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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9545679" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I recently finished Phandelver and Below with Hussar and his gaming group. One of the characters in that game was Henrietta Hogsplitter (whom my character always called "Lady Hogsplitter"). She was mechanically a monk, but nothing about her was monastic.Instead, her Ki points were "Spryness"--basically, an old, retired adventurer having just enough juice in the tank most days to show off a little of the skills she used to be able to do anytime. Any of the things spending Ki would do, it was her basically pushing past the limits of an aging body to still "fight with the best of 'em!" And I loved it!I don't know if this, on its own, will rehabilitate the Monk for you. But that's part of the idea. Monks don't necessarily need to belong to a "monastic order" per se, though if you like the idea you've got, obviously run with it--that's always a better starting point than not.For my own game, we don't have any "monks" (Dungeon World does not have a "monk" playbook by default), but I have options if I ever had a player that wanted to play one. For example:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Just this past session, we established that there are underground prizefighting games, sort of a greymarket kind of thing where it isn't outright illegal, but whether it's truly legal is not clear, and plenty of Suspicious Activities occur at the margins. That'd be a great opportunity for "monk" skills that have nothing to do with monasticism, but rather with a sustained MMA-style tradition of pugilism.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Both the Safiqi priesthood and the Raven-Shadow assassin cult are known to wear "practical" uniforms, and the latter specifically learn skills befitting assassins, while the former have a SCARY but overall positive "internal police" force that knows how to, as Terry Pratchett would put it, "inhume" people if necessary to protect the world. Both sides could be "monastic" traditions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Travellers from the distant land of Yuxia, the Jade Home, could be standard Shaolin Kung Fu style monks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Nomad tribes (not barbarians, neither as a character class nor as a rude caricature of foreigners) are known to have existed for a long, long time despite living a hardscrabble life at the edges of society. Monk-like combat skills could be very fitting, especially if you tweak "monk weapons" to include things like spears, shortbows, and handaxes.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I could take some inspiration from Sherlock Holmes and his "baritsu" (likely an accidental corruption of "bartitsu" by Sir Doyle), as "gentleperson adventurer" is something long-established as a valid career choice (albeit somewhat disreputable until the past few years), and a "genteel" fighting art that de-emphasizes lethal violence while still being quite effective for self-defense and lockdowns would fit well.</li> </ul>And this sort of characterizes how I approach integration of player ideas into my game. While it may not necessarily be the case that an idea works exactly as-is, no modifications (though it could here, via Yuxia), I put in the work to ensure I don't get painted into a corner. This helps a ton for meeting players halfway and helping them realize their vision in a productive way.</blockquote>

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