Would you have been upset if Gold Dragons WERE LG?

[Shroomy]

I wouldn't have cared if they had kept its original alignment. That said, I have no problems with the change; if I want a LG gold dragon it my campaign, then I'll have a LG gold dragon.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Same as they are, but with LG instead of Unaligned in the statblock?

I would have been deeply confused. "It's a statblock, so I'm supposed to fight it, but it's LG, so I'm not supposed to fight it?"

Making the gold dragon LG is a deeper thing than what it says under "alignment" in the green box to me.

 

[Klaus]

I agree with Bananas.

I think there was a missed opportunity to posit the gold as a besieged remant of the glory days of Arkhosia, the sole breed of dragonkind that stands true to Bahamut's laws... to a fault. This strict adherence to the tenets of honor and justice drove the old empire to war and decline, and to this day gold dragons can't compromise. Which leads to golds being the most enigmatic, reclusive and endangered dragon species (and "species" is pushing it... more like "handful of individuals").

 

[Agamon]

I think there was a missed opportunity to posit the gold as a besieged remant of the glory days of Arkhosia, the sole breed of dragonkind that stands true to Bahamut's laws... to a fault. This strict adherence to the tenets of honor and justice drove the old empire to war and decline, and to this day gold dragons can't compromise. Which leads to golds being the most enigmatic, reclusive and endangered dragon species (and "species" is pushing it... more like "handful of individuals").

That's a cool idea. I think I'll use that for my game.

See what I did there?

 

[Wormwood]

I think there was a missed opportunity to posit the gold as a besieged remant of the glory days of Arkhosia, the sole breed of dragonkind that stands true to Bahamut's laws... to a fault. This strict adherence to the tenets of honor and justice drove the old empire to war and decline, and to this day gold dragons can't compromise. Which leads to golds being the most enigmatic, reclusive and endangered dragon species (and "species" is pushing it... more like "handful of individuals").

I am *soooo* stealing this.

Enjoy your xp.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think there was a missed opportunity to posit the gold as a besieged remant of the glory days of Arkhosia, the sole breed of dragonkind that stands true to Bahamut's laws... to a fault. This strict adherence to the tenets of honor and justice drove the old empire to war and decline, and to this day gold dragons can't compromise. Which leads to golds being the most enigmatic, reclusive and endangered dragon species (and "species" is pushing it... more like "handful of individuals").

I hit you for XP earlier in the thread, but this shows it more.

Lawful. Good. Adversarial. A challenge to overcome and a showcase of a complex personality. Something that makes the world richer. Heck, this take on them may have merited combat statblocks, even.

If they would have been concept-designed from the beginning as something like this, they would be so much better than what we have now, which is just another statblock amongst thousands, and yet another murder-machine to attach it to.

I'm bored with stat blocks.

 

[Starfox]

I like to think of dragons as basically unclassed and unaligned. Under this rule, all dragons are one race. As they grow into an ethos and mature, they take on their true form and develop into one of the classic dragon colors/metals. Only the best of the best turn golden.

Of course, this take on dragons is a much larger change than just making then LG or unaligned in the book, and doesn't depend on the book for background/personality anyway. its a setting-specific thing.

 

[Harlekin]

I agree with Bananas.

I think there was a missed opportunity to posit the gold as a besieged remant of the glory days of Arkhosia, the sole breed of dragonkind that stands true to Bahamut's laws... to a fault. This strict adherence to the tenets of honor and justice drove the old empire to war and decline, and to this day gold dragons can't compromise. Which leads to golds being the most enigmatic, reclusive and endangered dragon species (and "species" is pushing it... more like "handful of individuals").

While this is a really cool idea, it is also a very specific concept. Thus it limits where I can use golden dragons in my game; the background snippets given in the MM aim to be as open as possible. I think you could use this as a seed for a Dungeon article, though.

An unrelated question would be if strict adherence to the tenets of honor an justice would result necessarily in LG behavior. By old alignments, such a behavior could also be considered LN, which would map to unaligned in 4th ed.

 

[Kishin]

Wouldn't have cared, don't care now. Dragons are whatever alignment I want them to be, just like everything else. They did originally line up along chromatic/metallic alignment lines in the setting I used for the last campaign, but the end of the campaign effectively fragmented them (and the Bahamut-Tiamat dynamic at the heart of it) at the campaign's conclusion.

I think there was a missed opportunity to posit the gold as a besieged remant of the glory days of Arkhosia, the sole breed of dragonkind that stands true to Bahamut's laws... to a fault. This strict adherence to the tenets of honor and justice drove the old empire to war and decline, and to this day gold dragons can't compromise. Which leads to golds being the most enigmatic, reclusive and endangered dragon species (and "species" is pushing it... more like "handful of individuals").

Also ganking and modifying this a tad to run with if I ever do a sequel to the aforementioned campaign. Opens up a lot of opportunities in that regard. Brilliantly done, Klaus.

 

[Desdichado]

No, I would not have been. In fact, I'm struggling to imagine a situation that I'd care less about.