Metallic Dragons: Unaligned!?

[Piratecat]

It was broken. Your nostalgia just doesn't let you recognize that fact.

No, I disagree with this, and I'm on the "I like unaligned metallic dragon" side of the fence. They weren't broken earlier, they just weren't particularly useful or fun for me as a DM. That's why I'm glad they changed the alignment; it's taken a perfectly serviceable but not particularly flexible NPC and plot device, and changed it into something that can easily be NPC, plot device, antagonist or rival. For my campaign, that means better plot hooks and more fun for me.

 

[stonegod]

Since Eberron came out, I've been pretty much ignoring alignment on everything, especially dragons. This change reflects the way I've been using the metallics; their refusal to do the same w/ chromatics gets a shrug from me. I just need dragons of all stripes.

 

[Dire Bare]

Now they say that their new DnD is pillars of light in the darkness. Show me one. Anyone one printed in a core book. I want to know what it is that the PCs have to live up to. What is that keeps their hopes alive at night, cause a votive to their god isn't going to do it forever. What creature will they see in the wilderness that makes them want to keep fighting for good?

Ah, you don't quite have it right here. It's not "pillars" of light, as in examples of purest goodness to aspire too . . . it's "points" of light, the small little areas of goodly (and normal) folk fighting back against the overwhelming darkness.

The town detailed in the DMG is a point of light. The towns detailed in WotC published adventures, both the retail adventures and Dungeon Magazine adventures, are points of light. You and your fellow adventurer's need to protect these endangered places from evil lest they disappear from the world!

 

[Derren]

No, I disagree with this, and I'm on the "I like unaligned metallic dragon" side of the fence. They weren't broken earlier, they just weren't particularly useful or fun for me as a DM. That's why I'm glad they changed the alignment; it's taken a perfectly serviceable but not particularly flexible NPC and plot device, and changed it into something that can easily be NPC, plot device, antagonist or rival. For my campaign, that means better plot hooks and more fun for me.

How exactly do unaligned metallic dragons make your game better? Isn't a normally good aligned dragon becoming an antagonist a better plot hook than having a unaligned dragon becoming one?
From a unaligned dragon this is nothing special, yet when a good aligned does that it hints at a bigger mystery.

 

[77IM]

How exactly do unaligned metallic dragons make your game better? Isn't a normally good aligned dragon becoming an antagonist a better plot hook than having a unaligned dragon becoming one?
From a unaligned dragon this is nothing special, yet when a good aligned does that it hints at a bigger mystery.

Thank you! That is what I have been trying to say all along, although you put it more succinctly. From another perspective: The Alignment is only a suggestion; the DM can make a creature any alignment he wants. So the argument that Unaligned makes them more useful as antagonists is false, since the DM still decides the alignment of each individual NPC.


I think the main problem WotC is trying to avoid with powerful good creatures is with DMs using them as Deus Ex Machina or with PCs thinking "hey, we'll just get the gold dragon to squash this necromancer." That's a legitimate world-design problem, but I think there are better solutions than just "oh, we won't have any good-aligned creatures."

-- 77IM

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Unaligned means they can be any alignment.

 

[Zaran]

Unaligned means they can be any alignment.

No it does not. Unaligned means exactly that. They are not aligned with good nor evil. If they wanted the creature to be any alignment they would put "Any" there.

 

[Dire Bare]

How exactly do unaligned metallic dragons make your game better? Isn't a normally good aligned dragon becoming an antagonist a better plot hook than having a unaligned dragon becoming one?
From a unaligned dragon this is nothing special, yet when a good aligned does that it hints at a bigger mystery.

How exactly do good-aligned metallic dragons make your game better?

There have been examples given in this thread already on "how exactly" does unaligned metallics make the game better. Just as there have been examples put forth showing how good metallics can be "better". Seems a wash to me.

You prefer good-aligned metallics, I prefer unaligned metallics. I don't reject that part of your opinion. I disagree with it, but as long as we're both having fun in our games I really don't care.

What I have issue with, and I think I'm not alone, is the idea that the change from good-aligned to unaligned has somehow lessened the game. It has certainly changed the background assumptions of the core setting . . . but has hardly weakened it.

I think I'm done in this thread. While there has been some good discussion of alignment, we're mostly at the point with one side repeating, "I'm okay with the change, but whatever floats your boat" and the other side repeating, "THIS IS WRONG! DESTROYS THE SETTING OF D&D! ACK! STURM! DRANG!" (sorry about the bias that just popped up there, but . . .)

 

[77IM]

Unaligned means they can be any alignment.

So does Lawful Good, Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Any.

-- 77IM

 

[Flipguarder]

No it does not. Unaligned means exactly that. They are not aligned with good nor evil. If they wanted the creature to be any alignment they would put "Any" there.

I honestly want to know your understanding of the difference of between the angels in MM1 and MM2 because the angels in the former are "any" while in the latter they are "unaligned".