Why all the fiendish love?

[blargney the second]

After all, the entire historical root of DND has always been breaking and entering, murder, followed by theft. We might as well make the races correspond to that.

*chuckle*

You know, I was doing a little musing today that adventurers are a lot like barghests. They go around killing things and extracting life force from them to become permanently more powerful.
-blarg

 

[blargney the second]

Well, let us in on the secret. What does define poor taste?

Me, of course. *wink* Well, Nifft can do it too. But the rest of you guys are up the creek.
-blarg

ps - Don't mind me, I'm feeling a little lighthearted. Or lightheaded - I can never tell the difference.

 

[KarinsDad]

*chuckle*

You know, I was doing a little musing today that adventurers are a lot like barghests. They go around killing things and extracting life force from them to become permanently more powerful.
-blarg

Yup, especially with the 3E XP rules.

 

[Imp]

As a heroic PC race, it's tacky, crass, lowlife, "in poor taste".

Damn skippy it's a taste issue, though maybe they'll fix it.

Tieflings are cheesy! Is there a less menacing quasi-human D&D race out there? Aranea are scarier. Half-orcs can hit you hard, at least. Oooh, I have horns, a whiff of brimstone, and am sort of impervious to the elements! Great! Weapons, your only weakness!

I mean, jeez, can they even spin their heads around?

Aasimar too. It's true, there's only so much you can get out of the "touched by an angel" thing, but surely there's something?

Hopefully the authors can make the spawn of the underworld kind of cool at least.

 

[Celebrim]

Hopefully the authors can make the spawn of the underworld kind of cool at least.

Not really possible. Tieflings destroy the coolness of an incarnated idea to begin with.

The whole point of an incarnated idea is that it isn't human. So then you put it together with a human, and what you get is a human with horns 'turned up to 11'. Humans are interesting because they are complex, have free will, and the capacity for good and evil. Incarnated ideas are interesting because they don't. You can't really have half of two absolutes. Either the thing has free will and complexity and the capacity for good and evil, or it doesn't. Either its a demon or its a mortal. The tiefling really can't do anything that one or the other couldn't do. It's just 'kewl'.

What really annoys me is that people don't get it. They've got this whole 'demons would be more interesting if they weren't so monochromaticly 'black'. In other words, they shouldn't be unique - they should be more like everything else. If you destroy thier uniqueness, then you create a hole in your pallette. It's like taking all the black and white out in favor of having everything grey. Sure, you can paint grey, but I can paint grey and white and black.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

As a heroic PC race, it's tacky, crass, lowlife, "in poor taste". I find monster PC races to be non-appropriate for PCs. It's fine as a monster race.

So, they're fine with you as "things to be killed", but not as "things to be", and the commonality between them is an association with things evil or corrupt (note: not that they are themselves evil or corrupt) . . . and you're arguing that it's not a moral issue?

Let's play Bestial DND! Dwarves get replaced with Hobgoblins, Elves with Orcs, Humans with Demons, and Gnomes with Tieflings. And let's get rid of heroic fantasy and replace it with Totally Evil Fantasy.

Pull the other one.

In fact, this whole thing? Where you assume that the inclusion of a PC race with fiendish heritage implies, involves, or necessitates "get(ting) rid of heroic fantasy and replac(ing) it with Totally Evil Fantasy"?

That is the completely baseless and unsupportable assumption that's getting my gods-damned goat.

 

[Rechan]

Damn skippy it's a taste issue, though maybe they'll fix it.

snip

Hopefully the authors can make the spawn of the underworld kind of cool at least.

Says the guy named Imp.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Humans are interesting because they are complex, have free will, and the capacity for good and evil. Incarnated ideas are interesting because they don't. You can't really have half of two absolutes. Either the thing has free will and complexity and the capacity for good and evil, or it doesn't. Either its a demon or its a mortal. The tiefling really can't do anything that one or the other couldn't do.

Fiends and celestials in Dungeons & Dragons have never been "incarnated ideas" exactly as you describe. They have always possessed "free will", "complexity", and the "capacity for good and evil".

If they don't, you can't have fallen angels or risen devils, both of which have been present in D&D for a long time.

When fiends and celestials have been described as "incarnations of ideas", it has not been in the absolutist, lacking-in-agency way that you describe.

 

[Aloïsius]

Devils are fallen angels, and demons are corrupted elemental. Not incarnated ideas.

 

[Baby Samurai]

In a word, 'Diablo'.

In a sentence, it's 'turning the game up to 11'.

No, I would say that's Epic and Dicefreaks material.