Metallic Dragons: Unaligned!?

[Dire Bare]

For examples, Angels and Unicorns. If you ask 100 average people on the street if those are good, neutral, or evil, the vast majority will say good.

It is certainly true that unicorns are typically seen as "good" creatures. But in the long history of D&D monster stats, we've had more examples of neutral or evil unicorn variants than than the single example of the "base" unicorn stats.

WotC simply decided, "Why make unicorns inherently good, when we'll eventually turn around and publish the black unicorn and blood unicorn (etc) stats? Let's just make them more neutral to begin with, than specific examples of unicorns can be good and have a thing for virgins, and others can be unaligned or neutral."

Same could be said of dragons, couatl and many other traditionally good creatures. WotC did a lot of research into HOW most people actually played D&D. And they found that most players did not need stats for good aligned opponents, but plenty of evil and neutral exceptions and variants were created so players could fight metallic dragons and unicorns.

The keywords here is "most people" and not "all players". Obviously there are those who disagree with WotC's new game design and resent the various changes to the implied "core" D&D setting . . . but WotC is banking on those folks being in the minority and that the changes will appeal to the majority and help reel in new players. They could be wrong, of course, but WotC didn't make these choices in a vacuum, they did a lot of research. And while we certainly have some folks loudly proclaiming sacrilige, we seem to have just as many (if not more) that either don't care about the changes or actually like them. I'm in that group.

 

[Piratecat]

Yep, its really interesting that those who defend unaligned good dragons and the general lack of good creatures are those who wish alignment would be gone entirely.

Not everyone. I really like alignment (preferring the pre-4e system that included LE and CG), and I vastly prefer unaligned metallic dragons and unicorns. Metallic dragons are far more interesting to me, and offer more plot hooks, than they ever have previously.

 

[Dire Bare]

Hmm, backing away from previous editions of D&D and more modern references for a moment (such as Dragonlance), were unicorns actually good (in myth or supposed history, or whatever)? I mean, there's a pretty big difference between 'tamed by a virgin girl' and 'good'. People supposedly hunted them for their horns, to cure poison, and presumably untamed means "will stick things with their horn" along with "runs away from people".

Dragons are almost universally not good, as far as I can tell. Sometimes helpful, but with their own agenda at best (and cruising for snacks often enough too).

Fey creatures that dance and have fun with you were good in some editions of dnd, but weren't they pretty much stealers of kids, waylayer of travelers, kidnappers, killers, etc?

Looking for myths and legends about actually _good_ creatures are pretty few and far between.

That said, I don't see that metallic dragons being unaligned changes anything about some campaign worlds. Dragonlance dragons are still Good and Evil. Except, y'know, all those ones on the other continent that aren't And the, like, single unicorn in the world is good... but more because that's what it is, and less because it's a unicorn you'd fight.

I think you are dead on here. WotC is, in many instances, hewing closer to a more mythic interpretation of monsters than a pop-culture interpretation.

For examples, Angels and Unicorns. If you ask 100 average people on the street if those are good, neutral, or evil, the vast majority will say good.

In mainstream culture, angels are good. They were pretty pastel robes, have beautiful white wings, play harps, and watch over us all. Go back to the Bible and other early Judeo-Christian sources. Angles served God, but they did some nasty things in his name. Biblical angels always came across to me as amoral servants of a deity that was sometimes benevolent and sometimes quite vengeful. If you check out some books on "angelology" (and not the fru-fru new agey kind) you get this impression even more so when looking at Jewish, Muslim, and going farther back Zoroastrian interpretations of the servants of God.

The new D&D angels, which can be of any alignment and can serve any god, and often have themes around a particular purpose, hew more closely to the actual mythology of angels than the Aasimon (Devas, Planetars, Solars), Archons, and Asuras of previous editions did.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I don't have keterys' obvious disdain for alignments, but I find it hard to get worked up about alignment entries too. If the DM wants a monster to be Good, it's Good.

 

[NilesB]

"Chinese dragons (simplified Chinese: 龙; traditional Chinese: 龍; pinyin: lóng), and Oriental dragons generally, can take on human form and are usually seen as benevolent

And are as much Dragons in the sense that D&D uses the term as the Navaho and the Iroquois are natives of the Republic of India.

