D&D 4E The Blood War in 4E?

[FourthBear]

For the purposes of illustrating the conflicts of evil versus evil and bringing the PCs into the middle of an ancient cosmic war between implacable foes, I think that there will be plenty of scope in the new default cosmology for that. Given the description of the Elemental Chaos and the hordes of demons, just create an endless conflict between two sets of demons within the realms. They can have all the mortal recruitment, implacable hatred and alien nature as the Blood War. And given the fact that demons are no longer epitomes of CE, you can make one group of demons rigid and organized and the other an unruly mob, if you want to illustrate that kind of conflict as well. You could also use well established Evil vs. Evil conflicts such as githyanki vs illithid. And, of course, you could just toss out the default cosmology and just use the Great Wheel.

 

[Wolfspider]

More importantly from my point of view, the system no longer attempts to dictate how one should respond to them. This is left for the players to decide.

The D&D system has never dictated how characters respond to creatures and situations. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive. If a Lawful Good creature wants to ally himself with a demon, that is fine and dandy. As a consequence of this action, though, the character's alignment will shift more toward chaos and evil as a consequence of this demonic alliance.

 

[Wolfspider]

Maybe your experience is different. I can only speak from what I have encountered in playing and in reading about other's play experiences - and this is that, in D&D, when a moral question arises the alignment rules, and all the other world elements constructed around it (including the Blood War, to allude back to the thread topic) are there trying to give a predetermined answer. And whenever the answer is predetermined, the players are not authoring.

My experience has been quite different. The players never get off with easy decisions as you have decided. They have often had to ally with questionable creatures in order to succeed on their various missions. Not one of my players would think of attack a creature just because it happened to be a hobgoblin or an orc. I guess maybe this is because I run games in the World of Greyhawk setting, where even the best nations have some nasty attributes and the world is never black and white. I've found that the Great Wheel and the Blood War help illustrate this moral ambiguity, rather than making everything simple and unexciting as you have described.

I do understand more where you're coming from now, though.

 

[Hussar]

Ahh, so cookie-cutter now! Demons are attention-deficit raging engines of destruction, and devils are all goose-stepping tempters, and never shall the two stereotypes overlap at all in fear of confusing some new player who might not be able to understand that a world--even a fantasy one--can be a complex place.

How is this not complex though? Why is it okay for every other outer planar being to be cookie cutter, as you say, but not demons and devils? Modrons and angels, as mentioned, always act in a certain way. The exceptions to this are outliers and easily ignored.

Yet, we have various entire types of demons and devils who use the othere side's schtick to do their thing. A succubus as a sort of sex-vampire works for me. That's fitting with the whole "Ruled by emotion" chaotic thing. A succubus who sets up working cults to harvest souls over long periods of time is a Devil schtick.

Yes, you can say that demons can have some organization of a sort. It's the organization of "Do this or I eat you". Beyond that, you're stepping on the Devil's toes.

Long term, complex plans should be a Devil thing. Short term is better for demons.

And, as to the Eladrin court thing, yeah, I agree that it's a bad idea. Why the heck is the Faerie Court GOOD? That's completely out of place from mythology. I want my Faerie Court much more Midsummer Nights Dream than "Twee fairies".

 

[IanB]

My experience has been quite different. The players never get off with easy decisions as you have decided. They have often had to ally with questionable creatures in order to succeed on their various missions. Not one of my players would think of attack a creature just because it happened to be a hobgoblin or an orc. I guess maybe this is because I run games in the World of Greyhawk setting, where even the best nations have some nasty attributes and the world is never black and white. I've found that the Great Wheel and the Blood War help illustrate this moral ambiguity, rather than making everything simple and unexciting as you have described.

I do understand more where you're coming from now, though.

It sounds like, though, you're running a game where a paladin could not be played (EDIT: I should say, played with any level of confidence about *staying* a paladin) without house rules coming into it - which is fine, but I think pemerton is talking about the game's default attributes and it appears you've diverged from them.

 

[D_E]

The D&D system has never dictated how characters respond to creatures and situations. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive. If a Lawful Good creature wants to ally himself with a demon, that is fine and dandy. As a consequence of this action, though, the character's alignment will shift more toward chaos and evil as a consequence of this demonic alliance.

In an example of moral abiguity, I'd argue that whether or not a character's alignment would shift depends heavily on the circumstances of the alliance.

