D&D (2024) Asians Represent: "Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?"

[Remathilis]

Wait ... flumphs aren't real?

So who was I talking to in the bar all night??????

It's okay Snarf. We have a room waiting for you. It has padded walls to protect you from... Uh, the bards. Yeah. Bards can't pass though padding. You'll be safe in here.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's okay Snarf. We have a room waiting for you. It has padded walls to protect you from... Uh, the bards. Yeah. Bards can't pass though padding. You'll be safe in here.

That's what you think.

Look, you fools, you're in danger! Can't you see?! The bards are after you! They're after all of us! Our wives, our children, everyone!

THEY'RE HERE, ALREADY! YOU'RE NEXT!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

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The spirit of D&D is all groups and communities should be respected...(but the vampires from Ixalan, these should be nuked or terminated for the Phyrexian invasion).

Can we use the term "silkpunk"? Would you rather the term "(martial) adept" or "initiated"?

Hasbro is interested into Asian market, and mainly China (if censorship allows it) and Japan. South-Kore is also in the list but not in the first place.

D&D is about to use your imagination to travel other worlds, even hellscapes as Ravenloft or Dark Sun. A Western player interested into a "silkpunk D&D" is not wrong, even this could be useful to build bridges between different cultures and fighting prejudices. And Asian companies should wellcome D&D because this could be useful to introduce their own IPs in the Western market.

D&D Monk is not realiste, either the roof-jumper wuxia, or shooter videogames where you are healed automatically touching a medical kit.

2023 D&D can't be like 1980 D&D because now lot of multiples sources have added their touch or influence to players' imagination

I miss the martial adepts from 3.5 Tome of Battle: Book of nine Swords. Some ideas were interesting, but the fight was slower and more complicated.

With the necessary respect, Asians don't share the same opinion about themself and neighbours. A point of view by a Asian native could be different from a Western foreigner living in that same country or an Asian descendent who live their first years in a Western-culture country.

I suspect WotC would rather to use "spirit points" instead ki or chi points. They don't want to use words too languange into certain languange.

Hercules&Xena also drank from some Asian influences, for example some fight scenes were based in movies from Hong-Kong. The version of Hercules played by Kevin Sorbo was a reimagined Western version of wuxia.

"Nobody is going to cook that recipe like your grandma in the same way". I mean Asian and Western players creating their won silkpunk D&D will be different styles, but this is not wrong. Each tabletop or DM has got a own style.

I hope we can forget our differences and we can find a common point of agreement: those horrible vampires from Ixatlan settin should disappear from the existence!

 

[Sacrosanct]

In the Norse animistic traditions, it is less about having relationships with animals, and more about becoming animals.

No it's not. It's completely about the relationship. Only a few of the personalities in myth did much shapeshifting (like Loki, Egil, Skallagrim, and Andvari). For the typical regular person, the fylgja is almost all about an animal spirit guide that appears, not shapeshifting. A berserker is a good example. They don't actually shapeshift into the animal, but they adopt traits of the behavior, being imparted with the animal's spirit and powers. I don't want to hijack this thread, but FWIW, not only is this particular field something of my own ancestry that I've been involved in for decades, but more recently last year I spend A LOT of time researching animism and Norse mythology for a project I was working on, including but not limited to spending a lot of time analyzing the Eddas and absorbing hours of work by subject matter experts like Jackson Crawford. So this isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of those who are experts on the subject.

There is nothing particular about the bard that ties to animism. The bard in D&D is a rock star wizard. If the bard was meant to represent animism, they'd have specific abilities and powers that called upon the spirits of everything around them, from rocks, to plants, to animals. The varying features of these things would impart specific benefits to the bard (wisdom for bear, youth for wolf, healing for deer and mandrake, to vision for mugwort, to removing curses for blackthorne, etc.)

 

[MGibster]

I'd agree, but language is a funny tool and if you use a word like barbarian, it brings connotation from beyond the game with it. If D&D used completely made up words like ragebound or pactsworn, you can easily claim exclusive D&Dism, but barbarian and warlock bring real world tropes of savages and Satanism with them unfortunately.

That ship has sailed. While there's certainly precedent for changing the name of classes (Thief and Magic User), I seriously doubt WotC is going to change either Warlock or Barbarian. Hardly anyone is offended by barbarian and the type of people who get upset at Warlock aren't likely to be D&D players anyway.

Wait ... flumphs aren't real?

So who was I talking to in the bar all night??????

Sir, that was a Wendy's.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Sir, that was a Wendy's.

That explains why I woke up stinking of scotch and surrounded by a mountain of empty Frosty containers.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Bards have gone through an evolution. I still tend to think of them as very European, troubadour type characters (but definitely pulled more from movies probably than real history). Just like the Paladin is a very pop-culture version of a knight. And all classes with have D&D-isms that very much separate them from the real world (I find it is the combination of these real world tropes, legends and history through the filter of the weirdness of D&D that makes a lot of it work)

 

[Vaalingrade]

They'll probably correct the mistake of Barbarian eventually, actually.

 

[Sacrosanct]

They'll probably correct the mistake of Barbarian eventually, actually.

It sure seems like every other publisher is avoiding the term (unless it's trying to emulate Howard or something). Personally I have used the term "Brute" instead of barbarian.

 

[Yaarel]

No it's not. It's completely about the relationship. Only a few of the personalities in myth did much shapeshifting (like Loki, Egil, Skallagrim, and Andvari). For the typical regular person, the fylgja is almost all about an animal spirit guide that appears, not shapeshifting. A berserker is a good example. They don't actually shapeshift into the animal, but they adopt traits of the behavior, being imparted with the animal's spirit and powers. I don't want to hijack this thread, but FWIW, not only is this particular field something of my own ancestry that I've been involved in for decades, but more recently last year I spend A LOT of time researching animism and Norse mythology for a project I was working on, including but not limited to spending a lot of time analyzing the Eddas and absorbing hours of work by subject matter experts like Jackson Crawford. So this isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of those who are experts on the subject.

There is nothing particular about the bard that ties to animism. The bard in D&D is a rock star wizard. If the bard was meant to represent animism, they'd have specific abilities and powers that called upon the spirits of everything around them, from rocks, to plants, to animals. The varying features of these things would impart specific benefits to the bard (wisdom for bear, youth for wolf, healing for deer and mandrake, to vision for mugwort, to removing curses for blackthorne, etc.)

Regarding the animal manifestations of fylgjar, they are often an ancestor, human mage, or other nature being taking the form of an animal. The concept relates to the hamingja. The animal form can show up in dreams, and is often enough hostile rather than helpful.

For the Norse, the boundary between a human identity and an animal identity is porous.

The Bard shapeshifting spells can represent this nuance.


By the way, some berserkar actually shapeshift into an animal. There are several examples of projecting ones presence outofbody in the form of an animal. One story has someone accidentally shapeshifting into an animal by wearing the clothing of berserkar who regularly shapeshift. Shapeshifting is a Norse cultural trope in other contexs too.


There is more to the Nordic peoples than the Eddas.

And even the Eddas are full of examples of shamanic shapeshifting into animals.