For whatever reason, it seems that no one in my campaigns ever chooses to play a bard. I am beginning to wonder if it has something to do with the adventures I construct as our game's DM. These adventures tend to alternate between traditional kick-in-the-door dungeon crawls and mysteries/political intrigues, so that both the kickass warriors and nuanced tacticians get some play. I rarely, if ever, make use of silence spells. It doesn't seem to matter if I play premade adventures (which might theoretically be unbiased against bards) or my own created ones. I guess this lack of bards bothers me because there are so many great literary examples of bard in the books I've read (eg. The Belgariad, The Name of the Wind) that it seems an obvious choice of character. A bard also would seem to solve the "leadership" problem our parties often have. So, it has gotten me wondering, aside from changing the arguably broken mechanics of the Bard in Dungeons and Dragons v3.5, what are the adventure features and bardic bonuses I can incorporate to make my worlds more bard-inclusive or appealing to bard characters?
[RPG] How to make the adventures more bard-inclusive
dnd-3.5egm-techniques
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When I think of noir, I think about the following elements: crime, betrayal, temptation (often sexual), urban settings, pessimism, cynicism, and no-win situations. There's also a host of cinematic techniques that don't translate precisely into non-visual mediums, so I'll leave those aside for now.
Shadowrun has crime and urban settings covered, so that's easy. For pessimism, cynicism, and temptation, I'd look at my NPCs. Almost every one of them should reflect those traits in some way. They don't all have to be pessimistic; in fact, some of them should be defiantly optimistic, but that should be something other NPCs comment on. That'll bring home the point that it's a pessimistic world. And everyone should be capable of being tempted by something. Everyone has to have a price.
Betrayal and no-win situations are trickier, because you don't want to kill the fun of the game and if the PCs are betrayed all the time, they're going to wind up expecting the worst of everyone. This quickly turns into a game of turtle. I'd recommend having a fair number of missions that are the result of betrayal. In other words, the PCs should often be hired by someone who's been betrayed and who needs revenge. They're living in an atmosphere of betrayal rather than being betrayed.
Although it should happen to them once in a while. Don't avoid it all the time, by any means.
Finally, coming back to the visual stuff: play it up in your descriptions. It's raining. It's raining cold, bitter rain. The raindrops are exploding like a child's dreams on the cold, hard pavement. Well, maybe not that last.
Directed towards your second question, assuming you aren't running a real world campaign, make sure you clearly detail not only the differences between your world cultures, but perhaps the background / history of the differences.
Create cheat-sheets for players playing characters from those cultures, which you (and maybe with the help of the player) update and add to as the campaign continues - perhaps even toss in some interesting wise quotes that exemplify some aspect of a culture. For example, a saying from Japan such as "The nail that sticks up gets knocked down" as contrasted with "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" tells a lot about the importance of conformity. What about differences in courtship, marriage and achieving "honor" within the culture? Are the sexes segregated? What's up with relations with elders?
If you have non-human races, zero in on the differences from humans and spin culture from it, and again, make notes for your players so they know how to run with the differences. How does the long life of elves impact the culture of the elves in your campaign? Maybe elf hair keeps growing even after it is cut, so there is a ritual associated with burning cut hair.
A little more on cheat-sheets - I'd make this a simple bullet list, divided into sections that start with "What You Know About..." or "What Your People Think About..." or "What Your People Say About..."
For example, consider a Shogun-era Japanese game:
"What Your People Think about Foreigners"
Real foreigners are knuckle-dragging barbarians, but since they do not know the proper way, give them some mercy.
Chinese, Koreans, Ainu are also barbarians who may make mistakes, but they should know the proper way of doing things.
Best Answer
When a bigger hammer doesn't suffice, intelligent heroes need to use Guile and Cunning... which sometimes includes talking enemies to death.
The concept of the "face" in role playing games exists because of some problems that cannot simply be solved by beating them to death with a bigger hammer. These problems include: getting paid, finding a gig, explaining that "it wasn't us" to outraged authorities, and all sorts of other... politics.
The need for a face, for a bard, is directly proportional to how much political wrangling the party faces. If getting paid is a matter of dropping a head on a desk somewhere and saying "gimmie my money" and... they do, then there is no need for a bard. If there's a entrenched bureaucracy between your (carried) head and that desk; suddenly there is a need for a bard.
Incorporate political problems and consequent bonuses to make playing the face appealing.
Players should be able to earn greater bonuses, avoid some combats, get assistance, and get paid because of the abilities of the face. So long as the group is willing, this can also include scouting duties and other unsavoury "we don't have a big enough hammer to solve this problem" problems. However, since some people play RPGs to get away from politics, this is absolutely something that must be discussed with the group first.