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Message: <blockquote data-quote="D+1" data-source="post: 2119386" data-attributes="member: 13654">And why does the ascetism of D&D monks need to be assigned to any hemisphere or era?  That was my point about it being fantasy.  If you are concerned with portraying a very particular real-world organization and it's philosophy, sure the D&D monk is pretty flawed if not downright useless.  But then I've never thought that the D&D monk was genuinely attempting such a narrow portrayal largely because it DOESN'T portray anything that very closely resembles a real-world pattern.Yet I think it doesn't make the D&D monk less useful for not being properly oriental or occidental in its construction, it makes it more useful.  A very narrow vision of the monk, closely patterned after a particular real-world organization in its form and function is pretty much by definition far more limited for application to a wide variety of fantasy campaigns because it IS best suited to only one particular kind of campaign.  One in which the DM wishes to adhere closely to real-world construction.But the D&D monk is quite clearly a pastiche of elements from monastic ascetics from across the globe and time.  Mostly eastern perhaps but definitely intended right from the outset for inclusion into PSEUDO-Medieval European campaign settings.  That inclusion just IS; they are there just because they are there.  If you WANT to explain it in detail you can but it's not as if any particular real-world combination of philosophy, terrain, and historical events has to be heaped upon the campaign world in order to force a particular explanation of why they are there and why they look and act as they do.Just because they don't fit your campaign because they inaccurately portray a more realistic eastern ascetic tradition doesn't mean that they have no place in D&D.  They don't need to be associated closely with shaolin or ninja, etc, any more than a cleric of Odin or Set bears even a passing resemblence to real-world religion involving those deities, or that many of the weapons and armors being used in the game have real-world equivalents</blockquote>

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