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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why Did They Change Gold Dragons?
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<blockquote data-quote="Aaron L" data-source="post: 7638924" data-attributes="member: 926"><p>In the 1st Edition of AD&D, Gold Dragons were presented as Asian-style Dragons; wingless and serpentine (flying through sheer magic.) This matched their presentation as wise, intelligent, and benevolent, befitting the mythology of Chinese and Japanese-style dragons. Gold Dragons stood out from all the other dragons by being drawn from Asian mythology instead of European, with the drawings in the Gold Dragon entries in the 1E Monster Manual showing a serpentine Chinese dragon, and the pseudo-scientific nomenclature given for each dragon type in the MM made this even more obvious by labeling them as <em>Draco Orientalus Sino Dux</em> (basically "Dragon Eastern Chinese Duke.")</p><p></p><p>(I just went back and checked, and apparently even though the 2E MM drawing shows a Gold Dragon without wings the text says that they do have wings but often polymorph into wingless forms to swim better. Too bad... the change started all the way back then.)</p><p></p><p>So why then did the later books change Gold Dragons to being plain old standard European-style dragons just like all the others? It's boring and it has always bothered me. Having Gold Dragons stand out as specifically Chinese-style always made them more interesting, but now they're just presented as being just like all the others. Was it just because the artists wanted to make all the dragons look the same? (I never did care for the 3rd Edition dragon art anyway; the way the muscles where the wings attach was made to be so over-exaggerated just looked gross to me. These creatures fly mostly by magic, giving them bigger wing muscles doesn't do anything to make it any more "realistic.")</p><p></p><p>Is anyone aware of any actual good reasons for the change? Or was it just the artist's decision? Was it to make all true dragons look more similar to show they all "evolved" from the same base? (Which is unnecessary anyway, being creatures of magic.) Because I think it was a very <em>poor</em> decision that removed a lot of flavor and variety from the game, flavor and variety that had shown D&D was drawn from worldwide mythological sources and not just from Europe.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aaron L, post: 7638924, member: 926"] In the 1st Edition of AD&D, Gold Dragons were presented as Asian-style Dragons; wingless and serpentine (flying through sheer magic.) This matched their presentation as wise, intelligent, and benevolent, befitting the mythology of Chinese and Japanese-style dragons. Gold Dragons stood out from all the other dragons by being drawn from Asian mythology instead of European, with the drawings in the Gold Dragon entries in the 1E Monster Manual showing a serpentine Chinese dragon, and the pseudo-scientific nomenclature given for each dragon type in the MM made this even more obvious by labeling them as [I]Draco Orientalus Sino Dux[/I] (basically "Dragon Eastern Chinese Duke.") (I just went back and checked, and apparently even though the 2E MM drawing shows a Gold Dragon without wings the text says that they do have wings but often polymorph into wingless forms to swim better. Too bad... the change started all the way back then.) So why then did the later books change Gold Dragons to being plain old standard European-style dragons just like all the others? It's boring and it has always bothered me. Having Gold Dragons stand out as specifically Chinese-style always made them more interesting, but now they're just presented as being just like all the others. Was it just because the artists wanted to make all the dragons look the same? (I never did care for the 3rd Edition dragon art anyway; the way the muscles where the wings attach was made to be so over-exaggerated just looked gross to me. These creatures fly mostly by magic, giving them bigger wing muscles doesn't do anything to make it any more "realistic.") Is anyone aware of any actual good reasons for the change? Or was it just the artist's decision? Was it to make all true dragons look more similar to show they all "evolved" from the same base? (Which is unnecessary anyway, being creatures of magic.) Because I think it was a very [I]poor[/I] decision that removed a lot of flavor and variety from the game, flavor and variety that had shown D&D was drawn from worldwide mythological sources and not just from Europe. [/QUOTE]
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Why Did They Change Gold Dragons?
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