Poet's Circle monopoly

[Marauder Moe]

A post on another thread reminded me of something I was also thinking about recently...

I think bards having a monopoly on performances kind of, discourages certain potential RP in Tuluk that just seems, stifling and arbitrary. Monopoly on performances? Come on now, that warrens rat singing a silly ditty about the size of his endowments is no threat to cultural performances of the scope the bards are educated in, if anything, it provides a stark contrast, kind of like, Japanese wood-block print art for the masses and the more refined, cultural style for the aristocrats, each with their own merits and values, but intended for a different audience.

It does sometimes seem like Poet's Circle is portrayed as having a monopoly on music.  Is this truly the case?  Do they also have a monopoly on instrument production?

As an organization that does recruit, stifling the talent pool from which they draw seems against their own interests.

[Down Under]

From my understanding, the Circle is more like the Mob.

You can be a shitty Warrens rat that sings on a street corner or in the pubs, but you have to pay protection to the Circle to remain an 'unaffiliated performer', if you're doing it to make money.

If you're performing in pubs and you're not a Circle performer, the Circle approaches you and asks you to audition, or cut out performing, or pay protection to them.

At least, that's how i've seen it. They create a talent pool by nudging people to either join the Circle, or they snub out their competition by making thinly veiled threats.

People who perform all the time after that point and don't pay a tithe to the Circle likely disappear. I've seen it more than once.

[MeTekillot]

Play in tuluk, get murdered for playing songs about eating rats for tips.

[palomar]

They don't have a monopoly on making instruments. Attempting to become the next big name in instrument making will probably draw Circle attention, and the attention of at least one Merchant House.

[Patuk]

The Poet's circle has a monopoly on music the way the Legion does on swordsmen.

Both are going to produce state-funded people who get to practice their trade with expert tuition and are expected to do do something in return for Tuluk. Where the Legion uses its 'monopoly' on swordsmen to keep Tuluk safe and the right people in charge, the Poet's circle isn't there for bards to sing well or to become Zalanthan rock stars, it exists because the state values skill and art, and because Tuluk's bards keep its culture.

Bards are more than musicians. Bards produce the murals that depict the battles of yore where Muk Utep wrested control of Gol Krathu and forever made it his domain. Bards are the people who every eleventh Huegel of the Low Arc commemorate how this was the day that Precentor Gerundmune of the Lirathean order managed to save the city by maneuvring a cadre of elite martyrs into the side of an invading force and won the battle in an epic poem spanning three hours. It is the paintings of bards that line the halls in the Ivory for every soldier and Templar that passes through to see in whose footsteps they tread and what they must aspire to.

The Circle doesn't hold a monopoly on performance art for the sheer reason that it doesn't need to. For one, its existence doesn't revolve about generating money from songs like some kind of record company. For another, no self-starters possess the immense array of folk tales, ancient poems, verses and musical techniques that the Circle would have gathered by now. If some guy is going to start a troupe of musicians and play songs in some tavern, it shouldn't bother the Circle one bit. It is too far removed from their realm to pose a threat. If these people do a terrible job and insist on calling themselves bards, some people might be annoyed and action may be taken. But if not, it's not their problem. The Circle isn't a tool of entertainment and a way for everyone to go bang hot chicks and get high(though individual bards may have this as their own goal if they don't give a shit) it exists because the people of Tuluk - or at least the ruling class - thinks ot serves a good purpose that is worthy of funding and preservation.

(I have played all of zero Tuluki bards, aides, nobles or templars, so my opinion is less informed than others.)

[CodeMaster]

From my understanding, the Circle is more like the Mob.

You can be a shitty Warrens rat that sings on a street corner or in the pubs, but you have to pay protection to the Circle to remain an 'unaffiliated performer', if you're doing it to make money.

If you're performing in pubs and you're not a Circle performer, the Circle approaches you and asks you to audition, or cut out performing, or pay protection to them.

At least, that's how i've seen it. They create a talent pool by nudging people to either join the Circle, or they snub out their competition by making thinly veiled threats.

People who perform all the time after that point and don't pay a tithe to the Circle likely disappear. I've seen it more than once.

That seems really weird to me.  It definitely isn't hinted at in the docs about the circle...?  Auditions are described as being rare opportunities.

I would have thought there would be a large population of beggars in and around Tuluk that supplement their incomes/scrape by playing recycled ditties.  How much of a cut would they really expect to take from these people?

[HavokBlue]

I'm completely perplexed by people who OOCly and ICly act as if the Bardic Circles have an unquestionable monopoly on all performances.

How do Tuluki citizens audition for the Circles then? Do they sit in little private closets locked away from the world never sharing their art with anyone until they audition? Because that's ridiculous. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect there to be unaffiliated bards trying to work their way into the Circles or sing an old song for their meal.

For a very brief time, I tried to play a poor Warrens PC who juggled knives for a few coins on the street corner. Every time someone asked her what she did, and she replied that she was an aspiring street performer, the response was largely "YOU CAN'T DO THAT YOU AREN'T IN THE CIRCLE" or "THE CIRCLE GONNA GET YOU".

[Nyr]

The public documentation for the Circles is not intended to be anything close to the thousands of words of documentation that exists for PCs in the Circle.  The Circles might go after people that try to excel in the arts...with skill/aplomb/whatever...that rock the boat, that make a name for themselves, that try to do all of this WITHOUT going through the Circles.  Yes.

