Monk Roleplay: Escaping Eastern Thought and Brawlers

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Hello,

I've been thinking a lot about my multitude of low-level monks. A lot of them are monks, because I greatly enjoy the mechanics of playing a monk. (it's not the incredible APR, it's the fast movement, fun levelling, etc.)

However, one of my main gripes with the class, is that I immediately think of "okay this is a monk, so let's see how I can incorporate some daoist thought, buddhist spirituality, or confucian sayings into my character."
And if it isn't that, I immediately turn to some anti-Eastern trope, which usually is some sort of brooding brawler, a la Rorschach or something.

How then, do we escape Monk roleplay, and make monks interesting, without resorting to the over-used (often poorly done) ideas of Eastern spirituality, without descending into something so radically opposite - the idea of pro-materialist brawler?

tl;dr How can you roleplay a monk without using stereotypical characterizations? (not cliches, just modes of characterization that are suffocating and ubiquitous)

[The Rambling Midget]

Intelligence. Precision. Dedication. Determination. Possibly compulsion.



Cross class Favored Soul, go high int and skill heavy, and mix in some medic/healer stuff. Damage comes from knowing where to hit, not hitting harder.

[RED GANOT]

Try this:



I haven't seen any of these, really. This is the first thing I think of when I think 'monk'. Not Shaolin Soccer.

[Dalenger]

Assassin/monk. Run in, place a few very well placed punches forcing your opponent to his/her knees, run out. With flurry of blows and some haste wands useing UMD ranks (I think assassin gets those) you can get like 4 death attacks a round.

[msterswrdsmn]

Try picking out a style that isn't asian-influenced and go from there? I can shoot you a few if you'd like.

Pick an occupation/side skill that compliments breaking apart a body with bare hands (ex: a doctor-surgeon).

Skip the sterotypical vague-sagey wisdom and go for a more grounded, straightforward sort of wisdom.

Feel free to pm me if you need help fleshing out a concept

[Xarge VI]

Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlnu6KyQNi0

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I'd be very interested in you shooting a few, mstr!

The only ideas, grounded in some form of realism, are dervish from the Ottomans, and the Knights Templar (they technically took monastic oaths).

I also think it's ironic the picture you posted Rambling is of anime! Escaping the east is a hard thing to do-- but I guess the most popular forms of martial arts (which is what a monk is?) originated there.

Sidenote: the current monk weapons are unarmed, Kama, quarterstaff, and shuriken? Are there any incentives to add more weapons in the future? (Ie the sickle, so we all might become ninjas)

[Urch]

The Maori had their own martial art style as well, called Mau Rakau, based upon using traditional Maori weaponry. That's another completely different angle you could approach.

[Morderon]

IMO, the only thing a monk should have is a rigorous training regimen, as well as whatever you take the lawful alignment to mean.

My own monks tend to either be religious. Which tends to make them enforcer from their gods will and/or scholars of the faith. They're often not to far from paladins and/or knight templars. Or they tend to be ex-soldiers, my last inspiration was spartan, and may use non-monk weapons, either functioning as bodyguards, private trainers, or private guards. While I do tend to pick western martial arts, which pankration comes to mind, they still end up tossing a few eastern quotes about because I tend to see monks as worldly/educated.

[The Rambling Midget]

I also think it's ironic the picture you posted Rambling is of anime! Escaping the east is a hard thing to do--

It's really not. That character in particular is less traditional than the others and relies on knowledge and cunning more so than the spiritual energy that the others draw from. The point was to demonstrate that even within eastern media, there are now more modern and non-traditional representations.

[msterswrdsmn]

I'd be very interested in you shooting a few, mstr!

The only ideas, grounded in some form of realism, are dervish from the Ottomans, and the Knights Templar (they technically took monastic oaths).

I also think it's ironic the picture you posted Rambling is of anime! Escaping the east is a hard thing to do-- but I guess the most popular forms of martial arts (which is what a monk is?) originated there.

Sidenote: the current monk weapons are unarmed, Kama, quarterstaff, and shuriken? Are there any incentives to add more weapons in the future? (Ie the sickle, so we all might become ninjas)

Sickles and kamas are essentially the same thing. Hell, "Kama" is the japanese word for "sickle", I think. The usage of the two doesn't really vary much.

As for non-asian unarmed styles that might work for you?

Pugilism: Basically boxing. Old school bare-knuckle variants could get pretty brutal. If nothing else, you can use this as a basis for footwork, breathing, rythm, endurance, and hand-eye coordination in a style

Wrestling: There are tons, TONS of cultural variants of this. Sambo, Catch wrestling, greek wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, judo, etc. Pick a country of origin then see if you can find the cultural variant, if applicable.

Vale Tudo: Brazilian martial art style that borrows techniques from both standing striking and ground fighting/submission styles.

Sidenote: Japanese "ki" is essentially the same as chinese "chi" or western "[insert type] force", if you REALLY want to break away from the east-asian labeling of feats/techniques.

Edit: if you're REALLY looking to get away from the simple-brawler type, beating the snot out of people with your bare hands can be very scientific as well.

Like the inverted U theory/law that charts the correlation between heart rate and general/combat performance. ex: 75 bpm is your resting heart rate. Around 90-100 bpm is when you start to loose fine motor skills (hence why things that involve things like twirling weapons through fingers isn't really feasible in real combat). 115-140 is the ideal heart rate for enabling gross motor skills. 160-180 is when fatigue/performance degradation kicks in. etc.

Or how the ATP-PC, lactic, and anaerobic energy systems work under combat/high stress situations, and how burning through each one affects your performance (when you hit your anaerobic energy system, your running at about 15% efficency)

Or the weak points of a body. Or how a persons stance can inadvertantly cause a loss of energy. So on. Theres a lot, and I mean, A LOT of things to research if your effectively trying to learn how to fight. It requires a lot of study and training; something that could easily seperate a monk from a brawler.

[Ferret Roll]

Try this:



I haven't seen any of these, really. This is the first thing I think of when I think 'monk'. Not Shaolin Soccer.

This. We could use some jolly drunkard monks. Alternatively, you could go with something more in-setting.

[The Man of the Moon]

Try this:



I haven't seen any of these, really. This is the first thing I think of when I think 'monk'. Not Shaolin Soccer.

This. We could use some jolly drunkard monks. Alternatively, you could go with something more in-setting.

This one isn't the Fray Tuck from Robin Hood?

I always though about him as a drunk priest... But hey, now that RedGanot pointed as monk, I can see the monk using a quatersatff as he did in the book/movies!

I like this too

EDIT: Not to mention, the RP that one may bring with a Fray Tuck may be full of fun! (and you can defo personalice the kind of "fray" you want to RP of course, with infinite "western" styles)

[Urch]

It's like the quarterstaff wielding monks from the Stronghold game series.