Fixed Alignment for Dragons?

[YossarianLives]

I've only just noticed that dragons have a fixed alignment. I can understand that all outsiders have an unchangeable alignment but dragons, really?

[M Placeholder]

Nope, the majority of Dragons haven't had a fixed allignment for ages. Eberron threw that out the window for Metallics and Chromatics, and remember, "Always (Alignment here)" does not mean that every member of a species is the same allignment.

[HyperDunkBarkly]

monster alignment can be whatever the DM stats them as.

but the DM should probably tell the group if s/he isn't going to be following stated alignment to the letter.

[Blackhawk748]

I've only just noticed that dragons have a fixed alignment. I can understand that all outsiders have an unchangeable alignment but dragons, really?

I agree with this, thus why in my games their alignment shifts from "Always" to "Usually". Gets really funny when they run into the LN Red Dragon King or the CG White Dragon.

[Bullet06320]

I agree with this, thus why in my games their alignment shifts from "Always" to "Usually". Gets really funny when they run into the LN Red Dragon King or the CG White Dragon.

or a CN Gold Dragon Arcane Trickster that serves Loki

[Blackhawk748]

or a CN Gold Dragon Arcane Trickster that serves Loki

Oh god yes.

"What, im totally a Paladin.... No thats not Loki thats... The Horned Knight... Ya thats it."

[OldTrees1]

I agree with this, thus why in my games their alignment shifts from "Always" to "Usually". Gets really funny when they run into the LN Red Dragon King or the CG White Dragon.

"Always" means to WotC what "Usually" means to you.

[Vhaidara]

"Always" means to WotC what "Usually" means to you.

This isn't even alignment specific.

Like, go through most of 3.5, replacing "Always" with "Usually" and it makes more sense.

[Psyren]

"Always" does not mean "no exceptions." It means "exceptions are very rare, and generally do not survive to maturity. If you find them, they tend to be loners, eccentrics, mutations, or the result of very singular circumstances."

Outsiders are simply (a) much less likely to have such exceptions since they are made of alignment, and (b) much more efficient at detecting and eradicating (or reforming) the few that come into being.

[hewhosaysfish]

Fixed alignments for dragons would make sense to me* if it had started out with all dragons being always evil, ravening monsters (as they generally are in popular myth... but with different color-coded breath-types to make the game moreinteresting) and then some smarty-pants came up with the idea of mirror-universe opposite-alignment versions of them, a la Drow for Elves, Scro for Orcs, etc.

I was going to blame Dragonlance but a quick trip to Wikipedia, tells me that that the metallic dragons were first published in the '77 MM but the first Dragonlance book wasn't published until '84...

Any grognards around that can provide some perspective on the evolution of dragon-kind?



*That's "make sense" as in "I can see why it would end up like that if it grew organically" rather than "makes sense" as in "if you were planning it from the start then that would be the logical best way to do it".

[Pippa the Pixie]

Any grognards around that can provide some perspective on the evolution of dragon-kind?


This is a 3X problem brought to you by the wacky far extremist 3X writers. See 3X was made to be very black and white. So the writers of 3X made things very simple rewrote the game rules to fit their worldview. This is why necromancy became evil and why lots of monsters had ''always'' added to their alignment description. So the 3X writer says ''red dragons are always chaotic evil, and if you don't like it too bad it's the rule''. And then they tacked on a small ''oh, you can have one unique alignment monster''.

Before 3X alignment was: Alignment shows the general behavior of the average monster of that type. Exceptions, though uncommon, may be encountered. And left it much more vague.

Though this is a time-frame thing too. Take 70's to 2000. People are just fine with saying fire is hot, ice is cold and red dragons are chaotic evil. Then go past 2000. Now everyone is saying everyone can be everything and all are special unique snowflakes that you can't put a sticker on. So you see the difference in the way of thinking.

[BWR]

Any grognards around that can provide some perspective on the evolution of dragon-kind?

I do know that Mystaran dragons were less explicitly fixed-alignment than most. There were strong tendencies and off-hand I can't remember any gold dragon baddie in a product, and when converted to 2e the only fixed element of their alignment was the Law-Chaos aspect. Reds tended to be evil and golds tended to be good, but all others were predominantly neutral. There was a good-evil percentage table you could roll for random dragons.

