On the Origins of Dragon Species

Guest 6801328 · May 13, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Better to ask “how does this enhance my enjoyment of the game?” than “how does this make the game more fun?”

I'm not sure I see the difference between those two phrasings. Can you explain? "my enjoyment" seems just as subjective as "fun."

Oh, maybe you thought I meant "universally fun for all". No, I meant it in an entirely subjective sense.

To answer how this change enhances the game, the current set of metallic dragons is arbitrary and confusing. Most people can’t remember the difference between copper, brass, and bronze dragons off the top of their heads.

Huh. I never would have even considered that to be a criteria. I can't remember how many hit points an ogre has off the top of my head, either. I almost always look up a monster when I use it.

Brass and bronze are alloys while copper, gold, and silver are elements. And why those five? With the seven alchemical metals, there’s a unifying theme. Instead of five metals chosen seemingly at random, there’s a reason each one is part of the set. Or if you want to keep it to five, maybe go with copper, silver, electrum, gold, and platinum - the five coin metals of D&D. Or go with dragons for each of Heaiod’s ages of man - gold, silver, bronze, mithril (since “heroes” isn’t a metal), and iron. Or go more historical with it, with stone, bronze, iron, steel, and silicon. Anything that doesn’t leave you without an answer to “why those five?”

Hill, Stone, Cloud, Frost, Fire, Storm. Why those six?

Flesh, Clay, Stone, Iron. Why those four?

I dunno. Maybe symmetry in these sorts of things appeals to some people. And I kind of get that, but at the end of the day I don't need it to be designed that way. I just want a variety of monsters that are fun to use as NPCs, and to fight.

dave2008 · May 13, 2019

I have often thought about changing dragons in my campaigns; however, they have always been so rare that I just haven't had the need. In 30 yrs of gaming my PCs of come across less than a dozen dragons. Plus, I really like the 5 headed version of Tiamat

akr71 · May 13, 2019

I wouldn't hesitate to use a yellow dragon, if I thought it was appropriate in a given situation. My 'yellow' dragon would likely be a re-skinning of a green dragon I think. How much I would alter it, would depend on the situation, though off the top of my head it would be some kind of burning poison breath (mustard gas?).

I too, think it is odd that there are copper, brass & bronze, but no iron. Again, I wouldn't hesitate to change it up if i thought the situation called for it. However, now that HotDQ & RoT are done with, like [MENTION=83242]dave2008[/MENTION] I don't think my players will encounter all that many dragons going forward, unless they specifically go looking for them.

MechaTarrasque · May 13, 2019

In setting, I figure this premise is backwards. Humanoids named the metals after the dragons. Metallurgy came about because they couldn't find metals that were the same color as the dragons.

Frankie1969 · May 13, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
Hill, Stone, Cloud, Frost, Fire, Storm. Why those six?

Flesh, Clay, Stone, Iron. Why those four?

Giants:

Fire, Frost, Stone (Mountain), and Storm: Norse mythology
Cloud: Jack & the Beanstalk
Hill: not sure about them, maybe just overgrown Ogres?
Cyclops, Titan: Greek mythology
Ettin: Narnia

Golems:

Flesh: Frankenstein's Monster
Clay: Jewish mythology
Stone: various myths of animated statues
Iron: Greek mythology (Talos was actually bronze, but close enough. 1E's Iron Golem drawing is plagiarized from Jason & the Argonauts.)

Thank you for bringing this up. Nearly all of D&D's early monsters have known obvious precedents in myth & fiction (except for a select batch that were derived from a weird set of plastic toys), but not most of the core dragons (red is European myth, gold is Chinese myth, the rest are ???). That's exactly what bugs many of us.

Guest 6801328 · May 13, 2019

Frankie1969 said:
Giants:

Fire, Frost, Stone (Mountain), and Storm: Norse mythology

Cloud: Jack & the Beanstalk

Hill: not sure about them, maybe just overgrown Ogres?

Cyclops, Titan: Greek mythology

Ettin: Narnia

Golems:

Flesh: Frankenstein's Monster

Clay: Jewish mythology

Stone: various myths of animated statues

Iron: Greek mythology (Talos was actually bronze, but close enough. 1E's Iron Golem drawing is plagiarized from Jason & the Argonauts.)

Thank you for bringing this up. Nearly all of D&D's early monsters have known obvious precedents in myth & fiction (except for a select batch that were derived from a weird set of plastic toys), but not most of the core dragons (red is European myth, gold is Chinese myth, the rest are ???). That's exactly what bugs many of us.

