The Myopic Sniper
Hero
The Asians Represent podcast took a closer look at the Playtest 6 Monk and found it wanting.
(YouTube) Asians Represent: "Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?"
My takeaways of their main points (TLDR version):
- They seem confused by WOTC's efforts to make the Monk non-Asian coded while trying to bring more non-European representation into the game.
- They prefer the term "Martial Artist" if they go in that direction, but they almost seem to prefer keeping the Monk as Asian coded, but having Asian creators and writers design the class.
- They are critical of WOTC's decision to make the 2024 edition of the core books backwards compatible while still trying to tackle these big issues with the monk/martial artist class which they think will lead to not really addressing the fundamental issues with the class.
- They really don't like the term "Martial Discipline" and in particular "Discipline Points". They seem to think of disciplines as qualitative (different disciplines) rather than quantitative so Discipline Points is somewhat perplexing. They prefer the term "Spirit Points" if the Monk is going to keep the religious trappings of the Monk name. (I know other Asian creators didn't like the "spirit points terminology because it leaned into "mystical Asian" tropes. The class has removed some of those though did keep some of them.)
- They fear there are going to be a lot of South Park jokes in actual play around the discipline terminology: "You rack discipline." They see it as a total meme.
- They find restriction Monks to simple weapons makes no sense and is just something that is carried over from older versions of the class that need to be updated and addressed.
- They don't think that WOTC understands real world martial arts as well and suggest bringing in a consultant who practices martial arts from multiple cultures to fix many obvious issues with the way the game presents them.
Overall verdict: No, WOTC didn't fix the Monk. It is still an Asian inspired class, but now with an identity crisis. The change from Ki to Discipline does nothing to really broaden the concept beyond Asian martial artist so it is just some weak and awkward linguistic changes because WOTC is so beholden to backwards compatibility.
Any thoughts?
(YouTube) Asians Represent: "Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?"
My takeaways of their main points (TLDR version):
- They seem confused by WOTC's efforts to make the Monk non-Asian coded while trying to bring more non-European representation into the game.
- They prefer the term "Martial Artist" if they go in that direction, but they almost seem to prefer keeping the Monk as Asian coded, but having Asian creators and writers design the class.
- They are critical of WOTC's decision to make the 2024 edition of the core books backwards compatible while still trying to tackle these big issues with the monk/martial artist class which they think will lead to not really addressing the fundamental issues with the class.
- They really don't like the term "Martial Discipline" and in particular "Discipline Points". They seem to think of disciplines as qualitative (different disciplines) rather than quantitative so Discipline Points is somewhat perplexing. They prefer the term "Spirit Points" if the Monk is going to keep the religious trappings of the Monk name. (I know other Asian creators didn't like the "spirit points terminology because it leaned into "mystical Asian" tropes. The class has removed some of those though did keep some of them.)
- They fear there are going to be a lot of South Park jokes in actual play around the discipline terminology: "You rack discipline." They see it as a total meme.
- They find restriction Monks to simple weapons makes no sense and is just something that is carried over from older versions of the class that need to be updated and addressed.
- They don't think that WOTC understands real world martial arts as well and suggest bringing in a consultant who practices martial arts from multiple cultures to fix many obvious issues with the way the game presents them.
Overall verdict: No, WOTC didn't fix the Monk. It is still an Asian inspired class, but now with an identity crisis. The change from Ki to Discipline does nothing to really broaden the concept beyond Asian martial artist so it is just some weak and awkward linguistic changes because WOTC is so beholden to backwards compatibility.
Any thoughts?