I have noted several threads in which obviously adult D&D hobbyists are hoping they will see new figures based on the old Dragonlance novels, in which the authors attempted to create a reasonably realistic world in which the evil races of the most dominant creatures (dragons) are held in check by good, metallic dragons that have sympathy for the good races of elves, humans and dwarves, and fight the evil dragons to prevent the destruction of the good humanoid races.  But I am afraid these figures are a forlorne hope, because in the 'new' 4.0 setting, there is no such thing as a 'good dragon', as we see in the excerpt below of an interview with a D&D 4.0 game designer:

"Metallic dragons have traditionally been good-aligned. While flavorful and important to the “ecology” of dragons, the practical effect was to remove half of the available dragons in the Monster Manual as opponents. How often do PCs go up against good creatures? In 4th Edition dragons are more, well, dragonish. They are all ferocious and greedy creatures, with chromatic and metallic dragons distinguished more by personality than alignment. While chromatics tend to be destructive and cruel, metallics focus more on control and power. "

OMG, the adolescent boys (whom the WotC  overlords believe are  the major customers for their product) don't have enough dragons to slay!  No problem, let's  just flush all of the intelligent lore from best selling fantasy novels  that inspired the game down the toilet and just make it a  minature figure version of the standard, mindless, 'kill the monster' video games these same adolescents want to play.

So sorry guys, don't expect to see anything 'intelligent' coming from WotC anymore. 

You are kidding me right?

What the heck are they doing to the D&D franchise?

Yup.

We're trying to create a world where dragons are not color coded for your convenience.  Is that honestly a bad thing?

We're trying to free storytelling to make things more interesting.  Tell a story where a gold dragon has become a despot of an empire, and you must ally yourself with a wounded red dragon to bring down the gold dragon's corrupt government.

Or have all your metalic dragons good and chromatic dragons bad.  Either way it works.

The D&D world no longer needs to be so black and white.

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081020b

"A number of surviving dragons chose to follow Bahamut, called the Platinum Dragon, and they became the first metallic dragons. Over the ages, as Bahamut upheld justice, opposed evil, and liberated the oppressed, creatures other than dragons came to honor him as the deity of justice, protection, nobility, and honor. In the fullness of time, he has become better known for those attributes than for his association with metallic dragons. Today, all metallic dragons revere Bahamut as their originator, but not all of them worship him."

They are not saying that they are innately evil creatures, just creatures with innate ferocity and a certain amount of love for material wealth, which are attributes we've seen in dozens of dragon myths throughout the ages.
Some of them can indeed take up good causes, and in 4th edition even some chromatic dragons may champion for light.
Ultimately, all that's happened is that they've become less inextricably polarized in terms of alignment and behaviour. Really, they've become more human.

Really now, many people have gone on crusades narrowmindedly searching for different ways to condemn D&D. Usually people who don't understand the core concepts behind a roleplaying game, and refuse (or fail) to learn.

No, just read the official quote. The 'old lore' is gone like the man said.   Now you can slay metallic dragons too, and still be a good hero.  It has become a simple, unthinking, 'kill the monster' video game for adolescent boys.  

Maybe it would be more adolescent if it assumed all chromatics were irrevocably evil and metallics unendingly good.
Dragons are not divine beings in the default D&D universe. Their motives are not necessarily dictated by the colour of their hide.

Hi Everyone,

When it comes to Dragons, I have a qualified appreciation for the direction Temperance and WotC is taking in this area. I really liked the idea of the Capricious Copper. A Dragon that would bargain with a party as much as eat them. Your choice! Like in any race a hero may fall, a once good Saruman can turn to evil. Why not a Gold or Silver Dragon that has become corrupt?

The one problem I do have is the overall tendacies need to be uniform, and aligned with literature and legend. The evil Gold Dragon MUST be an exception. The Gold and Silver as a race of Dragons are good, it is the rare one that falls to evil or neutral. Not unlike the rare Drzzt that turns from the evil Drow tendacies. I believe that it is a mistake if the general tendacies of races move away from the literature that both inspired D&D and is inspired by D&D. Otherwise the legends, the myths, the literature that inspired Dungeons and Dragons from the beginning, and the great literature like Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms inspired by D&D will have little or no significance alienating the fans of these great works both old and new. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. But it is perfectly OK to paint it a different color.

Later,

Mazra

meh.
WotC can do what they please. Dragon's in my world are what I make them and I choose to make them more like pre-4e dragons.

I don't like where things are headed in the world of D&D. Glad to hear I'm not the only one.

It's hard to describe how much I agree with this thought.  I like the idea that you can't just say 'Silver, it's good!'.

It doesn't work with elves, humans or gnomes, why should it be true of Dragons?

