Shifting gears to focus on biker women would be a less dramatic turn, but still significantly more dramatic than a group of knights allying with a group of dragons and learning to ride them in D&D.
No one is suggesting D&D shouldn’t have the possibility for knights to ride dragons. (Although there’s a whole other setting about that, it’s called Dragonlance, you may have heard of it.)
Whereas the practice of dragon-riding hasn’t been common in FR nor most other D&D settings because it kind of changes the nature of dragons in those settings, from superintelligent beings into draft animals. There are power assumptions inherent in dragon-riding in these game that have been seen as problematic for 45 years already.
None of this is my primary objection to PDKs riding amethyst dragons.
The name being misleading is the initial impetus for the change.
It’s only misleading because, per your own admission, you don’t know and don’t care to learn why this group is called the “Purple Dragon Knights”. You’re giving “french fries come from France” energy here.
New and interesting things happening in a setting is not bastardizing it.
See above, re: “Downton Abbey bikini babes on motorcycles”. Your version of “new and interesting” is absolutely bastardizing to anyone invested in the existing setting, you just don’t see it because you admittedly don’t care at all about the existing setting.
Maybe I think your kitchen would be a lot more “new and interesting” with a giant hole in the floor in front of the refrigerator. I don’t care about your kitchen, but that would be super interesting to me! Surely you’d love a new and interesting pit in your kitchen floor, wouldn’t you? No? Oh, because you care about your kitchen? But I don’t care about your kitchen, so I think you kitchen is a perfectly fine place to put a new and interesting hole.
You may not like the new direction, but it’s pretty extreme to act like new developments are automatically disrespecting previous lore.
New developments do NOT automatically disrespect previous lore. But PDKs all riding around on their pet amethyst dragons certainly does! Like, why are PDKs all riding these dragons when previously they never did? And why are amethyst dragons (rare in FR, even compared to other dragons!) apparently all subservient to the PDK organization now?
People objected to this change because it’s nonsensical, not because it’s implausible. Just like motorcycles and women’s swimwear existed in Edwardian Britain, it would still be nonsensical to make bikini babes on motorcycles a major focus of Downton Abbey. Thankfully, WotC acknowledged their own mistake.
It doesn’t. I’m just one person sharing my opinion. I don’t seem to be alone in that opinion.
Cool, I guess it’s a majority vote then? That your cohort already lost because WotC scuttled the UA lore?
From the look of the art, that aspect of FR isn’t being preserved anyway. Purple Dragon Knights riding amethyst dragons looks to be a thing that is going to be happening in the story regardless. It’s just that the subclass isn’t going to be mechanically tied to them any more.
If so, whatever. Wouldn’t be the first time that art direction was more about looking cool than making sense.
Purple dragons aren’t even a thing in FR, are they?
They’re more commonly called “deep dragons” but yes they have a long history in FR. You’d know this if you cared enough to learn about FR before saying that the setting needs to be changed to become more “new and interesting”.