Dragons are defined and ruled by the sin of Avarice, it doesn't make sense to claim that they should be genetically saintly.

 

[Piratecat]

Go back to the Bible and other early Judeo-Christian sources. Angels served God, but they did some nasty things in his name. Biblical angels always came across to me as amoral servants of a deity that was sometimes benevolent and sometimes quite vengeful.

Not to sidetrack us onto a religious track, but this Straight Dope article is a tremendous source for inspiration and history on angels and divine servants.

 

[RedBeardJim]

In mainstream culture, angels are good. They were pretty pastel robes, have beautiful white wings, play harps, and watch over us all. Go back to the Bible and other early Judeo-Christian sources. Angles served God, but they did some nasty things in his name. Biblical angels always came across to me as amoral servants of a deity that was sometimes benevolent and sometimes quite vengeful.

Yeah, there was a reason the first thing the angel said to the shepherds was "Do not be afraid."

As far as dragons go, why would a creature that lives for hundreds, nay thousands of years, growing into a power that rivals the mightiest gods and demons, have motivations that bear any resemblance to the "good" and "evil" of ephemeral prey animals? I'd be happy if the chromatic dragons were presented as unaligned, too.

 

[keterys]

And what impression does that give to new players, many of them with WoW and other MMORPG experience? That everything that moves is a potential enemy and that if its not a player race its a mob which can be killed for XP?

I don't think that this is a good way to foster role playing.

I'm pretty sure if it _is_ a player race, it's as much capable of being an enemy as anything else.

Is it so bad a thing to have to choose your friends and enemies based on their actions, rather than a word? Are non-D&D sytems horrible, because their dragons are not color coded for your convenience?

 

[Bumbles]

Is it so bad a thing to have to choose your friends and enemies based on their actions, rather than a word?

Yes. In fact, I hate not being able to speak in a secret language with others of my own kind!

 

[Zaran]

I don't think that this is a good way to foster role playing.

I've been rather quiet since starting this thread but this statement right here strikes true to me. I feel that there is quite a bit lacking in 4e when it comes to fostering roleplaying. The game is so mechanics driven that even interactions outside of combat have been turned into skill challenges.

The alignments might just be one word but they are supposed to give some guideline to GMs when they are creating their story. I want to put emphasis on the word "story" because that's what a roleplaying game was designed for: To make a story that unfolds as the players roleplay their characters through.

To me, the monsters manuals shouldn't just be a list of monsters that would be used in a conflict, violent or non. It should be a catelog of non-player cast-members for the story. I find the fact that I need my third edition monster manuals and DMG to get useful background information extremely annoying. There should be good aligned monsters because the player characters are not going to be alone in the fight against evil and they should have stats as well because there will be times when the players will get to fight along side those monsters. When the first MM came out, I told my friends that the Metallic Dragons were left out because they were good creatures and not necessarily needed in the first round when they can put more monsters that can be fought into the game. Imagine my disappointment when they are put in and were made to be "adversaries" to quote the podcast that they just issued. Can I take a marker and scratch out the word and put in "Good"? Sure. But that doesn't change that fact that new dnd players will never know that gold dragons used to be one of the good guys and are now just greedy dragons that like to take control of weaker races.

I understand that there are many people out there that think this is just a silly arguement over something that doesn't matter in the game. Personally, I think that the things that don't matter in combat or the skill challenges make the game a roleplaying game and not just an analog instance multiplayer game. I also think that having threads like this does little . People, including the developers, have their minds set and aren't going to back down or change the game just because I feel like the game has moved away from story creation to dungeon simulation. I guess I made this thread because I wanted to protest the fact that something of the game that wasn't broken was altered for no reason other than so players can have "conflict" with a creature without having to be evil PCs.

By the way, while i won't mark out the word Unaligned in my book, the gold dragons in my game will be Good creatures. The same goes for unicorns and probably even angels, since i kind of think that devils and demons would take the roles of fallen angels and minions of evil gods. Not that anyone besides my own player group cares.