Dragons - how often do you use them?

[Kid Socrates]

I voted "use often," even though it doesn't feel that way. A cult is trying to free the seven-headed dragon Tiamat from imprisonment by raising Aspects of Tiamat that correspond to one of the seven chained heads. If the party defeats the dragon and kills it, the chain holding that head is broken, bringing Tiamat one step closer to freedom. If they don't fight the Aspect, it carries out its general purpose (Aspect of Fire, Aspect of Plague, Aspect of War, to give you an idea), generally causing mayhem and havoc throughout the land.

When they realized the double-edged sword the Aspects bring about, they thought it was brilliant and worth chucking a d8 at me.

So I'm using about eight dragon encounters total, plus the dragon Bahamut will get involved for the summoner PC.

In my next game, I probably won't use them quite as much.

 

[The Shaman]

There were no dragons in my 3.0 homebrew campaign setting - they were extirpated from the world millenia before the time of the adventurers. The possibility existed for dragons to reappear, but it never happened in the course of the game.

 

[Nomad4life]

Well, in the setting I created, there is only one of each type of dragon left in the world. They’re not very active, tend to their own business (amassing ancient artifacts and forbidden knowledge, etc) and stay far away from the shot-lived affairs of mortals. It has been folklore for many hundreds of years that these dragons cannot be killed, and most people (the ones that still believe in dragons, or even know of them) take this as fact, so nobody really bothers them, or the small cults that serve them.

There are several reasons for this setup; One reason is that I had “dragon burn-out” near the end of second edition AD&D. Our gamemaster at that time was dragon obsessed, and used them all the time. More often than not, meeting these dragons resulting in aggravating TPKs (no matter how well we planned, or how polite we tried to be, something always went wrong.) I didn’t like this dragons-a-plenty style of game, as I felt it kind of “cheapened” what should be the signature icon of the game itself.

Dragons are so much cooler to me when the players are more terrified of what one might be doing, rather than being terrified of what they are doing, if that makes any sense.

The other reason I tend to avoid dragons is that I think their CRs are way off. Not just sort of off. Not just kind of off. Waaaaaaaay off. (But to be fair, I probably believe this as magic items are almost as rare and feared as dragons in my games, and you pretty much need those to survive such encounters?)

So, I voted “I never use dragons” even though that’s not quite true. The dragons are always there. The players are free to try and interact with one at any time. They just... Don’t (and wisely so.)

 

[kigmatzomat]

I think i was intimiated by them as well. Afraid that I would use them poorly and the encounter would be a 'hoo-hum another monster to kill' affair.

You'll never use them well if you never use them. And, of course, practice makes perfect.

I actually had my players help me perfect draconic combat by training with and against a young dragon. The dragon had no experience fighting armed humanoids but was death on toast when it came to aerial opponents (yrthak, giant eagles, etc). It teamed up with the PCs and was willing to help them perfect their skills when fighting dragons if they'd help him perfect his skills fighting people. (The party plans to come in conflict with a powerful dragon with an army's worth of minions. The expectation is the allied dragon can keep the army busy while the PCs go for the enemy dragon.)

Use younger dragons in appropriate places; remember that the 'teen-agers' will eventually be kicked out of the lair and told to find their own way and not all of them survive. Elder dragons could have treaties that protect their offspring and also guarantee the local populace will not suffer their predations. A rogue young dragon, possibly of different parents, could take advantage of that. Depending on the social interaction between your elder dragons, it could be best to use human dragonhunters to kill or drive off the rogue. Enter heroes!

 

[GQuail]

The game is called Dungeons and Dragons for a reason: most beginners who come will, if they know nothing else of fantasy fiction, want to be like their childhood fairytale heroes and kill a dragon. Note that almost every D&D starter set features a Dragon in some capacity: either the end boss of a dungeon or just a set of stats for a "thing just low enough level that your first PCs can try to take it"

In my campaigns I'll often throw one in after a few levels: waiting long enough so I can actually use a reasonably powerful one. In my current campaign my 5th level PCs got to face off against three wyrmling Blue Dragons, and now at 10th level they are dealing with a Dragon cult who are going to be making steps to get their hands on Dracolich creation tomes, so more Dragons are definatly in their future.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I voted frequently-

I had two campaigns set in the green isles which is overrun by dragons. The shorter game was PbP which fought 2 dragons, killing one. The other at least eight that figured prominatly in a campaign that reached 10th level. 3 were killed taking 4 PCs with them; 2 were allies; one was a wyrmling in the process of becoming a familiar; one allied with some PCs, and persecuted others (depending on party make-up)

In the current (more standard) game there have only been 2 in the last year. A White and an Emerald, each making 2-4 apperances. Just lately both crashed the wedding (see sig)
Before this (but in the same campaign) there were two metallics and a single red, over 3 years.