D&D: Devils don't have to be evil
(nitter.net)
Comments (41)
sorted by:
I really do not get this, at all. Devils by definition are evil. They sometimes do things that are good if it serves their own interests or an evil interest like getting them more souls but anyway the 5'th edition is turning to crap, I just hate this deconstruction of evil. The entire foundation of DnD was with alignments and the idea of evil gods, good gods, evil creatures and good creatures. Bleah I just hate this changes and I'm trying really hard not to hate the designers. You do not have to use any of this but I see no reason not to play AD&D or 3.5, there is so much material to play with.
It's just an excuse to mark concepts like "good and evil" to be bigoted and prejudicial, while the left runs rampant in raping children.
If there is no good nor evil, then the actions of those leftists cannot, by definition, be evil.
It's a very purposeful and sinister (though not evil, since evil doesn't exist) set-up they've created.
They've been pushing it for a long time. At least the last 100 years since post modernists have been pushing relativism. They're antithetical to truth, which is why they're against any form of absolutism, truth, morality, or otherwise. They attempt to muddy the waters amd confuse people, so they can get away with their heinous actions.
I think that leftists know that what they believe in and advocate for would be labeled as evil by anyone not a leftist, and they don't want that label.
Agreed. I don’t get it either. Don’t understand why they keep ruining a classic rpg
Some fat whore wants to fuck her RP character and is tired of Christian Morality.
If you are going to play an out-of-print version play the Rules Cyclopedia, which is what eventually became of the Basic, Expert, Companion & Advanced Box sets. It is generally a simpler and more refined version of rules than AD&D 1st or 2nd Edition.
3.5 was fine, but there are better fantasy RPG settings and rules. Personally, I'd rather play EarthDawn.
It is almost certainly available on the high seas, if you go looking.
https://caressofsteel.github.io/demos/dndrulescyclopedia/
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic
If you want stuff like player guides, monster manuals and even those complete mage/divine there are torrents for it. I saved a ton of stuff, including a lot of resources on eberron, very cool setting if you are interested.
This is fucking dumb. Devils and Demons in D&D are literally confined by their alignments of "Lawful Evil" and "Chaotic Evil". It's one of their most distinct differences.
Devils that aren't evil are called angels.
Wizards of the Coast declared today that Angels can only be defined by evil alignments - along with white men.
Yet more leftist breakdown of any and all boundaries. Everything can be anything. If a man can be a woman, there's no reason that a devil can't be good.
Famously, there was a player who, with some creative sheet-writing, created a succubus paladin.
That took a lot of effort and honestly looked like she had an interesting character arc.
This? This is woke shit.
We let transgender communists put themselves in charge of a fantasy universe and they immediately rewrote the rules so that hideous extradimensional creatures of unspeakable evil who revel in tyranny and the brutal domination of all lesser beings aren't actually that bad.
You forgot that the evils try to corrupt the world and change it to their own moral code. Devils in particular try to rationalize their evil in order to convince others.
I'm sticking to 3.5 because but I'm a big nerd and like the math of adding templates and class levels to monsters, and determining what kinds of traps a villain lair can afford based on his security budget.
So long as they have blue hair and septum piercings, the lefties wont mind...
Meanwhile, I remember Ethan Skemp being reluctant to release anything regarding Black Spiral Dancers because of how awful they're really supposed to be, and wanted any expansion book like that to be under the Black Dog label. Even what they got in Book of the Wyrm second ed is very discrete, and bordering on "water closet" levels of caution.
The last thing he wanted to happen was for BSDs to be glorified, or apologia'd.
For what is an angel but a devil that fights on our behalf.
Is that a quote?
I think it's a line from one of the Urth of the New Sun books by Gene Wolfe.
The creators were offended.
If you want to create a non-evil drow, you only have to explain why they did not succumb to the pressures in drow society that will kill or corrupt a kind-hearted drow - rivals that will exploit that vulnerability, family that don't want them as a liability, and Lolth as the abusive matriarch who encourages the race's dysfunction. A good drow can exist, they're just unlikely to survive to adulthood.
A non-evil devil would depend on what exactly a devil is. If it's a damned soul that could be redeemed by the efforts of a good man, disavows any of its abilities that are inherently evil (like summoning more devils or spreading vile disease), and seeks to atone for the evil deeds that still scar it, then that's something that could also work as a one-off NPC.
