Demons should be always the bad guy?

You could do the old 'demon toadie gets shat on by master, is shown kindness by one of the heroes or even has its life saved, places seed of uncertainty that grows until at the vital moment it saves the heroe's life in return, sacrificing itself and being reborn as a.. uh.. whatever nice demons might be reborn as'

Someone isn't familiar with Planescape it seems.

Akin the Friendly Fiend is exactly what his name sounds like. He runs a magic shop, is fair and honest, and while he kinda gives off a weird vibe of being TOO friendly no one can point to a case where he wasn't a standup guy. At the same time, a lot of people don't trust him because 'this has to be a trick' and no one knows WHY he is so not evil, though the other fiends don't seem to like him very much.

Torment also had Falls From Grace, a redeemed succubus who was sold into slavery to the Bataazu and had to rise above her own chaotic nature to out-legalese her Bataazu master and secure her freedom from the slave contract. No longer a slave to her base desires and having lost her taste for senseless pain, she moves to Sigil and opens 'The Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts'. An establishment where she trains women to rise above their own personal flaws and they make a living having intellectually and emotionally stimulating private conversations with patrons. It looks like a whorehouse, but its largely has more in common with psychotherapy.

Depends on your setting, OP.
Historically, Demons were not always treated as evil just as Angels were not always treated as good.
I'll use the most prevalent example that has effected a lot of the English speaking world's perceptions on the topic.
Christianity.
According to Gregorian Demonology, God, the big good, has 'countless' demons under his command, with Samael, who Gregory identified as the name of the Holy Spirit itself (and a part of the God Trinity), as the 'Chief Demon of God's Armies'.
Long story short, Gregory's Ars Daemonica basically suggests that, at the time (mid to mid-late 200s), 'Angel' meant 'messenger' and 'Demon' meant 'harasser' (military sense) or 'combatant'.
He made a rather long list of various demons that were considered both divine in origin and holy, Samael and Lilith (Samael's wife) being among them.
He even listed Succubi, one of the most common 'demons' depicted today, as 'Divine Demons of Temptation' that punished men for failing their tests and rewarded men who passed. (Incubi are a different story, however.)
Perceptions only changed when Jewish Kabbalism and mysticism became rampant in the ~700s (Jewish interpretation of the Patron Angel of Rome (Samael) and the Patron Angel of Babylon (Lilith) were naturally not going to be highly regarded), but even into the 1100s demon didn't always mean evil and Samael was (and still is) considered an untouchable Archangel with command over the 5th Heaven (the closest to the Throne of Glory, the closest one could get without losing their mind) - he was and still is simultaneously considered an Arch-Demon.

Naturally, if you pulled out a classical Christian Angel, probably most people today would call them demonic in appearance, so it's really hard to tell what is what or what was what anymore.

DEVIL, however, has always been considered Evil, no question.

Don't forget the wardrobe guy.

Angels and Demons are both servants of the gods
Angels are sent to reward and protect
Demons are sent to punish and destroy/challenge

If a man wants to experience the joys of *being* an armoire in a lady's dressing room, who are you to tell him he has not that right?

>Demons should be always the bad guy?
well... yeah

Alternatively
Demons are just spirits that don't submit to the will of any god
They can be of any alignment this way and they are independent entities with their own agenda rather than just kill/destroy/defile

again, admitting in order to not create a false sense of consensus.

has it right, more beautifully summed up than I did.

Look at Thea:The awakening for a different flavor of demon

Any good a demon does is self serving.

Just don't play with alignment and go all in on moral relativism. Demons may be unforgiving and brutally vicious when slighted - with no interest in charity or selfless altruism, but are completely honorable to their bargains, honest, and forthright about being out for their own interests - for instance.

It's hard to make demons be the good guys while still feeling like theyre demons, but you could make them not inherently malevolent when not slighted.

Didn't King Solomon had a bunch of demons at his call?

I think it should be setting-dependent. If you want the setting to work with demons serving a task that is good for others, then you need a good task for them to serve. I would write it so that sinful souls have a high chance of recurring poor behavior if the sin isn't driven out of them. These spooky morbid critters that live under the earth serve a very important task, preventing poor behavior among the dead from recurring among the living. A sociopath (and other such) are a mark of a demon that slacked off on their job. Demons deal with the worst behavior in the known universe all day every day. They tend to burn out after a while on that job (like cops who work sex crimes) and need to retire to the mortal realm. Or they just start doing evil shit after experiencing too much of it themselves. They also look like nightmares; part and parcel of punishing the wicked. They're resistant to being affected by hardships. They would brush off feelings of grief like it was nothing, suffer nothing from insults, anything to help prolong their mental longevity under the trying emotional conditions Hell has to offer. They have a poor reputation thanks to all this stuff; the only ones mortals really get to talk to are burned-out ones that look spooky and don't seem to be effected by anything. Or the ones that make a name for themselves by wanting to watch the world burn, as happens to some who see too much shit.

Just... Look, I know I said all of that poorly, but I hope I at least got your noggin joggin'.

Well if the setting runs on absolute good/evil definition, yes, because the demon is a personification of evil, at least when he's born. Circumstance and personality might uplift the demon, the same way an angel can fall, but it's not happening everyday, it's their nature to be evil.
If the setting does not feature absolute alignments, a demon is simply an alien creature from a different plane. He may be good or evil in his own eyes, on the eyes of his own culture, but that just won't line up with human values. I'm of the opinion that if this is the case you shouldn't use the name "demon" or "devil" without making it plain clear these aren't the "evil made flesh" kind, or at all.

