D&D (2024) Help Me Hate Monks (Less Than I Currently Do)

[Paul Farquhar]

yes and no, I doubt the classes do not exist to a certain degree in universe and people would sooner or later start seeing similarities as humans like to categorise things.
to abstract and classes might as well not exist, too literal and you have a different problem.
but that missis the point of discussing the monk class

It fairly on-point. In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous one of the companions (Lann) has a monk subclass. He is not part of any order, and he is not Asiatic, he is not celibate or aesthetic or Buddhist. His class is never mentioned in dialogue. It is simply a description of how he fights. His background, Hunter, better describes who he is. On the other hand, it is frequently mentioned that another companion is a paladin, even if you immediately multiclass her to something else.

Conclusion: the name of the class may or may not tell you something about the character. It depends.

If you look at the cleric class, a cleric, by definition: "a priest or religious leader, especially a Christian or Muslim one. From ecclesiastical Latin clericus ‘clergyman’, from Greek klērikos ‘belonging to the Christian clergy’". However, the prototype D&D cleric was based on Van Helsing, who was a professor, not a clergyman, with a hint of Knight Templar (who were monks) thrown in. In modern D&D, not only are clerics not Christian or Muslim, the rules make it clear that the vast majority of priests and religious leaders who are not PCs are NOT clerics!

Conclusion: the names of D&D classes do not have the same meaning as the word in standard English.

Exception: Paladin. Since paladin is hardly ever used in any context apart from D&D and related games, it doesn't really have any other meaning in standard English.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Game mechanics are an abstraction. The universe does not run on game mechanics.

I'm not sure how to feel about this statement. The Gygax-Arneson model is so advanced, in its first edition form it precisely models how the world works. Everyone knows this.

And no, everyone in the world does not have the exact same abilities. There are a potentially infinite number of classes and subclasses. When a new class is added to the game it has always been there. People with those abilities don’t simply appear out of nowhere. Which is why you often encounter NPCs with abilities that are not currently available to players.

This is another head-scratcher. The revised Gygax-Arneson model also correctly classifies all people into exactly three categories: Fighter, Magic-User, Thief. Everyone in the world exactly fits into one of those categories! And since they're categories, exact abilities have been described that everyone in the category has!

/s

Speaking seriously, though, I always liked the idea that a campaign could absolutely add a subclass or class to the game at any time. In Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar series, warlocks are a new development -- in the year YS 5202, some people woke up one day with the ability to sense and manipulate matter, with no explanation. That's a great hook with lots of great roleplaying potential!

 

[RealAlHazred]

Exception: Paladin. Since paladin is hardly ever used in any context apart from D&D and related games, it doesn't really have any other meaning in standard English.

Paladin has a more specific meaning in English than even "cleric" or "thief" -- the Paladins were the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, twelve legendary knights who, possibly even in their own lifetimes, had achieved renown and were reputed to have almost-supernatural powers, granted by God.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Paladin has a more specific meaning in English than even "cleric" or "thief" -- the Paladins were the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, twelve legendary knights who, possibly even in their own lifetimes, had achieved renown and were reputed to have almost-supernatural powers, granted by God.

Sure, but how often do the Twelve Peers crop up in everyday conversation? If you happen to hear someone talking about a paladin, chances are they are talking about D&D or something derived from it.

 

[RealAlHazred]

how often do the Twelve Peers crop up in everyday conversation?

I would argue Paladin comes up as often as cleric -- if you hear someone say "cleric" in conversation, chances are they're talking D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would argue Paladin comes up as often as cleric -- if you hear someone say "cleric" in conversation, chances are they're talking D&D.

Actually, I hear cleric quite often on the news. “The Church of England’s top cleric” is a phrase quite often used to describe the Archbishop of Canterbury, and “controversial Muslim cleric” is heard quite frequently too (largely because journos don’t know much about Islam).

 

[Maxperson]

And no, everyone in the world does not have the exact same abilities. There are a potentially infinite number of classes and subclasses. When a new class is added to the game it has always been there. People with those abilities don’t simply appear out of nowhere. Which is why you often encounter NPCs with abilities that are not currently available to players.

It's probably good that I didn't say that, then. I said everyone in the world who say chooses to be a fighter has the same fighter class abilities and choices. All of them. If their class abilities and choices are different than every other fighter, then they aren't a fighter. They are a Coocoocachoo or something.

 

[Maxperson]

If you look at the cleric class, a cleric, by definition: "a priest or religious leader, especially a Christian or Muslim one. From ecclesiastical Latin clericus ‘clergyman’, from Greek klērikos ‘belonging to the Christian clergy’". However, the prototype D&D cleric was based on Van Helsing, who was a professor, not a clergyman, with a hint of Knight Templar (who were monks) thrown in. In modern D&D, not only are clerics not Christian or Muslim, the rules make it clear that the vast majority of priests and religious leaders who are not PCs are NOT clerics!

Conclusion: the names of D&D classes do not have the same meaning as the word in standard English.

Faulty conclusion since you ignore the first part of the real world definition. I will bold it for you. That means that the clerics in D&D that are priests(and all of them are), meet the real world definition as it is used here in the real world. In D&D all clerics are priests, but not all priests are clerics. There is no issue with the rules making it clear that the vast majority of priests in D&D are not clerics.

 

[Maxperson]

I would argue Paladin comes up as often as cleric -- if you hear someone say "cleric" in conversation, chances are they're talking D&D.

I hear cleric on the news all the time when referring to Muslim religious leaders. As a result, I also occasionally hear it in person in conversations.

 

[barouqeworks]

I played an astral elf mercy monk who was a vigilante trying to control his powers to heal the sick and punish the wicked, ultimately with goals of becoming an eventual god of death. i don't see how "monk is Asian" affects the story of that, when he mostly uses daggers to fight. Saying that monk is type casted to be an Asian stereotype is a very limited view or imagination of the class when the possibilities are endless IMO