In old school and old school renaissance games, there isn't much of a distinction between demons, devils and other categories of anthropomorphic personifications of evil. There may be some statement about demons being born evil and devils being fallen angels, but both ultimately serve Chaos/Evil.

Since Planescape came out, the new school games (e.g. 3.x/PF, 4e, 5e) have made attempts to distinguish between demons and devils. Demons are rapacious reavers, devils are lawyers, and daemons or whatever fill the gaps.

I never really liked the new school approach. I found it unnecessarily restrictive and ultimately unsuccessful. The former because it led to things like Pathfinder pigeonholing demons into the seven sins and daemons into causes of death; why should alignment determine that sort of thing? The latter because demons and devils and whatever still look more or less interchangeable since they don't have any overarching aesthetics, they still have hierarchies with imps at the bottom and balrogs at the top, they still fight each other over souls, etc.

I'm not saying the new school approach doesn't work, but all the attempts I've seen have been too lazy to remove the lingering similarities. I personally blame this on writers basing the monsters off alignment rather than trying to make those monsters stand out before an alignment is tacked on to justify their place in the cosmology.

What do you think?

EDIT: I am referring to the problems I mentioned beforehand. How would you address the problem of demons and devils in new school games looking and acting too similar? It's not enough to simply say they're anarchists and fascists, because that's already stated.

To illustrate this better: in Pathfinder one of the devils is a baby fly centaur and one of the demons is a man in a tuxedo with the head of a fly. If you didn't have the book in front of you, it would be easy to forget which they're supposed to be.

EDIT: To reiterate, I've no problem with making anarchist and fascist fiends into separate races. However, attempts that have been made still suffer from too much similarity. And I quote:

QuoteThroughout demons' and devils' existence in the D&D game, resemblances between them have been stronger and more numerous than differences. Both species are extraplanar forces of evil that seek souls to supplement their numbers. Each breed has wretched and implike creatures at the bottom of the hierarchy and godlike archfiends at the top. Each member of both species has a wide array of similar (and often superfluous) supernatural powers. Most demons and devils are superior to members of typical PC races in every way, including incredible intelligence. Their purposes in the material world have always been similar.

Furthermore, if you didn't have the book in front of you it would be impossible to tell most demons and devils apart. They lack any kind of unifying aesthetic because the writers make things up as they go along.

If you had to redesign the art direction for demons and devils so that it is possible to tell them apart by visual identity, how would you? What sorts of motifs would you pick in order to set them apart?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;866886What do you think?

I think the ferocious need some folks feel to classify/codify everything is kind of odd to me. It seems like they could vary widely depending on what culture is drawing the lines of distinction.
In my homebrew setting most supernatural creatures are spirits or possessed by spirits... some groups call them 'demons' and other see them as beneficent saints. Smarter/stronger ones are trickier to deal with... the dumb/weak ones can be used as pets.

Yeah, to tell the truth I don't differentiate among them either. I can't remember if I ever had a need to do so. In my mind demons are more wild, carefree, chaotic. While devils have a hierarchy of respect and government behind them. Think of it as the difference between ISIS/Taliban/Al Qaeda/Boko Haram type of groups and Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan or Soviet Russia. The latter are more organized, disciplined and have larger goals in mind and workable methods to bring them about.

I think of devils as fallen angels, who make up the hierarchy of Hell. I think of demons as creatures born of and native to Hell. I think of daemons as spirit guides of Greco-Roman sorcerers.

I really liked 4E's default cosmology in general, and specifically how it remapped devils into the divine/astral and demons into abyss as the blast radius of the Evil embedded in the primordial chaos.

The only other folks that I've found who agree with me on that point really liked 4E in general.  

The intersection of "don't like 4E" and "likes 4E's cosmology" has plenty of room. Come on over. I've got chips, BBQ, and whisky.

*crickets*

Quote from: Natty Bodak;866911I really liked 4E's default cosmology in general, and specifically how it remapped devils into the divine/astral and demons into abyss as the blast radius of the Evil embedded in the primordial chaos.

The only other folks that I've found who agree with me on that point really liked 4E in general.  

The intersection of "don't like 4E" and "likes 4E's cosmology" has plenty of room. Come on over. I've got chips, BBQ, and whisky.

*crickets*

Never read the game, played one session and couldn't get past the system. Perfectly willing to accept it had a good cosmology, though I've been perfectly happy with Jeff Grubb's Manual of the Planes + Planescape.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;866886In old school and old school renaissance games, there isn't much of a distinction between demons, devils and other categories of anthropomorphic personifications of evil. There may be some statement about demons being born evil and devils being fallen angels, but both ultimately serve Chaos/Evil.

