I’m working on Myrkheim, and when I take a break, I read stuff on Mastodon, and sometimes people link their blog posts… and here I am.
@auguryignored wrote a blog post about in-game chroniclers.
Each completed adventure nets 4 chronicle points. Aborted adventures net 1 chronicle point; returning to an aborted expedition and completing it will net another 3, however. Notable downtime events net 1 to 3 points, per the Referee’s judgment of their importance and notability. – Write That Down!
Remember Croaker in the Black Company books? I loved that aspect. But not everything that I like can be translated into a role-playing game, I fear.
A while ago I listend to an Actual Play podcast about Band of Blades. I always wondered about the chronicler role. In that Actual Play, it seemed very underdeveloped – as if the player didn’t have enough time to actually think up cool stuff. Or as if some absolute minimum was good enough for some promised reward.
I guess the problem I have with chroniclers is similar to the problem I have with bards. The bards AD&D 1st edition had where wizard-thief-fighter multi-class characters but in 5E they’re now “special ability gives allies bonuses with musical keywords”.
There is nothing reminding me of music, epics, ballads or poetry.
The only actual use of non-player bards I’ve seen in my games is to pay bards to achieve a political advantage, or to spend gold for advancement. Also very non-poetic.
I guess that’s what I would like to see in games: a way to make actual chronicling or poetry writing meaningful – but I dislike the gamification of experience points and re-rolls and all that. Which is why I feel like I’m stuck. A bit like rewarding good deeds with points. How good are such deeds if you do them for points? The gamification devalues something I feel has a more spiritual aspect. Perhaps for me it’s better to not have these things in a game. I wonder.
Perhaps cause and effect are too close. When it comes to magic, some people also complain that Vancian magic does not feel magical at all. And they are right. It’s not mysterious. It’s not tricky. It’s not about dealing with demons. But then again: If this is how magic is modelled in the game, perhaps we give it too much weight. Unless we’re playing a coven of magic users, of course.
In games like Knives or Halberts, spells and special abilities are represented using talents such as “Fire” or “Singing” with very little support and it’s up to the referee and the table to negotiate what this means. How much can you achieve with a successful Fire use? How much can you achieve with a successful Singing use? Now a bard can be as powerful as a pyromancer, if the table agrees to it. They probably have some fiction in mind where this is true.
I think the only way I could deliver this would be to write adventures and settings (or generators of adventures and settings) where Singing is important. Which brings me back to in-game chronicles. Perhaps the physical chronicles are just a representation of the company itself. If the chronicles are lost, the company dissolves. You could treat the company as a group character, and that’s how you keep it alive.
The magic of an in-game chronicler are statements such as these:
The actual writing is not a game activity. There is no accounting for days, ink, pages, adventures. All we need is a shared understanding that the chronicles exist and that they are important and that they must never ever be abandoned. Like the eagle of a Roman legion, like the flag in some US movie.
#RPG
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I feel like a bard’s usefulness depends a lot on the campaign. Ironically, I think they’re more likely to make a difference (at least, outside of combat) in an old-school, dungeoncrawling campaign than one focused on roleplaying and character arcs. A game with set diplomacy segments and set combat segments is a lot less open to big changes from a lore-and-diplomacy character than one where every encounter involves a reaction roll.
– Malcolm 2023-04-24 05:43 UTC
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That’s a good point!
– Alex 2023-04-24 06:08 UTC
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I agree with Malcolm here. As a Charisma-based fighter-wizard, I’ve used them in my games to great success. Their spells tend to be more music oriented, but they fight in chainmail like any other guy.
– Enzo 2023-04-28 20:08 UTC
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So … just rename elf to bard and roll high on your Charisma and you’re set? 😅
My own take is that bards are just magic-users with the right spells, like Xoralfona.
– Alex 2023-04-29 17:37 UTC