What you are saying certainly makes sense, but this is NOT what WotC is saying.  The quote states all dragons are now 'evil' specifically so there will be more dragons for 'good' heroes to kill.  Like they say, now it is possibl to kill all the dragons instead of only half as before.  They have completely dismissed the lore that popularized the game, just to 'dumb it down' for the modern children players. They also have now created a completely 'illogical' world that never could have existed.  If intelligent dragons existed, and they were all 'evil', they would have undoubtedly exterminated mankind, (and dwarvenkind and elvenkind) centuries before metal was even invented to make weapons that might endanger them.   But then, nothing is more stupid about D&D than the original  premise that "a guy with a sword" could possibly kill a large, sentient dragon to begin with.

Even the illiterate people of our own Middle Ages were never that stupid.  In nearly all of the period depictions of human saints slaying dragons, the dragons are seldom portrayed larger than a small pony, and were generally believed to be the offspring of a single dragon known as Satan..  And this is because people back then knew more about real animals and how formidable they were compared to modern, city dwelling, game writers.    In fact, anyone familiar with real medieval dragon lore knows that large dragons were considered utterly invincable  killing machines controlled by God, and who would be released on judgement day to devour all the wicked in the world.  Virtually every Medieval Church was decorated with such scenes, sometimes with even angels herding the sinners into the dragon's gaping jaws. 

It makes as  much sense as the notion that orcs, trolls and ogres are generally evil by species, though there might be rare exceptions.  Even in the original dragonlance books there were the exceptions of chromatic dragons freindly towards people.    And besides, it was bestselling books read by millions, and and inspired people to play this game who thought it made sense that there would be benevolent species of dragons that prevented the extermination of mankind by evil dragons, and now the D&D owners simply flush it all down the toilet so the new generations of kiddies can kill more kinds of dragons in their ridiculous fantasies.     

I agree with Mazra also.

I don't understand the need to change such a rich background. Of course I don't understand a lot of stuff coming out of Seattle any more.

If it is going to be completely changed regardless why even call it D&D any more.

This wan't hard to swallow for the millions of readers who liked the books that brought many fans to the game.

Sharks and dolphins look much alike but have far differerent demeanors toward man.  I don't think that's so hard to figure out. 

Bah. I've killed Metallic Dragons in 1e, 2e and 3e....not really sure why this is a big deal. I ran a 2e Campaign for over a year where the main antagonist was a Bronze Dragon and over the years my groups have ran into several less than evil Chromatics. Alignment is a guideline not a straight jacket. I've re-read your quoted paragraph several times and still don't see where it says all dragons are evil. Good Dragons have always been represented as greedy and controlling. Nothing new there.

There is no original premise that a guy with a sword can kill a dragon. That argument is flawed at it base. The premise is that a group of 4-6 characters, some of whom can sling fireballs or call down the wrath of the Gods can cooperatively kill a dragon.

[moderator hat: on]
You are certainly encouraged to open topics for discussion.  However, we don't need attacks here.
[moderator hat: off]

I happen to have a few acquaintances among WotC staff, and, though I cannot say that I know these people tremendously well, I have spent some time with them, have had discussions with them, and have had reasonably long-term correspondence relationships with some of them. I can say a few things about them and the game.  First, they certainly are interested in producing an "intelligent" game.

Second, with 4e, there has been a "drop the old assumptions" axiom during the development of the game.  Everything was open to change, according to the discussion at XP last year.  A few people have not liked this.  Some D&D purists might want 4e to be connected to 1e in certain ways (for example, keeping the distinctions of dragons the same as before).  But, the breakdown of dragon types in 1e was arbitrary and so retaining it is also arbitrary.

Dave

Sure, the quoted paragraph says that.  The complaint was that previously only half of the dragons could be OPPONENTS (key word - it means dragons you can kill), because the other half were good, and good players do not kill fellow good creatures.  So by WotC's own reckoning, if you were killing metallic dragons in the previous editions you were not playing the game correctly, but don't despair, because now you can kill all the dragons you want, and still be a 'good' hero!

Of course, you would not have been able to kill a single dragon if the GM was really doing his job and giving your dragon opponent the natural instinct of self preservation.  Much like the owner of a hunting ranch offering his clients a tame lion in a corral to shoot, your GMs gave you dragons that didn't care if they lived, so fought to the death instead of realistically fleeing if they were outclassed, and later killing its antagonists when it had all the advantages.  But as many people have assured me now, "D&D isn't supposed to be realistic at all".  And you know, they're right?    But this doesn't mean it isn't possible to make a realistic RPG in a world inhabited by sentient dragons and other fantastic creatures, it just means the D&D designers cannot do it.  You can even use their figures!

