Post by SpaceWolf on 2024-08-10 23:52:01
We have not received permission from Nerror to share the quoted post.
I like the spirit of what you're saying, but couldn't disagree more with the method.
Depriving players of agency is bad - forcing Bard players into doing specific things and/or interacting in specific ways in any given environment is directly detrimental to immersion and proper RP, for said players. Sometimes Bards just wanna go to the tavern to chill with their friends, too - even the best singers and poets need time off, you know?
A better method for handling this, IMO, would be how FFXI handles 'showing cutscenes from completed questlines'. In FFXI, there are several Bard NPCs in various logical places, some of whom handle things like changing your current Title (think of this as a type of achievement, i.e. something in your profile saying "Tortoise Toppler" if you like, killed an Adamantoise or something). Others can immersively let you re-experience cutscenes from questlines you've already completed, which they frame through dialogue as retelling your story, all Bardic-style.
These NPCs also wear Bard gear that the player can themselves obtain, which increases immersion further. Seeing either an NPC Bard in a tavern or such, strumming on their harp, or a player Bard out and about, doing Bard things, will automatically inform new players "hey - people who dress like this are Bards, neat", and it contributes to everyone blending seamlessly into the worldbuild, players and NPCs alike.
Perhaps for the idea you outlined, it might be possible to have Bard players find things such as song/tale fragments on quests, and then compile them somewhere for translating/combining/sharing with others. And then those NPC bards could tell new parts of said tales whenever the player community of Bards for a given Node has reached a certain amount of 'stuff turned in to the local Bards College' (I'm a Skyrim player, that's what the songy place is called there :P)