How do you fit monks into Occidental campaigns?

Zaran · Nov 4, 2010

Tonguez said:
The Monk class is based on the idea of the Eastern Shaolin/Zen/Taoist Monk as per all those Wuxia/Golden Harvest movies right?

yet most gamers use Westernish settings

How do you reconcile the two?

- Monks are exotic 'oriental' visitors to the campaign region
- Monks are a integral part of normal society
- Monks are changed to have a more occidental outlook whilst maintaining their core abilities

any ideas?

I usually give Monks a religious bent. They usually stay in their monstaries that are in hard to reach places. Because most campaigns are not pre-dominately one religion there can easily be monk-like ideas from one particular god or even as a sect from a more common god. Gods like Kord probably encourage martial arts training.

I would like to go on record in saying that I HATE that monks are psionic. I would have much rather they stuck with Ki as a Power Source or just made them Martial in nature.

Vyvyan Basterd · Nov 4, 2010

Zaran said:
I would like to go on record in saying that I HATE that monks are psionic. I would have much rather they stuck with Ki as a Power Source or just made them Martial in nature.

I'm a 1E grognard. A better version of the 1E monk was published in Dragon Magazine as the Psionic Monk. Psionic powers like Body Weaponry and Body Equilibrium fit the bill for the mind over matter nature of the monk. It still makes sense to me to this day. There are different "schools" of psionics that were codified in 2E AD&D and the monk focuses on those that affect himself.

Then again, since power source has ABSOLUTELY no effect on the game, you can call it Ki. You can call it Primal like the great idea posted up thread. Or you can just call it Martial. Don't be penned in by the category the designers used to help them guide their process. Sometimes I wished they had never shared these power sources with us as it seems to dull peoples' creativity.

steeldragons · Nov 4, 2010

>How do you fit monks into Occidental campaigns?

Some of this is repetitious, but what the hay...

The short answer: It's my world.

The slightly longer answer: The same way I put elves and dragons and sorcery and unicorns. It's a D&D world. There is no Occidental or Oriental. There is no West vs. East other than the kingdoms, races and cultures you chose to put there (or the campaign setting designers of the world you chose to play in put there).

On some points by other posters: The flavor you use to integrate them can make as much sense or be as fantastical as you like (I esp. liked the one about the Githzerai being exiled to the Prime plane and teaching martial arts to others.)

Having "martial arts" monks does not mean HAVING to have a real world Far-Eastern Shaolin/Taoist/Feudal Japan realm in your world. Doesn't mean having a "martial arts" monk demands yellow skin and a Silk Road to travel.

As for the kibitzing about the term "monk." Hey, look, call them whatever you like, but that's the name of the class from editions immemorial, so I call them monks.

I am ALSO capable of referring to those clerics in the monastery up the hill transcribing their manuscripts in brown robes "monks" if I so chose (and I do, too

The monastic order of THIS deity is composed of scholarly aesthetics. The monastic order of THAT deity is into the whole mystical martial arts thing. Yes, the latter is more rare and often more remote than the former, but that's just for flavor. My world doesn't have (as of yet hehe) a separate "eastern continent/culture".

That is not even going to get into the very simple (and "real world" accurate) fact that you can easily establish MULTIPLE ORDERS for a SINGLE religion/deity who engage in very different styles/practices/devotions in their monastic life.

If it's easier for you, then sure, say he learned his techniques from some mystic/hermit/temple/master far far away. But using monks in a campaign setting really doesn't require a whole lot of "justifying."

Just my two coppers.
--Steel Dragons

thedungeondelver · Nov 4, 2010

Troll Slayer · Nov 4, 2010

In my own homebrew fantasy world, I have an order of minotaurs that live in discreet mountain monestaries. They practice a strict way of life and martial style which helps to control their more bestial urges. At one point a human made the trek to one of their temples and earned the right to be taught their ways (woo hoo tropes!) When he returned to the western human lands, he founded the first "monk" temple; and brought with him an aggressive fighting style which focused on headbutts, grapples and stomps.

That's over simplifying the whole thing, but you get the picture. More traditional eastern styles still exist but this gives a more western themed/eastern inspired monestary for players to base their monk characters from. Plus I like the idea of a fighting style that focuses on headbutts, grapples and stomps.

Umbran · Nov 4, 2010

Orius said:
One of the web's biggest mysteries is how a forum newbie will always manage to dig deep into the archives and resurrect at least one long-dead thread that everyone else had forgotten.