[OldTrees1]

This isn't even alignment specific.

Like, go through most of 3.5, replacing "Always" with "Usually" and it makes more sense.

Now that is interesting. I can't think of any examples right now but it would be consistent.

[hamishspence]

This is a 3X problem brought to you by the wacky far extremist 3X writers. See 3X was made to be very black and white. So the writers of 3X made things very simple rewrote the game rules to fit their worldview. This is why necromancy became evil and why lots of monsters had ''always'' added to their alignment description.

Necromancy (animate dead at least) had lots of "Not a good act, and only evil characters do it regularly" warnings long before 3.0 came around.

[Psyren]

This isn't even alignment specific.

Like, go through most of 3.5, replacing "Always" with "Usually" and it makes more sense.

But what do you replace Usually with? How do you tell the players and DM "most drow are evil, but EVEN MOST-ER demons/red dragons are evil" - what word conveys that?

[Amphetryon]

But what do you replace Usually with? How do you tell the players and DM "most drow are evil, but EVEN MOST-ER demons/red dragons are evil" - what word conveys that?

"A majority of drow are evil; a super-majority (or, if you prefer, the vast majority) of demons/red dragons are evil."

[Coidzor]

But what do you replace Usually with? How do you tell the players and DM "most drow are evil, but EVEN MOST-ER demons/red dragons are evil" - what word conveys that?

"Usually" and "Often" can convey two different degrees fairly well, at least relative to one another. Usually vs. Most would be a bit muddled. Many as a term would be fairly nonintuitive, I think.

I suppose Overwhelmingly would be a good term for where the majority is strongest but still has some variation, since it's even stronger of a term than usually but leaves enough of a possibility to not be interpreted the way "Always" would be.

Doesn't really work for uses of Always outside of the alignment and monster entries though. I don't think anyway. :smallconfused:

So off the cuff I'd probably bump Always up to a true Always, replace the current Always with Overwhelmingly, and then keep Usually and Often about where they are.

Figuring out a way to straight up replace "Usually" if Usually is used instead where "Always" currently is used is a bit tricky though, I'll admit. :smallconfused: Maybe Usually vs. Most vs. Often? I can't remember the full connotations of ubiquitous, but aside from being a fairly uncommon word it might work, since to me at least, it suggests finding examples of that alignment everywhere one finds Creature X but doesn't say that it's the only alignment one finds amongst Creature X.

[Psyren]

"A majority of drow are evil; a super-majority (or, if you prefer, the vast majority) of demons/red dragons are evil."

Alignment: Majority CE
Alignment: Vast Majority CE

Yeah, I can dig it being less confusing than "Always."



So off the cuff I'd probably bump Always up to a true Always, replace the current Always with Overwhelmingly, and then keep Usually and Often about where they are.


I like this one too. Very well.

[P.F.]

this is a time-frame thing too. Take 70's to 2000. People are just fine with saying fire is hot, ice is cold and red dragons are chaotic evil. Then go past 2000. Now everyone is saying everyone can be everything and all are special unique snowflakes that you can't put a sticker on. So you see the difference in the way of thinking.

This. Different-alignment monsters with an Alignment: Always ... entry should be very rare, special exceptions. Different-alignment monsters with the Often ... or Usually ... entry are more commonly encountered. Just imagine the difference in the conversation:

Orc: Don't kill me! I'm not evil!
PC: Well, I'm not sure I believe you, but we'll let you live for now.
Succubus: Don't kill me! I'm not evil either!
PC: Yeah you're not fooling anyone.

I suggest replacing "always" in your head with "almost always." That goes for everything, not just d20 stuff. Like when your S.O. says, "You always do this just before we have to be somewhere" just do yourself a favor and hear it as, "almost always," since there were at least those two times that you know you didn't.

[SillySymphonies]

Fixed alignments for dragons would make sense to me* if it had started out with all dragons being always evil, ravening monsters (as they generally are in popular myth... but with different color-coded breath-types to make the game moreinteresting) and then some smarty-pants came up with the idea of mirror-universe opposite-alignment versions of them, a la Drow for Elves, Scro for Orcs, etc.

