Flagellants for.. atmosphere? Or Monks for repetition?

[Osvir]

You've got an excellent point Shevek, and your contribution is as important as any other poster.

 

How fluff it may sound, one string of text can change your experience. And it can change the entire experience of the game.

 

If the Monk instead was a Flagellant, or a Friar, the sub-classes would most likely take inspiration from that and grow accordingly from that. I believe that Obsidian will do the game justice, even the Monk. I'm merely discussing openly~ I'm curious as to what can be done in different ways and to find interesting approaches to an old concept.

[rjshae]

"Monk" is no more out of place than "Druid" would be in a non-celtic setting. What matters is that the class is integrated into the society, culture, and history; there needs to be a valid reason for those roles to exist in this setting.

[BasaltineBadger]

I'd prefer if shao-lin guys were replaced with wstern-style monastery monks

[quechn1tlan]

I'd prefer if shao-lin guys were replaced with wstern-style monastery monks

 

And what exactly would they do if they see a monster? Brew some mead, grow bald and then write a book about it?

However here I would like monks to have a somewhat wider variety of abilities which are closer to spells than to fighter moves. Lets face it - an ideal monk should be something like a Jedi but with no lightsaber.

[Karkarov]

About Fighters, who are equally a broad class, are much more specific already, in my book a Fighter could be a Kung Fu Fighter. What does Kung Fu have anything to do with the Monk?

Exactly, and that is why Monk is a good class name just like Fighter. It doesn't shoe horn you into a specific role or archtype.

 

Again, Forton looks like a 40 something dude who has watched wayyy too many Bruce Lee movies going through a mid life crisis. That doesn't mean he represents all "Monks" in the game though, or even a reasonable percentage of them.

 

So yes, a guy who is really good at Martial Arts and beats the crap out of people in hand to hand can be a Fighter. But a Monk can also be a dude sworn to silence who only fights with a staff and sling while wearing thread bare robes. Or a big fat dude who talks a lot, makes his own beer, and beats people down with greco roman style wrestlng.

 

It isn't the class name that needs changing, it is the fact that it keeps getting portrayed as a skinny bald Asian dude who kills people with jump kicks and Buddhism that has to go.

[Shevek]

Why does that have to go? I can make silly remarks about the characters too. "X looks like they have seen too much of corresponding pop culture reference Y." Wow, that's some rock solid argumentation right there.

 

[Karkarov]

Why does that have to go? I can make silly remarks about the characters too. "X looks like they have seen too much of corresponding pop culture reference Y." Wow, that's some rock solid argumentation right there.

Because in every setting it is used it almost always makes zero actual sense and seems completely out of place in the context of the rest of the game. If your game is going to be in fantasy medieval Europe then you need to use fantasy medieval European Monks. Not fantasy medieval Asian ones.

 

Edit: I guess the biggest problem with it is just as I said before. Monk is actually a very broad archetype that fits many different settings and characters. However we keep getting force fed the most cliche over done version of he character and being denied the ability to play something else. If the class of "Monk" can only be a Asian philosophy inspired martial artist then they don't live up to the actual potential of the class name.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Karkarov

[Shevek]

The monsters, items, stories and, yes, the classes of these games are an amalgam of influences. This is not something new. First edition DND had monks.

 

The notion that anything that smacks of nonwestern culture is out of place in this game is just plain bunk.

 

Edit. Here is a quote by Zeits (who folks insisted be involved in this)

 

I think that was my first realization on MotB. To craft a story that I’d feel excited about, I needed to move the player into a new and previously unseen part of the Forgotten Realms. The Sword Coast felt like a pretty generic setting - one I’d seen many times before. Rashemen, on the other hand, was an interesting pastiche of Slavic and Japanese elements, with animistic undertones. Once I’d immersed myself in Slavic, Japanese, and animistic mythologies, the basic ingredients of MotB really began to take shape. I’d never have been able to craft the story of Mask if I’d “stayed” in the Sword Coast. Creativity requires fresh ammunition.

 

I doubt this guy or much of the rest of this team is gonna be cool making a game that just reflects western culture.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Shevek

[Arundor]

Edit: I guess the biggest problem with it is just as I said before. Monk is actually a very broad archetype that fits many different settings and characters. However we keep getting force fed the most cliche over done version of he character and being denied the ability to play something else. If the class of "Monk" can only be a Asian philosophy inspired martial artist then they don't live up to the actual potential of the class name.

 

I like this point.

