Changes to Devils and Demons

[Campbell]

Then obviously 1e, 2e and 3e are completely seperate games.

I tend to view them in exactly that manner. While there is a spiritual link, they are fundamentally different games.

 

[zibeck]

The problem is that all future products will be written with the above changes as the baseline, which means that it is highly unlikely 4E will be able to provide me with a sourcebook which deals with planar issues which is compatible with twenty years of previously published fluff. If Baator is a dead god's realm, that means that Great Wheel is either gone altogether, or changed to the point of non-recognition.

Oh, and... if this is what they are doing to devils and demons, imagine what they're doing to the four breeds of celestials. Did I say four? Hmmm... I suspect only aasimon (angels) will survive the cut unchanged.

Well said.

 

[marionde]

How much of the 30 years of D&D fluff can be changed before the game is called D&D in name only?

If you change to much you lose the connection that makes this game Dungeons and Dragons instead of just a sword and sorcery RPG.

The main draw to me about this game has been the levels of lore that has been built up over time by many very creative individuals. I think the value of the brand is in the history, not the number crunching.

It appears I may finally make the transition to a grognard with the introduction of 4e.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Another thing that bothers me about this change is the implication that:

a) this simplies and makes the demon/devil split more logical
b) that this will therefore make it easier for new players to learn the game

I have to refute these assumptions because:

a) since when does logic have anything to do with demons (in their historic and current incarnation at least) which are embodiments of chaotic evil - they don't HAVE to make sense, sicne chaos allows all sorts of forms, even hot human looking women demons. *

b) has anyone actually heard a potential new player say "this D&D game is just too complicated, I can't tell demons apart from devils, and espeically those women ones - they're just the same, so how can some be demons and some be devils"? Personally, I think clearing up tough rules and makeing the game more faster are ways to get new players into the game easier, but this change is not going to impact new players in any way.

* - For this matter, perhaps maenads don't exist in 4E, because they are also hot women monsters which go and kill you.

This is the best argument for the "nay" side on the thread so far.

 

[The Shadow]

Then obviously 1e, 2e and 3e are completely seperate games.

Largely, yes. Obviously there are links of continuity, ownership, community, and so on. But they *are* different games. Playing 3e is not at all the same experience as playing 1e. Otherwise would you even have people who refuse to convert?

1e and 2e were, of course, much closer to each other than either is to 3e.

EDIT: Maybe we need a thread on "The Essence of D&D". I think I'll start one right now.

 

[grimslade]

I have to say, the more I think about the fluff change the more I like it. I never cared for the Blood War, never looked at the 3.5 erinyes (which is a shame because that is a much cooler devil than previous) and I have always wanted a greater difference to devils and demons.
As more information comes trickling in, I find I like more than I dislike. But, 4E will be a much different game. Summon another Celestial Bison, sacred cow is the only thing on the menu. At least for now.
See I think WotC is getting the 'big changes' leaked out now. I think as we get closer to release we will find that the actual changes to the game were limited. We just get 8 months to chew on it. Vent. And come to accept 4E as a the next edition of D&D.

 

[TwinBahamut]

How much of the 30 years of D&D fluff can be changed before the game is called D&D in name only?

If you change to much you lose the connection that makes this game Dungeons and Dragons instead of just a sword and sorcery RPG.

The main draw to me about this game has been the levels of lore that has been built up over time by many very creative individuals. I think the value of the brand is in the history, not the number crunching.

It appears I may finally make the transition to a grognard with the introduction of 4e.

If you ask me, I say they can change the "fluff" of D&D entirely and it would still be the same game. After all, that is exactly what many DMs do all the time anyways.

For many people (I would guess most), D&D is not a setting. It is a rules system. So long as you use the same ruleset, you are playing the same game.

I mean, I have never used any of the outer planes in one of my homebrew games, I would never use Sigil, the demon/devil distinction is insignificant, there is no Blood War, I don't use PHB gods, I would never refer to the "classic" archfiends like Asmodeus, and I would completely scrap the idea of the Far Realms and avoid using 99% of all Aberrations, including Mind Flayers and Beholders. I would be happier if there was no assumption of planes at all in the core rules.

However, it would never cross my mind that doing all of this somehow makes the game "not D&D". I would not even have to change a single rule, other than me simply omitting certain monsters and a very small number of spells.

As a whole, I find the notion that every D&D campaign must be part of Planescape to be verging on insulting. Why set the double-standard of "Make your own world!" and "Outside of your world, it has to be canonical Planescape!"? It doesn't make any sense to me. Why should I even care that Planescape exists, when I don't like the setting, and most of the material for it was written before I even got into D&D? Why should the game be chained to a single setting from the past, when even mighty Greyhawk has fallen away from the center stage?

I mean, even the idea of D&D style planes is foreign to the fantasy genre as a whole. On a certain board of the D&D forums where D&D and Magic the Gathering players joined together to make a new setting, the D&D players had to explain the idea of D&D planes to the Magic the Gathering players, because even a game dominated by beings called Planeswalkers has a completely alien and incompatible idea of what planes are. I don't even need to get into the complete mythological faultiness of the concept.

Not to mention the wierdness of the term "Outsider", and how it has lead to such nonsensical terminology as "native Outsider".

Argh... Sorry if my post just came across as rude. I don't intend for it to be so. But it was a bit of a catharsis...

 

[Wormwood]

See I think WotC is getting the 'big changes' leaked out now. I think as we get closer to release we will find that the actual changes to the game were limited. We just get 8 months to chew on it. Vent. And come to accept 4E as a the next edition of D&D.

Grognard rope-a-dope?

 

[Ctenosaur]

If the familiar alignment system is going away in 4E, then shouldn't the Great Wheel cosmology follow?

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

*** re-read post 287 above ***

Hear, hear!

Well spoken.