Seeing as how it's pretty easy to go through them, you may as well.  Auditions are rare opportunities because they require staff to be there for them and a player to want to be a bard; they aren't "ICly" rare.

I would have thought there would be a large population of beggars in and around Tuluk that supplement their incomes/scrape by playing recycled ditties.

Beggars, probably not.  Hipsters, maybe?

Heavily bearded student at the Ai'Jinn Academy, sitting outside in grubby clothing, playing a beaten up guitar:

"Because maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
And after all
You're my Scaien Wall"

[aeglaeca]

Does the Poets' Circle teach the art of brewing craft beers???

[Majikal]

I was reading the warded man series and there's a character who has some involvement with a 'bards guild'. I thought it portrayed tuluki bards pretty well even if the part in the story was pretty small. Master bards had to set the standard while the lesser bards fought over stuff like street corners and where they could play. A fancier bard shows up to where you are and you kind of just gotta bow out and give them the stage if they want it.. or maybe get your ass roughed up when nobody is looking.

But yeah, always seen the bards circles like mobs.

[boog]

I'm completely perplexed by people who OOCly and ICly act as if the Bardic Circles have an unquestionable monopoly on all performances.

How do Tuluki citizens audition for the Circles then? Do they sit in little private closets locked away from the world never sharing their art with anyone until they audition? Because that's ridiculous. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect there to be unaffiliated bards trying to work their way into the Circles or sing an old song for their meal.

For a very brief time, I tried to play a poor Warrens PC who juggled knives for a few coins on the street corner. Every time someone asked her what she did, and she replied that she was an aspiring street performer, the response was largely "YOU CAN'T DO THAT YOU AREN'T IN THE CIRCLE" or "THE CIRCLE GONNA GET YOU".

Usually these people get recruited. Or asked if they're interested. It's what I would do with my bards.

But then, maybe the bards at the time were playing bards that were super serious bards who thought bards should only be bards born of bards that had made names for themselves already in the Circle.

(OMG, so many bards.)

What I'm saying is this: Sometimes, people are douchey and I'm surprised that, despite everyone thinking the boogeyman was gonna get your character, that they didn't try to recruit her instead. As a player, that makes me

But that ... on the other hand ... does give me a good idea for a family role call.

[deskoft]

The Circles will not allow people to perform for money in Tuluk. That is their catch. You cannot get hired by a House, and get paid for it, without bearing the inkings of the Circles. Anyone can craft instruments.

[MeTekillot]

So my jibe about getting murdered for playing songs for tips in a bar is actually a thing that would probably happen?

[CodeMaster]

Code Select Expand


The sparsely-bearded adolescent sings, in sirihish:
   "And all the roads we have to walk are winding
    And all the lights that lead us there are blinding"

The bard circle exclaims, in sirihish:
   "That's strike three!"

The bard circle runs up and gouges the sparsely-bearded adolescent in the eyes.


[edit: circle bard?  my dislexya]

[Rathustra]

The bard circle is the rough circle of the North.

[Inks]

I quite like the way the circle is to be honest. It reminds me of the musician's guild in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, with heavies and the like. I wish they had more heavies though.

[Patuk]

wtf you guys

[Fujikoma]

Bards make you tough.

[Fujikoma]

So my jibe about getting murdered for playing songs for tips in a bar is actually a thing that would probably happen?

... there are some GMH roles, that, with particular personality quirks, would have you murdered for mastercrafting a grungy loincloth.

[Rathustra]

I think anyone getting heat for playing a bawdy is likely a case of 'the only elf in the city' - the situation whereby people are excited at a chance to be harsh and uncompromising (e.g. there's a thief around! Let's get 'em!) and promptly pile on the first likely suspect (the only non-virtual elf in the city).

The Circles probably won't care if you play outside of taverns, or in taverns without accepting coin. But if they notice you're making a living out of it - or worse - if they notice you've actually got -talent- - they'll start asking when you're going to audition.

[Fujikoma]

I may be way out of line here, but I've always found 'the only elf in the city' treatment to be -way- out of line and far too common. It's why there's only one elf in the city to be harsh and uncomprimising with. With all the other limitations, this sort of approach pretty much almost insures that you don't have any to kick around anymore. It's pretty much a constant and it gets old after a while, especially when you see how well some of the elven NPCs in the Bazaar and the one running the shop out of the back of Red's are doing for themselves, without being hassled.

[Patuk]

That's not out of line, that's how most anyone who has played a celf feels, and why a large portion of the playerbase doesn't even try playing one.

[Harmless]

Paying protection isn't so bad. Not taking money isn't so bad. Monopoly is too strong of a word. I think my last bard did about half a dozen or more public performances and wasn't able to get an audition in her time.

[Fujikoma]

Paying protection isn't so bad. Not taking money isn't so bad. Monopoly is too strong of a word. I think my last bard did about half a dozen or more public performances and wasn't able to get an audition in her time.

I was told IG, without a doubt, I'd be murdered if I wasn't -real- careful. Obviously, this kind of thing doesn't just pop up out of thin air. Paying protection is simple and understandable, well, unless you're a broke-ass warrens rat just trying to scrape by.

[Harmless]

maybe it was the way you were performing? the content of your performances? some other aspect of your PC specific to you that caused that? I'm interested in how and why you saw that, but that isn't my experience... it's more about the bard than the circle I think, case-by-case.