D&D 4E What do you think of the 4E background to demons & devils?

[Midknightsun]

Just don't care, frankly.

I've been tired of the whole Great Wheel cosmology for some time now, so I've pretty much been making up my own cosmologies for my campaigns. The 4e stuff looks interesting though, so I may borrow some of the ideas there. And in truth, I've known very few DMs who did even a decent job of highlighting the supposed difference between demons and devils, anyway. And there's something so poetic about the succubus being handed around the lower planes . . . .

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Can't get the Dark Tower wiki to load up in order to give a good example, but this concept of beings of chaos and discord from beyond gives a very clear picture of what to expect when encountering a demon. Think Lovecraft, think shoggoths and Shub-Niggurath, think of mad voices from the void, insanity, and chaos.

There's a great paragraph in Black House where a demon (sort of) gloats about the anticipated apocalypse, when they shall burn and devour all the worlds, leaving nothing but empty husks floating in an all-consuming fire.

 

[Flynn]

I voted "not concerned" because I don't use the Great Wheel cosmology anyway. My cosmology was shaped by Mayfair's Role-Aids supplements, particularly the Demons campaign setting. Likely, I'll continue to use my own cosmology going forward.

I do like the direction of the new cosmology on a personal level, but it probably won't see play at my table.

All I really need are monster stats. I like to think that I can do the rest myself.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Desdichado]

Unconcerned. I use whatever fluff I want to anyway, so for my own campaigns I don't care. While I like many of these ideas, others aren't necessarily better than the status quo, and I do like the FC and Demonomicon stuff, and it seems a shame to obsolete it so early.

 

[Desdichado]

Grumble, grumble. Nevermind.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm with Erik on this. As I posted elsewhere, I consider FC1, the Dragon articles, and the Green Ronin books on the topics to be some of the best D&D ever written, from both a rules and a fluff perspective.

I do think this could invalidate a lot of that. While the fluff seems to not matter, when fluff influences the rules and stats (as this appears to do), then fluff does matter.

I'm not saying that this won't possibly be good for the game, as clearly a lot of people like it, and it may draw in new players (or may not), but that doesn't mean I need to like it and how it might make running planar adventures in my fluff more difficult.

 

[Erik Mona]

Those who see my article as broad strokes are on track. Those who see demons as forces of unmaking are on track. The article's (and Rich Baker's) generalities will get their refinement as the game evolves. Graz'zt won't need to be a devil, for example. He can have his place in the Abyss, right alongside Lolth (but below her, since she's a deity) without contradicting the broad strokes at all. Each specific entity can heve exceptions to the general.

You should have said that in the article. It would have saved about six pages of this thread from happening, I think.

--Erik

 

[jolt]

I voted unconcerned. I didn't use the old and it doesn't look like I'm going to be using the new either. I've already changed demons and devils for my homebrew. To be honest, the changes don't strike me as all that significant anyway.

OLD

Demon: "Chaos!"
Devil: "Law!"
Players: "10,000 XP each!"

NEW

Demon: "Destroy!"
Devil: "Corrupt!"
Players: "10,000 XP each!"

jolt

 

[Drammattex]

There's a great paragraph in Black House where a demon (sort of) gloats about the anticipated apocalypse, when they shall burn and devour all the worlds, leaving nothing but empty husks floating in an all-consuming fire.

Exactly. And Black House is a Dark Tower tie-in, right?
Anyway, that seems to echo what Sims wrote on the 4e demons.

I'm all about Paradise Lost devils and King/Lovecraft/contemporary horror demons. Can't wait.

 

[Desdichado]

Heck, I'd rather see more clarification and consolidation.

How do the slaad differ from demons really? IMO, not much. Fold 'em in. How do efreet differ from devil really? IMO, not much. Fold 'em in. What's the whole point of daemons/yugoloths? None, other than to get a pat "correspondence" based on alignments. If any of the yugoloths themselves are interesting enough to keep (a handful are, I'll admit, but only a handful) then divvy them up amongst the demons and devils and be done with it.

For that matter, I'm still not that keen on the idea of demons and devils being different in the first place, although I can still swallow it if needs be. My own cosmology basically has a fiend is a fiend is a fiend, and all of the above mentioned (not to mention demodands, oni, and any other outsider that you don't want to mess with) all are just fiends, and belong to one of many hells---each ruled over by it's Machiavellian prince or lord.

The reason I did this is because as far as I'm concerned, all of those overlap in purpose. There's no point in having so many subtypes that don't accomplish anything unique.

The whole notion that this is a pointless change for change's sake really boggles my mind. This consolidation of types seems like a very necessary change to get rid of years and years of bloat and esoteric minutia, and as far as I'm concerned, they still haven't done enough.