Rename: Spoony Bard

The new description is very thorough but gives a lot of tangential information and goes on for too long, I think. Considering we've been talking about confusion in the trope that could be a real downside. I can try my hand at consolidating it in a bit.

Well, I'm certainly one for trying to give out a full and detailed description covering all of the bases for the purpose of ensuring a lack of confusion, and frankly, enjoy reading long texts for the sheer enjoyment of reading it.

Still, I do understand brevity is a virtue, so if you want to trim down the parts you see as redundant, feel free.

EDIT: missed the spacebar, apparently.

edited 16th Sep '10 12:26:24 PM by Wraith_Magus

I just noticed this thread. For the record, Autarch, I was the one who put in the Ever Quest example, because I got a feeling from the trope that it wasn't about "useless characters" so much as it was about just bards in general and the... diversity that they often bring into a game.

In EQ's example, the Bard Class is a mish-mash of many various properties of other classes- They can wear platemail like Warriors, dual wield like Rangers and Monks, and have various songs that range from light healing and mana regeneration, speed and strength buffs, attack debuffs, charm spells, and damage over time spells. They're far from useless in any way, but they're quite effective and fun to play in their own way because of the fact that they do not excel in any one field.

edited 16th Sep '10 2:28:25 PM by DRCEQ

Done. I tried to keep the (excellent) tone of the rewrite during editing.

Great work, Wraith and Fnor!

And good to see you back, Wraith. ^_^

I did another edit. Fnor, there were a few odd words and setence fragments left hanging from editing out what the "because" or an "and" in a sentance referred to without removing the "because" or "and" themselves.

Also, I wouldn't say I'm "back". I still have other priorities, I just got tripped up on this while being distracted in a wiki crawl.

Besides, the ham-handed moderation here and the absurd addiction to renaming every trope to the point that the entire website becomes useless because any term defined today will be replaced by another trope tommorow (so why bother learning a trope at all?) still leaves a wretched taste in the mouth.

Thanks, not surprised there were errors. Dual-wielding wikis and screaming babies has its downsides!

Mostly chiming in to mention I've watchlisted Spoony Bard and will make the changes when the Splat/Common RPG Character Classes thing is resolved.

^ That issue should be resolved by the end of the weekend unless I'm physically prohibited access to a computer.

Also, to whomever still worries about "not having a trope" for the "gimmick class that sucks" thing, and are trying to trim down the examples, then look at the following tropes:

• Joke Character - Is a character with no particular uses, but has some silly gimmick (very much what the old definition was about).
• Lethal Joke Character - A character with a gimmick that actually works very well.
• Master of None - Is a generalist with no useful skills.
• The Mario - Is a generalist who IS useful.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway? - For characters whose gimmicks are just plain stupid
• Blessed with Suck - for gimmicks that tend to backfire

So yeah, I don't think we have a dearth of "other tropes" that you can shove the examples into.

edited 17th Sep '10 6:36:35 PM by Wraith_Magus

Okay, reading Master of None, it seems to be The Mario Done Badly. Off to TRS.

Okay, reading Master Of None, it seems to be The Mario Done Badly. Off to TRS.

Please tell me you're not serious. I'm too tired to detect sarcasm.

Apparently not, because he actually created the thread.

Replying to something a page back: Please, for the love of god, give each final fantasy game their own bullet when adding examples. Making a big Final Fantasy bullet leads to unnecessary third-level indention solely because a lot of people have a lot to say about Final Fantasy games. Putting the bullets next to each other is enough to link the series.

(Bit of a necro, I know. Was making a TRS entry about the misuse of the subjective tag but couldn't with an existing topic.)

The trope isn't about useless characters, so none of the options are valid. It's about gimmick characters. A gimick character may be a Game-Breaker. Further the trope has the subjective tag applied wrong.

edited 9th Nov '10 6:15:58 PM by deuxhero

I don't think it needs to be renamed now that the entire trope has been redefined for bard classes in video games. The name is cute and recognizable.

On that note, I just made a large change to the page, deleting anything that didn't involve bard or dancer classes. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done with that page though.

edited 10th Nov '10 8:51:27 AM by DRCEQ

Should we edit the crowner, now that the trope has been redefined?

I think we'd need a whole new crowner, otherwise we'd be counting votes for something different.

It's not about just bard characters. Nobody decided that it was. Cutting out non-bard examples is inappropriate.

I could have sworn it was decided to turn the whole trope from "Gimmick joke character" to "Bards in Video Games" somewhere along the line in this discussion.

Convoluted discussion, but I think you're right. Which means write-up needs tweaking, because as it is it covers non-bards. I'll have a look later. Although I don't think it's just video games.

edited 11th Nov '10 6:01:50 AM by Fnor

Fixed the last paragraph of the description to clarify this only applies to bards, cleaned up examples/organization. We're done here.

This says it's done, but as it is unlocked, the discussion button remains on the page. Could it be locked?