Metallic Dragons: Unaligned!?

[FadedC]

It was just an example. Try this instead: "Most gold dragons are unaligned, but some are genuinely benevolent and noble, becoming exemplars of good or lawful good. Few ever resort to the overtly evil ways of their chromatic kin."

The point was that it allows both sides of this debate to win:
* Those who feel that unaligned creatures are more useful because they have more reasons to be antagonists can throw unaligned gold dragons at the party over some conflict of interest
* While those who feel that the tradition of good gold dragons should not be abandoned have that precedent set as well

-- 77IM

Agreed, I wouldn't mind seeing more things like that. Although they do say in MM 1 that many metallic dragons are devoted to Bahamut and share his ideals of nobility and virtue. That pretty much accounts to the same thing as saying many are good.

 

[Piratecat]

Yes. In fact, I hate not being able to speak in a secret language with others of my own kind!

Ah, alignment languages, infamous and unlamented.

77IM nailed it for me. I'd love to see brief flavor text discussing alignment tendencies. Seems like the best of both worlds.

 

[Regicide]

I've been rather quiet since starting this thread but this statement right here strikes true to me. I feel that there is quite a bit lacking in 4e when it comes to fostering roleplaying.

5E won't have alignment, it'll have faction.

 

[Dire Bare]

Not to sidetrack us onto a religious track, but this Straight Dope article is a tremendous source for inspiration and history on angels and divine servants.

Thanks for the link PirateCat! That was a nice summary of the evolution of angels in Western mythology. The book the author credits is in a box somewhere in my garage, I want to go find it now!

After reading that, it just firms up my belief that while WotC might be straying from "classic" D&D canon in a few areas, altogether they are bringing the game closer to mythic sources. I dig it!

 

[Bumbles]

I've been rather quiet since starting this thread but this statement right here strikes true to me. I feel that there is quite a bit lacking in 4e when it comes to fostering roleplaying. The game is so mechanics driven that even interactions outside of combat have been turned into skill challenges.

See, I think rather the opposite. Skill challenges are a mechanic that fosters role-playing by giving the DM some way to set up parameters for non-combat interaction instead of just declaring things by fiat.

That means the player has an incentive to do things besides hit stuff with his sword. And as the DM I can encourage that, since I can point out that they do have those skills when appropriate.

Obviously if you've primarily dealt with things as a DM in a more open manner, then these kinds of rules may seem more limiting to you, but to me, who has had DM's who really can't grasp that sort of thing without a system...well, it's a plus. As a player, I know I get damned tired of DM's who just declare that the NPC doesn't believe your story or who don't let things happen...and while having this system won't change that, it will let me as the player know pretty quickly that I should either A) have a conversation with the DM or B) Walk away from the table. And as the DM, well, I know I can just say "Oh, so you're doing a check for X? Roll a die." and even if I haven't planned it, I can decide something happens, good or bad. Yay for not having to always think on my feet.

I guess I made this thread because I wanted to protest the fact that something of the game that wasn't broken was altered for no reason other than so players can have "conflict" with a creature without having to be evil PCs.

Yeah, but I don't think it was changed enough to matter, as the Dragons themselves are pretty much behaving as they always have. So it's a non-event.

By the way, while i won't mark out the word Unaligned in my book, the gold dragons in my game will be Good creatures. The same goes for unicorns and probably even angels, since i kind of think that devils and demons would take the roles of fallen angels and minions of evil gods. Not that anyone besides my own player group cares.

And in my game, Dragons can be agents of the mechanical systems that keep the world from breaking down, unicorns can be non-existent except when somebody is looking for one and I'm feeling nice, devils and demons can be remnants of the viral infection that caused the collapse of the main planetary system, or just rogue programs out for fun, and angels can be tools of the remaining system elements that are worshipped as Gods.

 

[Derren]

I just remembered something when I browsed this board.

WOtC practically admitted that their solo monster design was rather bad and that they fixed that with MM2. Now of course they need non good metallic dragons as otherwise they would have no dragon monster the players can fight which uses the improved solo design.

So even more evidence for their "We need things to kill, not things to talk with" policy.
And then people wonder why so many people regard D&D, and especially 4E, as a simple hack&slash game....

 

[Piratecat]

I just remembered something when I browsed this board.

WOtC practically admitted that their solo monster design was rather bad and that they fixed that with MM2. Now of course they need non good metallic dragons as otherwise they would have no dragon monster the players can fight which uses the improved solo design.

Nope. As they discussed on the podcast that the MM1 hydra design was bad, they stated that the MM1 dragons were actually pretty good and (unlike the hydra) did enough damage to be a fun threat.

So the "evidence" actually contradicts your theory. I'm not sure why evidence is important, though; people seem fairly entrenched on this subject, and whether the prevalence of unaligned monsters is a good thing seems to be largely a matter of opinion.

 

[Flipguarder]

Now of course they need non good metallic dragons as otherwise they would have no dragon monster the players can fight which uses the improved solo design.
So even more evidence for their "We need things to kill, not things to talk with" policy.
And then people wonder why so many people regard D&D, and especially 4E, as a simple hack&slash game....

This isn't a fair argument. You decide why Wotc does something and then complain about that motivation by tieing it to another possible idea.

I think it would be ignorant for us to believe that Wotc simply forgot why they put good monsters in the past editions and reverted to "people only want to kill things" ideology. I think that in their cosmology inherent good is simply hard to come by.

 

[Derren]

I think that in their cosmology inherent good is simply hard to come by.

Not so hard that celestial chargers could not be good.
Now why are celestial chargers more good than gold dragons?
Oh wait, they are mounts. Guess its acceptable to not kill them then....

 

[chaotix42]

Not so hard that celestial chargers could not be good.
Now why are celestial chargers more good than gold dragons?
Oh wait, they are mounts. Guess its acceptable to not kill them then....

Could it be that celestial chargers are beings created/bred by servants of celestial beings, ie gods of good? I haven't ever read their fluff. Perhaps "astral chargers" would be unaligned, and "infernal chargers" evil? The name "celestial charger" seems to imply a good nature. The only thing that might imply gold dragons as being good is fluff from previous editions.

Now, a "celestial gold dragon" should probably be good.