In the case of dragons specific to my campaign it's questionable how much free will they have over their alignment and choices but that's a different topic.

This is that topic.  I'd love help brainstorming, and since I've spent the last couple weeks trying like hell not to make a meals-on-wheels joke, and accidentally promoting the merits of slavery, here we are.

Shortest summary I can give of my campaign relevance here - Good dragons are patrons of a nation that try to be talons off, which has lead to the rise of the Cult of the Dragon (Tyranny of Dragons Tiamat Module, modified) and the main pantheon is Asgorath and the other Dragon gawds.*  Dragonborn in the campaign are basically reverse Draconians - the first ones were created from stolen evil dragon eggs.  That already implies that they aren't 'locked in' to alignment.  But that is something I'm playing around with in my campaign: alignment vis a vis dragons.  Alignment is a tangible thing, has planes that are made up of the stuff (so-to-speak).  Officially Tiamat is LE, lives in Hell, but is represented by 3 CE heads and 2 LE heads.  On that note, she's probably NE in my campaign, still a prisoner there who is more parallel to the power structure than part of it.  If she's their mother, that's one thing.  If she herself is the first corrupter, than it makes sense.

As mentioned, I'm running Tyranny of Dragons (which is a recruiting pitch of the Cult of the Dragon - they want to bring Tiamat in as a -counter-), and the Dragonborn paladin is raising a black dragon hatchling.

So.  They've had what may have been a stealth encounter with Bahumut (a peddler with a mouse maze, with his seven numbered mice), and since then, everyone barring the Paladin remembers the hatchling as ALWAYS being a copper, she looks it, and her actions have been more mischievous than hostile.

That quite frankly, is a stalling tactic as I haven't decided the answer to these questions:

Oh and now that Tenbones has me wanting to run Fantasycraft -_- I have the added wrinkle of wanting non-color-coded dragons in my campaigns future.

• Are dragons 'locked in' to their alignment, akin to predestination, therefore having a questionable amount of free will.
• If not, would a black dragon who turned good, turn copper?  (red->gold etc.)

The REAL question is which is more interesting to the players, and what long-term consequences do the answers have.


*story elements have the PCs potentially figuring out why the humanoid races were 'adopted' by the dragon gawds, why the high elves are deists or misotheists, wood elves worship evil blood gawds (mezzoamerican style (so I could run Hidden Temple of Tamoachan by just adding pointed ears on the artwork), and the rival nation worships a Fire Cult (the Orthodoxy assumes it's a corrupt worship of Garyx, but it was possibly founded by a bunch of grifting Fire Genasi, a cover for the Yuan-ti, or manipulation by the Efreeti, or some combination of all four.

I just have color influence a general sort of desposition, but it doesn't set anything in stone.

A dragon will see you as inferior regardless of color, and will likely be right.

It's an interesting idea to have dragons who change alignment also change color.

It's fantastical and speaks to the magical nature of these creatures.

In my OD&D games, only humans have free will to choose alignments, just like only humans have clerics. It sets them apart from all other beings.

As for dragons, Gold dragons are scions of Law; Red, Black and White dragons are Chaotic; while Blue and Green dragons are Neutral.

And my players have fought Gold Dragons, as they have been guardians of ancient places filled with magic (like a valley of kings) and my scruffy mostly-Neutral murder hobos were intent on looting the place. As Lawful dragons, they aren't PC auto-buddies, but quite often flying Judge Dredds.

The Blue and Green dragons were more open to negotiations as they were neither devoted to Law, nor as bestial as the Chaotic dragons who could never be trusted.

But I like my fantasy games without the gray. I save up all my "who can you trust? who are they really?" for my cyberpunk and Traveller games. My Gamma World is a post-apoc "Stone Age with Lasers" so there, the starkness of the survival issues often creates a "bluntness to the treachery" versus the shadowy schemes more popular in civilizations where survival is not a primary day to day concern.

I'd definitely go with the changing colors, it's a fun idea.

One consequence is once they learn the trick, players will always know the alignment of a dragon they face. Which will limit certain types of mistakes or DM trickery, but that's not a bad thing because while mistakenly attacking an ally is common in fiction (especially super-heroic fiction), it doesn't work very well in RPGs.

Change Self is a 1st level spell...and many dragons can cast spells.

So...is that Gold Dragon really a Gold Dragon?

In D&D and especially BX nothing is locked into its alignments. This is just what the majority that adventurers encounter tend to act like.
So a red dragon might be friendly. A unicorn might be a tyrant, etc.

Theres a few examples in Dungeon and BX/BECMI D&D such as an elven bard who recovers a harpy egg and decides to raise it as his foster daughter. Even going so far as to inventing new transformative spells to gradually improve her appearance. The end result is essentially a good aligned new race. Theres a whole campaign setting centered around a kingdom of werewolves working to both maintain their secret and live peacefully amongst normal people. And another featuring a mini kingdom and introducing some monster races as PCs and presenting them as not all being bad, or good.

AD&D and Dragon even gave suggestions on stuff like this.

I think a Gold Dragon would make an excellent villain.  They could pose as a human (or elf, or dwarf, etc.) and implemebt all sorts of schemes.  Plus if it was ever revealed that the villain was a Gold Dragon, people would be more likely to trust it as Golds are inow for being Lawful Good.

Dragons do not necessarily view things on the same timescale as humans do, and so a dragon might take actions 'for the greater good' that in the short term are... unpleasant.

