Hey its a new poll! Do you allow monks in your campaign?

[BronzeDragon]

I'm not sure about your tone, so I'm just going to assume you're being playfully sarcastic. Like me.

Not so strange. Not really. The difference is that I am, and so are my players, FAR more educated than any typical middle-ages person. This expands consciousness and cognitive abilities and allows us to see things outside of a narrow perspective. It also exposes us to ideas that others who travel no farther than a days walk from their homes, have little news from the ouside world, and are a very, very superstitious lot to begin with would not otherwise be exposed to.

As such,.... Nope. No problem with Monks. Just another supernatural dude doing wierd things that other "normal" people can't.

Sorry, I forgot to add the smiley at the end.

But if that's your opinion, I'm cool with that. just don't tell me that an eastern monk would be walking around in the european middle-ages without being crucified at one point or another.

Oh, okay, you are willing to administer a very healthy dose of modern sensibilities to your game. More power to you. My worlds are a bit more closely regimented than that. No "modern", "open" minds in my "middle-ages". To each his own.

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

Because, maybe, fire kills any armored person in real life, and bare hands, uh, do not?

Wizardry is much easier to imagine, for me at least, than a guy breaking through an opponent's plate and mail with his hand.

First, you completely miss the point in your first response. The fire was not the question. The magic source of the fire was.

As to your second point, lets put a real world "wizard" up against a real world martial artist and see who can break more breaks or do more damage to a suit of armor.

Then, when you allow your imagination to power up the wizard to fantasy standards, why does your imagination shut down when it comes to the martial artist? If a real world guy can easily break bricks with proper training, I see absolutely zero problem with imagining a supernatural martial artist punching through armor.

 

[Henry@home]

Strange. You just gave us an almost-perfect description of how the european late middle-ages saw the world of the fantastic.

Except, that is, for the eastern monks.

Except that, in midieval beliefs, dragons were not as big as a moathouse, and wizards could not throw lightning bolts and fireballs from their fingertips. In fact, you do not get this concept in fantasy until the 1970's.

If you wanted true european late middle-ages fantasy, then Wizards and sorcerers could work charms and evil eyes, and could tell the future, Dragons would be about as big as draft horses but no bigger, and the only thing that could lay waste to a city is a plague or a curse. Keep in mind, it was also a late-middle ages fantasy that the armored and mounted knight was the most powerful war machine on the battlefield. English Longbowmen proved that one wrong, and guns and cannon were right around the corner to quell that fantasy for good.

I certainly don't begrudge you your campaign preferences (every person has a right to play in their style), but I just want you to be aware that many of your conceptions of European fantasy are rooted in D&D, rather than actual European period fantasy. The two are a FAR cry from one another.

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

Appearances are often deceiving.

I offer complete freedom of interpretation for INDIVIDUAL role-players.

But assembling a complete order of people who think non-standard goes against my inner feeling of how my setting should be built.

So if I was in your game and wanted to play a monk without an order, you would let me?

Or would you say "No. Monks must behave like X."

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

But if that's your opinion, I'm cool with that. just don't tell me that an eastern monk would be walking around in the european middle-ages without being crucified at one point or another.

Another clear reference to non-D&D standard, european monotheism.

Tell me, could a socerer be walking around in the european middle-ages without being crucified? (Though burning or stoning would be more likely)

Tell me, could a wizard be walking around in the european middle-ages without being crucified?

Tell me, could a spell-casting bard be walking around in the european middle-ages without being crucified?

Tell me, could a shape-changing druid be walking around in the european middle-ages without being crucified?

A paldin could, right up until he laid his hands on someone and instantly healed them.

Etc....

Oh, okay, you are willing to administer a very healthy dose of modern sensibilities to your game. More power to you. My worlds are a bit more closely regimented than that. No "modern", "open" minds in my "middle-ages". To each his own. [/B]

Your words speak for themselves.

