The Picard ManeuverI wonder if anyone needs help with anything
unalivejoyToss a coin to your Witcher 3.
More likely would have been taught orally. A traveling minstrel type bard is unlikely to have written music. Learn the song from your master/other performers then adapt as you wish.
ZombiepirateWe actually have quite a few troubadour “songbooks” from the late middle ages/early Renaissance period, indicating that it was a useful resource for minstrels of the time.
If we’re getting into the Renaissance period, a professional musician would almost certainly be able to read; we have printed music manuals from the period for all kinds of instruments; for example, Arbeau’s Orchésographie is a primer on courtly dance music that we still read today.
I would doubt most bards could afford books until after the printing press (~1440). During the middle ages (500-1500) is after the fall of the western roman empire (470) where papyrus stopped coming in for about 600-700 years (1100s) before cheap paper from Spain. I think court musicians were a bit different in “class” someone traveling is unlikely to be bringing a lot of written stuff with them all the time unless they were a weirdo. Once cheap paper and moreso the printing press to allow cheap copying spread then so did literacy. So its hard to definitely say whether the average bard would be literate. I think at the start of the middle ages, no, but by the end of the middle ages, yes.
bizarrolandProbably why most Isekai anime and manga tend to land people in an equivalent of about the 1500s. Like it would be really weird if they were the only person who knew how to read other than the clergy and they only knew how to read Japanese.
There are a couple parts of the court music book Orchésographie that I think would be particularly interesting for a bard character.
Court musicians in the late 16th century frequently traveled to where the work was: either following a particular patron or looking to perform where they could. Most of the dances in the book are bransles, a folk dance popular with the “common folk.” As a D&D bard, this would be a cool way to explain why your music is beloved by all, and why they could move in all social circles.
There’s also a part at the beginning that explains how to play the drum and fife for a marching army: how to improvise a melody or change up the drum pattern while keeping the March going. It seems to imply that the court musicians the book was written for were potentially marching with armies, likely playing music in the camps or stops at night.
Cleric: Hold my ale. About time my day job pays off.
Me: I can’t wait to-
Some dude: Hey our lord is mad at the lord from the other hill, so grab a pitchfork and join our army…or else.
Some dude: Hey our lord is mad at the lord from the other hill, so grab a pitchfork and join our army…or else.
In the first Kingdom Come Deliverance you need to learn to read
Literacy rates in medieval times were not what they are today, but they’re still routinely underestimated. Most places, including peasant villages, would have had some people around who could read.
Then again, it also depends heavily in what part of the middle ages you are talking about. Early, high and late middle ages were almost different worlds in many regards.
It’s almost as if that term was made up to put a name on something that wasn’t Roman times or now
(Mind you, now being 16th century Italy)
now being 16th century Italy
I think that’s incorrect, actually. By my calculations, we’re at LEAST a dozen years farther along than that!
I wouldn’t go THAT far… Humans outside of Italy is just TOO unrealistic!
It’s half roman times. Modern is no Rome. And pre medieval common era is full Rome.
TonavaIt’s really easy for people to fail to really grasp that the middle ages still account for about half of the common era. They began in the 5th century and ended in the 15th. It was so long and so much happened. At the beginning Europeans were abandoning Roman structures and by the end they’d built things that even the greatest Roman engineers would be amazed by and wars included guns.
In Norway we lost our written Norse language since everyone who could read died caring for the sick during the black plague. That’s part of the reason for why written Norwegian and Danish are so similar today.
That would be why this isn’t portraying adventurers …
“Adventurer” is a modern invention, sure, but there are also reasons adventurers would be an exception to the norms of their own worlds. Literacy would be one of many such reasons for many of them, but there are plenty of portrayals of what happens when only one member of a party can read or write as well.
Yeah, they would have to find themselves some kind of center for adventurers who can’t read good
Not sure I recall a story about a kingdom wanting more educated adventurers…
If you go this way, since quests are part of the economy in these medieval fantasy societies, a person that can read would be next to the board to read the quests to the adventurers. One reason to learn to read is to stop paying the quest reader.
sp3ctr4lIf you want to get even more real, the people who maintain the quests, usually the adventurer’s guild or the hunter’s guild in these stories, would pay for the quest reader. Probably the people who accept the quest requests would just tell the adventurers what to do, and bypass the entire board.
