How important are demons/devils to D&D?

[howandwhy99]

They are a story element, so not essential to the game. It really depends upon your players. If they want demons or devils, give 'em to them. Otherwise don't.

 

[Desdichado]

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?

Mostly for gamist reasons, I admit. I'm not interested in them, and I don't think they make for fun encounters very often. The last time I used celestials, they were fallen celestials anyway.

However, there's no reason to use them. The presence of demons doesn't mandate the presence of celestials anymore than the presence of orcs in the monster manuals mandates the presence of elves, or stirges, or undead. They're monsters. They have weird powers. They're iconic from the literature and folkloric and whatnot source material that informs D&D. Why not use fiends? And why assume that using fiends mandates using celestials, or explaining why you're not? I've never felt the need to explain why solars or guardinals or whatever aren't showing up to face off against the fiends. If my players were to ask, I'd probably answer in character, "what's a solar? What's a guardinal?"

 

[pawsplay]

It does.

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

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but game fiction is stranger than anything.

 

[WheresMyD20]

I think they've become less essential over the years and editions. I think they were most essential back in AD&D 1e during high-level play. In 1e, once player character levels hit the late teens, demons and devils were some of the few monsters in the Monster Manual that actually provided a challenge. I think later editions started to provide more variety in high-level foes (dragons in particular got powered-up), so the "essentialness" of demons and devils faded a bit.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I find that demons and devils have achieved what most of D&D tries to do: leverage real-world mythology without directly copying it. The idea of evil beings from other realms dedicated to corruption and/or destruction is almost ubiquitous throughout the world. D&D takes this idea and divorces it from any religions. Creatures are taken from many belief systems and loosely adapted to D&D, each fitting within the uniquely D&D cosmology. Thus, we have a familiar name and idea that immediately rings true to players, establishes an emotional context (i.e. players will hate or fear any such creature without being told to), and creates a supply of enemies that is endless but truly a threat.

As I recently posted elsewhere, it's valuable to have enemies who are clearly evil, since D&D normally ignores the consequences of violence it's actually easier in some sense to fight enemies that you know you can kill.

 

[Celebrim]

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.

Why not? Seemingly, it is easy to imagine an army of demons or devils sweeping into the local village to smite the village priest, lay waste to the town, slay all the local monks, etc. In RPG stories stamped from a certain mold, this sort of thing happens all the time.

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.

I'm more ok with that than the typical usage provided by D&D. However, I'd be interested in how many published modules had an explicit celestial working as an ally with the PC's (covertly or overtly) to counter the vileness covertly encouraged by the bad guys.

So, I don't understand. Why not, angels? That question is on you. Why don't you use angels?

Mostly gamist reasons. They deprotagonize the PC's. Any time you have a truly powerful NPC that threatens to steal the spotlight from the PC's its a potential problem. A world that regularly had active celestials would be one that was less dependent on mortal heroes, and this makes the game less fun.

Since I don't run an overtly gamist game, then it becomes necessary to find a simulation reason explaining the passivity of the immortal forces of good in a way that allows them to retain their objective goodness. The logical explanation is that both evil and good have some sort of truce in play because open warfare between them would result in an outcome neither side desired. This results in a world where both the immortal good and the immortal evil act in ways that are subtle and covert, and where the chief impact of both is through mortal agents (spells, for example).

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.

Which is cool, but doesn't really address the question. If 'law' invades the world, why doesn't 'chaos' counter-invade to prevent law from achieving this objective?

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.

