"Hell? Never!" Topic

You were asked – TMP link

How many times have you used "Hell" in an adventure?

72% said "never"
11% said "once"
11% said "several times"

Do you mean the town in Norway?

Hell, Michigan, and Helltown, Ohio, will probably be settings for role-playing games later this year.

Like, every other sentence when the dice won't go my way!

Dante prepared some source material one could use for a RPG…

I gotta say, these results shocked me. I figured a great many of the Gray-Hairs (like me), here on TMP, would have gamed Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits, a classic AD&D module, from the early 1980's. In it, the players journeyed to one of the 666 layers of the Abyss, to fight, and likely kill, Lolth, a Drow (Dark Elf) goddess.

My intent was not to be too specific in defining what "Hell" meant. I assumed, that with the Planescape setting, which was hugely popular in the 2e AD&D era, circa 1989-2000, which was about planar adventuring, in all of the outer planes of existence, "Hell" would be more commonly used in RPG campaigns.

Also, with the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980's, and its aftermath, I assumed the demons and devils, which became seemingly more tolerated in the 1990's (renamed, Bataazu, and Te'Nari? "Roses, by any other name…"), would attract more gamers to use these settings.

I find the results, very interesting… >;-) Cheers!

PS:

jhancock, I am familiar with Dante's works. I purchased a copy of his complete writing on the subjects of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, many years ago. Interesting source material for gaming in a fantasy version of "Hell". Thanks for posting that reference/suggestion.

Dante has already been used
link

Hell, we just got here!

There was also a boardgame/miniatures game named Inferno in the 90's.

A line of 6mm miniatures was also released for those who didn't want to use the cardboard stand-ups that came with the game.

link

Never gamed there, but many of us were inspired by this drawing of a paladin fighting in hell from the original AD&D Player's Handbook.

Never played there, but the first of Worldworks Games Hellworks series took you down into a traditional cartoon subterranean Hell full of daemonic symbols, rocky caverns and fire.

Also, Freewargamesrules has at least two miniatures rulesets listed for war in Hell, either because the daemons each want all the power for themselves, or just because Hell is War so the damned have to fight each other forever.

Somewhere around here, I also have in my possession via a charity bundle, an OGL edition of Infernum: War in Hell.
This is the kind of industrial Hell with tanks, guns, and industrial facilities fed by railways.

I have lately run a few Traveller games in which beings from another plane of existence have learned how to cross over to ours. The motives of these beings are decidedly not good for us. I represent some of them on the game table with 40K genestealers, which are basically the muscle of these transdimensional raiders. The games have all taken place in our universe, but in facilities built by and/or for the monsters.

That's close to hell, I guess.

There are also portals to Hell in the campaign listed in the old Rippers: the Horror Wars rulebook.

Yeah, the problem from an RPG approach is that it's hard to last very long in such a hostile environment as a literal hellscape. Unless it is something like Planescape (where it's part of the whole premise), anything more than a short diversion is probably the end of that group. That's why preventing the things that reside in such a realm is such a staple of RPGs and fantasy fiction. Even a minor denizen usually means lots of trouble.

Of course, there are fun ways to subvert this. Shadows of the Demon World, for example, has some neat approaches. Also, Warhammer Fantasy where hell (Realms of Chaos) is largely the result of mortal projection.