D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Desdichado]

The original concept for Dark Sun was "Medieval fantasy meets Road Warrior".

That might be fine as a Hollywood pitch style summary, but clearly it also borrows heavily from Dune and John Carter stories.

 

[Alzrius]

References to demons and devils fighting the Blood War don't strike me as setting specific because the Great Wheel isn't Planescape any more than it is Greyhawk -- both settings reference a core cosmology but the core cosmology doesn't belong to either one of them.

It's worth remembering that the whole idea of "demons hate devils and vice versa, and they fight the eternal Blood War" not only predates Planescape by several years, but was presented as setting-neutral material. That tends to get lost in this discussion.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Or, in other words--what's really the difference between tanar'i and obyriths? To me, that's pretty much the same difference between all the other varieties of fiends too. Members of one group obviously have some common point of origin--presumably--given a small bundle of shared mechanical traits, but other than that, what difference does it really make?

Story differences between monsters are the most important difference, IMO. I mean, you could say the same thing about hobgoblins and gnolls, right? What's the difference? They're both monstrous humanoids who live in the wilderness and attack innocent travelers and farmsteaders. Stat-wise, they're mundane creatures who fight with mundane weapons. But, they're different because of their law/chaos distinction. Hobgoblins are militaristic and subjugate "lesser" races as cannon fodder. Gnolls are barely controlled killing machines who are likely to eat their hostages on the way home, and they can barely hold a small group together due to infighting unless they have a strong leader. They occupy different archetypes, and that's the most important difference between the two in any given campaign.

The difference in demons and devils might not be important to an individual campaign, just like the difference between a hobgoblin and a gnoll might not be important. But, the differences themselves are important because what the creature is is more than a stat block, its a world view and a piece of the puzzle as to how they fit into the world, and game, as a whole. Even when the differences are subtle that still great! Because, you can use those subtle differences and tiny nuances to drive home the details of the world for the PCs to encounter, and you can make the world that much more alive for the players as they play the game.

 

[Desdichado]

Story differences between monsters are the most important difference, IMO. I mean, you could say the same thing about hobgoblins and gnolls, right? What's the difference? They're both monstrous humanoids who live in the wilderness and attack innocent travelers and farmsteaders. Stat-wise, they're mundane creatures who fight with mundane weapons. But, they're different because of their law/chaos distinction. Hobgoblins are militaristic and subjugate "lesser" races as cannon fodder. Gnolls are barely controlled killing machines who are likely to eat their hostages on the way home, and they can barely hold a small group together due to infighting unless they have a strong leader. They occupy different archetypes, and that's the most important difference between the two in any given campaign.

The difference in demons and devils might not be important to an individual campaign, just like the difference between a hobgoblin and a gnoll might not be important. But, the differences themselves are important because what the creature is is more than a stat block, its a world view and a piece of the puzzle as to how they fit into the world, and game, as a whole. Even when the differences are subtle that still great! Because, you can use those subtle differences and tiny nuances to drive home the details of the world for the PCs to encounter, and you can make the world that much more alive for the players as they play the game.

Yeah, the ingrained D&Disms inherent in the system that don't make any sense to an outsider. I referred to those earlier in the part of my post that you didn't quote.

In any case, the question was rhetorical. I know what the difference is from a "story of D&D" perspective, I'm saying that I've elected to ignore that particular story. Once you do so, the difference between them is very slight, and the real world inspiration for D&D fiends doesn't posit any such divisions as D&D does, so I've ignored them too in my setting. This is especially true since I've completely eschewed alignment too, which is really the only point of distinction between devils and demons anyway.

By the same token, to use your other example--I think it's better to note that hobgoblins and orcs are conceptually exactly the same thing (even moreso than gnolls) so I don't see the point in having both of them present in any one setting. Then again, I also don't see the point of subraces of things like elves or dwarves (which, IMO, are better represented by using one stat-line and reflecting the "subraces" as merely cultural differences between various populations.)

But I guess in terms of taxonomy, that would make me a "lumper" rather than a "splitter." Curiously, when it comes to actual prehistorical taxon, I trend the opposite way. It actually offends me to consider the notion that Tarbosaurus might be considered another species of Tyrannosaurus rather than its own genus! But that's neither here nor there, really.

 

[DMZ2112]

It's worth remembering that the whole idea of "demons hate devils and vice versa, and they fight the eternal Blood War" not only predates Planescape by several years, but was presented as setting-neutral material. That tends to get lost in this discussion.

I don't think [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] cares. Whether or not it is setting-specific, it is specific. It seems to me that he would be happiest if, in the D&D5 rules, a thing were a thing, and not a thing plus relationships. I don't agree all the time, but if the PHB said all halflings were nomadic dinosaur-riding barbarians, I'd be pretty torqued off -- not because I don't like Eberron, but because pulp fiction is garbage.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Yeah, the ingrained D&Disms inherent in the system that don't make any sense to an outsider. I referred to those earlier in the part of my post that you didn't quote.

This is true. D&D often has a sort of caricature-ization of things over time. A little blurb mentioned in one book can turn into a creature's main theme a couple of editions or even a couple of books later. In the end, you get something completely unrecognizable as far as the real-life origins of a monster, but to a D&D player it all looks perfectly natural.

