How important are demons/devils to D&D?

[Remathilis]

Question's simple enough; How important is demons and devils (or any sort of evil planar being) to D&D?

It seems D&D has had a dual-relationship with these beings, from 1e-era Classics using Demon Lords heavily as "end bosses" to 2e's utter removal of them. Some settings use them alot (Greyhawk) some not-at-all (Dark Sun).

So I ask all of you; how important are they in your game? Are the movers-and-shakers or merely high-level challenges? Do your PCs specialize in hunting them (or helping them!) or have they never encountered such beings? What about worshipers and cults, tieflings and warlocks (or other such PC-based options)? Has anyone ever run a game without a single fiend?

I'm interested to hear how pervasive these creatures are to D&D and how you've used them!

 

[Odhanan]

Question's simple enough; How important is demons and devils (or any sort of evil planar being) to D&D?

Hmm, no. It's not quite as simple as it looks. It all depends what you mean by "D&D" when you ask if they are "important to D&D".

Are you talking about actual game play, or game history or... ? The answers will be different based on what you choose to define as "D&D" in your question. If you're asking if they are important to my game table, I'll answer it depends on the campaign, and they occasionally have been. If we're talking in terms of overall IP identity, and/or game history, that's a whole another can of worms you're opening.

 

[Grymar]

I find them important for a big "I'M EVIL" sign.

I tend to run morally gray campaigns where the innkeeper is cheating customers, the priest is sleeping with the women in the congregation, and even the local baker is running a prostitution ring. The PCs are used to seeing evil-lite in all of these situations. It actually causes some tension not knowing who the bad guys are.

Suddenly when they see a devil they relax (oddly enough) because they KNOW this guy is a bad guy.

You can't do wrong by stabbing the demon. Ever.

 

[Stormonu]

I don't like using demons/devils much and I would be fine without them present.

That said, I have used them in my games, as they often appear or are hinted at in various pre-made adventures I run. I've also thrown some in my own handmade adventures, though sparingly. I've also used Orcus as a bad guy lurking in the background (not directly behind the current BBEG, but interested in using the PCs either to turn the BBEG to his side or aiding the PCs to destroy the BBEG should he refuse Orcus's offer). You should have seen the PCs faces when they figured out they were being used by Orcus like that.

 

[Desdichado]

Extremely important. They're in the earliest monster books with heavy representation. They're in tons and tons of published campaigns and adventures. Many of the most iconic adventures ever featured fiendish antagonists heavily.

I also think that you're wrong about 2e; while they were notoriously renamed during that era, they weren't really removed, and a lot of the really iconic adventures of the era (and some of the settings in particular, like Planescape) revolve heavily around them.

More recently, two of the three Dungeon mag adventure paths featured fiends as BBEGs. The demon lord article series by James Jacobs (good grief, I'm spacing on the name of it!) in Dragon was one of their most popular series.

In my opinion, fiends are integrally woven into the fabric of D&D and can't be removed easily without substantially compromising what D&D means to a lot of people (including me.) Ironically, given the game's title, I think fiends are more important to the game than dragons are.

And personally, I love using them. They're my go-to badguys too. Heck; I've decided that my entire pantheon of available gods were actually demon lords before, an idea I stole from Erik Mona's Armies of the Abyss book. And I tend not to make much of the difference between demons, devils, demodands, yugoloths, or even other hostile outsiders like slaad and efreet, for that matter. They all kind of belong to the same club, and the differences between them are just mechanics.

 

[MortonStromgal]

As long as there are paladins... I'd say pretty important. Besides I love imps!

 

[Nifft]

To D&D as a whole? Meh, take 'em or leave 'em, many other things can fill their role in the game.

To my D&D campaign? Both were central, in a big bloody way.

[sblock]Demons were essentially biological weapons of an early race against incursions by the Far Realm, and as a method of preservation they worked about as well as kudzu, taking over the world of their creators and a near infinite number of worlds thereafter, each of which is now a layer of the Abyss.

Devils were fallen servants of a divinity (from the usual cardinal sins IMC), but I actually like 4e's story that they murdered their former deity better, so if I run with this again that'll be what happened. Either way, they somehow decided that Law works best without any pesky biological life forms around, and are now actively trying to create armies of the dead and stop the cycle of reincarnation.

The Great Wheel was originally just the course of a river of psychic / life energy, which ran from the origin of life (Mount Celestia) through Faerie, then through every mortal world and finally returned. Over the aeons, this flow became corrupted, and now the river runs one-way, flowing from Celestia through Faerie to the mortal worlds -- and part of it runs into the Abyss, where it becomes corrupted, and this vile flow is known as the river Styx. The river Styx runs from the Abyss through several hellish prison-planes until it ends at the gates of Hell, flowing down all nine layers and somehow ending up in the Pit. Nothing ever leaves the Pit.[/sblock]

Cheers, -- N

 

[Doug McCrae]

They're important. They're a big deal in Western culture, indeed every culture seems to have some sort of demon. They make better boss monsters than dragons.

Personally I don't like the demon/devil split, I'd just call em all demons and say they live in Hell. Some are just wilder and more primitive than others.

 

[Shemeska]

It seems D&D has had a dual-relationship with these beings, from 1e-era Classics using Demon Lords heavily as "end bosses" to 2e's utter removal of them.

There was no "utter removal" of them unless you count a few years in early 2e where they removed (most but not all) overt use of "demon" and "devil" but otherwise happily kept all of them in the game and went nuts on the level of detail as the edition progressed. In fact there's more material on the various fiends in 2e than in any other edition of the game. And it's quite possible that the page count on the topic in 2e actually exceeds the combined page count of the other editions combined.

That said, they're iconic to the game. Some of them more than others, but they've been there as major antagonists and truly black and white bag guys (absolutes even in an ocean of shades of moral gray as in Planescape's look at the planes) for much of the game's history. They're as iconic as orcs, fireballs, and turning undead.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

and even the local baker is running a prostitution ring.

Baker Bob's
Tarts 'n' Stuff
"Service with a smile!"
​

That said, I tend to use demons and devils sparingly, and pay little attention to D&D canon. Being outsiders, they are inherently [evil] and show up on the radar, unlike "evil" mortals imc. As Grymar mentioned, it's nice to have badguys that are unabashedly evil with no questions of greyness for the players to deal with.

When I put demons/devils in a campaign, they are usually encountered "recruiting" from among cultists or weakwilled npcs in high-places, or whatnot. Or they are in "service" to an npc (who may or may not actually be in control). They also implicitly have a place as they appear in bloodlines.

Also, imho it would be fun to do a campaign in the Hells or the Abyss, but i've never had the chance.