>Would you handle such a thing as "good demons"

>Demon's hanging around in a molten sulfur pit after a pretty brutal fight with some celestial douchebags
>Really gets the muscles loosened up and the ichor flowing, you know
>Gets dragged away by a summoning ritual, dumped in the attic of some tavern in Buttfuck, Middle Earth
>Summoner got the runes right in the summoning circle
>Even the one that keeps him from throwing stuff out of the circle
>Demon sighs a heavy, growling sigh and looks for the cowardly wretch that summoned him
>"All right, what do you want?"
>Some little boy steps forward, clearing his throat
>"M-my gran'ma said that if I ever needed help, I could do all this," he said, waving his hands at the summoning circle, "and get it."
>Demon stares at the kid with its eleven eyes, absolutely inscrutable
>"That's correct."
>Kid presents his foot
>"I can't tie my shoe."

...

I think a demon and an angel should be personifications of good and evil, the same way Death is a personification of, well, death.
However, as in Discworld, if a personification of human ideas spends too much time around humans, they could become infected and develop what is known as a personality.
A good example of this, I think, would be Greed from FMA. He becomes greedy enough to want to protect everyone, they're his.

I suppose it boils down to what your definition of "good" is. A demon's actions can be good or evil as they are commanded but nothing comes free, and the demon will always benefit in the end. Any selfless entity is an angel or some other good or neutral aligned spirit.

No.

I rarely make "Good" demons, because I find it needlessly contradictory, but I do often toy with demons being a lesser evil, and valuable weapon against something else.
There's rarely any doubt that the demons will absolutely go back to fucking humanity raw once the current threat has passed, and even now you shouldn't wave your ass into the wind for 'em, but for now at least, demons are the best bet at keeping the alien invasion at bay, or whatever.

For what it's worth, I frequently play demons as basically being aliens that figured out a way to feed off of a given species (humans) like a parasite, sometimes feeding on their souls directly, other times their emotions. They aren't manifestations of evil incarnate, and they aren't the spirits of the damned, but they do view humans as little more than cattle, albiet cattle that they need to scare for best results.

>Implying demons are anything more than the Prime Material Plane's defense mechanism for dealing with alien threats
>That they would do anything other than go ballistic if they ever ran into a grey
>That they play with humans because they're just asshats
>That mortals are anything other than an alien force that managed to lock them out for the past couple of millennia.

You know what they say about sticking your hand between a dog and his bone.

I would handle them as SPIRITS. Because we already have words to refer to ambiguous supernatural entities. The word DEMON has a meaning, it is associated with evil for a reason, if you want a SPIRIT to be misidentified as a DEMON by most people you can, but that doesn't mean the word DEMON has a new definition. Imagine asking "How would you handle such a thing as a weak strongman?" The question could lead to interesting characters like a cowardly Hercules or a magician that uses tricks to fake strength, but the meaning of the words WEAK and STRONG are the same. STOP TRYING TO CHANGE THE MEANING OF WORDS. If your demon is part of a redemption story it wouldn't want to be called a demon anymore.

Just have demons be basically proportional to the evil / wrong you have done.

To most adults they’re low level malevolent, since most adults have knowingly lied or whatever a fair few times in their lives.
Some people they’re actively friendly to because those people have been particularly virtuous - others they’re actively hateful of since those people have been deliberately and particularly cruel.

Had some fun things to it whereby the patron of a church might summon one to fight his enemies, assuming that as representative of the church he’s immune - only to get his shit ruined because the parole he’s up against are better people than him.

Also has the side effect like op pic of them bring quite protective of young innocent children - and also, disappointed if they meet them in later life.
“You used to be so good...”

Depends on setting

Exactly this.

Why do you even want a large population of non-evil demons?

If you "Well, uh, there are lots of demons who are non-evil," then you make redeemed demons a lot less special, and all you get is a gaggle of generic spirit-people who just so happen to have horns and maybe wings.

Why bother? Do you just want something to sound cool by being called "demon"?

Use it as the Greek word, which essentially means "spirit of something".
Your feelings are all personified by demons. The Demon of Anger is obviously less pleasant than most others, but you kind of need anger to motivate you.
Demon of joy is real fun to be around, but he's detrimental to getting anything done. He keeps telling you to shoot up heroin since it feels so good.
They're all "bad", in the sense that they want only one thing, as much as is possible. But they're not exactly evil.

The idea of enough demons being delinquents that they have a refugee camp or even a small society might be a fun one to run with.

You could treat them as japanese demons, who are less personifications of man's sins and more like spirits that cause mischief and bad luck whenever they're around you. Then again, you run the risk of attracting the kitsune crowd but I think that it could still work.

It depends on your theology. Others have commented on Christian perspectives so there's no need to repeat their correct analysis. If your game is based more on Islam, then a Shaitan is necessarily evil (and lacks the freedom to choose good) but that doesn't necessarily put it in the position of being the "bad guy" any more than an infidel is necessarily the "bad guy".

>Also if a demon has filled it's evil quota, maybe it likes being nice in its down time.
I like the idea of a demon seeing his evilness the same way a stereotypical 'wageslave' sees his work.

>Would you handle such a thing as "good demons"?
No. Going against stereotypes is fine, but there are some universal constants you can't change, and you're a retard if you try. Demons are evil, angels are good, Superman beats Goku, Magefags are twats, and fighters suck.

Good demons are beings that uphold good values with no care aboutmoral argumentsdemons have no moral arguments.
They are either good. Or evil.

...

Have you ever read Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman?

I don't believe in "Good" demons, but I definitely think less evil ones are interesting and acceptable. I once had a succubus NPC that would collect tiny amounts of vital energy en masse by producing pornographic material, not because she was reformed and wanted to get by without killing, but simply because it was more efficient. Not killing people and maintaining a lower profile as a result was just a bonus for her. Ultimately we let her continue her operation since she wasn't really hurting anyone with her work, and she ended up being valuable informant for the party throughout the campaign.