Posted by Jer at 6:04 AM on
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
No big rambling post today - I just wanted to point out to anyone in my gaming group that isn't following the whole "4th edition upgrade" stuff over at Wizards' website that there's an article up on changes being made to Demons and Devils in the new edition.
(You may need to get a D&D Insider account to read the article. They're free accounts, though.)
I've got to say I'm intrigued by all of the changes that are being floated around for 4e - specifically the "shared world" changes like this one. I know that AD&D has always had this distinction between Demons and Devils that was purely alignment based - and that carried over into D&D 3e. The distinction seemed kind of arbitrary to me primarily because the distinction between Chaotic and Lawful in D&D is so arbitrary.
Anyway, on these particular changes: I like the symmetry between the Devils and the Demons being proposed here. Devils are "fallen angels" who betrayed their master and murdered him. Demons are corrupted elemental spirits seeking destruction and ruin. I like this - I like it a lot actually. And it looks like this confirms something that the developers have been hinting about - changes to the way the "Inner Planes" (elemental planes) work as well. The Abyss is now part of something called the "Elemental Tempest" while the Hells float among the realms of the gods in the Astral Sea. The cosmology changes intrigue me - mostly because they sound somewhat like the cosmology of the B/X/C/M/I D&D sets that I played D&D from.
Every post that the D&D developers have made so far has piqued my interest a bit more. They're changing a lot of stuff - the question is whether they will end up throwing out good stuff when they add the new stuff. To a degree, this is subjective. Some folks would argue that just these proposed changes to demons and devils throws a lot of good stuff out. The developers really are having to walk a fine line here, and it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out in the end.
EDIT: Bart Caroll has a blog post up with some more hints about 4e cosmology. There's apparently going to be another Design & Development article tomorrow with information about "the feywild, the shadowfell, elemental chaos and astral sea."
(You may need to get a D&D Insider account to read the article. They're free accounts, though.)
I've got to say I'm intrigued by all of the changes that are being floated around for 4e - specifically the "shared world" changes like this one. I know that AD&D has always had this distinction between Demons and Devils that was purely alignment based - and that carried over into D&D 3e. The distinction seemed kind of arbitrary to me primarily because the distinction between Chaotic and Lawful in D&D is so arbitrary.
Anyway, on these particular changes: I like the symmetry between the Devils and the Demons being proposed here. Devils are "fallen angels" who betrayed their master and murdered him. Demons are corrupted elemental spirits seeking destruction and ruin. I like this - I like it a lot actually. And it looks like this confirms something that the developers have been hinting about - changes to the way the "Inner Planes" (elemental planes) work as well. The Abyss is now part of something called the "Elemental Tempest" while the Hells float among the realms of the gods in the Astral Sea. The cosmology changes intrigue me - mostly because they sound somewhat like the cosmology of the B/X/C/M/I D&D sets that I played D&D from.
Every post that the D&D developers have made so far has piqued my interest a bit more. They're changing a lot of stuff - the question is whether they will end up throwing out good stuff when they add the new stuff. To a degree, this is subjective. Some folks would argue that just these proposed changes to demons and devils throws a lot of good stuff out. The developers really are having to walk a fine line here, and it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out in the end.
EDIT: Bart Caroll has a blog post up with some more hints about 4e cosmology. There's apparently going to be another Design & Development article tomorrow with information about "the feywild, the shadowfell, elemental chaos and astral sea."
Labels: 4e, dungeons and dragons, rpg
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