D&D 5E Is Neil Gaiman Wrong?

[WBruce]

Can dragons be defeated?

Sure they can, but is it plausible? I know, I know, plausibility, is something subjective when we are talking about a magical fantasy world, so let me better explain where I am coming from and where am I going.

I have a player that totally despise the idea of beings from the size of a dragon's toe facing a Gargantuan Magical Intelligent beast. He can't concede on that. There is no argument, no magic weapon, no number of warriors, nothing. In his words "We would need an army, all fully equipped with very powerful weapons, and a lot of luck to get a small chance to survive. There is no such thing as a dragon hunt."

Neil Gaiman said that one of the reasons why he wrote Coraline was because he wanted to tell his kids that dragons could be defeated. He even quoted GK Chesterton on it.
So, how do you cope with that?
How do you make you dragon quests plausible and interesting?
Is my player right? Or Gaiman/Chesterton are ?
What do you think?

 

[Guest 6801328]

In before “15 hp dragon”.

 

[iserith]

Dragons are just symbolic representations of our fears. It's chaos that needs to be brought brought back into balance with order.

But in a physical sense, I see nothing but opportunity in your player's desire to raise an army equipped with powerful weapons to face the dragon. Pulling together enough people to risk their lives against this force of nature and finding the ancient weapons that will strike the final blow could fill many a session with exciting, memorable adventure.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

"Stop dragon my heart around." Tom Petty, probably.

 

[Zaukrie]

I admit I sympathize with your player. But, if that was the case, the world would be in ruins......there has to be a way to win.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I admit I sympathize with your player. But, if that was the case, the world would be in ruins......there has to be a way to win.

Okay, Kirk.

What is this? The Kobayashi Maru of D&D scenarios?

 

[Morrus]

Depends on the dragons, I suppose. Game of Thrones had dragons injured quite easily. The Hobbit takes the opposite approach (but gives Smaug one weak spot). In most fiction, people aren't the size of a dragon's toe -- that's much larger than dragons tend to be.

Here's a GoT dragon. Nasty breath weapon, but arrows and spears injure it and it has to retreat.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Gargantuan dragons are pretty rare. Most of the dragons that PCs fight will be crocodile to elephant-sized.

Even so, that still sounds unlikely for a normal person to be able to realistically fight one.
However a high-level martial character is way beyond "normal". They're at the same power level as people who can manifest wishes, raise the dead, and transform into dragons themselves.
Think about mythic heroes or demigods fighting dragons or similar beasts in legends rather than trying to compare with what a low-level real-life human could do.

 

[Flamestrike]

We likely couldnt kill a dragon with a pointy stick.

Pretty much every member of the Avengers could.

DnD PC's are not equal to real life warriors and heroes; they're literal superheroes. You can throw an 11th level unarmed and unarmoured fighter into a bear pit with half a dozen Grizzly bears, and he wins.

If he happened to be a Monk (or armed with a sword) you could toss a dozen or more in there and he wins.

Dont judge your fantasy heroes according to the standards of real life people. These are beings that from mid level onwards control epic reality altering magic, or routinely do superhuman things; consorting with Demon Lords and Gods, travelling the planes of reality, dealing with Psionic creatures, dinosaurs, undead monsters, creatures that can literally hurl blasts of flame or project forcefields and fly, teleporting, carting around artifacts of legend etc.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If gargantuan dragons walked the earth, we humans would not be where we currently stand in terms of learning and technology. Our societies would have been molded around having to try and survive when these massive flying creatures existed.

I mean, when did "humans" start gaining traction as a species? Only after the dinosaurs went extinct. Those massive carnivorous creatures that could destroy our crops, break our homes, maul us indiscriminently and resist our weapons would not have allowed us to advance in the same way we did had we had to exist together this entire time.