Are dragons overused in fantasy settings...

Magic is overused, user. We're near Peak Mana!

I think they're overused in fantasy videogames as final bosses.
Other then that, I don't really give a shit as long as it's entertaining.

Dragons in my setting are just animals. Big and strong, yes, but basically just overgrown flying attack newts. You can't tame them - they're a combination of really dumb and really wilful - and they invariably fail to thrive in captivity. They're pests. Incredibly dangerous pests.

Maybe it's because a lot of things are named "dragon_____", but don't actually feature dragons much

reminds me of that dumbass that thought the internet would run out if we kept using it

This. This forever. Dragons are one of the basic elements of fantasy, but they're also so deeply inserted in pop culture they've lost most of their strong symbolism and charm as prime monsters. There are dragons in fuckin' MLP,for God's sake.

Not even as final bosses. Just look at Dragon Age, where you kill multiple dragons per game, usually.

The only good dragon age had them as optional hard bosses and as the end boss

I sort of like the idea that dragons have gotten more friendlier over time. It says something about our growing control of our environment and increasing cooperation.

Sort of like how the gods went from weird animal people to humans, to eventually one human?

Yeah.

I think a part of it is that I also enjoy stories where most of the characters have some kind of understandable, relatable motive. Big greedy gold hoarders who also have infinite power due to their physical nature are less interesting than a villain who has worked to get to where they are, and has a clear, somewhat understandable goal.

If you want mythical, incomprehensibly powerful dragons they'd better be metaphors for greed, lust, or some other negative part of human nature.

Can you still find a fun way to use them?

If yes, then no.

I had no interest in dragons till I used one and realized how amazing they work as ancient and powerful "others", brimming with symbolism from multiple cultures and ages, who aren't quite gods, but are close.

Now I want them in everything. Especially sci-fi/sci-fantasty.

I like dragons for that aspect, but also just because they look cool.

I'm fine with them as interesting-looking creatures as well as symbolism-heavy monsters.

Dragons are iconic, people see them and know that they aren't to be fucked with. This is a good thing, you don't need to go through all the effort of familiarizing the players with an entirely new monster.

>Are dragons overused in fantasy
No. They're rarely used appropriately, however. Having them be mounts or wise sages is incredibly boring.

I-it's Tecuatl!

Dragons feels overused because they're almost always at the forefront of whatever setting they're in. When they are in a story, they are IN it. They're almost always portrayed as some super major big baddie threat instead of just another kind of fauna.

This can apply to any creature of that size, honestly. Just make a dragon-sized creature with one sort of effective area attack, and you have a dragon equivalent in a different coating.

They're fucking cool, so no.

If you're looking for dragons done in a different, fresh way, give the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik a look.

It can be summed up as the Napoleonic Wars with dragons, but for such a simple premise, it's a really good series.

I like them a lot. I like the symbolism they represent. But they're a fantasy staple so yeah they're everywhere really.

I still fucking love them though. The whole "smart dragon" thing I love most. Love em so much I have them have demi gods in my setting. Ones dead but hey he created man as a birthday gift to his dad so left the world leaving something behind.

If you can stomach some of the more trite shit in it, Tui T. Sutherland's Wings of Fire is worth a look as well.

On paper, it's a kids series where all the characters are dragons, but given ninety percent of the cast outside the core five are amoral, cold or psychotic in some way, you can mostly ignore it for the really cool setting around them.

Humans exist, but they're called 'scavengers' and given whenever they feature they're either being saved on some whim of the protagonists or being nomads, they're more footnotes than anything substantial.

There's a cool story in the background about them having fallen to their current state of being degenerates, but it's a pretty decent read all around.

Just once again, some of it can be kind of cringe worthy in places.

I'm replacing dragons in my setting entirely.

The giant flying creature that has a nest and treasure are literally giant birds. They fly, grab people, and throw them into their nests. They like shiny stuff, hence the magic swords and full suits of plate up there.

Then there are the great serpents, massive pythons with magic and a deep cunning and malevolence; imagine Jafar from Aladdin in snake form but like all the time.

Finally; I'm restricting dragons to the 'once great rulers of the earth but they all retired after the gods offered them a spot in heaven and cushy government jobs' sort of thing. Just so in case I want to use one, I can whip it out.

Please rate; how does this sound to making dragons a little less stock standard?

Please stop reminding me how the writers managed to fuck up one of the best parts of the setting.

Portrayals of dragons are still varied enough that it's not (yet) a problem

How to Train your Dragon and the Hobbit films are other examples (should have seen the many, many Smaug threads on Veeky Forums in the immediate aftermath of those movies). Fantasy video games in general are rife with dragons too.

The key thing is that often a dragon is not the overarching antagonist. Many films and games have dragons in them, but not playing a particularly starring role anymore (possibly due to the perceived "overuse" of dragons as prime villains).

So you're using Rocs and Quetzacoatls instead of Dragons. Those two are more obscure, so if you're going for a breath of fresh air, why not? You're not doing anything shockingly different, though.

I was going to do the giant bird thing, but mostly because there was a logo for a roller coaster at Cedar Point featuring a giant bird and I thought it looked awesome.

Actually, several rides feature giant birds, but this one in particular was a raven and badass.

One of the reasons why Brandon Sanderson is such a good writer is that most of his books are dragon free.
Give him a read sometime.

It has been eight years since I've seen a dragon in a pen and paper rpg.
At this point, they should just rename it to "Castles & Liches."

