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

[Ripzerai]

It makes for dumb villains, I guess. If villains are going to turn their firepower against each other instead of the heroes, there had better be a really good reason for that.

You could just as easily say that it's dumb for the "villains" to turn their firepower against the "heroes" rather than their true enemies.

The only thing that is dumb is for a villain to ignore their main goals. If you think that their primary thoughts are, "I, as a villain, am naturally opposed to you, a hero, first and foremost." then naturally it would seem misguided for them to turn their firepower against anyone else, though the simpleminded nature of this attempt at characterization should be obvious.

The words "hero" and "villain" are subjective (in a way that Good and Evil are not). The Hellbound: The Blood War boxed set included a minicomic about a cambion who sought only to become a "hero" in a battle against the baatezu. Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells defined the baatezu as beings created by the "gods of law" to exterminate the forces of the Abyss, an origin myth that if accepted would make it natural for the Blood War to be their primary goal. What would be "dumb" in this case would be for them to waste firepower against the forces of Good, whom they have no quarrel with. And, in Fiendish Codex II, they don't. In fact, they have a pact with Lawful Good that prevents any mutual aggression. They tempt mortals in order to bring more power to their plane, but only within the restrictions of their pact. They make hot war with only one group, the demons.

What I object to most is the lack of imagination in WotC's rationales for the change. It would be easy enough to make a connection between the Abyss and the Hells if they wanted one, after all; they could both be connected to the Shadowfell, for example, in order to harvest the souls there. They claim that the Blood War doesn't affect the PCs directly and therefore isn't useful in a game, but this shows both an unacceptable lack of imagination and ignorance of the fact that there was an entire boxed set published in 2e devoted to involving the PCs directly with the Blood War. The claim that demons and devils need to be more different than they were in 3e in order to make the game "better" isn't even accompanied by the pretense of a rationale. We're supposed to simply take it on faith, I guess, that the more different two creatures are the better they are, as an axiom.

Off the top of my head, the PCs could be hired by one side or the other to perform tasks for them, which may coincidentally be for the "greater good." They may be hired by celestials to smuggle good-aligned weapons to the fiends, hoping they'll kill each other off all the faster. They could work to destroy the portals the fiends are using to use the Material Plane (or another plane) as a battlefield. They can work to play one villain against another. They may be hired as mercenaries in the war. They may become enmeshed in the schemes of the yugoloths to prolong the war or to end it (and different groups of 'loths may have different schemes). They may be called to protect or relocate groups of innocent refugees of the Blood War battles.

To say that a war - any war - isn't a useful background for generating plots is so unimaginative that I can't muster much respect for anyone who would go there.

As for why some people don't like the idea of the Blood War, it's because their personal conception of the planes is based more on Milton than Moorcock (or Colin McComb). It's a matter of personal taste, in other words, and those who would attempt to fabricate "rational" justifications for their taste are forced to say some very stupid things.

 

[Lackhand]

If the war between the celestials and the fiends (Good vs Evil) was portrayed as Planescape portrayed the Blood War, I would also complain about how pointless it was. In fiction that portrays conflicts between Good and Evil (and Law and Chaos for that matter), the conflict is not well reduced to two endless armies in permanent trench warfare, IMO. It is indeed a metaphor for a larger philosophical conflict, but I believe it is one that has had more than enough consideration. The game can continue to examine conflicts between good/evil, law/chaos, war/peace, wealth/poverty without having literal cosmic wars between representatives of these. Would a campaign about the struggle of the lower classes and the upper classes in a kingdom be strengthened by a cosmology that had wealth outsiders fighting continuously with poverty outsiders? The Blood War has had more than twenty years in the core rules. I don't see why it needs to be carried forward into 4e core.

Actually, I think any two opposing conflicts need some enmity between them, or else the fact that they're opposed goes out the window.

I think you actually agree, so I'm sort of giving a verbose "me too"

If the God-King of Fire and the Democratically Elected First Among Equals of Rivers, Seas, Oceans and Rain meet, we expect either for them to come to (metaphorically, but we're talking about the planes here, so it's literal too!) blows. Or, in a deliberate subversion of the stereotype, we expect them to be lovers.

Or, once in a great great while, we expect them to ignore each other, in a subversion of both stereotypes (Sigil, I'm looking at you: this is why you are refreshing, but bad for the core. This much subversion should be in a sub version!)

The Blood War commits a sort of tangential misdeed, to my mind. It's a wonderful parallel for the self destructive nature of evil, for xenophobia, for an inability to adapt to (or accept the existence of!) others' needs or wants, for cruelty, and so on.
It also completely ties up devils and demons in this eternal struggle. But consider the adventure writer, sourcebook writer, or home DM!

