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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6985384" data-attributes="member: 42582">Find a single post where I have "demanded" anything of anyone. Or complained about the system being broken or the designers bad. Hint: you won't. (My most recent comments on the designers were something about Mearls, and on Crawford in the current hiding thread - of the latter I described him as obviously very intelligent, and the former I described as one of the leading RPG designers of all time.)Maybe you're projecting some issue you have with someone or something else onto me?Here's a fact: you, Sacrosanct - despite your username - don't get to define what RPGing is.So when you tell some other poster - me or anyone else - that we're not roleplaying even though that's how we describe what we're doing, you're being pejorative. Because you have no licence to decide what counts as RPGing and what doesn't.There are many FRPGs in which the mechanical design of creatures is quite central to their expression at the table, and thus to establsihing their place in the fiction. Here are some that I'm familiar with: AD&D, B/X D&D, 4e D&D, Rolemaster, HARP, Runequest, Burning Wheel. The only FRPG I'm familiar with that does not rely on mechanics for this, but purely on GM narration and adjudication of the fiction, is HeroQuest revised. (As I think I noted upthread, T&T comes pretty close but uses some tweaks to its core engine to deal with magical AoEs.)If someone is complaining that they think the design of 5e monsters doesn't deliver in this respect, it doesn't follow that they're not roleplaying. Maybe they think a dragon should be mechanically threatening without having to make it into a spellcaster.Here's a letter to Dragon no 101 (Sep '85):After reading #98 and seeing the following quotes, I feel moved to comment. “Adventurers should give dragons a healthy degree of respect.” — Roger Moore “The largest and oldest dragons are tougher, and they provide an even greater challenge to high-level characters . . .” — Leonard Carpenter I agree, but even mid-level (7-11) AD&D game characters go dragon hunting. Where are the wyrms of fairy tales, the great dragons who once commanded fear and respect? Glad you asked. Answer — in the D&D® game system, specifically the Companion Set. Parties of 20th, 25th, and even 30th level hear tales of big dragons with incredible hoards — and go elsewhere, to save their skins! Doubt me? Picture this: The seven 25th-level characters are all invisible, flying, wearing +5 everything, and carrying the mightiest weapons known to man. They cautiously proceed up a mountainside, toward the dragon’s reputed lair. Suddenly and soundlessly, gliding over the sprawling arms of the mountain on the gusty air currents, a great red dragon appears. In mere seconds, it swoops down, picks up three victims — one in each claw, and one hapless soul in its jaws — and flies on, disappearing over the next ridge. The survivors know that a single breath from the beast may inflict over 150 points of damage. Thus, though still well-equipped, they quickly retreat towards town for as many reinforcements as they can gather. But the dragon returns after its short snack, much sooner than expected. The characters spot it coming, this time, and prepare . . . but there is not enough time. A vast winged fury, the beast breathes as it swoops in. As it hovers briefly, it kicks over two characters with its rear feet, knocks another head over heels with its great tail (disarming him in the process), and adds the usual attacks from bite and claws. End of round one. In round two, the beast lands squarely on the cleric, crushing her. Though the two victims of the kicks are fleeing, now 60 feet away, the dragon lashes out at them with its wings, buffeting the victims soundly and stunning them. It then looks around, deciding which to eat first, and gets ready to breathe again, to have a nice hot meal . . . but that’s enough of this sad tale. They’re not indestructible, but they are powerful. Woe to the unwary traveler, who heeds not the tales of the great wyrms of the far mountains. And it is lucky that the dragons avoid the cities of man, knowing full well the inherent danger of that species, hazardous even for them. Let us hope that they continue to live far away, out of the reach of all but the bravest and most powerful of adventurers. The new, revised D&D game — it’s not just for kids.The author of that letter? Frank Mentzer. He recognised that, in a mechanically heavy game like D&D, for a creature to be expereinced as threatening in the fiction it needs corresponding mechanical capabilities. The dragon he describes has action economy (claw, bite, rear leg, wing and tail attacks), action denial (disarm, stun) and AoE (powerful breath weapon). I think this is the sort of thing that posters have in mind when they express a desire for more mechanically sophisticated/threatening monsters in 5e.This is all just verbiage. I mean, take "can't do anything other thant what's listed as a power in a statblock" - if you really meant that, why would you make your dragon's spellcasters? (As per your post 129, four posts on in the thread from the one I'm replying to.) I mean, why can't the dragons at your table mesmerise enemies with their eyes (like Glaurung in the Silmarillion) unless you equip them with some sort of Charm or Dominate spell. Are you just playing your dragons like pieces on a battlemap? Shame on you!I posted links to about three-dozen actual play threads. Before you start talking nonsense about how I play D&D, read one or two of them.</blockquote>

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