Subtlety is dead for modern players, and that's good

You're missing the point. If there is no clear, obvious and intuitive difference between the two, the distinctions don't really matter.

Sure, if you read up on your D&D lore you'll learn about the differences between demons and devils or gnomes and halflings, but that in itself is the problem- It requires people to read and investigate a little to even become aware of the difference, even more to actually grasp its nuances.

And that sort of thing just isn't generally useful. From a new player perspective, it's a weird and confusing distinction that doesn't seem to have a reason to exist in itself, offering little in the way of obvious variety or actual choice.

If two things are different, they should be clearly, obviously different. A complete layman or virgin to RPGs should be able to look at the briefest description of the two, or heck even art pieces alongside each other, and see clear, obvious differences that intuitively make sense to them.

This is not true of Gnomes and Halflings. This is not true of Demons and Devils. They either need to be made more different, or made subcategories of the same thing.

>If two things are different, they should be clearly, obviously different
I hope you're baiting

Nope. I'm entirely direct and sincere. I'm also talking about it in the context of roleplaying games, thus ignoring and disregarding the IRL examples as irrelevant.

>Hell, there of should of only ever been one 'little person race', and even that was a mistake
Halflings are pretty much what female dwarves should've been. Prove me wrong.

Except there is a huge distinction from the species you complain about.

Orcs and Gnolls are vastly different outside of their evil nature, much less when compared to devils vs demons.

>but that in itself is the problem- It requires people to read and investigate a little
>Complaining about reading
>Tabletop gaming

Do you even remember where you are? You're basically complaining that you don't understand the difference and want to force everyone else to dumb down their differences.

> From a new player perspective, it's a weird and confusing distinction

From a new player's perspective it's much more confusing to distinguished those more similar with a more subtle difference

>Gnomes and halflings

Gnomes are the tinkering illusionist type. Halflings are thieves.

>Devils and demons

I'll give you that. The difference is blurred, but only in your head due to the alignment system, and it still is pretty simple to understand.

Devils are the equivalent of the Stalin's rule, the Yugoloths as the spawn of Mr Krabs and all of the Jews, and Demons are the equivalent of the Mongol Horde if nobody was really in charge. Simple.

Devils want structure and power in their favor by manipulation of code and backstabbing others while using their ever growing perfected system. Demons just want to be lawless bad boys at the cost of anyone else's system of order and will actively fight a system just people it pisses them off or makes them feel controlled. And Yugoloths? They just want what ever will make them profit for what ever need whether not they have to follow a system, break rules, or stay out of it all together.

>made subcategories of the same thing.

They already are. They are evil outsiders, specifically, Fiends. Demons, Devils, and Yugoloths. Manifestations of evil made real. To label them under anything else would be self defeating.

Is any of that intuitive and obvious at a glance? No? Then the distinction is meaningless for the vast majority of people, and either needs to be exaggerated or downplayed.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiend_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)

This isn't that hard of a distinction, but it also doesn't need to be exaggerated to the point of stupid levels. The subtly is built in the fact that these entities are not mentally challenged.

Chaos Evil doesn't have to equal Chaotic Stupid

Lawful Evil doesn't have to me Lawful Stupid

And Neutral evil doesn't have to be played as Jewful Stupid

>Prove me wrong.
not all of us are sexually attracted to children

Can of worms there, OP.

Demons: Chaotic, evil creatures.
Devils: Evil tyrants
Yugoloths: Malicious and mercurial

First glance, "it's big and wants to wear my ribcage as a hat" will do.
A second glance gives you its identity, and a guess at its motivation.
A third glance might let you guess at who it's working for, or where it's from.

I'd call that pretty simple and intuitive. If your players don't get "invaders from 3 different places" then how do you expect them to understand concepts like "rolling" dice and "writing" on a character sheet?

Kek, your argument works against you. You gave an example of two cultures belongign not only to the same species, but to the same race within it, so it's only natural that two distinct species should be much more different.

then the vast majority of people can fuck right off. Veeky Forums is for intelligent men, not brainless cucks and women.

In terms of game design, taking that attitude just ends up with overwrought shit that only appeals to a very specific niche audience.