I was going to blame Dragonlance but a quick trip to Wikipedia, tells me that that the metallic dragons were first published in the '77 MM but the first Dragonlance book wasn't published until '84...

Any grognards around that can provide some perspective on the evolution of dragon-kind?

From D&D Monster Origins (http://rpg.crg4.com/originsD.html#dragon):

Originally there were the five "chromatic" and evil dragons, each with a color that suited their breath weapon, and a sixth good dragon patterned on the Oriental model of that imaginary creature. As it was both or different origination and alignment I decided to empower the gold dragon so as to more closely resemble the potent Oriental sort. So it got more of everything, including two breath weapons.

There came a time thereafter when more "metallic" dragons were desirable so as to expand the roster of good, Oriental-type ones. Thus all of them were modeled on the gold dragon template, had two breath weapons.

Logically, with metal value being used as the basis for potency, platunum (Bahamut) being the highest, then gold and silver, the sequence should have been platinum-gold-electrum-silver-copper-bronze. However, I thought bronze looked more potent than copper, and skipped then to brass—that metal conveying some not-so-benign connotations.

I had read about many dragons, and seen many depictions of them. The European illustrations of dragons usually showed a quadruped reptile with wings and a long tail and neck. As a matter of fact, what was probably the first dragon used on the table top was a converted dinosaur model. Taking a plastic model of a stegosaurus in a scale of around 25 mm to the foot, I made it into a fabulous monster. I cut the tail spikes off, and two became horns for the dragon's head while the tail proper was extended by wire and auto-body putty, and barbed too. The back plates of the dinosaur were left in place and, with the addition of cardboard wings, the general form of the fearsome red dragon was visible! With yellow, orange, red and indigo paint applied, a reasonable facsimile of the medieval illustrations of the dragon was ready for play for the next tabletop Chainmail fantasy miniatures game fought out in the name of the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Rules Association on the 6' x 12' sand table in my basement. All well and good, but the thrill was waning.

Some 'historical' references spoke of dragons as 'serpents' with poisonous breath. There were mentions of dragons of green colour. Thus, it was a simple matter to add the green dragon that exhaled a cloud of poisonous gas, chlorine gas having a green colour. Oriental mythology included many colours of their particular form of dragons, and the mahjongg game has three sets of different tiles named dragons—green, red and white. Having played that game since I was a boy, how could I ignore the white dragon? So what form of breath weapon went with that colour? Snow and cold, of course. So another breed of dragonkind was created. After some contemplation, I added the blue colour, as that could well represent lightning, and there was a spell in the rules covering just such an electrical bolt. Acid breath seemed another reasonable form of attack, black represented that well, and thus the fifth kind of malign race of dragons was born. All five were based on the most common European depiction of the 'fire drake', of course. This was because the base game they were devised for assumed a quasi-medieval environment, similar to that of the European fairy-tale paradigm. That ended the near-complacency of would-be dragon slayers. No longer could a single set of defences and attacks apply when a dragon was known to be on the loose. Better still, one only glimpsed was still likely an enigma, for its colour, weapon and vulnerabilities could be anyone of five different sorts.

To balance these evil drakes there soon came the noble gold dragon, based on the Oriental form of dragon. To bolster the benign ranks of dragons led by that creature, there followed the other 'Metallic' dragons—silver, bronze, copper and brass. Next came Tiamat the evil Chromatic queen, and Bahamut the good platinum king to command these two families of mighty creatures. Even all that was just the beginning…
TL;DR: chromatic dragons are based on the dragons of European tradition, the metallic dragons on the 'dragons' of the Orient. 'Dragons', because they actually are an entirely different creature. Compare the oni of Japanese folklore, often erronously identified as an 'ogre' by Western translators.
The 'muddying of the waters' goes a far back as the publication of the original Fiend Folio in 1981, which introduced oriental dragons (earth dragon, sea dragon, coiled dragon, spirit dragon, celestial dragon, and carp dragon), somehow implying that the metallic dragons were, in fact, not oriental dragons...

PS European dragon and Oriental dragon comparison:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Flag_of_Wales_2.svg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Flag_of_Bhutan.svg