Bards, HYPE, and More

Bards

have always intrigued me. Not necessarily as a class, but the idea that magic can come from music is a concept I feel can be played with. While it depends on the setting, magic coming from "the power of music" is strange. In Oris, magic is inherent in everything, music included, and Bards just draw from that. If the denizens of the planet are magical, all they do must be magical. How they talk to each other, how they create things, how they shit. If everything has an art to it, (and i believe that) therefore everything and therefore everything can be manipulated by magical means. Wizards spend their life mastering magic and how to manipulate the world, Bards spend their life mastering the world and thus manipulate magic.

Fuck the"bard who just toots a flute makes lightning come out"- that's boring.

Bards should bleed emotion through onto a miniature canvas, washing their foes out with a desire for death that the thunderclouds above cannot help but be overcome.

Pollack would be a very dangerous man

A Bard's song or oration should overcome a crowd with a hatred for the party's foes so crushing that spiders physically manifest ready to devour the foe.

I had a bard npc try to do this to my players. They crushed him with a boulder.

A bard's power comes from their passion, their audience (which is not always people), and their creations. To me, a bard can be anything that creates and puts emotion in what they make. The traditional lute playing bard is 100% fine, but if you wanted to make a bard who just really takes pride in how he lays a brick wall, I'm totally down with that. Get ready for some sweet wall based abilities, maybe graffiti summons? That's for another post.

The Hype Meter

I had a player who was having trouble playing a bard, a character who was far more a lover than a fighter, but still wanted to assist in combat. I had a lot of solutions, some of them were pretty bad. (One involved a rod of wonder, see the before mentioned boulder crushing incident). But for larger fights and big set piece moments, I came up with the Hype Meter, and I think it's pretty good. 

The Hype Meter is a measurement of how much the "crowd" is excited, pumped, full of bloodlust, horny, whatever. If there are people who are watching a barfight, the hype meter is how much they're cheering, drinking, and getting involved themselves. In a war situation, it's how inspired your fellow soldiers are. Whenever I do a big fight with a lot of people who can be watching, I employ a big hype meter. From a game sense, the higher the crowd's HYPE, the more stuff you roll on random tables. The random tables choose what events alter combat in some way, interfering with the enemies, changing the environment, or aiding the players. Depending on the crowd, the effects may not always be 100% good for the players.  A rowdy group of fish-men sailors may put a harpoon in your back as much as the drunks you're brawling with, for instance.

Players can act in certain ways to influence the HYPE, Bards especially. Manipulation of emotion, excitement, and entertainment should be what they do. 

I recommend having a physical representation for the hype meter somewhere everyone can see, it makes it fun. As the meter gets more and more full, the higher the frequency you roll on your random event table, or you expand the table outward, rolling a d20 instead of a d10, and so on. How often you want to roll is up to the intensity of the combat and the scenario.

I like this, the HYPE starts at one die, a d6, every round or so, on a 6, roll on the Random Table. The higher the HYPE, the more d6's you add.
In a situation where morale may tip in different directions, (ie, a battle of the bands with two opposing groups of fans versus a just a neutral bar fight) give the opponent their own HYPE meter and table.

Examples:
Location: A underground combat arena.
Crowd: Nobles and Criminals watching the fights for sport or betting, other fighters around the arena.
Ways to impact HYPE: Grandstanding to the crowd. Executing enemies in creative ways. General show-boating.

Random Combat Events:

1. Garbage is tossed at a random opponent, probably one who isn't contributing much to the HYPE. Reflex or be denied your dex bonus for the rest of the round.
2. Weapons get tossed into the arena.
3. Over excited noble hops down into the fray, with no weapons and no levels.
4. Some drunken reveler presses the "traps" button, spikes shoot out of everything, acid pits open up, etc.
5. The animal cages get opened, 1d4 Lions, Tooth Beasts, or Feral Zamboni's spill onto the stage.
6. Someone has gotten into the rigging over the arena, reflex saves to dodge sandbags, lighting equipment, and stagehands.

Location: A large scale military engagement on an open field.
Crowd: Your fellow soldiers.
Ways to Impact HYPE: Slaying commanders, playing bugles, waving banners, general rallying and goings on.

1. A few troops pause in the battlefield to suppress an opponent with crossbow bolts.
2. Siege weapon fires smack down into the middle of the player's fight.
3. Combat Mages, heal a party member, or get a downed ally out of the fray for ya.
4. Reinforcements push through to your part of the fight.
5. A battle cry or song rises up through the ranks. Panic sweeps the foe, enemy must will save or act cowardly for the next round.
6. A officer from your side joins the fray, or a important figure from the enemy side becomes vulnerable.

These are pretty basic, but you get the drill. I've had cows stampede through a small town, a big barrel of oil get knocked out of a rack and spill all over the inn, snipers set up on an opposing roof. All the works.

New Bard Spells/Items

Bottled Party Ghosts:  Party loving spirits who were contained in a special jar to keep the jams going forever. When smashed allow the Bard to utilize the hype meter in an area where a crowd may not be available. Rolls on the HYPE table will taken on more spectral and probably incorporeal motifs.
Once released will fly off and probably go bother the local villages for wine and party snacks.

Center Focus (Lvl 1???) Magically draws attention to the bard, and any successful performance checks they make add double the amount of dice to the HYPE meter.

Demand Focus (Lvl 3???) As above, but effects allies within 60ft.

Summon Crowd (Lvl 1-5) Calls out to the surroundings to draw a crowd able to get the HYPE meter going, or whatever else you'd need a crowd for. The crowd varies depending on location and DM discretion. If an area doesn't have anyone around, a crowd may not be able to form. The higher level the spell, bigger and crazier the crowd (and the cooler shit you can add to the HYPE table)
Examples:
Level 1: A few villagers/some interested woodland spirits/a few above-average intelligence birds/a squad from a nearby trench pokes their heads out of hiding
Level 5: The whole fucking village/A small army of wasted barbarians/a mass of spirits from the old battlefield awaken/Savage Party Demons from The Party Dimension

"But Mr. Apathy"
I can hear you saying. "This isn't very serious! How is any of this useful for my GRIM and DARK game?"
First of all , it's General Apathy to you, soldier.

I will admit to a certain amount of silliness to this system, but I like a bit of silly. Silly is never bad, even in the most depressing scenario, I always bring in a bit of brevity. It is a game after all.

Second, the Hype meter doesn't just have to turn every fight you use it into a wild college rager. If that was the case then historical cases of combat instrument players shouldn't exist. Sure, they were often used to send messages over long distances and over the roar of combat. But you can't deny the effectiveness as morale boosting and rallying weapon. The Hype meter can and should be used to represent the level of energy an army.

Horrendous colonialism aside, watch this

That's two opposing uses of hype.

What is the Hype Meter good for:

It makes combat more hectic.

That's not always a good thing, but when you need it, accept no substitutes. HYPE keeps things interesting for the bored DM, and makes the environment feel more real. There is a world moving and reacting to the players, so it grounds the story more.

It rewards descriptive players and interesting actions. 

If you have trouble with your players just saying, "i hit the bastard with my sword", you can create a tactile and fairly reasonable way to get them saying shit like "I cleave the bastard in two, and then spin around and chop his head off, then raise it up to the crowd, roaring out insults." That's a bit better, yeah?

It gives players something to do.

The cleric is out of spells or something? He can now start appealing, swinging a banner around or coming up with some kind of "Remember the Alamo" style catch phrase. Most fights have somebody shining through, this spreads the spotlight around a bit. 

That bard I made this gimmick for? He stopped playing pretty soon after. Nobody in my group has made a bard since.

Oh well.