 

For my part, I *do* want to play an Shaolin inspired kung-fu monk. But that doesn't have to be the only kind of monk in the game. Pretty sure PE will have some sort of skill selection system during character creation and level up, and if the right options are made available players can choose to build a monk from a different culture.

 

There have been suggestions that the class should be the flagellant or the friar instead, but I am opposed to it because doing so would pigeonhole players of the class into a single role instead of leaving the option for diversity.

[Umberlin]

The idea is to change the name from Monk to Flagellant, seeing as that's what we are getting from Obsidian in Forton.

 

The idea we got from Obsidian wasn't that the Monk in P:E whips himself, in fact, if you look at the concept art we have so far, what he seems to actually practice is a form of scarification. There are no scars we see in the art that suggests he whips himself bloodly with various objects. What Obsidian have told us, specifically, doesn't point to self flagellation either, though, obviously, as I said, the concept art does support the idea of scarification. The patterned scars on his body look very particular, artistic, and not random.

 

I don't see how it fits.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Umberlin

[BasaltineBadger]

I'd prefer if shao-lin guys were replaced with wstern-style monastery monks

 

And what exactly would they do if they see a monster? Brew some mead, grow bald and then write a book about it?

However here I would like monks to have a somewhat wider variety of abilities which are closer to spells than to fighter moves. Lets face it - an ideal monk should be something like a Jedi but with no lightsaber.

 

Use the knowledge about the universe they gained during meditation to do kill it.

[Osvir]

The idea is to change the name from Monk to Flagellant, seeing as that's what we are getting from Obsidian in Forton.

 

The idea we got from Obsidian wasn't that the Monk in P:E whips himself, in fact, if you look at the concept art we have so far, what he seems to actually practice is a form of scarification. There are no scars we see in the art that suggests he whips himself bloodly with various objects. What Obsidian have told us, specifically, doesn't point to self flagellation either, though, obviously, as I said, the concept art does support the idea of scarification. The patterned scars on his body look very particular, artistic, and not random.

 

I don't see how it fits.

 

Sawyer said in PC Gamer that Forton is a big believer in mortification of the flesh... reading up on that it doesn't at all equal that you beat yourself up physically only, but mentally as well. So this goes, mostly, to myself: do your homework

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_of_the_flesh#Forms

In its simplest form, mortification of the flesh can mean merely denying oneself certain pleasures, such as abstaining from alcoholic beverages, internet, porn, or any area of life that takes the place of god (so, basically anything you do other than sit in contemplation and worship of God/Jesus - your job, your family, your interests, your amusements, etc.).

[Umberlin]

The idea is to change the name from Monk to Flagellant, seeing as that's what we are getting from Obsidian in Forton.

 

The idea we got from Obsidian wasn't that the Monk in P:E whips himself, in fact, if you look at the concept art we have so far, what he seems to actually practice is a form of scarification. There are no scars we see in the art that suggests he whips himself bloodly with various objects. What Obsidian have told us, specifically, doesn't point to self flagellation either, though, obviously, as I said, the concept art does support the idea of scarification. The patterned scars on his body look very particular, artistic, and not random.

 

I don't see how it fits.

 

Sawyer said in PC Gamer that Forton is a big believer in mortification of the flesh... reading up on that it doesn't at all equal that you beat yourself up physically only, but mentally as well. So this goes, mostly, to myself: do your homework

 

http://en.wikipedia....the_flesh#Forms

In its simplest form, mortification of the flesh can mean merely denying oneself certain pleasures, such as abstaining from alcoholic beverages, internet, porn, or any area of life that takes the place of god (so, basically anything you do other than sit in contemplation and worship of God/Jesus - your job, your family, your interests, your amusements, etc.).

 

Sounds about right. I have to imagine the scar patterns in the artwork factor in somehow though it's a lot of visual detail to pen in the artwork for it just to be there for the heck of it, but who knows. Well, they probably do, but, yeah. Them and their zippy lips.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Umberlin

[SunBroSolaire]

My first impression was that Forton was a little cliched, but like the other classic archetypes Obsidian is using in this game, I'm excited to see their take on it. I wouldn't prefer a more Franciscan like monk, because philosophically they aren't very interesting, nor did they traditionally do anything that would make good gameplay. I mean, they could be alchemists or something, maybe? Chanting and praying are their defining activities, and those are already taken. Eastern monks, on the other hand, were all about pushing their bodies to the extreme limit in terms of contortion, pain tolerance, and self control. It's a pretty natural fit for an action game. Also, Zen and Doaism are fascinating and it would be nice to see good game writers get into some of those ideas.