He does not wish to use demons as this metaphor, he (probably) wishes to use them as tempters of mortals, the dark foe of the bright angels, depraved muckity-mucks, and so on. The whole "trench warfare" aspect really gets in the way.


Best solution? WotC needs to publish a Planescape sourcebook (touching on Sigil, the factions, and a few planar strongholds that are related; any extra Dominions that they need, and so on), and a Blood War adventure/supplement which is sort of A Paladin In Hell/Apocalypse Now combination. Voila, instant everybody's happy. Well, I'd be happy, anyway.

PS to Ripzerai: that's actually interesting, though I disagree (vehemently, obviously! ) with the assertion that I need to say dumb things to get across my POV. It's true, I do agree more with Milton than Moorcock, and I hadn't really thought of it that way. But if I go the Moorcock route, they're not really Angels and Demons, they're Celestials and Korothians or some other such alien race: inimical, ancient, and aligned ultimately with wickedness, but not defined by their evil so much as their alignment towards dominion or destruction. The only place to bring this conversation now is into what it means to be Lawful versus Chaotic, and I don't think we need to go there

I expect that I'd like the Blood War more were it between Tanar'ri and Baatezu, rather than Demons and Devils. Indeed, we could have Demon and Devil fight a shadow war, while (using the same stats, one universe over) the Tanar'ri and the Baatezu fight the literal one. It's using the literal war as the default assumption I object to, when the participants are ones I'd like to use as exemplars of Evil (not caring about Law vs Chaos).

 

[Ripzerai]

the majority of "evil" people in real life get along fairly well, (at least with their buddies and people who agree with them) and don't actually spend more time killing each other off than annoying normal people.

I'll avoid the real-world comparisons and concentrate on the most salient point. The demons and devils are, philosophically, utterly at odds. They are not buddies and they do not agree. They disagree with one another, in fact, as much and as strongly as they disagree with their counterparts on the planes of Good. You could compare them to warring religious sects, if you like, though that does a disservice to exactly how little common ground they actually have. They are not fighting over a minor theological dispute or the succession of a millennia-dead ruler. They are fighting because they are avatars of Law and Chaos, two forces whose war created the multiverse and helps sustain it. Unfortunately, they represent the worst and lowest impulses of each force, and so their conflict is grittier, more violent, and less honorable than the stately debates and elegant dances which take place on their higher planes.

Their war is hotter than it is with the forces of Good because good people are not manifestations of bigotry and hatred. Good people are fairly nice, and they do not respond to attacks as appallingly as evil people do. Wars of retribution against Good do not escalate as nastily as they do when your enemy is genocide incarnate.

 

[Ripzerai]

PS to Ripzerai: that's actually interesting, though I disagree (vehemently, obviously! ) with the assertion that I need to say dumb things to get across my POV.

Yeah, sorry. I always have to go there, don't I?

What I meant is that there's no real "logical" reason to prefer Milton to Moorcock, plot-wise (I won't go into the respective quality of the writing, as Milton didn't write Paradise Lost in two weeks while on chemical stimulants); both authors wrote epic, provocative plots that tap into deep Jungian archetypes.

You can certainly (and have) explain your tastes rationally. I just don't think you can prove your tastes are superior using that method.

I do disagree with your analysis that races built using Moorcockian themes would be more alien than personications of various spiritual and ethical themes. He tends to use phrases like "Lords of Chaos," "The Balance," "The Just," "Lords of the Higher Worlds," and so on more than made-up words like "Karothians." His "Blood-Red Game of Time" is explicitly allegorical. See his The Warhound and the World's Pain and The War Amongst the Angels, for examples of his bending of Miltonian themes to his purposes.

 

[Gothmog]

Meh, either they waste their time killing each other (more so than good) which is a "metaphor" or a "incorrect cliche" as you decide, or they don't, in which case it doesn't really mean anything, you can't really have it both ways.

The problem is, a disproportionate amount of time and effort has gone into describing the blood war, because it's unique to D&D, until on some level it defined D&D fiends more than anything else, it's the part of planescape everyone knows about, more than sigil, more than the malleable nature of the planes, everyone knows about the blood war, as soon as people got some previews of demons and devils, people were like "but what about the blood war?", and that's wrong. Fiends should be about tempting mortals, about killing fleshbags, about making horrible deals, cursing the world and bringing about armageddon, yet the first thing people say when they see some previews of the 4e fiends is "They better still be in an unending war with those other fiends just like them over of philosophical differences". If that's the thing that sticks in peoples minds about D&D fiends, then they needed a redo.

Bingo. This is exactly my problem with the Blood War- it defines fiends more than being fiends does. The Blood War was contrived as fixture of the Planescape setting, and is extremely specific to it. It belongs in Planescape, and should stay there. An analagous comparison would be including Elminster in Greyhawk or Eberron- he would feel jarring and out of place in another world (heck, he feels jarring and out of place in FR as well).