I didn't know that web-searches still qualified as "mysterious" on the internet.

Last game world I brewed up, I used the presence of monks to build some world backstory. The continent the PCs roamed had, in the past, been overrun by humanoids. Humans had gotten driven into small, defensible enclaves, without much access to metal to make traditional weapons. The lawful style and weaponless combat were responses to their environment.

Immigrants later came, and together they were able to beat back the humanoids. But the enclaves and monk traditions remain.

Barastrondo · Nov 4, 2010

I emphasize the "ish" in Westernish. It goes in with pantheism in cultures that otherwise derive tropes from monotheistic historical cultures, really. Not many people blink an eye at a "chivalric romance" D&D kingdom where knights venerate a few gods in particular and peasants venerate more agrarian and druidic gods, and of course worshippers of evil gods show up as Gilles de Rais figures. That's very D&D.

So similarly, in a "swashbuckling fantasy" area I set up the idea that the opera houses are one part traditional European in influence, but also one part inspired by Beijing Opera: the actors are often trained in acrobatics and martial arts. One opera house might have an assassins' guild attached, while another could easily have a harlequinade that, from a rules perspective, turns out monks. I'm inclined to do things like this no matter where I go in D&D, from sword-and-sorcery inspired locations like Hollowfaust to more carefully tuned areas like a Castlevania/Ravenloft mashup. If I or a player can figure out a way to make a race or class look good, in it goes.

I like Western European cultures as stuff to draw from, but I take what I want from them and leave the stuff I'm not interested in. The "tropes from outside Western European cultures should be treated as exotic" trope gets left at the salad bar.

Man in the Funny Hat · Nov 4, 2010

ProfessorCirno said:
tl'dr version:

Monks are not based on actual buddhist aesthetics, they're based off of terrible yellow-faced films from the 70's.

Imagine if there were a group of weirdos in L5R who ran around praising "Jebus" and believed that stabbing people caused their soul to go into heaven by conversion. And that it was implied all westerners felt this way.

Would you find that absolutely rediculous and in no small part racist?

Well then I'm either hopelessly dim or incorrigably politically correct or something. Ever since 1E I've pictured almost all monks that I've played or that have been in my games as quite non-oriental, and borrowing nothing more than an utterly unrealistic mysticism from shaolin/buddist aesthetics. I see them being a lot like the Bloodguard from Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books. I see them as nothing more insulting than someone with a Friar Tuck haircut in a brown ghi doing PT in a monastery courtyard. I see them based on the ninja rather than shaolin monks. I see them in terms of Jason Bourne, John McLane, and River Tam and Lu-Tze from Terry Pratchett's discworld, all of which have about as much to do with insulting oriental depictions from bad 1970's films as I have with bodybuilding.

Paladins were originally based on ignorant, murdering crusaders for Christianity, but that's not what I run them as in my games. Assassins were based on the Thugee from India and I still use them in my games. ...

Sorry. I just don't buy the assertion that Monks are an expression of racism. Maybe that's the only way that YOU can think about them. Again, I run a game of D&D set in a world of fantasy. If I use Rome as a culture it's most likely that the only things they share with ACTUAL Roman culture is the armor and weapons and driving chariots and triremes. In real life I'm a Christian, but I use deities from ancient Norse, Indian, African, Japanese, Greek, Roman, and other cultures and regions which doesn't make me an aspostate so I don't think using monks would make anyone a racist - unless they actually play them in an insulting, racist fashion. Even if one DID pattern a monk PC after a bad 1970's chop-socky film does that make the player a racist, and the class racist - or is it nothing more than a humorous homage to ALL bad action movies? I think it can be done BOTH ways, but that can be done with ANY character class.

thedungeondelver · Nov 4, 2010

Man in the Funny Hat said:
Paladins were originally based on ignorant, murdering crusaders for Christianity,

No they

ing well weren't.

Danzauker · Nov 4, 2010

Personally, I have no problems with martial arts in a fantasy world. With all the magic, strange creatures and plane hopping around, having Asian clichées next to European it's no stranger that having nobody discover fire weapons.

that said, I always liked how monks were represented in old BECMI: "real" benedictine-style monks.

Just change sensei with abbott, bald heads and slippers with capes and sandals, and you have it.

In a world of mine I had the whole martial arts stuff developed in recluse monasteries in the mountains of an otherwise Italian country.