Too far the other way gives you Dragon Age: Cisquisition

>but user, if you're not lowest common denominator trash that only cares about "accessibility" and other SJW garbage, you'll never make it on the mobile shovelware market!
And nothing of value was lost. Just like when you leave.

>Demons: Chaotic, evil creatures.
>Devils: Evil tyrants
Honesly, it's laughable to make these two different species. Sounds more like two castes or subcultures in the same culture, not even different nations.

Pretty much this. One is Chaotic, the other Lawful. Of course, this is inevitably going to devolve into the usual alignments are useless/autistic argument and how poorly it reflects actual character identity blah blah blah. When are we going to have something new to argue about? I'm board of this already.

Nuance, motherfuckers. Learn to appreciate its necessity.

If a player is unwilling to read 2-5 books per concept, tell him to fuck off back to cawwadoody and gaylo

The issue is that even three glances is often not enough to figure out whether the Chasme or the Advespa is the insect-looking fiend from Hell or from the Abyss.

In fact, the Chasme and the Advespa act quite contrary to what you'd expect, with the Chasme being often rather subtle and indirectly cruel (and often take on the role of torturers) while the Advespa is a straightforward assault unit.

I think the issue with demons and devils is not that they're not thematically distinct (they are; both are evil, but represent very different kind of evil and consequently have different motivations and modus operandi), but that there's very little visual distinction between the two. It's one thing to read that demons are chaotic evil and devils lawful evil, but if you just showed a bunch of pictures of fiends from the Monster Manual to a new player, they probably wouldn't be able to group them into demons and devils, or even notice that there are two distinct categories of fiends. Even most veteran players are likely to get most of them right just because they know from experience what different fiends look like and can thus recognise that that's say, a Balor and it's a demon.

The thematic distinction between the two would easily allow for them to have very distinct visual differences as well, but in practice it seems more like they drew a bunch of fiends and then more or elss randomly split them into two groups. Hell, a Pit Fiend and a Balor both have the same basic concept of big, red, winged guy (ie. pretty much your standard fiendish monster), with one being more reptilian and another more fiery.

honestly I think this is a pretty important distinction.
The lawful ones work for the narrative of "I outsmart the devil and beat him with a lopsided deal" which is a fun, classical fantasy narrative.
but there are also the narratives of horrible implacable monsters that hate all creation and want to destroy it, and if you make a deal with them they'll laugh and say "I lied."
Sauron is a good Demon. Satan is a good Devil. But those are very, very different archetypes.

But nails the point that I think OP was going for, and I agree with. An element of 'show, not tell' is important.

The point was >extremely subtle

>This is clearly the work of furfags. Gnolls are like snakes. They were born 100%percent evil and becoming anything but staying evil is an uphill battle.
The problem is that plebs who play D&D have a tendency to forget that Dna is a fairy tale/dungeon crawler simulator.
>Gnomes and Halflings are completely different fucking species.
Why?
>Let me spin it on you this way. There's a big enough difference in culture with IRL humans alone. Sure there are some similarities or outright influences and shared culture that span across us regardless of our race, but to say something like Japanese people and Vietnamese people are only subtly different is fucking stupid.
They are both gooks ,so they are sharing some amount of similarities in culture.
Everything can be generalised the question is how much.
>Now take that an apply it to entirely different species. While they are humanoid and might get along at times and even share cultural aspects of life, they are for the most part indigenous in their own respected kingdoms and those kingdoms have a unique history and culture that is their own.
The point is no one cares

The fish on the left come from one lake, the fish on the right come from a different lake.

While from initial appearances it may look like the horizontal pairings are more closely related, genetic evidence shows that the fish in the vertical columns are more closely related, but evolved to fill in different niches.

Kinda.

And this is relevant to supernatural creatures in a fantasy setting how, exactly?

Is it unreasonable for convergent evolution to help explain how creatures from completely separate planes of existence may be similar due to their shared niche and roles?

Even though we're talking fantasy, Hell and the Abyss are still environments where a degree of competition and selection take place, and it's actually surprising that there are less parallels between the two.