I even suspect a lot of local players often break rules they don't like, just as you seem to have admitted doing. 

I actually don't mind getting rid of the color distinctions. A good red dragon, an evil silver dragon, makes no difference to me as long as there are both good and evil dragons.

My issues with 4e and WotC are pretty much explained in Dave's quote below.


When you "drop the old assumptions" you free yourself up to change whatever you want. Sadly, that philosophy has resulted in a whole new game but with the same name. I know us grognards get taken to task when we say stuff like "it's not D&D anymore" but I honestly feel that way. It's D&D in name only. WotC is systematically removing those elements that have defined D&D, made it the number 1 selling and most popular RPG and set it apart from other RPGs. That saddens me, because I think it would have been possible to remain within the 3.5 framework, fix the issues and still produce a game that was profitable and fun.
They chose a different path and a fundamenatally different design philosophy. That still irks me because it has resulted in the creation of a game that I don't like and won't support.

Can you provide a link to that interview? I'd like to read the whole thing.

its called the monster manual for a reason. Sure id have a tough time killing a unicorn or pegasus but not if they were under the control of a evil NPC. Its not called the book of good creatures. Dragonlance was a separate enity from the other D&D worlds and had it own unique flavor. If i remember correctly the good dragons left the humans and only came back becuase they found out thye were tricked and that the evil dragons were turning their children into draconians. Why cant tradition be broken? In the Hobbit men fought elves and dwarves. Many dragons were too busy hoarding treasure to worry about humans building castles and swords (see Smaug).

Tradition can be broken. WotC is doing it right now. 

I don't understand why this is such a big thing? A dm can make the world he is playing in his own a dragon like a person can be good, evil or whatever he wants.

If you like the old traditions: keep it going.

If you don't like tradition: make a new tradition.

Humans have been doing this since they were humans.

Just because Wizards say all dragons are greedy and power hungry doesn't mean they have to be in your game. I like the idea that a gold or silver might manipulate you a little more than they used to or even that one might fall and become evil. It sounds to me that chormatics will breathe first ask questions later and that metallics will likely help you but want something in return...this is how we have been playing since I can remember and is the way we will continue to play.

Break the rules?!? Are you (*^&*&%^& kidding me?
Maybe you should read rule 0. Have you ever even taken a glance at the rules of the game you so vehemently bash?

Fleeing is not always possible. A measly 5th level wizard can fly faster (and with vastly superior maneuverability) than a dragon. There are lots of magic items that allow other characters to do so as well.

Thanks for enlightening me on the definition of opponent. Go back to your regularly scheduled waterboarding please.

Well said, Wraith

Aaah, well OF COURSE the wizards and heroes should be able to fly with no realistic means of propulsion so they can kill those cowardly dragons that try to fly away. After all, superman and the mighty morphin power rangers can do that.

Now it makes perfect sense.   Thank you for showing me that just when I thought D&D couldn't get any stupider and more childish, you have shown  me that it can.

I can't think of any quality fantasy novel with such ridiculous notions. Usually a wizard has to enlist the help of a dragon if he wishes to fly somewhere, as we see in the books of best selling fantasy authors like Terry Brooks and Terry Goodkind.

But then, quality fantasy is written for adults, and this is a game designed for 10 year olds to play who won't be happy if they cannot outfly and kill their dragon like marvel superheroes.

Thread locked to spare people from ignorance/self righteousness overload?

Anyone?

Hi Wraith, Vreck, Lord Rock and others,

Since I was very young, before D&D. (Yes, I am that old.) I was fascinated with the tales of King Arthur. Later I read Lord of the Rings and this became, and still is, my all time favorite fictional book. Then I discovered D&D, 1st edition. And these wonderful tales and stories began to come alive in my living room and in the living room of my friends. We learned that some creatures were good and others evil. It was the way of things.

As I have posted before, I have no problem with EXCEPTIONS. I have a problem when EXCEPTIONS become the NORM. That is the "BIG DEAL." Gold Dragon were not "ARBITRARILY good. They were good because Gold Dragons of Chinese mythos and legend were good. Most of the monsters in 1st Edition were rooted in legend or myth or works of fiction. I believe it is a great mistake for D&D to venture far from these roots. I really enjoy the exceptions. That is great! But I believe WotC has taken it too far. And this will alienate many to the game both new and old.

Later,

Mazra

dude it's called magic AND a game



LOL even I know that's not a word!!



you seem to be well versed in it

For the record 3E 5th level wizards can fly like the dickens.

4E 5th level wizards can't fly (but they can at 16th level!)

Really I think you've just 'sarcasmed' your way into a corner.  It's OK, lots of 10 year olds do it.