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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5181609" data-attributes="member: 15538">I started with Basic D&D, and no demon or devil appears until you get to the Immortals set in that series. They just weren't a part of my early experiences. Once I realized they were in AD&D, I became fascinated, and I wondered why the Basic game had to be, in my view then, namby-pamby about evil. At some point as I was introduced to AD&D and dabbled in it, I felt a sense of relief. I remember hearing rumors that TSR had plans to release a module in which you literally took on Satan... I thought the idea was outrageous, perhaps even silly, but it appealed to my sense that at some level, D&D was too far removed from real moral concerns. I won't traipse too lightly on ENWorld's politics and religion policies, so I'll just summarize my viewpoint as being confused that people could believe in literal moral evil, including Satan, and then exclude the concept entirely from their gaming.Once I left for college, I mostly walked away from AD&D in favor of Torg, GURPS, Vampire, etc. However, I got dragged into a game now and then. In re-experiencing the game, I realized something: Demons and devils are very cool, archetypally, but it's actually pretty hard to shoehorn in a literal Hell for the souls of the damned in a world with nine alignments, numerous planes of existence, false gods, real gods, angels, and everything else. The Hell of Abrahamic religions just doesn't exist in Howard, or Leiber, or Vance. Actually, Palladium's demons and devils as interdimensional ravagers, metaphysically and really evil but inscrutable in their cosmic purpose, reads a lot closer to me to the proper treatment for a swords-and-sorcery world. Certainly, Moorcock's powers of Order could be of great benefit and defense to humanity against raw chaos, but they weren't good in some absolute sense. If you look at the BECMI rules, that treatment of demons and devils is much closer to the Palladium version. Demons are immortals of Entropy and their servants. Devils (diabolai) are simply extradimensional humanoids who, though terrifying and strange to humans, are more simply inimical and perhaps misunderstood than actually evil. I find the approaches taken in classic Forgotten Realms, as well as the versions set forth in the Fiendish Codices to be fascinating and appealing, but as they stand, not ideal for many campaign concepts. Certainly, they would be odd, in a Dantean role, in my current campaign, which uses the Greek pantheon as its principal deities. Instead, I use them more like the BECMI versions, and in some cases, make them the dominant race in certain otherwordly realms, such as Hades or hostile demiplanes.</blockquote>

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