That proudly continues a 48 year D&D tradition! Except for the production values, of course.
D&D 5E D&D and who it's aimed at
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
They did a lot more than just remove demons and devils (they came back later, renamed). Various occult or occult-adjacent references and elements removed, much more emphasis on Good PCs vs Evil opponents (e.g. Assassin removed as a PC class), artwork sanitized, and generally a much more "family friendly" tone than 1e.
Note I'm referring to initial 2e release here; later 2e expansions and splats put back much of what had been removed.
I believe you. I didn't follow much of 2nd edition outside of the Player's Handbook for the improved rules on theives' skills.
As for family friendly, well, I was a young teen-ager and I ran my dad through a solo adventure using 1e so he could see what it was all about. He didn't burn my books afterwards.
1e tone was all over the place. Yes, there was some nudity in the MM, but nothing is goofier than the 1e MM cover art, except maybe some of the stuff in the Fiend Folio. The art on some of the modules, with adventurers in skin-tight clothes, was more evocative of spandex-wearing comic book super-heroes than what I actually imagined adventurers to look like. Many of the adventures were ridiculous. White Plume Mountain? Beyond the Magic Mirror? I mean, we fought vege-pygmies on a space ship and drank potions that grew hair on our tongues. Remember the cartoonish serialized ads in the comic books back then? Not gritty. The examples of play in the DMG were mild -- "I'll squash the nasty thing with my boot!" -- even if a poor sap got dragged away and eaten by ghouls in the end.
3e had a spate of "mature" products, including (I think) a sealed section in Dungeon Magazine about a preposterous extra-planar brothel. But that tone didn't pervade the edition as a whole.
Anyway, now I'm babbling. I'll stop.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Bingo! You've hit it!
Some of us want our D&D to be metal, tearing our characters to shreds as we watch in horror.
Others want it to be hip-hop, where it all sounds rough and tough and dangerous but isn't really.
Still others want it to be easy listening, safe and non-threatening and bland but won't wake the neighbours.
Some want it to be opera, where each character loudly tells its own story and nobody really understands any of it.
And a few poor misguided souls want it to be country 'n' western, where the characters' lives are a litany of loss and pain and heartache.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
1e's tone being all over the place was one of its strengths, I think: there really was something for everyone if you knew where to find it. And underneath a lot of it was a sense of not always taking itself all that seriously, which led to some of the ridiculous things you mention.
That was another big change in tone with 2e - the game took itself far more seriously. Much of the earlier whimsy was gone, and I think the game was poorer for it.
3e's "official" (i.e. WotC-produced) material was reasonably consistent in tone; the 3rd-party stuff was a mess but generally took itself far more seriously than 1e ever did.
Hackmaster then and DCCRPG now are two games that really try to keep 1e's whimsical underpinnings, and IMO largely succeed.
Another option is to just run the older game is still around.
1E is still around. You can still buy all the books in second hand or in pdf online from WOTC. If that is the D&D you like you can still play it.
Personally I love 5E. I started playing 1E in 1981. I dabbled in 2E and 3E in the 90s and 2000s but was not playing that much in those years. 2E was ok, it had a few improvements and a few things I did not like. I did not like 3E at all and when I started playing a lot again in 2011 it was back to 1E. I bought all the manuals I had in the 80s and a bunch of modules and had a blast. My gaming group went from 1E to 5E in 2016 and we have never looked back.
Hexmage-EN
Legend
Nope! Those are all from the 4E Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Selaphra the Bramble Queen, the Prince of Frost, and Koliada the Winter Witch.
This one is from 5E's Candlekeep Mysteries, though: Nintra Siotta, Princess of the Shadow Glass.
Ironically, the archfey of the region of the Feywild in Wild Beyond the Witchlight is actually Iggwilv in disguise. She's there hiding from demon lords who want her dead (or worse), and to make her disguise more convincing she changed her alignment to CN by removing the evil parts of her personality and storing them in the form of demons hidden in her castle.
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doctorhook
Legend
Where do you go from there? When is it time for the group to retire and start from scratch? Or do they go off into the multiverse to raid astral palaces and slay hordes of “godlins”?
Not interrogating you, just always curious how high level play evolves. Should it scale up indefinitely, or should characters “age out” into different types of gameplay?
Zardnaar
Legend
Touche.
Scribe
Legend
Ah, well the art/description for Bramble Queen is especially awesome.
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