Oh, maybe I'm misunderstanding your goal. I thought you wanted the specific types to have some kind of symmetry and pattern. Because if I look at "Hill", "Stone", "Cloud", "Fire", "Frost", and "Storm" I'm not really seeing any pattern. That's two elements, a mineral, a geological feature, and two meteorological phenomena.

On the other hand, if what you're looking for is historical/literary/mythological precedent, why are you going for colors/elements in dragons at all? Where does THAT come from? If you're trying to replicate the pattern in golems and giants, I'd think you'd want fire-breathing dragons, maybe flightless wyrms without a breath weapon, and chinese dragons. (But maybe you're a lot more up on the literary history of dragons than I am.)

I mean, I'd also be interested to know the hows and whys of the canonical choices. And if I were designing a game I might go for more symmetry. But I have trouble being bothered by it. How does it actually affect gameplay, in a negative way?

Frankie1969 · May 13, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
On the other hand, if what you're looking for is historical/literary/mythological precedent, why are you going for colors/elements in dragons at all? Where does THAT come from?
[ . . . ]
How does it actually affect gameplay, in a negative way?

Sometimes the game mechanics are so utterly off from fantasy storytelling that it interferes with my Suspension of Disbelief. For example, Evasion. TV rogue surviving dragon breath completely unscathed by diving behind cover? Awesome! D&D rogue surviving Incendiary Cloud completely unscathed by ... standing inside it on an open field? WTF?

I never liked Vancian spell preparation, but the guys in Wisconsin did, and it does have a valid internal logic, so I can't hold it against them.

AC and HP are bad oversimplifications that have polluted countless game systems ever since. But even there, I have to admit that they do make the rules simpler, and that's a valid game design principle.

Dragons are literally the most important monsters in D&D, and their subspecies are filled with WTF. They aren't from source material. They don't have internal logic. And they don't make the game simpler. Any way I look at it, they should have been designed differently.

Charlaquin · May 13, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
I'm not sure I see the difference between those two phrasings. Can you explain? "my enjoyment" seems just as subjective as "fun."

Oh, maybe you thought I meant "universally fun for all". No, I meant it in an entirely subjective sense.

No, fun just has connotations of exhilaration and joy to me. There are lots of things that I enjoy that I wouldn’t describe as “fun.” But, I suppose it’s only a semantic difference, if by “fun” you just mean “enjoyment” then I retract the objection

Elfcrusher said:
Huh. I never would have even considered that to be a criteria. I can't remember how many hit points an ogre has off the top of my head, either. I almost always look up a monster when I use it.

I don’t need to know its HP or whatever off the top of my head, but I do like to know one monster from another. I don’t know how much HP an ogre has, but I know an ogre from a troll, from an orc, from a goblin, you know?

Elfcrusher said:
Hill, Stone, Cloud, Frost, Fire, Storm. Why those six?

Flesh, Clay, Stone, Iron. Why those four?

As Frankie pointed out, these all have mythological or folkloric precedent.

Elfcrusher said:
I dunno. Maybe symmetry in these sorts of things appeals to some people. And I kind of get that, but at the end of the day I don't need it to be designed that way. I just want a variety of monsters that are fun to use as NPCs, and to fight.

For me it’s not so much about a pattern as it is about some kind of internal logic. If the answer to “why this set?” is “cause they’re inspired by these stories,” great. If the answer is, “cause they represent the 7 metals of antiquity,” great. If the answer is a shrug and “I dunno, that’s how D&D has done it for years,” not so great.

If that doesn’t bother you, that’s cool. You’re welcome to keep using the dragons in the books and have fun doing so. Personally, I find the existing set of metallic dragons arbitrary and that bothers me, so I change them, and then I also change the set of chromatic dragons to match the internal logic of the metallics. In my setting, dragons are closely tied to alchemy, and I think that’s cooler than dragons that are just a seemingly random assortment of metals.

Guest 6801328 · May 13, 2019

Oh, this is a “suspension of disbelief” thing. I’ll bow out. Good luck.

Charlaquin · May 13, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
Oh, this is a “suspension of disbelief” thing. I’ll bow out. Good luck.

Not for me. If I’m suspending my disbelief enough to allow for the existence of dragons, I can easily believe that they would not come in a nice, tidy, color-coded set. To me the issue is not suspension of disbelief, but clarity of design intent. I want a clear design reason behind the set if it does exist.

On the Origins of Dragon Species

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