Pathfinder talks about this a bit. Good dragons that fall from grace are said to 'tarnish', which usually wreaks havoc on them both physically and psychologically. Fortunately, if things haven't progressed too far the process can be arrested and reversed.

Conversely, some evil dragons are vulnerable (if you see it that way) to redemption -- falling away from evil habits. Green dragons are the most prone to this due to their perpetual desire for self-improvement and fascination with the god Irori (who transcended his own mortality through his own will and focus). The logic there being 'if some puny monkey can do it, WE certainly can'.

The idea of a dragon's identity being so bound up in their alignment that changing their views causes them to spontaneously shift breeds/colors is an interesting one though.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146768The idea of a dragon's identity being so bound up in their alignment that changing their views causes them to spontaneously shift breeds/colors is an interesting one though.

Let's take this to the logical extreme though because if you're going for a new interpretation... it's better to not half-ass it.

That extreme being... there is only ONE species of dragon. What people understand as breeds and colors are the cumulative result of every moral choice these magical creatures make. All dragons are hatched a colorless grey and gain color as they age.

Every passion-fueled rampage causes a few of the dragon's current scales to drop and be replaced with red ones, every cunning manipulation adds green, every noble act adds gold or silver. Most dragons have a dominant color and alignment, but experts can learn to read the patterns of colors in a dragon's scales.

A mostly red dragon is a rage-fueled monster, but those slight hints of bronze along his side indicate they also have an interest in knowledge (if I'm remembering my lore correctly that the bronzes were the more scholarly types) and so offering up something it does not yet know might be a means of appeasing it.

Quote from: Chris24601;1146826Let's take this to the logical extreme though because if you're going for a new interpretation... it's better to not half-ass it.

That extreme being... there is only ONE species of dragon. What people understand as breeds and colors are the cumulative result of every moral choice these magical creatures make. All dragons are hatched a colorless grey and gain color as they age.

Every passion-fueled rampage causes a few of the dragon's current scales to drop and be replaced with red ones, every cunning manipulation adds green, every noble act adds gold or silver. Most dragons have a dominant color and alignment, but experts can learn to read the patterns of colors in a dragon's scales.

A mostly red dragon is a rage-fueled monster, but those slight hints of bronze along his side indicate they also have an interest in knowledge (if I'm remembering my lore correctly that the bronzes were the more scholarly types) and so offering up something it does not yet know might be a means of appeasing it.

Or maybe the color of a dragon's body isn't what determines the dragon's type--maybe it's the dragon's magical aura. Without magical senses, a red dragon and a silver dragon both look gray-brown.

I completely ignored that part of Monster Manual. TSR Dragons were so broken, I couldn't use them, without modifying them extensively. My Dragons have never been locked to alignment, just like we don't lock races or humans to specific alignments. I have Gold Dragons that are lawful evil, and Red Dragons that are lawful good. They were way underpowered, so I made their attacks much more powerful. Was delighted to see the same in the 5th anniversary issue of Dragon magazine, where thety finally pwered up dragons and made adult Dragons the truly fierce and fearsome monsters they should have been right from the beginning.

My Dragons were never tied to a specific breath weapon. I had Red Dragons that breathed Frost, and Black Dragons that Breathed fire, and Green Dragons that breathed lightning, for example... All my Dragons were magical, had spell-like abilities, and were magic resistant based on the number of HD they had.

When my players saw a Dragon, they would usually run!

Quote from: HappyDaze;1146835Or maybe the color of a dragon's body isn't what determines the dragon's type--maybe it's the dragon's magical aura. Without magical senses, a red dragon and a silver dragon both look gray-brown.

Something like this; I've been kicking around the fact that they'e one -species-.

Quote from: Chris24601;1146826Let's take this to the logical extreme though because if you're going for a new interpretation... it's better to not half-ass it.

That extreme being... there is only ONE species of dragon. What people understand as breeds and colors are the cumulative result of every moral choice these magical creatures make. All dragons are hatched a colorless grey and gain color as they age.

Every passion-fueled rampage causes a few of the dragon's current scales to drop and be replaced with red ones, every cunning manipulation adds green, every noble act adds gold or silver. Most dragons have a dominant color and alignment, but experts can learn to read the patterns of colors in a dragon's scales.

A mostly red dragon is a rage-fueled monster, but those slight hints of bronze along his side indicate they also have an interest in knowledge (if I'm remembering my lore correctly that the bronzes were the more scholarly types) and so offering up something it does not yet know might be a means of appeasing it.

That's what I'm leaning into - possibly depending on the results of the (modified) Tyranny of Dragons module I'm running; once free of Tiamat's influence/corruption, the hardcore Bahumut 'shinies' (snicker) become less popular and vigilant about recruiting, leading to most dragons being Skyrim-ish looking loners.

To forshadow/hint I may have the party meet a neutral 'original' dragon who scoffs at both sides, refusing to take sides.

I once read where someone said that in their game, ALL Dragons breathe Fire.  Skin color was Appearance, only.

Quote from: Razor 007;1146894I once read where someone said that in their game, ALL Dragons breathe Fire.  Skin color was Appearance, only.

So dragons should be judged not by the color of their scales but by the content of their hordes?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1146895So dragons should be judged not by the color of their scales but by the content of their hordes?

They were mostly peaceful kingdom burnings, and all the princesses that were eaten were alt-monarchic human supremacists.