In any case, the question was rhetorical. I know what the difference is from a "story of D&D" perspective, I'm saying that I've elected to ignore that particular story. Once you do so, the difference between them is very slight, and the real world inspiration for D&D fiends doesn't posit any such divisions as D&D does, so I've ignored them too in my setting. This is especially true since I've completely eschewed alignment too, which is really the only point of distinction between devils and demons anyway.

I definitely realize the potential to remove that caricaturization and move back to folklore or religious origins of creatures. Often those original stories have a strong resonation themselves, even to players who never had direct contact with them (i.e. Grimm fairy tales), and you end up with something outstanding. I'm not married to the way Planescape did things. I love lots of the old tales and myth, and one thing I wouldn't call Planescape is mythic, even though I love the setting. It gives answers to things that traditionally go unanswered like details of the afterlife and so forth. I could see a more mythic, less alignment-focused, multiverse setting being great in its own right.

By the same token, to use your other example--I think it's better to note that hobgoblins and orcs are conceptually exactly the same thing (even moreso than gnolls) so I don't see the point in having both of them present in any one setting. Then again, I also don't see the point of subraces of things like elves or dwarves (which, IMO, are better represented by using one stat-line and reflecting the "subraces" as merely cultural differences between various populations.)

But I guess in terms of taxonomy, that would make me a "lumper" rather than a "splitter." Curiously, when it comes to actual prehistorical taxon, I trend the opposite way. It actually offends me to consider the notion that Tarbosaurus might be considered another species of Tyrannosaurus rather than its own genus! But that's neither here nor there, really.

Gah, don't get me started on orcs. All good points.

 

[Desdichado]

This is true. D&D often has a sort of caricature-ization of things over time. A little blurb mentioned in one book can turn into a creature's main theme a couple of editions or even a couple of books later. In the end, you get something completely unrecognizable as far as the real-life origins of a monster, but to a D&D player it all looks perfectly natural.

It's not unique to D&D, of course. I still chuckle at the notion in the Star Wars Expanded Universe that all Rodians must have this bounty hunter culture, because... because Greedo was a bounty hunter. It seems so much more rational to simply suppose that Greedo was a bounty hunter because that's the career choice he made.

I admit to a sense of some schadenfreude in watching more authoritative sources (say, the Clone Wars tv show) eviscerate some of that EU nonsense.

Gah, don't get me started on orcs.

Well, now I'm curious!

 

[ThirdWizard]

Well, now I'm curious!

Hah! The short version is that I think orcs are a generic race of bad people who do bad things, and that's pretty much their entire schtick. Everybody has their own ideas of what orcs are, so they get to have nothing interesting about them to make them stand out. Yet they're some kind of "iconic" bad guy. I don't think should exist if this is all they're going to be except that they have to because Tolkien. Even though Tolkien's orcs had a compelling backstory in the Silmarillion, which gave them a huge reason to be.

Yeah, that about sums it up!

 

[Desdichado]

Hah! The short version is that I think orcs are a generic race of bad people who do bad things, and that's pretty much their entire schtick. Everybody has their own ideas of what orcs are, so they get to have nothing interesting about them to make them stand out. Yet they're some kind of "iconic" bad guy. I don't think should exist if this is all they're going to be except that they have to because Tolkien. Even though Tolkien's orcs had a compelling backstory in the Silmarillion, which gave them a huge reason to be.

Yeah, that about sums it up!

That about sums up my review of Paizo's Orcs of Golarion... I wasn't exactly surprised, but I was disappointed that they didn't do anything more interesting with them other than, "they're caricatures; bad, violent, and always angry. That's all that there is to them. Nothing deeper."

Although I said earlier that orcs and hobgoblins are essentially the same, and are clearly built off the exact same concept, I have had some fun doing slightly different things with them; i.e., I borrowed Iron Kingdoms skorne culture and gave it to the hobgoblins, and borrowed trollkin culture and gave it to the orcs.

Even then, though, I was wondering why I was bothering to use two different stat-lines for them.

Sometimes the point isn't to necessarily imitate cultural or mythical resonance; sometimes it's just to do something other than ingrained D&Disms. In general, although I've almost always used D&D rules to represent my setting (or some variant thereof, at least) I'd say my setting more closely mirrors Warhammer Fantasy in many respects. I don't have much use for an arcane and Byzantine split of fiend types; fiends are, by their nature, basically the same, regardless of what their stats say. For instance.

 

[Aldarc]

It's worth remembering that the whole idea of "demons hate devils and vice versa, and they fight the eternal Blood War" not only predates Planescape by several years, but was presented as setting-neutral material. That tends to get lost in this discussion.

I'm not the biggest fan of saying that demons hate devils, because of the game mechanics of alignment, and I could see that being setting-neutral. My opposition, however, would be with the assertion that an imposed meta-event called the "Blood War" could be in anyway setting neutral regardless of it predating Planescape.

Hah! The short version is that I think orcs are a generic race of bad people who do bad things, and that's pretty much their entire schtick. Everybody has their own ideas of what orcs are, so they get to have nothing interesting about them to make them stand out. Yet they're some kind of "iconic" bad guy. I don't think should exist if this is all they're going to be except that they have to because Tolkien. Even though Tolkien's orcs had a compelling backstory in the Silmarillion, which gave them a huge reason to be.

Yeah, that about sums it up!

That's kind of what worries me about the alignment section of 5E that talks of how orcs follow the alignment of their god as if they were hard-wired to be like that. It seems too dogmatic about the alignment of creatures that just about goes beyond essentialism. I find the moral implications of such an implied setting to be disturbing.