Quote Originally Posted by jh12 View Post
Yes, in addition to being a pompous and thin-skinned, Bart the Bard is evil. He puts his own wants and desires over the autonomy of other people. He cast a spell intended to be used in combat on multiple unwilling people. He has no right to do that. He altered the minds of multiple people, forcing them to think in particular ways that benefit him. He has no right to do that. It's not his place to decide how much people should enjoy his performance. It's his place to perform and the people to enjoy it as they see fit.

Plus, they haven't witnessed a magical performance. Instead, their minds were magically altered while watching a mundane performance. He didn't cast anything on himself that made his performance any better. Whatever effect Charm Person actually has on their enjoyment, which I wouldn't expect to be all that much (if anything at all), it doesn't come from the performance being any better but from their mind being altered. More than likely it just keeps people from booing his terrible performance, because any bard who could actually play and sing wouldn't need to resort to such gimmicks to impress the crowd (and unlike with actually enjoying the performance, most people are much more likely to refrain from booing a friendly acquaintance than a total stranger). It's Bart the Bard's insecurities that cause him to cast the spell on the crowd, not any actual desire for them to enjoy themselves more. That's just the lie he tells himself to justify it. Many evil people come up with stories to tell themselves that make what they're doing seem alright.

And why would any tavern owner let someone like Bart the Bard in their establishment, much less up on the stage? He's the bard who is so bad at performing that he has to cast a spell on the audience to make them listen.

Yes, in addition to being vain, the Glamour Bard who uses Enthralling Performance just for fun is evil. It's only point is to stoke his ego at the expense of their will.

This heavily depends on the expectations of the society in question regarding the use of magic in performance. It's quite possible that, in a magic sufficed world, elements like this become an expected part of the production of elite musical performances.

There are two keys to such a presentation:
  • Narratively, situations like that need to be proactively presented to be established. This allows characters who would object to that kind of performance to decline to participate, much as someone might choose not to take a mind-altering drug even if society permitted it.
  • Ethically, consent is still paramount for situations like this.


But unless you're willing to grapple with the relevant exposition and deal with the implications of consent - it should be presumed evil. Without consent, it's the equivalent of dosing the entire unwitting audience of a concert because you feel your music is best understood while on psychedelics.

The fact that magic is less likely to have side effects is an amelioration of secondary harm, not a negation of the primary transgression.