Racist Dragons

[Derren]

Looking at the new Sorcerer class, his abilities depend on what type of dragon he descended from, which is not a problem. What I do object to is the way the dragons are named. Every other species with variants has a meaningful variety - hill dwarves live in the hills, mountain dwarves in the mountains; lightfoot halflings are kender, stout halflings hobbits, etc. But what does the name blue dragon tell about the dragon? Nothing except that it has blue scales and, due to the chromatic-metallic nomenclature, that it's evil. But without looking it up nor knowing beforehand, how does the name show a white dragon to be any different? White scales. Fifth edition doesn't seem to want to break with tradition, but I wouldn't mind seeing more evocative names; even "swamp dragon" and "snow dragon" would be better.

No they would be much, much worse.
Also has 4E really ignored dragons that much so that all the lore about them from 2E and 3E has been forgotten?

Use the 2E/3E lore for dragons and it will tell you much more about them than "hill dwarves" about a dwarf.
Blue dragons for example mostly live in deserts in a very rigid social structure (unique among the rather chaotic chromatic dragons) and are master illusionists which are often used to trick enemies or torture them by mirages of water sources.

4E has removed a lot of such lore because monsters were only there for combat, but look at the older editions and you will find enough.

Mod Note: Folks, trash-talking a game in a thread about other things is lame, and pretty obvious edition warring. Please don't do it. Thanks. ~Umbran

 

[Stormonu]

D&D dragons are so iconic that I sometimes react negatively when dragons in other creative works aren't color coded.

Yeah, like when the black dragon in Wrath of the Dragon Lord started breathing fire instead of acid.


...Wait, did I just admit I watched that movie?

 

[SLOTHmaster]

Really?

Well, and that it's a dragon. And knowing the previous editions that it breaths acid and lives in the desert...

 

[Hussar]

Dragons: Color coded for your convenience.

 

[Cadfan]

I've always preferred monsters on the scale of dragons to be named NPCs (even if non sentient) with their own unique attributes. Unfortunately, their mere color carries so much baggage that I literally cannot use them without spending half the time they're around repeatedly explaining that their color doesn't automatically tell you everything about them.

As a result, in Dungeons and Dragons, I've given up on dragons.

I suppose things would be different if I were running a campaign like, I dunno, Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, where all PCs and any NPCs of note have their own personal dragon.

 

[Mercule]

Sorry. Color coded dragons are a sacred cow. I hadn't really thought about it until this thread, but they have to stay. Period.

But... I'm not above occasionally screwing with the players. Like that time that volcano-dwelling, red-hued dragon turned out to be a fiendish silver dragon who was immune to cold and breathed ice. Or Eberron-like soft alignments.

 

[TrippyHippy]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00uaB51ivXU]Albi The Racist Dragon - YouTube[/ame]