You're starting a new campaign when your players come to you with all their characters being bards.
What do you do?
What would the campaign you run be like?
Will you make it centered around the bards being bards, or see how long a group of bards survives with whatever your original plans were?
Present them the same problems you would as if they were a balanced group. Let they be creative for once, as they weren't while doing their characters.
Obviously the BBEG has to be an evil rival band trying to take over the kingdom.
all encounters are solved by performing music routines. messing up part of the song or dance results in the opponents gang banging you to death
>>46164429
Think of Robin Hood sneaking around, evading capture, while openly mocking the sheriff. Bards and their tales remind the people that their overlords and masters aren't Gods and that the BBEG is fallible and has weaknesses.
A Group of Bards is going to play the propaganda war. The bards are going to be looking to inspire full blown insurrection in the campaign. The group doesn't even need to kill the assassins sent after them, they just have to prove that the assassins can be avoided and that the BBEGs men aren't competent enough to enforce his harsh laws. The Bards want to make the BBEG look like a fool.
Maybe there is already a rebellion underway and the Bards could use their influence to make a lower class rebel leader sound like the champion of the people.
>>46164429
I would throw out everything I had planned and instead we would a have a funny campaign. That focused around them being a band of traveling musicians. It would take place in an era of peace and prosperity and instead of trying to protect the land from dangerous threats they would just be trying to get by and have a good time, as bards do.
Of course I would have them fight monsters and do combat oriented quests for work. But their ultimate goals would be to perform for Emperors and High Priests, as musicians do.
This play would be a comedy, not a tragedy.
>>46164429
We Footloose now
>>46164429
Bring in the Rock, kick out the Jams!
In a world where music is illegal...
>>46164429
Most of the time my group's campaigns have an overall theme we know about before we make our characters. So if we all made bards then it's either to screw with the GM or it's because we finally decided to make an adventuring group based on GWAR.
>>46164429
Is that a new genre called euphoricore?
The king has outlawed music and merriment, opting to replace his minstrels with dirge playing mourners. The kingdom despairs as light fades, the dead rise, and monsters invade.
Are you a bad enough troupe to stop the evil cadre warping the king's mind and save the kingdom?
>>46164429
Obvious troll OP is obvious.
Regardless, a bard campaign is about information. Opinions and fears are currency, rumors and facts position perception, people need their dissonances relieved. And by providing that a performance can rile them up or calm them down, make them see reason or make them feel anxiety.
I would make it cyclical, one big trade route leads through all those places and the party comes back to witness change. Have a bit of Oregon Trail for the road. But really center in on the settlements and their people, positioning them in a larger plot.
I wouldn't change a damn thing. That being said, I run the opposite of railroad campaigns and they'd probably just avoid nasty things.
They'd still get fucked up.
>>46168996
That is clearly just American folk.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t8dQwP80uNQ
I've based many quests off of Aquabats songs.