I may be wrong but devil are a species, they are not damned souls. You can create, since it is D&D, some kind of pseudo-devil that was once a very evil human that brought destruction etc etc and then it was granted some important place in hell. You can work with that, somewhat, but even then it would be hard to find redemption, I mean hell is by definition evil and working with the forces of hell corrupts, it would be hard to make the redemption arc work without making seem forced or the arch-devils incompetent enough to have granted such a gift to a mortal soul.
I guess one could always go the "Hot Stuf" route, in which the devil tries to do evil, but he's such a total fuckup that his actions wind up causing net good instead.
This shit has been going on a loooooong time.
AD&D 2nd edition stopped explicitly calling Angels and Devils Angels and Devils. 3rd edition removed racial requirements for classes, and also drastically dumbed down ability requirements in general. 4th edition removed (most) negative racial features.
2nd edition changed the names do to a push from the religious right, despite making no sense but it never changed the idea of good and evil and everyone still knew demons were called tanar'ri and devils were named baatezu. More then that you could find them as demons and devils in adventures, it was like yea demons are called tanarri. Never did it imply that devils or demons are not evil, it was core part of the game.
The removal of racial requirements for classes was a change I did not personaly like but it was to be expected. It made little sense that some races could not be a certain class and the truth was that a lot of GMs would not implement race restrictions, including max level for AD&D.
Not all changes are the same, changes for gameplay vs changes do to modern day moral relativism. I'm one of those that hated the trend that villains are misunderstood and had some tragic reason for their actions.
The issue with these retard leftists changing DnD is they don't realize that homebrewing is a thing.
Devils are by definition evil, no shit.
But if you sit down some with buddies and someone is like "Hey can I play a demon? I dunno maybe it got hit on the head or with good-magic or something and it's just good now" or some other reason, why not just have a good time and fun?
"Justify your backstory!"
"A gnomish paladin tinker made a Helmet Of Reverse Alignment and then started summoning devils, and using his one order, made them put it on their heads."
"...fine."
And then you do the whole campaign having the devil remember being evil, remember enjoying it, but not enjoying it anymore, and the crisis of faith that brings on. Every so often he will torture to death someone, just to see if he can recapture the feeling of evil being good, but it only leaves him hollow and filled with regret.
Writing a character like this is far beyond the capability of the people who subverted and stole D&D away from actual nerds.
That's a neat backstory!
It's not about doing things they want to do, it's about making sure their enemies can't do anything at all.
That sounds spot on to me. It's not about giving people choice, it's about taking away the choices which adults could, should and are currently having.
Then it would not be a devil, trying to make this work in to campaign is either pretend it is nothing despite making no sense or have it be a major part of the campaign, an event that changes the very laws of the universe is not something that is unnoticed by gods, demons and devils. A player wanting to do that means to me that he is an incredible narcissist that I would not want to play with and I would not allow it as a GM.
Now as an NPC it could work, is actually something that gives me a few ideas to center a campaign around. Granted it would be something that the players would have to realize later in to the campaign but it could work as a higher level campaign. Depends a lot if the players want a game with high stakes or not. But again, it would be this world changing event the very existence of this non-evil devil.
As a parallel, Drizzt was a drow that was not evil, while I do know they later made drow not inheritably evil, in the books the reason Drizzt was not evil was do to genetics so the drow are evil do to the corruption of Loth but it had this rare mutation that was unheard until Drizzt, technically his father. Drizzt is this amazing character do to him being unique and rare. A player character that is drow, while not that uncommon now, it would need to play an important part in the campaign, that is why I'm not a fan of drow player characters.
Dude the person might just be your friend wanting to have some fun. There's a time and a place to be super hardcore with TTRPG's, but in your own tight knit circle of friends is not the place... ;\
Wokies see themselves too much in the classical definition of evil, so instead of changing themselves, they change the definition of evil.
You can see it in how they've been slowly redefining and glamorizing the Demons (chaotic evil) and Devils (lawful evil) into more sympathetic creatures that are not necessarily evil.
With demons they're focusing more on the iconicization of sin that demons represent (Balors - wrath, Succubi - lust, Glabrezu - envy, Hezrou - gluttony, etc. etc.) and making that sin "cool" by just throwing demon blood into everything - like with Cambions and Tieflings. Heck, in the basic loadout of character races in 5e you can't even select half-celestial (aasimar) characters, but you sure can take tieflings because evil is cool, I guess.