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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 4:43AM
#31
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Date Joined:
Sep 22, 2009
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Actually, everything in the MM IS meant to be fought. Because if you aren't going to fight it, then the things that the MM shows, like AC and how much damage it does when it bites you, are 100% irrelevant.
Depends on the campaign. Everything in the MM is supposed to be fightable.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 6:03AM
#32
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2011
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I think with chromatic dragons, they do bad things just because they are evil and horrible. With metallics, I think they have to have solid reason to do bad things, which makes it harder to work them into an adventure. Also, most players expect metallic dragons to be good, or at least not evil.
So I think just as a chromatic could act in a good way for its own interest, a metallic could behave evilly if circumstances happened that way.
I think it would be unusual for PCs to battle a metallic, but not unheard of. I would expect an intriguing story to back it up.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 8:13AM
#33
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Date Joined:
Mar 14, 2009
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Being overly formalized absolutely KILLS roleplaying, so it is something that needs to be kept fairly loose, and left to the DM + players. But definitely monsters don't need huge statblocks of roleplaying aspects. Fluff text can be helpful, but also risks being TL;DR.
From personal experience, I would say that the more a rulebook speaks about other kind of interactions/obstacles than mere fighting, the more the players tend to interest themselves in these situations. I think it is a psychological thing ( rather, I am sure of it) : you tend to play (and role play) with what the rulebook put in your mind first. With experience at the table, you'll tend to play according to what you lived at the table, or what you've read in novels or seen in movies, but at first, your are in the mindset that reading the rules put you into.
I understand the point of view of 4E designers : players need more rules and clarification on combat, because they can build the role playing part themselves. But combat then becomes the thing that your mind is focused on when you read the books, and it becomes an obstacle to other "styles" of play. Not because the game can't be "role played", but because you tend to focus on the things the books talk about. It's a perception issue.
Maybe having a "personality" block, or "uses" block for each ennemy , with an eye catching layout (like the stat blocks) could have helped. A list of character traits, or kind of out of combat situations and behaviors, could have helped both DMs and players to wrap their mind around the idea that dragons, for instance, can also be talked to, bargained with, entertained, etc. Would not have changed much, but would have given ideas and mental images "seeding" the mind of players for a wider game experience.
Something like what the designers did with terrain : talk abot it a lot, provide some simple rules (terrain powers), etc, and suddenly terrain becomes more important than before in the mind of DMs and players.
I know it may sound silly. But I really think (after reading dozens and dozens of rule books, for RPGs, video games or board games) that this kind of ... let's say "widening" of the writing, especially if it includes simple rules or advices on how it can be played/resolved, is beneficial to the game and its users.
Remember Tunnel Seventeen !
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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 10:53AM
#34
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I think with chromatic dragons, they do bad things just because they are evil and horrible. With metallics, I think they have to have solid reason to do bad things, which makes it harder to work them into an adventure. Also, most players expect metallic dragons to be good, or at least not evil.
So I think just as a chromatic could act in a good way for its own interest, a metallic could behave evilly if circumstances happened that way.
I think it would be unusual for PCs to battle a metallic, but not unheard of. I would expect an intriguing story to back it up.
Or, its species could be utterly irrelevant to its moral and ethical decisions.
What a concept.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 12:05PM
#35
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- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
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Sorry, I'm a metallic-dragons-are-good kind of guy. It's more of a throwback to 3.5 when the issue of good dragons was less contestable, but I see no reason to change my perspective. As far as I'm concerned, they're mostly sworn protectors of the land and defenders of human(oid)ity.
Having said that, I enjoy pitting parties against good-aligned (but misguided or overly-vindictive) enemies. It elicits the same moral awkwardness as putting a bundle of goblin babies in front of them, and I think that if a fight should arise against a good dragon, it should be as a result of conflicting plans for good, a grievous misunderstanding (or mistake; no dragon bears an insult), or something similar.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 12:07PM
#36
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2004
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Actually, everything in the MM IS meant to be fought. Because if you aren't going to fight it, then the things that the MM shows, like AC and how much damage it does when it bites you, are 100% irrelevant.
Depends on the campaign. Everything in the MM is supposed to be fightable.
Okay, I suppose I'll buy that way of putting it.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 12:08PM
#37
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2004
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I think with chromatic dragons, they do bad things just because they are evil and horrible. With metallics, I think they have to have solid reason to do bad things, which makes it harder to work them into an adventure. Also, most players expect metallic dragons to be good, or at least not evil.
So I think just as a chromatic could act in a good way for its own interest, a metallic could behave evilly if circumstances happened that way.
I think it would be unusual for PCs to battle a metallic, but not unheard of. I would expect an intriguing story to back it up.
Or, its species could be utterly irrelevant to its moral and ethical decisions.
What a concept.
Yep.
I know the concept of 'all beings of this particular species are good' (or evil) is a comon fantasy trope. But its one that I have never cared for and avoid in my games.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 14, 2012 - 2:54PM
#38
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Yep.
I know the concept of 'all beings of this particular species are good' (or evil) is a comon fantasy trope. But its one that I have never cared for and avoid in my games.
*HighFive*
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 15, 2012 - 10:00AM
#39
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Date Joined:
Sep 19, 2007
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Good dragons also make strange questgivers, cause you always need a reason why they just don't do it themselves.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 15, 2012 - 2:23PM
#40
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It seems to me that in almost every game I've been a player in these days, metallic dragons are often depicted as only slightly less evil than their chromatic counterparts. In the last game I DM'd the players became extremely wary around a Lawful Good gold dragon that genuinely wanted to help the PCs fight against an entrenched cult of Tiamat in Skuld (Mulhorand was not destroyed in my Faerun). And I can count other times when I would introduce a metallic dragon and the PCs would either attack it on sight or be overly cautious with them.
Would it seem that Good-aligned metallic dragons are dwindling in games these days?
My homebrew setting has lots of dragons in it, of all sorts of colors. Mostly dragons don't spend a lot of time worrying about mortal affairs though. The good ones may 'keep humans' sort of like we herd cattle. They're nice enough about it, but humans are clearly not in the same league with dragons as far as the dragons are concerned. Some of the most noble of dragons may ally with say a powerful dwarf kingdom and treat them with respect, but you never know what the plans of a dragon are or what it needs or wants.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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