 

[BronzeDragon]

Ah, but here I think you are really missing one big thing. The standard setting for D&D may by Europe, but the standard religious structure is in no way like Europe. The polytheistic religions of D&D is more like the ancient greek religion than the European monotheism. (Not that it is really much like the greek system, just much closer). In D&D the better you know your god, the more powerful you become. Thus a 20th level cleric is more powerful than a 10th level cleric, who is more powerful than a first level cleric.

If you want to have a world where monks are boxed into a non-personal life, fine.

But if you want to say that other people's games are missing the mark because they allow monks, I am going to strongly disagree.

If you use the standard style religions, then you have to bend over backwards to argue that monks would not grow in power as they grew in knowledge.

But you are forgetting that people who "knew" God better in the european middle-ages DID gain personal power. With knowledge (which usually translated itself into the writing of books), the secular power of a priest or monk grew. They could become cardinals, bishops and pope after all.

My point is that this was not the institutional desire of these people. The desire to know God and the universe was what drove these men.

I don't see that as being antithetical to the D&D polytheistic system. In fact, the many "heresies' of the late middle-ages were mainly new (or old) interpretations of what God exactly was. Of course this can't be compared to a true polytheistic system like the Greek or Egyptian. But it still drives the point home, that secular power was not the main desire of the priesthood.

And most D&D religions consider their god to be the main one anyway, with the others being protrayed as either servants or enemies.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Oh, okay, you are willing to administer a very healthy dose of modern sensibilities to your game. More power to you. My worlds are a bit more closely regimented than that. No "modern", "open" minds in my "middle-ages". To each his own.

So many of the conventions of DnD are "modern" fantasy (read: after "middle-ages" that there is almost no way you could play DnD as is and still have a "middle-ages" campaign. DnD is rife with modern sensibilities!

Just off the top of my head, Wizards that can hurl DnD spells come to mind. Fireballs? Lightning bolts? Magic Missiles? What the...?

Displacer beasts? Flumphs? Rust monsters? Halflings? Half-orcs? Paladins? Rangers (as written)? What in the world?

If you take into account all the strange things that DnD lumps and dumps into one "world," it ain't hard to fit, or allow to fit, monks into the whole thing. Monks definitely "fit" into the game of DnD. They just might not be to taste is all.

Edit: I'm no longer sure what I'm arguing here. Soooo, I think I'll stop for a bit.

 

[BronzeDragon]

Except that, in midieval beliefs, dragons were not as big as a moathouse, and wizards could not throw lightning bolts and fireballs from their fingertips. In fact, you do not get this concept in fantasy until the 1970's.

If you wanted true european late middle-ages fantasy, then Wizards and sorcerers could work charms and evil eyes, and could tell the future, Dragons would be about as big as draft horses but no bigger, and the only thing that could lay waste to a city is a plague or a curse. Keep in mind, it was also a late-middle ages fantasy that the armored and mounted knight was the most powerful war machine on the battlefield. English Longbowmen proved that one wrong, and guns and cannon were right around the corner to quell that fantasy for good.

I certainly don't begrudge you your campaign preferences (every person has a right to play in their style), but I just want you to be aware that many of your conceptions of European fantasy are rooted in D&D, rather than actual European period fantasy. The two are a FAR cry from one another.

The absolute size of the dragons does not change the fact that dragons did exist in the european late middle-ages fantastic world.

The fact that european middle-ages sorcerers did not hurl fireballs does not change the fact that they existed in said fantastic world.

I most certainly don't root my ideas about the world of the fantastic in europe in D&D. D&D just extrapolates them to the umpteenth power. Extrapolating the size of a dragon is fine with me.

Oh, and the fact remains that the european middle-ages world of the fantastic did NOT contain any bare-hands-fighting monks.

 

[BronzeDragon]

So if I was in your game and wanted to play a monk without an order, you would let me?

Or would you say "No. Monks must behave like X."

No, I would say: "Monks do not exist in this world. Please make another character choice."

 

[Dalenthas]

Sounds like somebody's never seen Dragonheart 2....