Dragons - how often do you use them?

[Psychic Warrior]

So my question is this - how often do dragons appear in your games? By appear I mean the PCs have some kind of interection with them - fighting, talking whatever. By campaign I mean the entire stretch of a PCs life, whether that is 1st-5th level or 10th to 30th - how often is a PC going to meet a dragon in that span of time?

For my self I found recently that I have used very, very few dragons in my gaming life. Maybe 3 in 26 years of D&D. I also recently decided to change that and am introducing a major dragon villian in both the games I run. The PCs will only encounter his/her minions (at first) but hopefully it will grow and expand from there.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

I haven't thrown a dragon at my group in years...my PCs are definitely overdue.

 

[Sejs]

Rarely. Maybe once every couple of campaigns.


However, when I do, I don't pull my punches. The players know they need to bring their A game or people gon' die.

 

[BlackMoria]

Before the current campaign, I would have one dragon or two in an entire campaign (most of my campaigns go from 1st to 20th). So dragons were very uncommon.

Current campaign is Age of Worms. And the party just finished Kings of the Rift, one of the adventures for AoW which had more dragons in that adventure alone than a dozen of my previous campaigns combined.

 

[Psion]

Well, in the campaign ending this weekend, a dragon appears every session... one of the PCs has a dragon cohort. (I learned that the stength of a dragon cohort is not its combat ability, but its senses.)

But as for featuring in my games - perhaps one or two nominally peaceful contacts per campaign, 1-2 fights with a dragon per campaign.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

I had to vote 'Use them rarely' as that is the case in my campaign history. Most campaigns I've run never saw a dragon.

That said my current game is dragon heavy - the players have already killed two dragons and are very aware of another that currently hopelessly outclasses them but which one day they may be able to challenge.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I have only used a flyover once in the last 5 years.
I just like to wait until characters are in their teen levels to use them and that doesnt happen to often due to real life for the most part.

 

[paradox42]

One of the PCs in my Epic game is actually a dragon- so I use 'em pretty often. In fact, the party in that game is heavily tied up in the intrigues behind the current civil war among dragonkind, and are also among the first to try to deal with an invasion by powerful new dragon types of mysterious origin (Epic dragons courtesy of the ELH and some homebrewing by yours truly).

 

[pogre]

I enjoy painting dragons - and you know I have to use them! In a campaign from levels 1 to 20 a half dozen dragon encounters would not be unusual.

 

[Sketchpad]

I use them on occasion ... usually as plot hooks