>not having Roc's and Dragon generally staying clear of one another due mutual respect for the other's strength

I use Dragons in my setting, but very rarely are they the main threat, or any threat at all. Generally they just want to be left well enough alone. The ones that do have regular interactions with cities or populated areas are generally old enough and experienced enough to realize that a happy populace is a compliant populace, and as such are relatively kind and courteous, offering protection in exchange for feeding rights to cattle (or fishing areas if they're a species that prefers the waves)

You get a few hatch-lings/adolescents being stupid and think they're above the rest of the world but they're very quickly put in their place when they try and set up camp in an older Dragon's territory and get their shit slapped.

Except Red Dragons, even other Dragons think they're pricks.

It's very much a Vampire: The Masquerade situation. Individually each creature is far more powerful than any group of mortals could be, but they don't want to risk all out war with humanity as an entity.

Use a wyvern instead

Wyverns are cool. The one in dota especially so.

I like what Fantasy Craft did with drakes.

So, how do you guys feel about setting where dragons and lesser non-sapient "dragons" coexist?
Like
>Flying wyverns hunt along the steppes and mountainsides like eagles, have a poison stinger to fend off predators from their nests
>Legless wyrms transform wide areas of wetland into toxic bogs using their bodies to dig and their overactive poison glans to make it more hostile. When hungry they venture out of their bog and snatch big game back inside it
>Centipide-legged Dune dragons crawl just the sands of the desert to hide from the harsh sun and to ambush his prey. They don't have poison or are too big, but you tell me about surviving a wolf-sized bite in the desert. They can take their time waiting for you to collapse

And
>Everyone knows the tale of General Marcus the Bloody 'round these parts. Very good general in battle, but he let the anger consume him. Now he is no longer human, no, but something else entirely. I'd guess you could compare him to a wyvern by how it flyes. Or to a sea serpent because of his color and scales.
>But he instead looks wrong, his body too large for any kind of wing to support him in flight. His claws too sharp to be of any use to any other living creature. His scales are the color of polished metal, just like his old armor. And you can still make out his battlecry on the roar of the beast. Trust this old fool, adventurer. I can still recognize my very own son in that monster.

What did they do?

*Looks up Level Adjustment for playing as a Wyrmling in That Other Game*

In That Other Game a Wyrmling Black Dragon is size Tiny (No real reach), Breath Weapon (2d4), Claws and Teeth (1d3 and 1d4), Winged Flight (100 ft), it is a +3 Level Adjustment.

This game a Lesser Drake is a Large Beast (With a Reach bonus), Breath Weapon (2d6 + ConMod), Claws and Teeth (1d8 and 1d10), Winged Flight (40 ft), and it is considered a standard player race.

You might think that the Drake is insanely unbalanced. But no, it is not. The inability to use weapons other than your natural ones, the high cost of armor that you can wear, and the ability of regular humans to get quite powerful balances everything out. I think the Drake, along with some of the other non-standard races, provides a good example of what I call Asymmetrical Balance; the game is balanced while looking very unbalanced.

Also, exactly how bad is Reviled? Well, looking at the table MUCH farther along in the book it is enough to drop someone two grades in liking you.

Also, the book gives lots of fluff about the race, like physical and mental characteristics.

I like including drakes and wyverns when true dragons are much more rare.

>Conan

When were there fucking EVER dragons in Conan?

Lots of snakes, but no dragons you pleb.

Technically, that isn't completely incorrect.

It's just hilariously ungodly inaccurate.

Although this hinges on the idea that the person in question understood that the internet is finite only in terms of bandwidth and data storage, which I doubt.

The internet is made of a series of tubes user.

>If you want mythical, incomprehensibly powerful dragons they'd better be metaphors for greed, lust, or some other negative part of human nature.

Why can't they just be utterly and completely inhuman, user?

Be like Guild Wars, have Primordial Abominations as Dragons.

user please, I put my space pirate days behind me.

This is probably the one and only time guild wars 2 had a good idea well, that and sylvari lore how it was before the game was released and we realized they were huge mary sues

Guild Wars Dragons, real Dragons and not the Dragon-kin, are fucking horrifying.

Even the most "Benign" one looks like the horrid lovechild of a Dragon-shaped mass of Hate and the entirety of Green from MTG.

Another good series that has Inhuman creatures as great antagonists is Monster Hunter, where one particular species produces a virus that makes everything go insane while it simultaneously breaks it down on a cellular level.

When it comes to fantasy elements, it's not about it being overused, it's about it being used poorly far too much. Dragons are one of those fantasy monsters that are just slapped onto settings without thinking about whether it's thematically and aesthetically consistent with the world.

Remember when the theory was that Sylvari were essentially Tyria itself creating antibodies to fight off the Dragons?

Lol nah they are actually super sekrit undercover Dragon minions but also they are smart and good and want to fight against their creator!

If not including one specific motif is among the reasons someone is a good writer, they're not a good writer.

>Six months in
>3rd session
Do you have 2 month long sessions?

I don't think it's dragons, but dragon related things. Dragon sorcerers, dragon riders, dragon knights, and the like. So many things have taken on draconic elements in order to seem cool or unique, they've stripped what was interesting or special about dragons. It's like when you see so many fanboys you get sick of the original work.

Yeah, it's dragon fanboys. Fuck em.

>reading comprehension

user, learn to read. He said
>Foreshadowed from session #3
Meaning he had 'there be dragons' be implied or stated before it actually showed up.

Bromp

My dragons are fallen angels who killed their pantheon. Hence the whole falling thing.

>Behold! A most evilest beast, with beaks the size of carts, wingspan the size of castle walls, taller than the King's Tower, the dreaded Dire-Duck!