D&D General What Would Happen if Fiends Came to Fill the "Low CR Monsters" Niche?

[Hexmage-EN]

I've been thinking for a while that D&D, if it wanted to, could just shift a lot of the negative traits ascribed to goblins and orcs and whatever to certain low CR demons and make them more common as low-level enemies. It would also help give dretches and what not more personality.

Part of the argument against having orcs and goblins and such as common enemies is that their are frequently good individuals, they reproduce, and they may be native to the area. In contrast, low CR demons (manes, rutterkin, dretches, quasits, etc) are are pure evil without the civility that devils can have, don't reproduce, are invaders from the Abyss rather than natives of the world, and don't even really die when destroyed unless destroyed in the Abyss. Their presence in large numbers also increases the Abyss' link to a world, so wiping out incursions is also an imperative, and there are higher CR demons that can serve as bosses forcing lesser demons into servitude (though, being Chaotic, many of these demons would probably flee to go do their own thing, further making them a threat to the countryside even as the boss demon summons more minions from the Abyss).

Demons are the most obvious choice for rampaging monsters, but devils and even yugoloths could be justifiable (thought currently the lowest CR yugoloth, the mezzoloth, is at CR 5). How many adventures with some villain forcing orcs or goblins into their employ would work just as well with summoned fiends in that role?

The only thing is I have the suspicion that putting demons in the goblins' niche might somehow end up making people want to start portraying literal demons and devils more sympathetically, which would be bad optics for the game that once suffered under the Satanic Panic. Making them staples of low level adventures where the authors try to get creative with them might make them more interesting as NPCs, and we could have players starting to want to play good demon PCs.

Thoughts?

 

[Jer]

Demons are the most obvious choice for rampaging monsters, but devils and even yugoloths could be justifiable (thought currently the lowest CR yugoloth, the mezzoloth, is at CR 5). How many adventures with some villain forcing orcs or goblins into their employ would work just as well with summoned fiends in that role?

I've been doing this in my current 13th Age campaign, though instead of using existing fiends I just use the stats for orcs, goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins and map them to different kinds of Chaos Demons. Keeps the difficulty levels the same, and makes it really easy to adapt published adventure sites to my own game.

I've done similar things in my campaigns for a long time - I like having enemies who can be beat up without moral quandary for the times when that's needed. I use low-level undead and constructs to fill similar roles when demons don't feel quite right for the scenario. I've had previous campaigns where orcs and goblins were basically fungal creatures that exuded from an alien fungus and had no minds of their own, and where they were constructed from slime by evil wizards to act as their minions.

The only thing is I have the suspicion that putting demons in the goblins' niche might somehow end up making people want to start portraying literal demons and devils more sympathetically, which would be bad optics for the game that once suffered under the Satanic Panic. Making them staples of low level adventures where the authors try to get creative with them might make them more interesting as NPCs, and we could have players starting to want to play good demon PCs.

I mean, we had sympathetic demons in Planescape in the 90s, so that ship has sailed for D&D.

Also the kids have manga these days and "sympathetic demon" is basically a trope.

But IMO the trick to having low-level demons as foes is that you want them to be either engines of pure chaos or basically mindless under the control of someone else. In my current campaign the real bad guys are the Demon Empire - they're an expansionist human-centric empire that uses demons for their dirty work. The demons themselves don't really have a personality - they're chaos energy that has transformed some animal body into a form it can use to destroy things. Personalities are reserved for the more powerful demons, not the minor ones.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I wouldn't say the issue is necessarily people starting to take demons and devils more sympathetically... but rather the background of what those creatures are means the narrative of where your game is taking place obviously will be much, much different than your typical fantasy realm. A land infested with demons means you need to come up with how/why that happened, and it's going to be a story that make your world very different than what most players are used to. Not saying it can't be done... but if you introduce your world as "We got humans, dwarves, elves, and then masses of demons outside the city walls"... they are rightly going to be asking a lot of questions.

To me... the "solution" to the issue is simple: Just give the antagonists reasons for being antagonists.

Don't treat all the enemies as disposable. Give them motivations. If I want it to be okay for the party to go attack an orc tribe... it'll be by those orcs having done something that can justify the response.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I wouldn't say the issue is necessarily people starting to take demons and devils more sympathetically... but rather the background of what those creatures are means the narrative of where your game is taking place obviously will be much, much different than your typical fantasy realm. A land infested with demons means you need to come up with how/why that happened, and it's going to be a story that make your world very different than what most players are used to. Not saying it can't be done... but if you introduce your world as "We got humans, dwarves, elves, and then masses of demons outside the city walls"... they are rightly going to be asking a lot of questions.

Having demons and other fiends be more common would be a big change in D&D lore, admittedly. My thinking wasn't so much that demons would be all over the place, but that they could appear more often from temporary Abyssal portals.

My reasoning for using them is basically because they're the closest thing D&D has to the way many video games treat monsters; creatures that exist only to fight with no trace of civilization or young, spawning into existence from seemingly out of nowhere.

The 4E Demonomicon, BTW, introduced the idea that temporary portals to the Abyss could sometimes manifest in mundane doorways, windows, and other apertures, though natural spirits called "door guardians" usually prevented this.

 

[Cadence]

I've set my latest game up with demons, aberrations, and undead being the forces of Evil/Chaos/Irredeemable-whatnot. For the rest of the creature types I try to do it like the better westerns - it isn't race or ethnicity that makes them bad, it's what the particular individuals are doing. And the good guys don't just go out and kill people (or even animals) without a reason. They sure as heck are going to take out demons, chaos things from the outer void, and zombies.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why do you feel you need goblins and orcs? There are very few of these in my game ('cos they are boring), there are shedloads of alternatives already.

 

[HammerMan]

The only thing is I have the suspicion that putting demons in the goblins' niche might somehow end up making people want to start portraying literal demons and devils more sympathetically, which would be bad optics for the game that once suffered under the Satanic Panic. Making them staples of low level adventures where the authors try to get creative with them might make them more interesting as NPCs, and we could have players starting to want to play good demon PCs.

that is my problem. I don't mind useing devil/demon things but most of the time I want more nuence. So if D&D assumption (and stats) for the next edition made the low CR monsters all demons... I would end up making good and neutral demons.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't mind useing devil/demon things but most of the time I want more nuence.

Try using humans.

 

[Cadence]

Try using humans.

It's hard to picture them as good sometimes.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

being the forces of Evil/Chaos/Irredeemable-whatnot.

Why must enemies be irredeemable? If human bandits try to murder villagers and steel their harvest, and get killed by the adventurers defending it, then tough, they missed their chance at redemption. Bandits fault, not adventurers fault.