I don't think that's really true though. In OSR revisionism where anything past White Box is "New School", sure, but originally as conceived by EGG, they were quite different.

I mean, EGG came up with Lawful Evil vs Chaotic Evil in the Strategic Review in Feb '76.  And AFAIK, Devils never existed before that (and he just put them on the Lawful Evil axis of the included chart, I don't think they showed up until the Monster Manual).

QuoteMany questions continue to arise regarding what constitutes a “lawful” act, what sort of behavior is “chaotic”, what constituted an “evil” deed, and how certain behavior is “good”. There is considerable confusion in that most dungeonmasters construe the terms “chaotic” and “evil” to mean the same thing, just as they define “lawful” and “good” to mean the same.

This is scarcely surprising considering the wording of the three original volumes of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. When that was written they meant just about the same thing in my mind — notice I do not say they were synonymous in my thinking at, that time. The wording in the GREYHAWK supplement added a bit more confusion, for by the time that booklet was written some substantial differences had been determined.

In fact, had I the opportunity to do D&D over I would have made the whole business very much clearer by differentiating the four categories, and many chaotic creatures would be good, while many lawful creatures would be evil.

well to step out of TT gameing in to i little wider field of view very little iv
read / watched / played really spent any major amount of time differentiating demons and devils a few that did where pretty basic 2 that come to mind that iv seen used are 1 devil was strictly a rank within demonic society that denoted power and usually position and in
 2 was only a mages term where devils could be bargained with and demons could only be subjugated by magic

To reiterate, I've no problem with making anarchist and fascist fiends into separate races. However, attempts that have been made still suffer from too much similarity. And I quote:

QuoteThroughout demons' and devils' existence in the D&D game, resemblances between them have been stronger and more numerous than differences. Both species are extraplanar forces of evil that seek souls to supplement their numbers. Each breed has wretched and implike creatures at the bottom of the hierarchy and godlike archfiends at the top. Each member of both species has a wide array of similar (and often superfluous) supernatural powers. Most demons and devils are superior to members of typical PC races in every way, including incredible intelligence. Their purposes in the material world have always been similar.

Furthermore, if you didn't have the book in front of you it would be impossible to tell most demons and devils apart. They lack any kind of unifying aesthetic because the writers make things up as they go along.

If you had to redesign the art direction for demons and devils so that it is possible to tell them apart by visual identity, how would you? What sorts of motifs would you pick in order to set them apart?

With D&D my campaign settings usually deviated from the standard cosmology enough that this stuff was completely customized on my part I would rework things like demons and devils to fit my world.

It's been forever since I read up on demons/devils in the D&D context, but I always got the impression (or a vague remembrance anyway) that Devils were Lawful Evil and Demons were Chaotic Evil. Or reversed.

Like I said, it's been a long time, but I remember the Law/Chaos axis being the defining difference between them. Unless I just made it up in my head, which is possible.

Quote from: TristramEvans;866913Never read the game, played one session and couldn't get past the system. Perfectly willing to accept it had a good cosmology, though I've been perfectly happy with Jeff Grubb's Manual of the Planes + Planescape.

I've never played a planar-from-the-ground-up campaign like Planescape, but I can't recall ever hearing anything bad about. I think it's all been pretty positive.

My major gripe with Great Wheel cosmology was the mapping of the outer planes to alignments. But this isn't so much a crticism of that facet of its nature. I just got tired of it after a while.

At one point at TSR there was a discussion of further differentiating the Demons and devils by making the devils even more human-looking and the demons more beastial. You see it a little in the AD&D MM.

BX did not have any demons or devils. And no. The Devil Swine doesnt count. Its a were-boar. BECMI eventually did add them. But in this case Demon was a catch-all for any immortal following Entropy if I recall correctly.

Quote from: Omega;866937At one point at TSR there was a discussion of further differentiating the Demons and devils by making the devils even more human-looking and the demons more beastial. You see it a little in the AD&D MM.

  Huh. That was part of the design ethos they used in 4E.

  My impression of the split beyond Law/Chaos was that in 1E, devils were generally more medieval and classical in inspiration and motifs, while demons were more pagan/fantastic.  By the end of 3.x, they were largely indistinguishable and overused to the point of me being bored sick with them.

I have heard that they became even more over used in the Pathfinder paths, but I haven't experienced that myself.  

Back in the day, I didn't like the change that was in AD&D2 or Mentzer D&D, but over time I have come to find that I would rather it was originally just handled as an expansion of the hordlings creation section in the old Dungeon Masters Guide, with some advise on creating a unique or derived background set-up for a campaign.