So the GM for our Jade Regent game has a wife that will be going into labor this month and we have decided that while he is busy, one of the players would run Skull & Shackles. Now, chances are we are probably going to be a cutthroat group. I'd love to play a drunken master monk in this kind of game. However, I'm finding it difficult to combine being lawful with piracy, especially since we may lean a bit more on the Blackbeard side of piracy instead of the more swashbucklery tone. What do you quys think? Any suggestions? Thanks.
Unless you take monk vows, a monk has no code of conduct that ze must follow. It won't make hir non-lawful to associate with chaotic people, and as long as ze follows hir own code of conduct and behaves with order, honor, and discipline in hir own life, then ze will remain lawful. Insist that captured prisoners be ransomed, for example. If a foe is offered good treatment if they surrender, and they do, argue that the promise should be kept. Follow the captain's orders to the letter, or if you become the captain, make a set of ship's rules that you yourself follow explicitly and expect everyone else do the same. E.g. if the rules say everyone gets a rum ration based on rank, then your ration is based on your rank as captain and if you run out you buy rum from the store or from another officer rather than just saying, "I'm the captain, I get more rum!" (You do get to say, "But why is the rum gone?" if you want to though.)
I actually see more difficulty with playing a lawful drunken master, as I don't imagine there's much appeal to the style for extremely orderly monks. Still, if you like, play up the old LN title of Judge - someone who watches, weighs, and decides matters without ever referring to anyone else. This doesn't necessarily mean that you act on your judgements - you'd be hanging back...the booze is largely a cover for that, and you may never even drink enough of it to affect you. The whole style, in fact, is a hard-won mask of incompetence (or inconsequence, at least) and what you are, in fact, is a consummate actor.
Show some disdain for the more chaotic aspects of the other players, but subtly. Be quiet and calculating, and sure, honest - when you speak. Even be honest when you don't wish to speak at all, by saying so. ("I'd rather not answer that.") The only issue now is, why are you with these chaotic types? Find an answer to suit you - perhaps you can value their contributions, even if they aren't as disciplined as you are. Perhaps you've actually taken a liking to them - friendship isn't impossible to evil or even individualist types. Or maybe they're just easy to goad into charging ahead and setting off all the traps.
Those are fair points. Admittedly I really wish that the drunken master didn't have to be lawful as being a lawful drunk just seems very difficult to me. I'm definitely looking at LN. Should be interesting, thnks.
I'll be playing a drunken master vanara from Vudra who was kicked out of his monastery (dedicated to Sun Wukong) for being too studious, and told to come back when he understands the true nature of the bar brawl. He's been working his way through every wretched hive of scum and villainy from Vudra to the Shackles ever since. :)
Any chance of you just bringing your character concept to your GM and asking them if they'd be willing to handwave the lawful requirement?
My brother is playing a monk in a game that I'm running, but the lawful requirement really hampered the overall concept he had for his character, so I told him to just not be lawful. I'd rather have a player who's excited about their character than one who feels shackled by a rule which has no impact on game balance.
Along those same lines, I'm a player in a Skull & Shackles game right now. I came up with a character concept that I was really excited about involving the mechanics of the Dawnflower Dervish archetype for the bard. However, the Sarenrae theme really didn't fit. I presented my concept to my GM, and we worked together to retheme the archetype to Besmara, including making Dervish Dance work for rapier instead of scimitar.
Again, none of that has any game balance impact, it's just flavor. With a strong enough character concept and argument, you might be able to make a convincing case.
I'm not sure I understand the problem. A Drunken Master can be Lawful Neutral, right? People who are Lawful Neutral can be great pirates, I think. Lawful Neutral are people who follow a code, whether it's personal or an organization's, it doesn't matter. Usually, they strictly adhere to this code, regardless of what other people or law of the land or whatever dictates. So, for example, Captain Jack Sparrow might have been Lawful Neutral if he could have lived by the Pirate Code. But he couldn't, he broke it, calling it "more of a guideline". What am I missing?
Lawful generally means ordered, right? Mafia are lawful. Slavery is lawful. Tyranny is lawful. Pirates often have a command structure--mutiny is usually a bad thing. We know from just the adventure path descriptions that these pirates have a king and a council and it's not just anything goes. On a ship, people have particular jobs and they do their jobs in order to accomplish some end.
Or maybe it's principally that the character's personal philosophy is oriented on the order of things, and his place in the order of things. Right now, his place in the grand order of things is with these ostensibly lawless pirates. Or maybe the character just has a very ordered personal life--workout routine on waking up, eats meals at regular times, has the same breakfast every day, meditates at dusk, etc.
It's a matter of perspective. If he only so much as respects a command structure, or something more philosophical than actual, that passes in my book.