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Message: <blockquote data-quote="stevelabny" data-source="post: 6339989" data-attributes="member: 9298">I like that philosophy in general. My problem here is specifically - the folk hero has "get rid of the dragon" as his personal goal. If we're giving inspiration as a game mechanic for players role-playing, the folk hero isn't going to want to NOT go after the dragon.   The druid first tries to chase the party off before they get killed, then asks them to fight the dragon.  So there's a wise, old NPC familiar with the situation that is thinking they have a chance to defeat it.  I think these are meta-game pointers telling the PCs to try it.  I think if the Starter Set DM is also a 1st timer, he won't realize what the PCs are getting into. And if they walk into that room looking for a fight, the dragon will hover and breathe and have a decent chance of getting a TPK in round 1.  No chance for the party to realize their error and run. The encounter either needs more tactics to explain why the dragon doesn't breathe instantly and gives PCs time to re-assess and escape or information about what happens if you try diplomacy like some of the other boss fights or to have the nudges like the personal goal removed. Without those changes, I think this encounter becomes a trap, and the exact type of thing that players who complained about older edition DMs would use as an example.</blockquote>