I for one am overjoyed that the Blood War is gone as an assumed part of the cosmology, and I love the reworked demons and devils from what I've seen so far. Its time to make fiends destroyers and corruptors again- to make them something truly nightmarish and frightening, instead of having their existence consumed by waging the Blood War, with only occasional interest given to their classic roles in mythology and literature.

 

[Daz]

I did not like nor dislike the Blood War, but all this 4E fluff sounds like the designers have a wicked case of "our fluff is better than your fluff". Half of their explanations for the changes sounds like a 12 yeard old throwing a tantrum and calling you stupid for not immediately agreeing with their view points and eschewing the old.

Someone may have already said this, but it's likely that the real reason for the end of the great wheel and the blood war is changes in the alignment system. Most things are unaligned, and I'm not sure that law and chaos are making it to this edition. No 9-step alignment system means no contrived beings for every possibility. Now we have 2 forces of evil, still with a philosophical difference, who probably wouldn't be able to play nice to each other instead of "I hate you because your stat block has a C in it."

 

[Ripzerai]

The Blood War was contrived as fixture of the Planescape setting

No, it wasn't. It was introduced in the Outer Planes Monstrous Compendium Appendix, which was published in 1991, three years before the Planescape setting debuted.

It's also part of the 3e Forgotten Realms cosmology and the 3e Eberron cosmology (in the plane of Shavarath). It is mentioned Carl Sargent's pre-Planescape Greyhawk supplements, and formed a big part of the rationale of some of the more interesting plots there.

It's not in any way specific to Planescape.

 

[Shroomy]

No, it wasn't. It was introduced in the Outer Planes Monstrous Compendium Appendix, which was published in 1991, three years before the Planescape setting debuted.

It's also part of the 3e Forgotten Realms cosmology and the 3e Eberron cosmology (in the plane of Shavarath). It is mentioned Carl Sargent's pre-Planescape Greyhawk supplements, and formed a big part of the rationale of some of the more interesting plots there.

It's not in any way specific to Planescape.

I think it is more fair to say that the Blood War was an inspiration for Shavarath, not that Shavarath is the Blood War in Eberron.

 

[Khairn]

The Blood War has been a "behind the scenes" element of my campaigns for years, and IMHO is an iconic cornerstone of the outer planes of D&D that I knew and enjoyed. Eliminating it is just another classic "D&Disms" (sacred cows?) that the 4E designers feel do not fit in their vision of the game. Compared to some of the other classic fluff that has been tossed out, this one is only a minor annoyance for me. But I certainly do understand why some players will be upset over it being dumped.

I did not like nor dislike the Blood War, but all this 4E fluff sounds like the designers have a wicked case of "our fluff is better than your fluff".

I agree that a lot of WotC's justifications do seem to come across that way. Personally I believe that stating how wonderful a new element / rule / piece of fluff is, by trying to explain how the old one was badwrongfun is the wrong approach to take. Particularly when many players don't see any significant problems with the old one. Unfortunately a lot of the new 4E rules and features seem to be introduced that way.

 

[Oryan77]

You have, like many Planescape players, entirely missed the point.

I'm not sure what I've said that makes you believe myself and all the other PS fans have missed "the point". The Blood War haters have been pretty clear on what they are trying to do in this thread...and that is to troll & get PS fans riled up. Granted a few guys are making fair & reasonable points to back up their dislike for the Blood War, but most people are doing nothing more than trolling.

Forgotten Realms stole my Tieflings & Aasimars and made them core races in that setting. Now WotC is even making them core races in the core setting! But I'm not going to come on here and say, "Forgotten Realms sucks and is bland because it's effecting my Planar cosmology!" I really don't care what FR does with my planar stuff. I use FR fluff in my PS campaign and I simply keep planar races as planar races. You have complete control over your setting and anyone complaining about the Blood War bleeding into their setting needs a refresher course on being a DM. I don't really care to read ignorant comments about something as creative as the Blood War from people who apparently don't know anything about it. :\ It's disrespectful.

The great wheel (most of it, anyway) and the blood war are fine and interesting in Planescape, the problem is when they were shoved into other settings.

I agree 100%. I don't even like seeing planar material being used so carefree in Prime settings. It degrades the planes and makes it nothing more than another "continent" for prime adventurers to explore. I don't like planar content being a major part to a prime setting because it makes the prime setting 2nd class to a Planescape setting...and that's not cool. It degrades Greyhawk by saying that something like the Blood War happened on Oerth. It degrades FR by saying that planar races are core on Toril. If we're going to take the identity away from a setting by integrating this stuff, then why bother having different settings...just make D&D a planar setting :\