How important are demons/devils to D&D?

[Remathilis]

Blackleaf's Legacy, if you will.

Noooooooo! Not Blackleaf!

 

[Dausuul]

Well, it's worth noting that 2E's removal of them didn't stick. They were quickly shoehorned back in under the names of "tanar'ri" and "baatezu," transparent attempts to appease the people claiming D&D was Satanic*.

I find demons and devils make excellent villains and use them a lot. Are they "important to the game?" Well, IMO it would be a poorer game without them. It wouldn't be a worthless game by any means, just reduced in scope. Interpret that how you like.

[size=-2]*TSR should have known better. If those people had understood anything about the game, they wouldn't have been making such claims to begin with. They weren't going to look in the 2E Monstrous Compendium and say, "Oh, the devils and demons aren't called demons and devils any more! That's all okay then!"[/size]

 

[BronzeDragon]

Well, it's worth noting that 2E's removal of them didn't stick. They were quickly shoehorned back in under the names of "tanar'ri" and "baatezu," transparent attempts to appease the people claiming D&D was Satanic*.
[/size]

I find I much prefer their incarnation as Tanar'ri, Baatezu, Yugoloths and Gehreleths than I did their previous (or latest) incarnations as Demons, Devils, etc...

And it has zero to do with religious matters, considering I'm an atheist. I just find the fantasy aspect for created worlds much more interesting when you use fantasy names rather than names which lend themselves to comparison with the real world. Also, I'm a huge fan of the whole Planescape/Blood War thingie, which made Yugoloths my favorite outsiders (by a lot).

 

[Mentat55]

I think demons and devils, or more specifically, the demon lords and archdevils, are just a shade below the red dragon and probably ahead of the beholder and mind flayer as the most iconic baddies in the game.

Do you have to use them? No, of course not. But has some taste of them shown up in nearly every D&D campaign I've played since 1989? Yes.

I think they're great. You can focus on them as just being really evil, extremely powerful, and highly motivated foes, or you can (Planescape style) focus a lot on their personification of evil and all its various aspects and depravities.

 

[Mallus]

I've used/fought far more demons and devils than dragons in D&D, too, so yes, I find them important, iconic even -- though they don't get top billing.

Some have already found their way in my current 4e game; Court Orquiel, Ambassador from the Hells, Chax, the Demon Lord of Artists and Horse Thieves, and Mammon, Lord-Mayor of Dis, who's worshiped by Tiefling's as the G-LD.

 

[jmucchiello]

Secondly, the entire concept to me risks deprotagonizing the game world and everything in it. If demons, why not angels? Why are demons priviledged to directly intervene and wage war if the forces of good are not?

The problem is the Celestials tend to be big and strong entities while the demons and devils have more grunts. I can't imagine an army of Solars flying into the local hills to smite the evil kobolds and goblins.

So more likely they would work as the village hedge wizard/witch keeping evil at bay covertly. And I have used this trope in my games from time to time and probably in equal proportion to the evil witch/hag/devil encouraging vileness in the village covertly. So, I don't understand. Why not, angels? That question is on you. Why don't you use angels?

Surely the forces of CG are no easier to control than the forces of CE? Why only invasions from the Abyss?

Last time I ran an invasion it was from an alien LE plane (not Hell). I've always wanted to have a modron invasion but haven't gotten around to it. Yes, the party would be fighting being of pure LAW trying to turn the prime material plane into a world of clockwork lawfulness.

Why don't you encounter celestials as often as infernals?

Because if celestials are busy chatting you up, then there are two parties of infernals doing whatever they want while both you and celestials are having tea. IOW, there's no reason for the celestials to track the party down (or to attract the party's attention) assuming a modicum of heroism on the party's part.

And if the servants of the gods, then why not the gods themselves? And if that, why are living humans particularly important, since the upper and lower planes could presumably sweep away mortal forces without much of a thought?

Evil doesn't want to sweep mortals away. They want to corrupt them. Can't corrupt the non-existent.

 

[Voadam]

BX did fine without them, Early 2e did fine without them.

1e Slavers modules don't have any that I remember. You have to get really deep into the ToEE before you hit anything really demonic. The only 1e module I can remember with a devil in it is Castle Greyhawk with Asmodeus and pit fiends in the first level module. Maybe C5 To Find a King has one too. Drow demonwebs are crawling with them though.

They are not essential to D&D, it is not essential to have them in the Monster Manual.

They are cool and a nice option, like undead, but certainly no group of baddies is essential for D&D to be D&D. Even dragons. Or orcs. Or goblins. Or kobolds.

 

[Doug McCrae]

They are cool and a nice option, like undead, but certainly no group of baddies is essential for D&D to be D&D. Even dragons. Or orcs. Or goblins. Or kobolds.

I think you're right. D&D needs loads of weird monsters. But no specific monster is essential. If you removed a lot of the iconic and mythological monsters it would feel significantly less like D&D. But the game can stand the loss of, say, the beholder and it wouldn't really matter.

If there were no savage humanoids that would be a big problem for low level adventures. You don't need orcs but you do need the orc 'type'. I think some kind of savage humanoid might be essential.

 

[pawsplay]

Krynn has no orcs. I can't remember if it has demons or devils.

 

[James Jacobs]

Krynn has no orcs. I can't remember if it has demons or devils.

It does.

The second-ever-published story for Krynn has Tasslehoff meeting Demogorgon, after all!