It would be in the guild’s interests to have illiterate people do quests even if they were poor, to control who got what quests, and not to let the adventurers get too smart. The guild would be able to scam them out of so much money that way.
Death march to a parallel world Rhapsody has this. I mean the story is very meh but the world building is fenomenal.
samus12345So having a non-human fantasy dwarf is fine, but people being able to read (modern English, no less) is too unrealistic?
harkThe stylized shortness of everyone obfuscates it somewhat, but I’ve never seen a person in a fantasy setting dressed like that with that weapon and facial hair who wasn’t a fantasy dwarf. It’s a very reasonable assumption.
TattorackA bard who can’t read!? What!? Isn’t that one of the professions you go to school for!?
He majored in interpretive dance.
spankinspinachInterpretive this!
sick lute-shedding solo
AngryDeuceIn the lord of the rings mmo back in the day you could play an instrument and actually play notes and program songs to play them in game but most people would just post up at the inn, like dozens of people, and just play the most discordant faceroll shit imaginable to the point where you had to disable it in the settings.
Kinda broke the immersion a little bit, unless roving squads of bards performing the medieval equivalent of a yoko ono song in everybody’s face was a commonplace occurrence in those days.
GratefullyGodlessIf your lute is shedding, you need better lacquer on it.
Miles O'BrienThere’s a D&D-like game that I used to play that actually has education requirements to read different languages. If your background didn’t give you the trait, you had to learn from someone who knew how to read.
It made for some interesting role-playing when normally intelligent people were playing illiterate characters.
rambling about said gameThere were “basic” and “high” forms of the standard language, but there was a language for most species as well as “lower” speeches that non-sentient beings could use to communicate. Each language except lower one’s had their own written language and associated trait to understand. So if you put all your stats into STR, then you’ll be lucky to read your own language before dying of old age, as your INT modified how easy it was to learn. Learning just entailed being with someone who has the trait and is willing to teach you, you roll and add your modifiers and after a non-specific (up to DM) amount of time, you can put some stat points to learn the trait.
MinnesotaGoddamDiscworldMUD or a TTRPG?
A ttrpg with cards and people usually bring minifigs and map grids, if not DM supplied custom maps.
Did your friend invent it or can I look it up?
It’s called Dragon Storm, and it’s funny you mention friends inventing it because my family does know the only living creator. It’s been an interesting story with all the legal issues and tracking down business partners.
The game is very much modeled after D&D. It has some basic campaigns you can run, and has some general background lore.
The premise is that there’s are weird magic storms that pop up sometimes (Dragon Storms) and make some people (who have dragon blood) turn into magical creatures like werewolves, unicorns, Pegasus, as well as regular animals like wolves and horses. It’s more than those couple, but it’s been quite some time since I played and am having trouble recalling things I didn’t personally have as characters… They later added dragon-kin that are either full-blooded dragons that take humaoid forms, or descendants of dragons that banged humanoids in humanoid form. Those tend to be more powerful.
You use cards and dice to do things and have character sheets to keep track of stats.
I personally think the game is too rigid in its rules and world building, with the card aspect. I’ve had players argue with me over whether I’m allowed to alter stats of things on the cards for the narrative. I’ve had plenty of players meta-game with their memory of the cards. “Rule 3.14” is the Dragon Storm “Rule of Cool”
It was fun to play growing up, though I wish my family had also played D&D.
Wasn’t it that depending on which mediveal sub-era, every house would have at least one person that knows how to read?
Like similar to how every immigrant household has one or two translators.
Comprehend Languages is a 1st-level Bard spell and can be cast as a ritual. The Bard has no excuse XD
Bards have limited known spells. It’s not optimal for them to take comprehend languages, that’s nerd shit
speak for yourself. Ii min max with the rituals.
i like using a utility warlock
Finally, some accurate medieval representation 😭