Retcon the dumb "Faction War" and bring back the FULL on Blood War?

[Shemeska]

You realise they changed the Blood War because nobody liked it, right?

Or at least one or two folks on the 4e team.

Looking at designer comments it looks like they removed it because the design focus that went into the Blood War was anathema to that of 4e. It's background material that exists on its own with or without the "hero" PCs taking any part in it. By its basis it's something that on the surface you nor anyone else can reasonably alter on a macro level, which is obviously unfun or something.

It was an unfortunate casualty of the 4e design ethos when it came to the planes and how the game rules and dynamic dictated their alterations rather than the rules adopting to their flavor when applicable.

 

[Shemeska]

I hated the Blood War. Hated, hated, hated. I thought it was a horrible idea on half a dozen different levels.

So why did you hate it? I'm honestly curious because there was a -ton- of detail regarding the Blood War, its history, the motivations of all the involved sides, etc. Was it just that it was a setting element, essentially a force of nature on the planes, that you didn't like on a game philosophy level?

Obviously I like it, and fiendish politics have been a large part of my home games for the past seven years or so. And the 2e books on the Blood War and that product line in general were a gigantic influence on me when it comes to my own RPG work currently (be it stuff on the planes or otherwise).

 

[JohnRTroy]

I think the only reason I disliked the BW was it felt so unlike what I expected. Planescape is good in its own right, however, instead of an isolated continuity it forced itself on the other campaign worlds--Greyhawk, FR, even Krynn.

Sometimes you don't want to have it like that. I like my Outer Planes with Gygaxian features--creatures from those planes don't shift alignments, there is an objective morality, Devas are incorruptable and don't fall, etc, Modrons are not simple clockworks, they are extremely odd creatures of order not like that found in nature.

Methinks the Blood War was a little too simplistic. Chaos and Law may fight but I'll bet if a Pit Fiend and a Balor run into a Solar, both would team up against it. Good v. Evil, the classic view. I got the sense both creatures fought but it wasn't a "hot war".

 

[Coldwyn]

Or at least one or two folks on the 4e team.

Looking at designer comments it looks like they removed it because the design focus that went into the Blood War was anathema to that of 4e. It's background material that exists on its own with or without the "hero" PCs taking any part in it. By its basis it's something that on the surface you nor anyone else can reasonably alter on a macro level, which is obviously unfun or something.

It was an unfortunate casualty of the 4e design ethos when it came to the planes and how the game rules and dynamic dictated their alterations rather than the rules adopting to their flavor when applicable.

And here I thought the design team simply continued with the changes that began with 3E Realms. There the blood war was changed and began to not make sense anymore.

 

[Sammael]

Blood War was an important metagame element that explained why fiends (devils in particular) had not managed to conquer the Multiverse a long time ago. It also served to allow PCs to become actively involved with fiends (as spies, mercenaries, information brokers, specialists) without being torn to shreds. Furthermore, it gave an additional level of complexity to the conflict of alignments and philosophies that permeated the Planescape setting.

I am in the camp that believes the Blood War was removed because of the designers' personal taste - much like modrons were (for all intents and purposes) removed from mainstream 3.x.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Or at least one or two folks on the 4e team.

Looking at designer comments it looks like they removed it because the design focus that went into the Blood War was anathema to that of 4e. It's background material that exists on its own with or without the "hero" PCs taking any part in it. By its basis it's something that on the surface you nor anyone else can reasonably alter on a macro level, which is obviously unfun or something.

It was an unfortunate casualty of the 4e design ethos when it came to the planes and how the game rules and dynamic dictated their alterations rather than the rules adopting to their flavor when applicable.

There's something in Wizards Presents: Worlds & Monsters about how they scrapped the Blood War because they wanted the focus of demons and devils, and their opposition, to be the PCs and not each other, or something along those lines.

I'm not a Planescape fan (I own the MC, I've read a couple of the other books, but I've never been a big fan of the Gygaxian cosmology and get annoyed at a fringe section of the PS fanbase for its elitism and tendency to try and impose its vision on other settings), and my bible for D&D fiends is essentially Van Richten's Guide to Fiends, so my two cents:

I think the Blood War is fine as an element, and shows off Evil's selfish and self-destructive nature, but it costs something if it's made the defining motive for fiends--too much emphasis on their politicking and infighting takes away from their iconic status as exemplars of evil, corrupters and destroyers of all that is good, true, and beautiful. I also think the Blood War suffers from the nearly 40-year-old confusion about what Law and Chaos actually mean in a D&D context.