>Subtlety is dead for modern players, and that's good.
It's not so good when it comes to story or plot because everything will have to be spelt out for them or they give up or get mad

Because majority of the players
a)See no difference between different flavours of evil
b) Believe that all sentient life must have complex character and can't be driven by a single impulse or be a manifestation of philosophical viewpoint.At this point you don't even need to describe psychology of infernals.You just tell them that demons are like animals,devils are like elementals/robots,yugoloths are like humans.
c)They don't want to get into settings subtlety ,it's love or it's cosmology.They have a believe that hell is a specific place where you get after you die if you were evil.And that what thread is about:what to do if your players don't care about difference between their stereotypes and your settings truth.
I just can't see why do you want to follow D&D cosmology if it's dissatisfies you?

It's not unreasonable, it's irrelevant. You can justify it however you like, but it's a bad design choice in terms of ease of use of the game.

>tg/ is for intelligent men

well yeah, why bother READING and using their brain when they can hop on Pokemon Go and tweet or something

DM with no players is like a king with no kingdom:a loser.

>Even though we're talking fantasy, Hell and the Abyss are still environments where a degree of competition and selection take place, and it's actually surprising that there are less parallels between the two.
And a bunch of murderhobos care about it because?

Agreed.

*lore

4e was too good for D&D

Damnit, so close to

I think narratively, big showing visual distinctions between demons and devils would be a negative. Part of the weight of the story is player knowledge. Does the player know their bargain will be accepted and upheld? There isn't much tension if the players decide ahead of time the only solution is murder the monster, or if they know their deal will be accepted and upheld.

But then, I tend to think most fantastic monsters shouldn't be so easily pidgeonholed. You don't see "a troll" you see "a gaunt giant wolf, with scales instead of fur." which, by fighting you discover regenerates and has a weakness to fire. You don't see "a balor" you see "a horned skull-faced giant, arcs of flame shooting from its back, it's flesh black as night and arms ending in skeletal fists shrouded in unholy fire"

>Gnolls are like snakes. They were born 100%percent evil

YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK

It's not really a bad design choice to identify certain niches that need to be filled, and putting similar creatures into those niches even if they come from very separate origins.

I've disliked how 4e handled this, because while there are certain trends between a species, it doesn't really make sense to overlook important niches. The idea of "Only Devils make Deals" and "Demons are Carnage Incarnate" sound okay at first, but it moved demons into Chaotic stupid territory while overlooking certain subtleties, like how succubi would tempt mortals with more visceral temptations.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

But snakes aren't evil. They're animals.

Really it's more like the devils are a faction of demons. There are many more demons and the abyss is "bigger" as far as planar bullshit goes but it's endless open infighting with countless warlords battling for a fraction of the whole. The nine hells are comparatively orderly and while the lords and devils are constantly looking to backstab and gain power over eachother a hierarchy and something of a balance is maintained leading on up to the big guy holding it all together.

I got gnolls as a default race and they've been a fantastic addition to the game thanks to some good players

But then it isn't D&D so gnolls aren't boring

>Honesly, it's laughable to make these two different species
>species

>savage, insane raiders who upload and download information from their demon prince deity, who care absolutely nothing for any wounds they might receive or danger they might enter because their only truly conscious thought is just how hungry they are and how much they hate everything
>boring

I don't know. That sounds more interesting than "Beastfolk #86: Hyena Edition."

My last campaign I played a TN Gnoll Monk who had a vicious alcohol problem and collected magic rings which he wore via piercing his skin once I ran out of fingers and toes to put them on. By the end of the campaign he became something between Saitama and Jackie Chan in whatever that drunken fist movie was. I would just drink a fuck ton of liquor, pray to Yeenoghu, and hope to god that my hands caused anything in a five block radius to fucking explode. Goodbye Garomesh Clawsong, you will be missed.

I actually agree with op to a slight degree. Mostly because d&d races and races in many other games are not meaningfully distinct from one another. Why? Because most of the time the only difference between 2 races is a few numbers.

Do you know what the most boring and meaningless way to distinguish two entirely separate species is? A sprinkling of numbers and an absolute requirement that you do setting specific research. Don't get me wrong I'm all for research, and playing races differently from one another, but when none of that is actually informed by the mechanics of a race, and is entirely up to everyone being on the same page, there's a problem.

