Are dragons overused in fantasy settings? They show up a shitload in media and have prominent roles in almost all settings.
I still like them, but I'm concerned they're overused. Is that just me being paranoid, or are they really getting stale?
Are dragons overused in fantasy settings? They show up a shitload in media and have prominent roles in almost all settings.
I still like them, but I'm concerned they're overused. Is that just me being paranoid, or are they really getting stale?
Do you still enjoy them? If so, then why give a shit?
They're a fantasy staple. Saying they're overused would be like saying castles, princesses, and magic are overused.
Personally speaking, yes. I like dragons, but I'm sick to death of seeing them everywhere. They've lost a lot of their charm and novelty for me through pure repetition.
Every now and then I see a setting or product that does something with them that gets my interest, but most of the time my reaction to learning a setting has dragons is apathy. Especially any setting where they're super common, with dragon riders and the like all over the place.
Maybe I haven't been keeping up on genre fiction, but aside from GoT and that Eregon shitshow I can't really think of any heavily dragon-centric stories since the old Dragonlance novels.
Is this really a problem, OP?
I don't know. They were in Skyrim, does that count?
I have this feeling like dragons are incredibly common, but when pressed for examples I can only think of a few. It's quite strange, actually.
Basically this.
People think dragons are incredibly common, but when you ask them for examples of how they're incredibly common you'll be hard-pressed for answers.
Dragons as a concept are overused, dragons as an entity in campaigns are surprisingly rare.
Ran my D&D campaign for six months before a dragon showed up for the first time. Foreshadowed from session #3, near party wipe trying to escape it. Six months later it was rematch time. A solid year into their first campaign, my new-to-gaming players slew their first dragon.
Dragons can be a lotta fun, just got to use them sparingly.
Dragons seem overused because for a long time they were overused in the D and D, Dragonlance, Conan on Film era. There were a lot of pretender pulp films and books that all piled onto the trend and have been forgotten. Then fantasy died back for a long while until Skyrim and Got started pushing dragons back into mainstream culture.
In play in RPGs at least, I think players encounter them so rarely that it doesn't matter much. In vidya and all that it tends to be much more common and I'm not a fan of that.