That doesn't follow. This is like saying while the infernals are busy contracting for the souls of wizards, there are two parties of celestials doing whatever they want. There is absolutely no reason to assume the celestials need to be wasting their time assisting mortals. What I mean is, "Why don't celestials frequently pop in in the middle of adventures and say, "I notice you are low on hit points. Mind if I lend a hand to prevent a TPK?"", or else why is it that when you are tracking down the evil cult, you don't get to the headquarters to find a group of Archons cleaning their swords and saying, "We were just finishing up here, but good effort."", or else why don't you have celestials popping in to say, "Mind you don't overlook this important clue.", or simply, "The Grand Vizar did it." The reason that this is important is that you do find the opposite, infernals popping in to lend the bad guys a hand, or heroes going to the good headquarters only to find the good guys have been massacred at the hands of infernals. Why is it that only the infernals seem to find a way to make themselves useful? In point of fact, the only time celestials show up in a fantasy story is so they can be revealed as fallen celestials latter. Fallen celestials are apparantly far more common than the unfallen sort, which at the very least suggests to me an incoherent cosmology, and in point of fact is probably more closely related to the problem of any promenently featured paladin is certain to fall sooner or latter.

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.

Then why is there a reason to assume the infernals track the BBEG down, assuming a modicum of villain on the evil cult's part?

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

Sure, but if you first sweep away all the sorts that aren't easily corrupted, then it makes it alot easier to intimidate, corrupt, and control the rest.

But the biggest problem with this statement as a rebuttal is that traditionally D&D doesn't portray infernals as subtle corrupters and their role as such in traditional D&D is very minimal. The traditional usage of D&D infernals and the role that they are statted out to fit is of combat centered monsters, differentiated only by flavor and not by mode of action from any of the other monsters in the book. So if you really wanted to focus on infernals as corrupters, tempters, and decievers you'd probably be motivated to not use the traditional D&D demons or devils at all, since, as you point out, mostly they are grunt monsters - the equivalent of high level orcs and are typically employed as such.

 

[Starman]

So if you really wanted to focus on infernals as corrupters, tempters, and decievers you'd probably be motivated to not use the traditional D&D demons or devils at all, since, as you point out, mostly they are grunt monsters - the equivalent of high level orcs and are typically employed as such.

I linked to it earlier more to be funny, but I think Sepulchrave's Tales of Wyre campaign demonstrates how to make celestials and infernals really shine in a campaign. The key, I believe, was him thinking about all of these questions (why aren't celestials/infernals always meddling in the mortal world) and building that into the world. In his campaign, you have scheming, tempting devils and you have celestials wanting to help, but they are constrained by the cosmology of the world.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Good points, Celebrim. It's pretty clear that D&D isn't a dualistic universe, it just pretends to be. In reality evil is more powerful than good, to give the PCs something to do.

 

[pemerton]

Balance of power between good and evil
Some of the recent 4e books - Undedarkd, The Plane Above - address this issue with reference to the 4e cosmology (spoilers follow).

In Underdark we learn that (i) Torog, an evil god of pain and torture, plays a crucial role in keeping demons and the elemental chaos at bay, and (ii) Lolth plays a crucial role in keeping Tharizdun trapped at the bottom of the Abyss. This makes it hard to defeat all the evils at once, helping to explain how, at any given time, at least one of these various competing evil factions has some sort of presence in the world.

In the Plane Above, we learn that in order to remake heaven, Erathis has to master the ultimate laws of creation, which require acts of creation to be undertaken in every possible sphere of human endeavour - even the wicked and depraved. She outsources the latter to various groups and individuals that wouldn't be tolerated in the heaven she shares with Pelor. Thus, some evils flourish because they have the (somewhat covert) support of the gods.

We also learn about the relationship between Asmodeus and diabolic bargaining in souls, and the failed creation of heaven. This helps explain why devils have power and a role that seems at odds with their comparative insignificance relative to the gods as a whole. The book also talks about the rationale for ongoing alliances and conflicts between the gods, including future primordial resurgance or a "dusk war" between evil and other gods.

I'm still working through all this stuff and how much of it I think is useful to bring out in my campaign, so I can't swear that it answers all of Celebrim's questions. But in my view it makes the best attempt of any version of D&D so far at reconciling the conceits of gameplay with a half-coherent cosmology and theology.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'd say D&D doesn't need demons and/or devils per se. What it does need, though, is a strong evil outsider faction (or two).