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Would you have been upset if Gold Dragons WERE LG?
I've seen a lot of threads asking those who want gold dragons as LG to essentially defend their opinion, so I thought I'd turn the tables a bit and see how others feel.
If the Monster Manual had come out with Gold Dragons as Lawful Good, would you have been upset? Assume that there hadn't been any word or warning that they were going to be anything but LG. Would you be more or less upset if the other metallic dragons were unaligned, but gold stayed LG?
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It wouldn't have bothered me... if I needed a gold dragon NPC in my game to be unaligned, then that's what it would be. Just like if I need a gold dragon NPC in my game to be LG, then that's what it will be.
If they had made the gold dragon "officially" LG, I think I'd expect the silver to be G, and the rest to be either G or unaligned (a la bronze and copper from older editions).
I wouldn't have been upset if they remained LG. I'm not upset about the alignment change either, but I'm glad it was done as it caused me to re-examine my internal logic about the motivations and mindset of metallic dragons.
From what I have read, this sort of examination of underlying logic/tropes within the game seems to be part of the design aims of this edition. If you don't agree with a particular change, then you can always house rule it, but at least treat it as an opportunity to codify your thinking about the game element in question.
I personally really liked the mirror image of Chromatic and Metallic Dragons. Since I'm just a player of 4E and will likely never be a DM I don't care what they do to the dragons. I'll always have my homebrew.
I'd have been slightly annoyed as it would mean that I would have to alter published adventures to use them as antagonists (since I ignore alignment in my games but rely heavily on Dungeon magazine).
Why would I *want* the option to use Metallic Dragons as antagonists? Because Eberron taught me a long time ago that having unpredictable dragons is *waaaaay* more fun than having a monster with "I'm a Good Guy" printed over his head.
I like the new Dragon paradigm, and have taken it a step further in my campaign. Dragons don't really fit on the good/evil paradigm. Chromatic Dragons tend to be uncivilized, and Metallic Dragons tend to be civilized. Being uncivilized and antisocial, Chromatic Dragons tend to live in the wilds and prey on those foolish enough to tresspass into those wilds. Metallic Dragons tend to meddle in civilized affairs, and hide in the shadows of the civilized world without coming into direct conflict with it.
In 3e, it would have mattered (given all the various abilities that were alignment-dependent, like holy, smite etc).
But considering that there are no effects in 4e keyed off alignment, it doesn't really matter to me what the alignment of my foe is, so long as the can justify why we have to fight a LG foe (assuming we are a good party).
Upset? Nah. Disinterested, with a soupçon of disappointment for the lost opportunity of making them more flexible.
I don't know. I quite liked the D&D cartoon approach of having the golds be the only reeeeally Good type of dragon (and on the verge of extinction, at that). Lots of gravitas there, and when you ran across a ruthless gold dragon, it'd be all the more shocking to players.
So IMC legends paint golds as LG, silvers as G and the other metallics as Unaligned, unless they spoused the ideals of Bahamut (as opposed to just seeing him as the first of their kind).
I've seen a lot of threads asking those who want gold dragons as LG to essentially defend their opinion, so I thought I'd turn the tables a bit and see how others feel.
If the Monster Manual had come out with Gold Dragons as Lawful Good, would you have been upset? Assume that there hadn't been any word or warning that they were going to be anything but LG. Would you be more or less upset if the other metallic dragons were unaligned, but gold stayed LG?
I couldn't care less. Alignment is so irrelevant in 4e except for purely descriptive purposes that I don't even really look at that information for a monster. It wouldn't bother me at all if the MMs didn't even list an alignment for monsters.
As far as I'm concerned a gold dragon is whatever alignment I need it to be at the moment.
In all my games, regardless of edition, gold dragons always have been and always will be lawful good. Of course, that's a generality. The race as a whole tends to be lawful good, but individuals may vary - there's good and bad in every race. Except halflings. They are ALL evil.
Given that alignment has no mechanical impact in 4e, such that I can call them whatever alignment I please without mucking with game balance at all, they could have said their alignment was "pudding", and I would not have been upset.
I would not be upset if they were LG, unaligned, or even CE. Who cares about the alignment listing? It has almost no mechanical bearing on the game in 4e, and is the easiest thing in the entire stat block to modify.
I like the concept (not necessarily implied in the 4e material) that dragons are terrifying and sometime inexplicable creatures. In previous versions, the metallic dragons were the friends and defenders of humanity (particularly in some campaign settings). If you still want them to be like that, more power to you.
However, I'm quite fond of the idea that *at best* they may be uncaring of humanity (with their blink-and-miss-it lifespans), or of humanity's social conventions. A dragon might view humans as a typical person views ants: evil dragons might squash the little annoyances and fumigate their hives, but even non-evil dragons are simply going to avoid stepping on them (or, possibly, examine them from a scientific viewpoint). They're certainly not going to let the ants ride them on saddle-back with long shiny ant-lances... or help them build and protect their ant-hives.
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