Draconomicon: surprises ahead! (scoop + speculation)

[Graf]

I think there was a pink dragon one of the April dragon magazines.
It blew bubbles at people, IIRC.

 

[Maltrok]

Bad: We need a dragon that is blue. He'll breathe lightning, because we gave cold to the white dragon, because lightning hasn't been used yet, and because nothing else is remotely close to blue. He'll live in a desert even though deserts aren't really famous for their thunderstorms, and he'll burrow underground, because we haven't used those yet.

I think you're closer, but I don't think it's we need a blue dragon... I suspect it's we need dragons that breath: Fire!

What other elements can we have dragons bring, everyone expects dragons to breath fire. Can we make a new challenge? What about other elements? Earth? not so much. Air? Maybe. Cold air works. Water? Again, not really. What about quasi-elements? Lightning! What are some other things that are bad for the player? What about poison?

We need some way to differentiate these dragons, or players will never know what to expect when they run into a dragon. You can't just say a dragon approaches anymore because they don't all breathe fire. What's an easy way to tell what type of challenge you face? Color!

Fire = Red, etc...

They have to live somewhere: Green = Forest, White = Ice, Black = Swamps, Red = Mountains (it wasn't volcanoes but hills and mountains in OD&D/AD&D), what other environs need covering? Deserts. Blue would stand out great in a desert, you'd see them coming from a mile away! (also, if I recall correctly, all OD&D/AD&D dragons burrowed).

35 years later it's easy to take pot shots, but I can imagine from a systemic development way as I've imagined above. Before that there was Smaug (and a footnote to Ancalagon the Black). They came up with concrete challenges for the players to deal with and set those challenges in environs that mostly matched up with their abilities and colors.

Seems good to me.

And if you want to chastise WotC for anything in this case, chastise them for not changing the name of the creature from which the game derives it's first word in the title, to what would be the massive public outcry (just look at the horror of people not having metallic dragons in the MM1 of 4e (further tangent: only gold dragons existed in the first MM)). I'd say holding on to tradition in this case is good.

On a personal note, the blue dragons in the desert has always been one of my most vivid and favorite imaginings. Seeing the shockingly blue dragon through the crisp desert air against the bright yellow or light brown sand dunes. He's the king, baby, he don't need no camouflage; blending is for the birds. Check me out while I bask in the bright desert sun.

What's Good for you, doesn't mean it's Good for me. Same holds for Bad. Your descriptions sound boring and cliched. D&D dragons only seem cliched now because they've been around for 35 years, they are more than cliche, they are tradition. And one that serves the game quite well, in my opinion. Which has been my point all along. You're welcome to your opinion, but it doesn't make it fact or truth.

 

[Steely Dan]

I think there was a pink dragon one of the April dragon magazines.
It blew bubbles at people, IIRC.

Obviously that's a joke, but it's not that far from the truth – I do not need a dragon and elf for every day of the month.


…I draw the line at Biker Elves and Puce Dragons.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Poison breathing dragons actually showed up before fire breathing dragons, so I have no complaints about those. Considering some of the ways that extremely poisonous creatures are described in folklore, acid also fits. Cold and Lighting, though? Those, I expect, came about from just trying to 'fill the wheel' so to speak, probably at the last second too.

PCs: "Dragon? Good thing we filled up on those fire immunity potions"
DM: "...These dragons dont breathe fire! They're breathe...lightning! Yeah, lightning, that's it!"
PCs: "Jerk"

 

[Klaus]

Guys, there's no conspiracy here. You want to know why the metallics aren't in MM1?

Page count. Pure and simple.

We know that the 4E MM presents ready-to-play versions of each dragon, at multiple age levels. That means we can expect roughly 2 to 4 pages per dragon.

That means we're talking about 10 to 20 pages for the metallics alone. So what 10-20 pages get cut? What other monsters get put on the back burner?

How many dragons does the game need in its first year? How many solo monsters?

(BTW, this isn't just me spitballing. James Wyatt* as much as said, in one of his posts, that the metallics were cut because they just couldn't justify devoting that much page count to dragons in the first MM.)

*(I think it was James. I suppose it could've been someone else.)

Yeah, maybe once the first MM is out, you can find 20 pages of material you're not going to use. But is it the same 20 pages I'm not going to use? The same 20 pages Piratecat or Hong aren't going to use?

I understand being disappointed the metallics aren't there, if you were looking forward to them, but there's no need to dig for ulterior motives.

Not to disagree with James Wyatt, but what *I* would do is take a cue from (drumroll) the D&D cartoon. Back in that cartoon, there was only one type of good dragon: gold. And the kids had to rescue its egg and save it from extinction.

I think a single metallic amid 5 chromatic ones would work fine. Almost like... a Point of Light.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, while it will be kinda weird not to have good dragons in the MM, I can't say I'm going to miss them all that much. If I need a good dragon, for that once in a blue moon adventure, maybe I can make one up. But, let's face it, how many times did they get used?

I've got the last three years of Dungeon magazines and I cannot recall a single good dragon in any adventure, although, I'm sure someone will correct me.

About the only time I did use a good dragon was back in 2e when I had a baby silver dragon polymorphed into a big house cat follow the party around for a lark and occasionally eat stuff. Like an ogre.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Player's Handbook
320 pages
$34.95

Monster Manual
288 pages
$34.95

Yeah, either an inflated page count in the Player's Handbook or a decreased page count in the Monster Manual leaving monsters that have pretty much always been core out of the core rules.

No conspiracy but that of Space Balls 2: The Quest For More Money.

Guys, there's no conspiracy here. You want to know why the metallics aren't in MM1?

Page count. Pure and simple.

We know that the 4E MM presents ready-to-play versions of each dragon, at multiple age levels. That means we can expect roughly 2 to 4 pages per dragon.

That means we're talking about 10 to 20 pages for the metallics alone. So what 10-20 pages get cut? What other monsters get put on the back burner?

How many dragons does the game need in its first year? How many solo monsters?

(BTW, this isn't just me spitballing. James Wyatt* as much as said, in one of his posts, that the metallics were cut because they just couldn't justify devoting that much page count to dragons in the first MM.)

*(I think it was James. I suppose it could've been someone else.)

Yeah, maybe once the first MM is out, you can find 20 pages of material you're not going to use. But is it the same 20 pages I'm not going to use? The same 20 pages Piratecat or Hong aren't going to use?

I understand being disappointed the metallics aren't there, if you were looking forward to them, but there's no need to dig for ulterior motives.

 

[Steely Dan]

No conspiracy but that of Space Balls 2: The Quest For More Money.

Spaceballs: The Flamethrower!

"…The kids love this one."

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Is there some other reading for lorem ipsum dolor that I don't understand? I am having a hard time reading this as something other than a snide personal attack.

Well, "lorem ipsum dolor" etc. is, as has been mentioned, a snippet of "bulk text". Combining this with derren's history of pre-emptively hating whatever 4e is doing with dragons, even when he (and the rest of us) didn't have any solid details, and hong's general tendencies, I'm taking it as a somewhat snarky comment on the pointlessness of arguing with the poster on this subject.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Player's Handbook
320 pages
$34.95

Monster Manual
288 pages
$34.95

Yeah, either an inflated page count in the Player's Handbook or a decreased page count in the Monster Manual leaving monsters that have pretty much always been core out of the core rules.

No conspiracy but that of Space Balls 2: The Quest For More Money.

My guess would be option #1. It wouldn't be the first edition where the PHB was underpriced for its size, in order to provide an easy "gateway" into the game.