I also do not really like D&D dragons, which is part of it. I like a monstrous dragon, not just a dragon shaped person.
Maybe it's influence from stuff like Smaug in The Hobbit when I was young, but if I see some media with dragons that aren't intelligent and can't talk, I feel like something is missing.
I also do not really like D&D dragons, which is part of it. I like a monstrous dragon, not just a dragon shaped person.
Maybe it's influence from stuff like Smaug in The Hobbit when I was young, but if I see some media with dragons that aren't intelligent and can't talk, I feel like something is missing.
The only exception I like is Discworld, and that's mostly because there the dragons are smart, but can't talk.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Sorcerer seems to be one of the winners from John Madden Dungeons & Dragons 2024. They get an innate that lasts for a minute, increases DCs by one, and grants advantage on all sorcerer spells. Two uses per long rest. And obvious metamagic buffs.
Now, D&D is understandably trying to distance itself from the eugenics-y shit via its 60s and 70s origins, and that puts Sorcerer in a weird place being it’s whole thing was learning magic via an innate part of your birth. Like your distance ancestors got intimate with a dragon or your grandmother fucked a magic grandfather clock. But now, instead of Draconic Bloodline, it’s Draconic Sorcery, and Clockwork Soul is…Clockwork Sorcery. I don’t know what the explanation will be now for their magic, be it just open to player’s decision or maybe it’s now an extant thing that grants you magic that isn’t a god/powerful patron being/being a nerd. You saved a dragon’s life and got dragon powers in return. You fucked a clock and it turns out clock STDs are pretty awesome.
I could see that working while getting rid of the stuff with potentially bad implications.
Even in 2014 how you specifically got the powers was kind of given a latitude, iirc. But they seem to be giving the players more and more responsibility for backstory and whatnot as they've gone on, which I like, I think.
Watch out, you say things like that and someone's going to come try and talk to you about Ars Magica
Well, since you ask me about Ars Magica...
One of the things that gets wizards out of their libraries in Ars Magica is baked into character creation: their Story Flaws
My party are variously plagued by supernatural entities, framed for murder, and heirs to the stewardship of the woodlands of England, so they keep getting pulled into the world by external circumstances
Plus the desire for fame and fortune amongst their kind, which requires showing up at tournaments and symposia and finding clients for their magical items, et cetera
The design of their Covenant (home base) also has the option to introduce Hooks, like Impoverished or Monster, which force them to think about how to deal with external threats (even if the answer is "send somebody else, I'm reading")
I think that D&D have the germ of that idea with the character ideals in their Backgrounds, which if brought into the plot would give motivation for going out and doing stuff in a party, but I don't think they get used like that - especially not in published material that I've read
The Ars Magica published adventures are all careful to include sidebars about why the PCs would actually care about what's going on; either as a threat to somebody with influence over them, or to their own livelihood
I don't get that sense from the stuff that I've run in D&D - the implication is that the PCs have already decided to become adventurers, so here's an adventure, venture forth
I also do not really like D&D dragons, which is part of it. I like a monstrous dragon, not just a dragon shaped person.
Maybe it's influence from stuff like Smaug in The Hobbit when I was young, but if I see some media with dragons that aren't intelligent and can't talk, I feel like something is missing.
Smaug is still okay in my book because he's singular - there's no attempt to take his whole deal and expand it to a species of dragons. It makes him monstrous in a way that people are monstrous, which is less ideal to me but still good.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I think dragons are vastly more interesting when making use of their intellect, not just being gigantic monsters. That's what makes the likes of, say, Smaug and Lofwyr more threatening.
Posts
Maybe it's influence from stuff like Smaug in The Hobbit when I was young, but if I see some media with dragons that aren't intelligent and can't talk, I feel like something is missing.
The only exception I like is Discworld, and that's mostly because there the dragons are smart, but can't talk.
Even in 2014 how you specifically got the powers was kind of given a latitude, iirc. But they seem to be giving the players more and more responsibility for backstory and whatnot as they've gone on, which I like, I think.
Well, since you ask me about Ars Magica...
One of the things that gets wizards out of their libraries in Ars Magica is baked into character creation: their Story Flaws
My party are variously plagued by supernatural entities, framed for murder, and heirs to the stewardship of the woodlands of England, so they keep getting pulled into the world by external circumstances
Plus the desire for fame and fortune amongst their kind, which requires showing up at tournaments and symposia and finding clients for their magical items, et cetera
The design of their Covenant (home base) also has the option to introduce Hooks, like Impoverished or Monster, which force them to think about how to deal with external threats (even if the answer is "send somebody else, I'm reading")
I think that D&D have the germ of that idea with the character ideals in their Backgrounds, which if brought into the plot would give motivation for going out and doing stuff in a party, but I don't think they get used like that - especially not in published material that I've read
The Ars Magica published adventures are all careful to include sidebars about why the PCs would actually care about what's going on; either as a threat to somebody with influence over them, or to their own livelihood
I don't get that sense from the stuff that I've run in D&D - the implication is that the PCs have already decided to become adventurers, so here's an adventure, venture forth
I'll do it another time but anyway the point is that planning is going well, at 12 sheets of A4, but will need to do much much more than that!
@BahamutZERO Can you lock this thread?
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Smaug is still okay in my book because he's singular - there's no attempt to take his whole deal and expand it to a species of dragons. It makes him monstrous in a way that people are monstrous, which is less ideal to me but still good.
Also, they can run for president.