I just realized that the closest modern day thing we have to a D&D bard would be an American musical gunslinging cowboy from the 30s, like Gene Autry.

Who else is known for both adventuring and manly fighting skills like fisticuffs and revolver duels, but also for inspirational music?

It makes me want to run a bardic musical cowboy character in someone's D20 modern campaign.

EDIT: http://youtu.be/-akgDjpcD2M

I dunno, I play a Heavy Metal Bard in a D&D game.




-k

One of the character ideas I've had was inspired quite a bit by this sequence in Shrek 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND9XEBiMMQg...feature=related

I remember writing a guy like him up as a magic user in Shadowrun. Most of his magic is defensive in nature but I would have liked to have seen him pull the big musical numbers .

The latest version I have of the Piper was a Neo-Victorian Vigilante with a revolutionary bent in Airship Pirates. Determined to bring change to a culture hellbent on crushing innovation of any kind he searches the post-apocalyptic landscape for old-world music... for if anything brings forth revolution.... it is music.

In a far too short game of WoW RPG, I had a Mage that created the "Bloodrocution" spell.