be completely made up of bards, and we are going to try to sing as much of it as possible. I don’t know if descriptions and mechanics and stuff will be sung, but maybe. However I’ve never done this before. How does one do this? Like, does anyone have any advice? Maybe some ideas? Anything helps. Thanks!
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.”
Mechanically, an all Bard party is not the worst "all-one-class" party a group can come up with. Bards have both spellcasting and melee options, and their wide range in skills allow players to differentiate themselves fairly well. That said, I would recommend starting the campaign at at least level 3--that way folks can differentiate themselves through subclass selection or multiclassing--if you start at level 1, everyone is going to feel similar to the point of being dull.
Regarding singing during the campaign, improved singing is certainly not impossible, but even for professionals, it can easily miss. Consider, the singing skits in Whose Line is it Anyway are done by extremely talented improve actors--when those skits are good, they are great... but they have the highest rate of missing the mark of any of the skits on the show. I had one professional actor in my group who tried to incorporate a bit of singing into their character--they ended up scaling back as the songs often felt forced, stilted, or unnecessarily slowed down gameplay.
I think caerwyn nailed it with his hard improvised singing is. So, maybe don’t improvise if you don’t have to. Have each player make a playlist to organize some songs and they play them at the right time. Or think of it like a soundtrack where this is my song for melee attacks, this is my song for vicious mockery, this is my song for giving inspiration. They can play a few bars and then move on. Or just sing a few lyrics, but having them ready beforehand seems like it could be much less stressful than having to come up with something on the spot.
I think the biggest risk is it sounding really fun, but getting tedious and being too much work in the end. So, I’d check in with the group periodically over the course of the session and make sure everyone is still having fun with it.
Perhaps have everyone pair up some song lyrics or a riff to their abilities. I had a bard with a Fochlucan Bandore and had each spell be a guitar riff. Like Shillelagh was Seven Nation Army and Fairie Fire was Purple Haze. Dissonant Whispers would have Never Going to Give You Up play in their head.
Mostly I think everyone preparing some ideas ahead of time will work out a lot better than trying to improv everything. But maybe in the moment some inspiration will hit and some improv will happen.
I've played in a party that had a similar makeup -- three bards, plus my Stars druid with the Entertainer background (and a fighter who we dubbed our roadie/security). The campaign basically became us forming a band and Scooby Dooing around solving mysteries between gigs
If you're going full musical theater with it -- where nothing in the plot is forcing you to sing (a la the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example) and singing is simply how you all express yourselves -- I would recommend having everyone prep at least a couple songs connected to specific spells and abilities that they can tweak the lyrics to and fall back on when necessary. For instance, our band was very emo, so in combat I would bust out, say, Jimmy Eat World's The Middle when doing some healing in Chalice form:
It just takes some time
[character name], you're in the middle of the fight
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything, everything will be just fine
There are also actual plays out there that have tried something similar in a limited fashion -- for example, Pixel Circus's Disney princess D&D campaign 'Damsels, Dice and Everything Nice' had a viewer donation level that forced everyone to sing for one minute -- so watching a couple of those might give you some ideas
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
These are all marvelously helpful. Thanks!
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.”