Bardcore

Your music is magical. Your band is a disaster. Bardcore is a cooperative one-page RPG for 2–4 bards — one band, one setlist, shared Harmony and Fame. You're a traveling fantasy band whose performances can alter reality, and your tour takes you through dangerous taverns, hostile kingdoms, and venues with impossible demands. Harmony is the band holding together; Fame is the legend you're building. You start with 3 of each.

Every show is one performance. Arrange the setlist — write BUILD, BREAK, and FINALE into the Opener, the Middle, and the Closer, no repeats — then play the set in order: roll 1d6 for EACH song as it is played, and check the meters after every song. On 1–2, DISCORD: −1 Harmony. On 3–4, MIXED: hold steady. On 5–6, PERFECT: +1 Fame. Take turns rolling for the songs — the bard whose instrument is featured calls their own rolls.

Where a song sits matters — a song's extra effect applies only in its HOME SLOT. BUILD at home in the Opener: its MIXED also gains +1 Harmony (cap 6). BREAK at home in the Middle is the high-stakes song: DISCORD costs −1 Harmony AND −1 Fame, but PERFECT gains +1 Fame AND +1 Harmony. FINALE at home in the Closer: its PERFECT gains +2 Fame. Play a song out of position and it uses the standard results. And once per tour, when the FINALE in the Closer rolls MIXED, one bard's instrument carries the note the voice couldn't — +1 Fame instead of holding steady. One signature moment per tour; choose whose.

The meters print their whole economy: Fame never decreases except on a bombed BREAK, and Harmony is regained only by BUILD and BREAK at home. WIN — LEGENDS: fill the Fame meter (6) before Harmony runs out, and the tour ends in glory. LOSE — BREAKUP: Harmony hits 0 — the tour is over and the band breaks up.

On the sheet: character creation — choose an instrument (Lute, Drums, Horn, or Magical Vocals), and it earns its keep — the complete Setlist engine with all three home-slot effects printed, the split Harmony/Fame meter, and a d6 GM quick-generator: roll the venue, the audience, and the musical disaster — a goblin pub full of angry mercenaries where the drums summon rats, a royal court, a dragon cave, a battlefield, a haunted theater, a tavern on wheels. Print one page, grab a die, and take the show on the road.

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