The Bard’s Life

Abstract

Tabletop role-playing games have experienced a surge of popularity in recent years, as games such as Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) now boast over fifty million active players worldwide. Several of these games include options for players to choose characters with deep connections to music, the best known being the iconic Bard, often portrayed as a mischievous lutenist and storyteller, singing their way into and out of problems. A musical Bard was not always the standard, however, as an examination of the fifty-year history of D&D reveals a character originally modeled on a rogue that steadily grew in its dependence on music. Instead of relying on weapons or thievery, modern Bards primarily utilize music to accomplish their goals through charismatic performances. Similar to Roger Moseley’s framing of what it means to “play” in musical ways in video games, Bards now grant gamers the experience of “performing” magical music, bolstering a sense of otherworldliness in the game environment. Unlike video games, however, the music created by a Bard is usually silent. Players are directed to give vivid descriptions of their performances, and then roll dice to determine quality and effectiveness, but sounding music is rarely required. This essay explores how the Bard has evolved in D&D and considers the question of what that change says about music as a non-sounding tool in gameplay. Building on ludomusicological theories of music performance, as well as neurological studies of the brain’s response to internal imagining of musical stimuli, I contend the development of the Bard in D&D reflects a desire for expanded social gameplay, and creates opportunities for creative problem solving and deeper immersion in a shared collective imagination. I argue that musical imagery, like sounding music, has the ability to shape a gamer’s experience and helps create a richly decorated imagined fantasy world.