For example, Savage Tide contains some alliances with demons, but given the circumstances I'd give Paladins and such a lot of leeway (and everyone else even more).

But demons and devils are no longer the avatars of Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil, just as angels are no longer the avatars of Good. They simply are what they are. Demons are horrific engines of fury and destruction, devils are scheming masterminds trying to escape their planar prison. It's up to the DM and the players to decide how much metaphysical significance, if any, to give them. Maybe they're agents of grand philosophical principles, as in 3E. Maybe they're just powerful planar beings, each with its own slant on the universe. Or maybe there's something else going on. The system does not attempt to dictate which.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean here. Demons and Devils may have had their Lawful and Chaotic tags dropped (and I don't think we even know that for sure), but their Evil tag is still in place, and Demons, at least, still appear to be eminations of fundamental evil (that whole seed thing).

 

[Dausuul]

Well, I'm not sure what you mean here. Demons and Devils may have had their Lawful and Chaotic tags dropped (and I don't think we even know that for sure), but their Evil tag is still in place, and Demons, at least, still appear to be eminations of fundamental evil (that whole seed thing).

What I'm getting at is that the Great Wheel cosmology is governed by alignment. By virtue of their position on the Wheel, demons are required to be avatars of Chaotic Evil, and devils are required to be avatars of Lawful Evil. That means that when designing them, one has to start with the alignment and build a concept around it.

Smash the Wheel, and that necessity goes away. You can start with a cool concept and then attach alignment descriptors as appropriate. For example, the designers have talked about making daemons (yugoloths) another "family" of demon, more organized and less randomly destructive than the other demons. That isn't possible as long as demons are required to be Chaotic Evil to the core. But with the Wheel gone, it's a reasonable possibility.

 

[Wolfspider]

It sounds like, though, you're running a game where a paladin could not be played (EDIT: I should say, played with any level of confidence about *staying* a paladin) without house rules coming into it - which is fine, but I think pemerton is talking about the game's default attributes and it appears you've diverged from them.

Honestly, none of my players has ever really wanted to play a paladin in my campaign. That may change soon, though, since an old friend of mine is joining the game and wants to play a centaur paladin. It should be interesting to see how this works out.

I'm also interesting in seeing how paladins function in D&D 4e without alignment rules.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

It sounds like, though, you're running a game where a paladin could not be played (EDIT: I should say, played with any level of confidence about *staying* a paladin) without house rules coming into it - which is fine, but I think pemerton is talking about the game's default attributes and it appears you've diverged from them.

Better than my group, we want to play paladins and just can't manage it without falling. Out of seven of us only me and one other have managed to avoid falling in the length of a campaign. And that was with a paladin based on a 40K space marine on my part.

But even so his games don't seem to be impossible to play a paladin in the least. IMO the majority of problems most people have with paladins falling that I've encountered on these boards is due to a very strange view of paladins where they're all kind and fuzzy. Or bound by modern views of law and morality.

 

[D_E]

What I'm getting at is that the Great Wheel cosmology is governed by alignment. By virtue of their position on the Wheel, demons are required to be avatars of Chaotic Evil, and devils are required to be avatars of Lawful Evil. That means that when designing them, one has to start with the alignment and build a concept around it.

Smash the Wheel, and that necessity goes away. You can start with a cool concept and then attach alignment descriptors as appropriate. For example, the designers have talked about making daemons (yugoloths) another "family" of demon, more organized and less randomly destructive than the other demons. That isn't possible as long as demons are required to be Chaotic Evil to the core. But with the Wheel gone, it's a reasonable possibility.

Well, ok, I see what you mean. You could still do the same thing with the Great Wheel, though. If you did, when you went to asign alignment descriptors you'd just find that you hadn't designed a Demon, rather, the Great Wheel would say you'd designed a new type of Evil Outsider. Plane wise, the Great Wheel would put that species on Carceri by default.

Still, though, the Great Wheel doesn't dictate that everything that lives on a Plane have the same alignment as the Plane, so if you wanted to, you could still have your new Outsiders come from the Abyss. The only thing you couldn't do and be still be consistent with the Great Wheel would be to give them the Tanari subtype.

Also, the 'Loths already were a Planar race that was more organized than Demons but less organized than Devils. They were also aready capable of working alongside both Demons and Devils.

So I guess what I'm saying is, I still only sorta see the problem.