What's the difference between an elf and a dwarf in d&d? Mechanically? Some of their numbers MIGHT be different. Might because so many of them just nudge player dependent scores a little bit, and outside of min/maxing the differences are fairly small. Their age ranges mean nothing because anyone can interpret that sort of thing wildly differently. I could go on but I'd run out of space pretty quickly.

Point is the only thing that makes them different than humans with slightly different numbers, is that dark vision. Except they both have it. Because like fucking every race in d&d has it. If that was given out more conservatively we might be onto something, a special power that actually makes them play slightly different than just a human with an influenced set of numbers.

If you're going to throw in races, you should be making them actually distinct. Their advantages should be something people want to exploit, something human's pine after. While their disadvantages should fucking sting. Should make their players say "Damn it, if only I wasn't X this wouldn't be an issue right now" from time to time.

I always liked the distinction that Devils come from fallen Celestials, whereas Demons are born from evil.

It's not quite the same, but I honestly loved 4e's approach with racial powers. The stat mods are shit and should've been gotten rid of, but every race having a unique thing they can do, as well as specific feats for class synergy with that power, added a really nice tangible difference to how they played.

>Because most of the time the only difference between 2 races is a few numbers.

That's never really been the case. Hell, in their first iteration, elves and dwarves were classes.

Overall, the edition where there was the biggest difference between the races was 3rd edition, because once you move past the initial list of racial adjustments, there's racial feats, racial levels, racial items, and even racial prestige classes. Depending on how much you choose to include in your games, you can scale up or down the difference between the races to the point where the most important decision you make is what race you are going to play.

Now this i agree with.

If I'm using demons and devils in my games, I make them a lot more thematically distinct. It helps that i don't plan on letting my players visit the Nine Hells or the Abyss.

Devils are firey. Fire, flame, smoke, and force. Clouds of sulphurous toxins. Around a devil, random natural patterns structure themselves. Animals line up north/south. Raindrops fall in concentric rings. Even shit like dice rolls work differently (in universe), they count UP 1-6 rather than being random.

Demons are necrotic and caustic. They tend to bubble, and lose a coherent form when they're not being observed. Around them, weird shit happens. Think heat and cold not radiating properly, so a fire won't warm you unless you're touching it (upon which it will burn you). Matches don't light. Severed body parts run off into the woods to hunt, fuck, and care for their eggs.

A good GM will keep this going. Not saying that I'm good (I'm new as fuck) but here's something I'm doing with my game.

Gnolls are almost outsiders. They don't really function on the same wavelength as other species, and they're functionally the always chaotic evil race. That doesn't mean they're always hostile, but since they do shit like respawn in the abyss when killed sometimes they just don't give a shit r.e. prisoner exchanges, avoiding cannibalism. In game, they're fucking insane and likely to burst out of their own chest as a pup when killed.

Orcs are brutal, but intelligent. They obsess over conquest, but once they've 'conquered' they tend to leave it alone. By the time of the campaign they've settled down into organised tribes, two of which have worldwide influence. In-game, they're aggressive raiders who tend to fight amongst themselves non-lethally, but when push comes to shove they will ride in on horseback and shoot you full of holes without hesitation.

Goblins, bugbears and hobgoblins are dicks. There ARE good ones, but as a significant minority (mercy is weakness and all that). They'd be a lot more of a threat if they stopped killing each-other, or falling into the underdark and getting fucked up in the mind flayer civil war. In game, they're cowards.

Not all of us are sexually attracted to men, yet there they are in pretty much every setting ever. What the fuck kind of an argument is this?

That's really fuckin' neato.

What is the purpose of this thread? What even is OP's argument?

It's called shitposting for the sake of it. No point, no direction, just useless sound.

You guys are really ornery. Like, you need to be trying particularly hard to be so ornery.

i make it to where townsfolk will often get the two mixed up due to them being scary sometimes even identifying the creature wrong. what do peasants know of the astral sea and the elemental plains and those that live there besides gods new adventurers will have to learn from experience or by book study to probably identify.