Shindao principles anyone?

[mo]

Tar, the half orc monk, has recently fallen in with brothers of the (now destroyed) Shintao temple from the far east. His player, drooling over the number of feats available to the Shintao Prestige Class in OA, and thinking of completing a number of martial arts styles feat chains, has started to assign skill points to knowledge (religion) on order to fulfil the pre-reqs for the class. However, knowing nothing about Shintao principles (apart from vague knowledge of Buddhism), Tar is a little unsure of how he should be behaving, beyond standard principles of obedience, loyalty, respect, humility, which, while applicable, all feel rather Confuscian.

Anyone able to give poor Tar a little enlightenment?

 

[Olive]

well at least my players are HONEST about their power gaming motivations.

edit: i just thought that I'd mention that given that it's a LAWFUL Good PrC, i think that confucianism is a relevant and important influence.

 

[hong]

Most westerners don't know the differences between Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism anyway, so you should be able to fake it. Or just take a wander down to your local bookshop and browse the self-help/spiritualism/mysticism/religion shelves.

Watch Star Wars (eps 4-6) again. The Jedi are basically Taoists/Buddhists in disguise.

Pick up a copy of _The Way of the Samurai_ by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (the book behind the film _Ghost Dog_). Quote random parts of it at irregular intervals, for that inscrutable Zen flavour.

Watch Once Upon a Time in China. If you're a <s>Shaolin</s> Shintao monk, your job is still to kick butt with great righteousness, Zen notwithstanding.

 

[Andor]

Or pick up 'The Tao of pooh'. It's not my area of study but I'm told that it really is a good primer on Taoism. 'The Te of piglet' is less impressive from what I an given to understand.

-Andor

 

[Olive]

anyone know anything zabout the shintao peeps in rokugan? mayeb that would be a good influence?

 

[hong]

anyone know anything zabout the shintao peeps in rokugan? mayeb that would be a good influence?

? The Shintao peeps in Rokugan _are_ the shintao monk prestige class that Mo was talking about.

I guess you could add AEG's Way of Shinsei sourcebook to the list of recommended reading material.

 

[GravyFingerz]

Most westerners don't know the differences between Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism anyway, so you should be able to fake it. Or just take a wander down to your local bookshop and browse the self-help/spiritualism/mysticism/religion shelves.

Watch Star Wars (eps 4-6) again. The Jedi are basically Taoists/Buddhists in disguise.

Pick up a copy of _The Way of the Samurai_ by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (the book behind the film _Ghost Dog_). Quote random parts of it at irregular intervals, for that inscrutable Zen flavour.

Watch Once Upon a Time in China. If you're a <s>Shaolin</s> Shintao monk, your job is still to kick butt with great righteousness, Zen notwithstanding.

Hong pretty much nailed it on the head.

Taoism, as well as Bhuddism and Confucianism, cannot be so much explained as they have to be experienced. Ask any Taoist about his religion and he simply won't say anything.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Since your character is a half-orc monk, i take it Intelligence is a dump stat, but Wisdom is good.

An amusing way to play the character might be to use the Zen-like quotes that Hong mentioned, but that he always quotes them wrong, so it comes out even more confusing. He'd have the Wisdom to understand what he means, and to understand the true meaning of the teachings, but he'd always remember the exact words wrong.

That, or buy a bag of fortune cookies and save the fortunes to use as quotes.

 

[Turgenev]

A book that I would highly recommend is "The Tao Speaks: Lao-tzu's Whispers of Wisdom" adapted & illustrated by Tsai Chih Chung (translated by Brian Bruya) (ISBN 0-385-47259-5).

The book retells the two thousand year old text of the Tao Te Ching with humorous cartoon panels - very entertaining to read.

Here is a page from the book to give you an idea:

http://paratime.ca/v_and_v/pics/tao63.jpg

The main thing to remember is, "The Dao can't be spoken." Basically it is impossible to give it a name because once you do, then you imply that it isn't something. i.e. if you call it A, then you are saying it isn't B. If you say it is like 'white' then it isn't like 'black'.

Here is another quote from the book, "If you want to understand the Dao, you must forsake language and names. You have to understand it through intuition or you'll get lost on the wrong path."

Personally I would just wing it and have fun. I like the idea of using the sayings from fortune cookies, or watch old episodes of the tv show 'Kung Fu'.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[mo]

Thanks Turgenev and others for the posts and the references and good ideas. I would rush off to my gaming shop and library - but poor Brother Tar didn't make it through today's session.

Maybe there is a lesson in that? Anyway, he's with Graz'its now, and his player has got out the 3d6 and puzzling over his rolls to come up with a new character.