Dragons... has the icon been lost?

[arscott]

I always thought that the archetypal dragon with eldritch powers and knowledge wasn't even started by D&D. I don't know where it came from, if not D&D, thinking about it now though.

Chinese dragons have always been depicted as powerful magicians. The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl is essentially a dragon. The dragon Fafnir, from norse mythology, was a dwarven sorcerer who transformed himself into a dragon to better guard his ill-gotten hoard. Really, the only dragons that aren't cunning and magical are the St. George type dragons and the sea serpents.

The real reason that dragons are spellcasters at high levels, though, is that in high-level games, non-magical foes just aren't that much of a threat.

 

[Jupp]

Dragons.
In that one paragraph I was reminded just how much the soul of the Dragon has been lost in a sea of spell power-ups and sorcerous tactics. The first thought that popped into my head was… This isn’t a Dragon, this is a wizard trapped in a giant lizard’s body.

you know, when I read your post the image of an adventure party stumbling into a dragon's lair popped up in my mind.

*cut* - Dragon and adventurers look at each other for a second - *cut* - for the next five minutes you see both sides pumping out buffs, wardens, defensive spells and what not - *cut* - Dragon asks adventuring part "Ready?" - "Yes, all buffed up" - *cut* - Big fight starts.......

Now I am just not sure if that's a memory of a recent MMORPG or from a PnP game session

 

[Gargoyle]

Dragons as spellcasters are fine with me. I love the 3E dragons. It does seem though that dragons with fighter (or barbarian or rogue or ranger) levels are underused. Most DM's (including me) just use a bigger dragon for a bigger challenge. A more feral dragon with some barbarian levels would be pretty cool, and there is nothing to stop anyone from doing that in their campaign.

But I like the smart, spellcasting dragons as iconics.

 

[theemrys]

Personally, I hate the whole concept of a "buff spell"... gets too much MMO in my Roleplaying...

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Hmmm? You don't like magicians being able to defend themselves with arcane wards, shapeshift into the forms of beasts, or magically enhance their companions' strength?

 

[WayneLigon]

Reminds me why I now play Mutants and Masterminds.

What, you never have anyone with Boost or Drain?

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I like dragons.

I like spell-casting dragons.

I believe that dragons should never be "random" encounters, and they should always be treated with the respect and power they command. I think they should all be custom writeups..I rarely ever use "stock" dragon writeups.

Except white dragons. 'cause, let's face it, they're pretty sucktastic.

There. I said it.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[BryonD]

Criticizing someone whose instincts "twitch" when confronted by such a being smacks of the whole "bad wrong fun" thing to me -- after all, no one claimed that the current dragon must perforce make anyone else twitch. But, then, it seems that the "bad wrong fun" card is played early on whenever anyone tries to discuss what the game is modelling, and suggests that the game could model things in other ways. It's the EN World equivilent of a "Get Out of Discussion Free" card.

I'm not 100% clear if this is aimed at me or not, but it seems to be. Apoogies if I misunderstood.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with playing with non-D&D stlye dragons. I think I already said the opposite.

But saying that you "twitch" to see it doesn't simply confer that one doesn't play that way themself, but rather that they are bothered by the simple idea of anyone else anywhere playing this way.

You may discard the term "bad wrong fun" as some kind of cop out. But I don't accept that. To me the phrase applies when person one says person two should stop doing something person two enjoys, simply because person one doesn't like it. And it certainly seems to apply here.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed