This:



This seems to be representative of a lot of people's minds when it comes to RPGs.

Open the door.  Open your mind.  Get out of this mindset that tabletop RPGs have to be played like a computer game, where if you get too close to a mob, you automatically get aggro.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;671030Why would the GM assume that the dragon isn't hungry?

Because the party did not attack him and I did not roll "hostile -- automatically attacks" as the dragon's reaction roll? Reaction rolls are this wonderful thing (IMHO) in TSR editions of D&D that make it possible for PCs to encounter lots of intelligent monsters without every encounter automatically turning into a battle. I would not run ANY version of D&D without using reaction rolls.

QuoteWhy is the dragon traveling around if he isn't hungry?

D&D Dragons are generally quite intelligent -- as intelligent as humans. So this is like asking why do people travel around if they aren't hungry (or aren't looking for a fight). There are lots of reasons a Dragon might be out and about when he's not hungry.  A few examples:

* Visiting friends/returning from such a visit
* Returning home from a meal
* Looking for treasure
* Surveying his territory for other dragons/problems moving in.
* Just out flying around
* flying over villages because its fun to see all the people run away

Even if a dragon meets a group of people, unless he is very hungry or they attack, he might not want to kill them (as that puts himself at risk of damage and/or makes it more likely that heroes will come after him), he might want to take some or all of their treasure as a toll, get them to go do a task that he needs done but can't easily be done in dragon form, talk to them to find out what's going on if he just awakened from a long sleep, etc. Powerful human/dem-human lords usually do not kill everyone they encounter, so it seems dumb to expect that powerful/intelligent monsters would.

Also, not all dragon encounters are going to be with adult dragons. Young dragons are at far greater risk of death or severe damage from humans and are therefore even less likely to attack if they don't need to.

QuoteA dragon is a great example of how the entire party could be killed if that's what the dragon wants to do.  Combined with the inability to be damaged by non-magical weapons, the ability to travel further and faster than the PCs (can't be outrun) superior senses (scent), there's no reason that the Dragon can't win if he doesn't want to.  

Right, that's why dragons are defeated by D&D parties fairly often, they are so unbeatable.  Note that I'm talking about TSR-era dragons here, I don't have enough experience with WOTC-era dragons to know how how they would fair (and since I don't play WOTC D&D much, it really does not matter to me).

Quote from: deadDMwalking;671030Why is the dragon traveling around if he isn't hungry?

I've seen you do this time and time again: You assume one scenario, and then put the blinders on, like all others would be just beyond your comprehension, like they'd be huge stretches to your suspension of disbelief, or something. This is what makes me think your imagination is irreversibly broken some times. Cue your game with the giants and Diplomacy and the Dragon's lair and how that all played out.

Quote from: Old One Eye;671034Daring to answer this question is exactly what makes my gaming style possible without having all dragons swoop in for the kill.

I would say in this case if you are going to have random wilderness encounters that include stuff like dragons then either

i) You are going to also randomly roll for the Dragon's current frame of mind, hungry, angry content (maybe he just got laid and is on the way back from Mrs Dragon's house) Or you are going to select the attitude that best suits your game plan. the first could be said to be gimping the GM of course

ii) You are going to roll to see if the Dragon notices the PCs Or you are going to decide if the Dragon passes harmlessly overhead. This will obviously be affected by point (i) above a dragon looking for dinner is more likely to alight on the party than one just getting back to look after her eggs and releive the baby-sitter. If you decide the dragon just passes overhead and he PCs can 'Be Warned' then the encounter is little more than writting 'here be dragons' on a map.

iii) If you do run the dragon encounter and you decide or roll the dragon is looking for the PCs for whatever reason then you have to decide a slew of other stuff. How hard will it look, how good are its senses, how much effort will it expend, will it cast a spell to make finding them easy etc etc . Again you have to decide how hungry the dragon is and how much effort they will put into dinner. You can opt to pull punches here of course, but I always thought that a Black Rider being 3 meters from the One Ring and not finding ti because the hobbit holding it is hiding behind a tree was a bit crap. A dog could have found Frodo just from the smell of bacon in Pippin's backback. But anyway if you decide that the supra intelligent hungry dragon won't use its improved senses or its magical power then maybe you are giving the PCs a chance.

iv) If you do all that and the Dragon does find the party youy then have to decide tactics. The best tactic for a dragon taking on a group of unknown oppoents in a fairly tight knit marching order is to swoop in and tigger their breath weapon, from an evolutionary stand point that is why they have breath weapons its their pouncing attack their trapdoor spider jump their cobra venom. Now you coudl ignore that and use a dice roll as decribed in the 1e MM. This is so that the party has a chance. the breath weapons use rules for dragons are basically gimping the DM to reduce the effectiveness of a dragon to give the PCs a chance to survive.

So ... if you do decide to add a random roll for a dragon and it comes up you then have a load of decision points each of which is a way for you to let the PCs survive. You can either roll these randomly, arguing it's a living and breathing world and the dice represent variables that may well be in play in a 'real' situation, and in effect you get the option of passing responsibility for the rest of your game to chance. Or you can man up and select a range of options that make the game better and more fun for everyone playing, but in the latter course the best outcome for the game is going to be that you pull punches somehow and the PCs survive. Maybe they lose the pack pony and their supplies which means they have to raid the next gnoll settlement they find; maybe the party manage to spot a cave and make it just in time and the cave links into your Underdark setting; maybe one of the PCs bravely decides to distract the dragon and gives the rest a chance to escape whilst toys with him  tortuously. But do not kid yourself all of those options whilst they lead to better play and a more interesting game are the dragon pulling punches. If the dragon was being serious especially a powerful elder wrym type thing, it would turn invisible and silent,  swoop down behind the PCs and breath weapon them all and then eat them and take any treasure back to its lair.

So in short I have no problem with putting in a random dragon encounter, I would limit to a certain area of the setting, thus giving low level PCs in built immunity to it if they desired, I would probably use a random list to determine it's activity, hunting, travelling, etc, and if it was hunting I would have it pick off a pack mule or NPC first as a way to rack up tension and show the players the danger and give them an out. If they then choose to flee I would pursue until the dragon was full and if they chose to fight I would do everything within the power of the dragon to kill all of them and take their stuff.
The best outcome for me as GM of a random dragon encounter would be for the PCs to loose a trusted hireling or NPC that was acting as plot exposition (guide, hermit, old wise woman, Travis the merchant whose daughter they are seeking etc )  and a bunch of their equipment and supplies and for the party to become scared shitless of dragons from that point onwards.
the worst outcome woudl be for me to play the dragon in a totally unbelievable way and for the party to escape through no skill of their own but just from GM fiat.
Killing the whole party might be okay in a very loose sandbox game. Though setting up a reboot and new party gets old for me fast, I like continuity even if its just on the "I have had this broom for 20 years, I have changed the head 8 times and the handle 6 times" kind of a way. Usually for me a TPK means the game is over and we scrap it and play something else. Certainly from a fun perspective Greg the Paladin dying whilst battling the great wrym single handed to give the others tiem to escape is a great game moment, the entire party gettign crisped with random dragon fire is less likely to be remembered round the table in the pub 30 years later.

Speaking of dragons, I looked a brief comparison by edition of an ancient black dragon (because that's the only one that has been released with Next):

.............. 1e,   2e,   3e,   4e,   5e
HP............64,   100,   536,   1190,   126
Avg dmg....15,   17,   52,   32,   33
avg BW.....64,   72,   60,   24,   18

Holy fuck that's some serious HP bloat going on there.  And the fans of those editions call AD&D monsters "bags of HP".  SMH..

At least it looks like Next is bringing it back down to earth

Quote from: Sacrosanct;671055Speaking of dragons, I looked a brief comparison by edition of an ancient black dragon (because that's the only one that has been released with Next):

.............. 1e,   2e,   3e,   4e,   5e
HP............64,   100,   536,   1190,   126
Avg dmg....15,   17,   52,   32,   33
avg BW.....64,   72,   60,   24,   18

Holy fuck that's some serious HP bloat going on there.  And the fans of those editions call AD&D monsters "bags of HP".  SMH..

At least it looks like Next is bringing it back down to earth

BW looks really weak though. Is that 18 correct ? For me the 2e stats look good lots of HP powerful BW. 1e is also good just a bit light on HP. 3&4 are just silly.

Quote from: jibbajibba;671052snipped for brevity

I pretty well agree with everything you've said and have done everything listed under i, ii, iii, iv in varying degrees.

I do most certainly pull punches/softball encounters, because I want to present encounters in a manner that lets the players drive the action.  Much more likely for the players to come across a dragon that is preoccupied doing something else than for the dragon to be stalking the party.  Therein, the party can choose whether to interact with the dragon.

I am not, however, nearly as consistent in my approach nor do I analyze and worry about my DMing nearly to the extent that many in this thread appear to be.  I usually just make up shit as I go along; it is not particularly hard to present a fun game.

Quote from: jibbajibba;671060BW looks really weak though. Is that 18 correct ? For me the 2e stats look good lots of HP powerful BW. 1e is also good just a bit light on HP. 3&4 are just silly.

The 18 average damage on the DDN black dragon's BW is correct.  The stats do not say what age the dragon is, though.  Looks more like an adult dragon to me, arguably even a young adult.

Quote from: Old One Eye;671064The 18 average damage on the DDN black dragon's BW is correct.

Acid just ain't what it used to be.

Quote from: RandallS;671048Because the party did not attack him and I did not roll "hostile -- automatically attacks" as the dragon's reaction roll? Reaction rolls are this wonderful thing (IMHO) in TSR editions of D&D that make it possible for PCs to encounter lots of intelligent monsters without every encounter automatically turning into a battle. I would not run ANY version of D&D without using reaction rolls.



D&D Dragons are generally quite intelligent -- as intelligent as humans. So this is like asking why do people travel around if they aren't hungry (or aren't looking for a fight). There are lots of reasons a Dragon might be out and about when he's not hungry.  A few examples:

* Visiting friends/returning from such a visit
* Returning home from a meal
* Looking for treasure
* Surveying his territory for other dragons/problems moving in.
* Just out flying around
* flying over villages because its fun to see all the people run away

Even if a dragon meets a group of people, unless he is very hungry or they attack, he might not want to kill them (as that puts himself at risk of damage and/or makes it more likely that heroes will come after him), he might want to take some or all of their treasure as a toll, get them to go do a task that he needs done but can't easily be done in dragon form, talk to them to find out what's going on if he just awakened from a long sleep, etc. Powerful human/dem-human lords usually do not kill everyone they encounter, so it seems dumb to expect that powerful/intelligent monsters would.

Also, not all dragon encounters are going to be with adult dragons. Young dragons are at far greater risk of death or severe damage from humans and are therefore even less likely to attack if they don't need to.



Right, that's why dragons are defeated by D&D parties fairly often, they are so unbeatable.  Note that I'm talking about TSR-era dragons here, I don't have enough experience with WOTC-era dragons to know how how they would fair (and since I don't play WOTC D&D much, it really does not matter to me).

Couple of points .
i) I generally agree with all you wrote and you can see my comments and yours are a pretty close match.
ii) Reaction rolls only apply if the dragon encounters the party. You always choose for them not to do so. And much like the other stuff I noted reaction rolls are a perfectly fine way to either a) re-create a living world ; b) gimping the GM by taking away their ability to play the world in motion; c) relieving the DM of responsibility " well it wasn't my fault you got killed by a dragon that was wha the dice said"  - Depending on your perspective
iii) Dragons get killed by D&D parties fairly often because in TSR era D&D the dragon was scaled to be a threat when PCs were roll 3d6 in order, there were no prestigue classes like rangers and plaladins and a 5th level fighter with +1 chain and a +2 sword was the equivalent of Beowulf. The PCs got buffed a lot faster than the dragons so in 1e era D&D the Dragon is a medium level oponent which is why 2e bumped them up so much. Also DMs rarely play dragons liek super inteligent spell casting MFs and usually play them like a giant badger that can fly and may randomly opt to use a breath weapon.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;671030Players don't also get to pick the challenges they're faced with.  If you're a Sandbox GM with complex encounter charts, it's reasonable to say that there is a 1% chance for the players to run into Astromaryx, the Great Wyrm Red Dragon if they travel through the Dragon Tooth mountains.

It's very possible and reasonable for the players to have a legitimate reason to pass through that area without trying to engage the dragon.  They'd probably prefer to avoid the dragon.  

If the random chart indicates that they encounter the dragon, what then?

If the answer is anything other than 'dragon kills everyone', it's clear that the GM is making it POSSIBLE for the players to overcome the challenge.  

Why would the GM assume that the dragon isn't hungry?  Why is the dragon traveling around if he isn't hungry?  

Dragon killing the party is unsatisfying.  The GM finding reasons for the party to 'engage' the dragon without necessarily all becoming lunch is usually the superior option.  It is a game; players dying without any chance to save themselves isn't fun.  

A dragon is a great example of how the entire party could be killed if that's what the dragon wants to do.  Combined with the inability to be damaged by non-magical weapons, the ability to travel further and faster than the PCs (can't be outrun) superior senses (scent), there's no reason that the Dragon can't win if he doesn't want to.  

Sometimes the GM finds ways to make a situation that could reasonably be an auto-lose situation into a challenge.  

The other option might be more 'realistic', but it tends to make for a less exciting game.

Are you serious?

All attack all the time is the most boring fucking D&D imaginable.  All the wonder, the mystery, the possibilities involved in exploring a fantasy world swept away and replace by....round 1- FIGHT!!!.

Fuck that noise. If I'm going to play an all combat game then I'll pick something a lot less abstract than D&D to do it with.

This scenario is a good example of why a CHA in TSR D&D wasn't a dump stat. A decent reaction roll could be the difference between life and death. The game was designed to work around the fact that sometimes the PCs might encounter something that could flat out kill them in an open fight.

Luck plays role in the outcome of such encounters but so does player intelligence. Mashing the attack button nonstop from either side of the screen is not what the game was designed to do best.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;671179Are you serious?

All attack all the time is the most boring fucking D&D imaginable.  All the wonder, the mystery, the possibilities involved in exploring a fantasy world swept away and replace by....round 1- FIGHT!!!.
.

It also eliminates the opportunity for some great memories.  I'll give an example of a campaign I was in back in the early 90s.  I was playing a Bard with the blade kit, and was somehow separated from the party.  Eventually I made my way into a huge cave to seek shelter from a storm.  Turns out the cave was home to a very large dragon.  Obviously combat wasn't going to be an option, and the dragon gave me a few seconds to explain my purpose before it ate me.  Using my bardic skill (I was of decent level by that time and somewhat known in the area), I managed to convince the dragon that if he let me seek shelter and let me go, I would spread the word far and wide about the wisdom, power, and strength of this great wyrm.

I basically talked my way out of that scenario by using the dragon's arrogance against him.  Never would have happened if all dragons were were stat blocks to be used in combat.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;671179All attack all the time is the most boring fucking D&D imaginable.  All the wonder, the mystery, the possibilities involved in exploring a fantasy world swept away and replace by....round 1- FIGHT!!!.

Fuck that noise. If I'm going to play an all combat game then I'll pick something a lot less abstract than D&D to do it with.

To be honest, if I want an every encounter is combat, I will not bother with a tabletop version of of D&D, I'll just play a D&D/D&Dish computer RPG. Because if every encounter is going to be combat, I might as well be playing a CRPG.

Side Note: Of course, I find most CRPGs boring because most seem to be 90+% combat. I certainly do not want to duplicate that in tabletop D&D.

Quote from: jibbajibba;671060BW looks really weak though. Is that 18 correct ? For me the 2e stats look good lots of HP powerful BW. 1e is also good just a bit light on HP. 3&4 are just silly.

The BW damage is down significantly in Next, but the claw/claw/bite damage is up.  For example, a red dragon's basic claw/claw/bite is 3d8+12/3d8+12/4d12+12.  Incidentally, the red's BW is 7d6+5.  So they dropped BW a lot from TSR era (especially 2e).

Quote from: Sacrosanct;671194The BW damage is down significantly in Next, but the claw/claw/bite damage is up.  For example, a red dragon's basic claw/claw/bite is 3d8+12/3d8+12/4d12+12.  Incidentally, the red's BW is 7d6+5.  So they dropped BW a lot from TSR era (especially 2e).

How often can the dragon use breath? And is the area big enough to get the job done?

Also, is the dragon tough enough to stay alive to use the breath more than once?