If I were given the old Lower Planar system and told 'make something of this', I'd probably motivate the devils/baatezu by Pride and a determination to be supreme over mortals, fiends and all the universe, demons/tanar'ri by Envy (the specific sense) and the desire to pull all others down into the mire so that there was eventually nothing but them, and place daemons/yugoloths in the middle as those who seek to increase their status at the expense of others. Gehreleths/demodands would be the inmates running or seeking to run the prison and making sure that they were on top and everyone else was below them.

Devils would oppose demons because they refuse to bend the knee; demons would oppose devils because the devils are trying to establish themselves as rulers and build something that's not the roiling, destructive chaos of the Abyss. Sometimes they'd launch destructive wars against each other, sometimes they'd cooperate if they see a chance to wreak havoc (CE) or extend their dominion (LE)--but in the latter case, they're always prone to undercut and betray each other. Of course, the same thing applies if you have fiends of a singular type working together--they're just more predictable about how they'll go about it.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I enjoyed the Blood War, and made good use of it in a few Planescape sessions.

IMHO, the best aspect of it was the Neutrality of Sigil. Being off-limits to open warfare gave Sigil more importance and added tension to those scenes where there were Devils at one end of the street and Demons at the other end--and the PC's were stuck in the middle.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Heh; I'll copy-paste my comments on the topic from last year or so.

First, I didn't feel like it had any legitimate cause in earlier editions. The notion that demons and devils would wage multi-planar war due solely to alignment differences never sat right with me; it didn't feel like a legitimate motivation.

Second, it felt like it was too often used as nothing but an excuse for why the fiends hadn't taken over.

But those are both minor reasons. My major dislikes are:

It came this close to utterly ruining the very fundamental concepts behind the two races of fiends. It made the demons far too much of a coherent, unified faction. The notion of demons cooperating for anything in such vast numbers runs counter to their existence as embodiments of chaotic evil.

Similarly, devils are schemers and corruptors. Having them focus so much attention on other fiends drastically weakened their innate concept as a driving force of evil among mortals.

And then there's the fact that both of the above play into one of my major problems with the Planescape setting as a whole. (Let me be clear: I liked Planescape. I ran campaigns in Planescape. But that doesn't mean there weren't aspects I hated, and this is one.) The entire setting humanized the fiends far too much.

Demons and devils are the embodiments of evil (albeit different kinds of evil from each other). They're not just evil humans with funky skin and powers; they are truly alien entities for whom evil is wrapped up in their very nature.

Planescape turned them into the D&D equivalent of Star Trek aliens, IMO. It made them far too human, made their cultures and their mindsets far too comprehensible. The notion of a demon or a devil sitting down for a drink in a tavern in Sigil (just for example) is absolutely anathema to what these creatures are. The Blood War was just one element of what was, to me, Planescape's mismanaging of the very concept of the fiends.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Plus, I thought the following applied as to why the fiends didn't take over.

1) While there were supposedly, countless demons, they were so factionalized and relatively weak, fighting with each other and not really unified under a banner.

2) Numbers don't equal success. At least in 1e, a Solar could probably take on a legion of demons and maybe a full dozen pit fiends. The Deva-kind were smaller in number, but they were very powerful (and that's before 2e added a whole bunch of planar sub-races).

3) There are laws of the multiverse. The false assumption is that demons and other fiends have total freedom of movement. It was never implied that could be done if you read 1e D&D correctly. They didn't usually appear on the prime material plane unless summoned, and although they could enter the Astral or Ethereal, it's not implied they could go elsewhere in the multiverse. It seems that demons and devils wanted to be summoned so they could influence mankind (and the other sentient races of the prime) and gain worship and souls.

 

[Klaus]

Blood war: good

Faction war: bad

Agreed.

The Blood War served to add a Machiavellian element to the Lower Planes, with the backstabs, arms deals, etc, and it allowed the Forces of Good to show a more manipulative side, playing Hells vs. Abyss without needing to field armies of angels (that gets boring).

The Faction War only served to advance the setting's timeline, as if a campaign setting were a novel or comic book series. Campaign Settings should offer a status quo for you to mess with, not a story for you to follow.