D&D 4E 4E Devils vs. Demons article

[Ripzerai]

I never thought the succubus made sense as a demon either.

Succubi are fiends who incite lust and passion, who tempt mortals to defy taboos and the laws of both god and man. They're chaos incarnate, the chaos of the heart and loins.

Devils are fiends that tempt using contracts and formal bargains. They use the tools of law to further evil, and the tools of evil (torture and tyranny) to further law.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for succubi to be devils. Speaking in terms of 1e-3e, of course.

 

[Ripzerai]

There is no reason to keep the Great Wheel in the core rules except tradition, and maintaining tradition for tradition's sake is not justifiable.

On the contrary, adherence to tradition is a good thing in and of itself. Traditions can be changed, but it's not justifiable to do so without a powerful reason.

Adhering to traditions produces a number of advantages - it helps us use newer accessories with older ones. It allows older themes and plotlines to be brought forward and elaborated it on in newer adventures and sourcebooks. It introduces worthy elements to a new generation of gamers. It makes those of us who were fans of the older material happy, and doesn't make any difference one way or the other to people who didn't care much about the planes.

Mining older canon is, in any case, a very enjoyable pastime.

Novelty for novelty's sake, on the other hand, isn't justifiable.

I agree with those who've said that there will probably be substantial 3rd-party Great Wheel support. Necromancer Games has its own idiosyncratic planes, though, so it's an unlikely candidate for this, the Hells and Abyss and City of Brass excepted. We'll see, though.

A lot of us want specifically to see WotC's IP elaborated on and reinvigorated in new products, new online Dragon articles and so on. We don't care about generic versions of Gehenna - we want to see the D&D Gehenna, with its mysterious general, its Tower Arcane, ts lich-lord Mellifleur, its barghests, the frozen realm of Loviatar, the abandoned realm of Iyachtu Xvim. With a new default cosmology, this is less likely.

I think it's unlikely that the Great Wheel will be found in a hypothetical 4e Greyhawk or 4e Planescape. It seems more likely that they'll use the default cosmology, as it does overlap with the Great Wheel substantially. The new "Astral Sea" has a Pandemonium, a Nine Hells, and probably every other plane except for the Abyss.

I think a substantial amount of the older material will be carried over to the new default, but the amount of twisting and rationalizing will make things awkward both for the professional designers stuck trying to make sense of the resulting mess and for ordinary gamers trying to either use new material with the old stuff or old material with the new.

 

[Cam Banks]

This is a myth.

Not completely.

Dragonlance used the Great Wheel as early as 1987, when both the Manual of the Planes and Dragonlance Adventures came out. DA didn't mention the Wheel (but described things vaguely enough that it could have been the Wheel),

The Dome of Creation, Hidden Vale, and Abyss are the only specified outer planes in Krynn's cosmology, as described in DLA. Tracy Hickman's also said before that this was the intended makeup of the planes, and it was never his decision to lump Krynn into the Great Wheel. We can only assume that was a move on the part of MotP's creative team because at the time, Krynn was one of the few established game worlds for AD&D and it made sense to mention it in the MotP's terms.

As I've said before, in 3e we went back to the original vision for Krynn's cosmology. We didn't invent it from scratch.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Perhaps he'll get butt-ugly slime-creatures who can shapeshift into alluring humanoids, like that Drow Goddess, Lolth. Or his former Succubi Harem gets replaced by real mortal women, witches, who dance and frolick in the vicinity of their dark master in an neverending walpurgian night. He's after all known to have great amounts of witch followers, who do regularely visit him. Easily done.

"And that, Son, is where all the little tieflings come from."

 

[Lurks-no-More]

On the contrary, adherence to tradition is a good thing in and of itself. Traditions can be changed, but it's not justifiable to do so without a powerful reason.

"There are two kinds of foolishness; one says that everything new is good because it's new; the other that everything old is good because it's old."

Or, in other words, I strongly disagree. Adherence to tradition is only a good idea if the tradition itself is good.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Dragonlance used the Great Wheel as early as 1987, when both the Manual of the Planes and Dragonlance Adventures came out. DA didn't mention the Wheel (but described things vaguely enough that it could have been the Wheel)

You're right that the Manual of the Planes said Dragonlance was attached to the Great Wheel, but since the actual setting material didn't say so, and we know that the creators of the setting didn't intend for it to be so . . . my argument that it goes against original design intentions stands.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

On the contrary, adherence to tradition is a good thing in and of itself.

Garbage.

 

[Glyfair]

Garbage.

No, no it's not. There are strong valid reasons why traditions are important.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be examined and occasionally reconsidered. Also, I don't think roleplaying games have quite the societal impact that traditions typical enhance

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

On the contrary, adherence to tradition is a good thing in and of itself.

Stealth Alignment Flame War on 3... 2... 1... GO!

 

[Baby Samurai]

There are strong valid reasons why traditions are important.

Tradition is the illusion of permanence.