So I had an idea for something that could make for a decent story/setting.
So there's a dragon, and it does the dragony thing, and acquires a bunch of totally-not-taken-from-people-gold, and spends his days guarding his horde. Until one day, several millenia later, a man approaches the dragons lair, drops off some gold, and asks the dragon a question. The dragon, mostly out of boredom and seeing no reason to kill the man who brought it gold, uses his massive amount of knowledge to answer the man's question to the best of his ability. One thing leads to another, and now there's a tradition where bringing gold to the dragon in exchange for wisdom and philosophical insight.
Do you think that this would be a reasonable thing for a dragon to do?
I think that the lure of a continuous source of gold and entertainment would give the dragon enough reason to go along with it, and I think that the idea of getting advice from a several thousand year old being would be a good enough reason for the people.
Your thoughts?
So I had an idea for something that could make for a decent story/setting
As long as there are bandits waiting to ambush for foolish people with gold on their way to see the dragon, making the trip dangerous, and the dragon will only offer his insight for the right price and death if it isn't, sure.
eh
okay, but where's the catch? Where's the adventure hook?
Is it just an excuse to have the villagers try to stop the murderhobos from murdering the dragon?
I could see that. I could also see a people feeling disappointed when the advice they get is like "Ah, it is simple. You should eat your mother-in-law and burn her pitiful human village to the ground."
Maybe the dragons really fucking far away, and the adventurers need his answer to a question they have?
He's a question answerer, all you need is for the party to have a question that needs answering.
I don't know, if the dragon wants the gold and finds out that there are bandits taking the gold that would be his, I'm pretty sure those bandits are roast chicken.
then what's the point of making him a dragon and not the usual old wizard?
if it's purely a cosmetic choice it wasn't really worth sharing here
But then he has to go murder them, which is a diversion for other bandits to steal his gold.
It's flaming bandit death all the way down, user.
I like to imagine dragons learn more than "Eat, Burn, gather valuables", like maybe they watch people out of boredom, or maybe they go through an exploratory phase when small, and after all in some canons dragons can take human/humanoid form, so it's not too farfetched that they might learn a thing or two in their time.
I just realized that they might offer money to the dragon to kill bandits that are causing them problems.
Because there's no more bandits, they make more money, which they give to the dragon.
that'd be neat, a civilization and a dragon working in synergy.
why would a wizard want gold, when he could figure out how to make it?
Why would a wizard really help anyone?
It's not a cosmetic choice, the idea started with "What if you offered a dragon money instead of trying to take money?"
"Hey, go die to the dragon so we can steal it's stuff"
"no"
"k"
books are valuable treasure, too. Especially rare, expensive book
Wizards are more interesting then because you have to give them something very specific that can only be acquired by adventuring.
and your idea of a civilization based around the dragon is also extremely far-fetched because it would eat up more wealth than it'd produce. The dragon doesn't care about investing in people and there's no way he'd be a good enough adviser for his advice to make people earn money in a reliable, systematic manner.
If it doesn't even serve a cosmetic purpose and is less narratively fecund than the regular old wizard, then the answer to your question is: "Then your setting becomes less interesting"
...
I explained you in details why my opinion was correct, and all you said to contradict it was "that'd be neat".
So it's not just my opinion. Until someone can come up with a way to exploit your dank stoner idea in a fecund way, my opinion is effectively the truth.
My setting has a dragon whose basically a meet/nerd, he collects books. He'll trade with people for rare volumes he doesn't have and loan out common ones he has multiple copies of. Basically he's a librarian.
In fantasy euroop, library burns Mongols down
Wizards are cliche.
Overdone.
How would it eat up more wealth? All it cares about is having a lot of money, it's not as if the kingdom has to pay it, they just do because, y'know, dragon on the payroll.
BECAUSE IT'S NOT A FUCKING REPLACEMENT FOR "Old wizard".
I've already said that, multiple times.
How does something unique and even somewhat dangerous make a setting less interesting?
by providing less opportunity for adventure and variety than the "overdone cliché"
that's how
Have you even read my posts?
Are you REALLY sure that this doesn't boil down to a cosmetic choice?
And how does it present less opportunity for adventure?
A wizard asks you to obtain something, while the dragon itself could be the adventure.
Are you REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY sure you're not being kind of an annoying prick by forcing that point over and over?
Why is your take on dragons any more correct than any other person's take on dragons?
No, the dragon can't be the adventure because you're not supposed to kill it, you're just supposed to ask it a question and drop a few gold coins in his lair.
If you do want to kill it, the only difference is that on top of the dragon you'll have to kill a few dozen peasants who don't want you to piss off the dragon.
And all the dragon wants is gold.
Meanwhile the old wizard might want a precious magical artifact that's hidden in the lair of a dragon. So there you have a reason to go meet a dragon AND be cautious about it because the dragon will most likely be hostile.
Yeah, maybe I am being a dick by explaining you obvious things, but I'm having a little bit of fun seeing you flail around. You on the other hand, are getting mad uselessly trying to defend an idea which is just "dragons look cooler than old wizards" like it's a revolutionary concept.
I'm not using my own take on dragons, I'm using OP's.
And my argument isn't about the nature of dragonhood it's about the narrative potential of an advice dispenser that happens to look cooler than an old man.
Evil campaign means they might want the dragon's gold.
Good campaign means they might want to prevent the dragon from skipping the whole system and slaughtering everyone for their gold.
Or maybe the Dragon asks for help with some problem, and in exchange offers assistance with a particular problem?
what if the dragon wants help finding a mate, a better dungeon/cave for his gold, or any number of things that require the adventurers go on to do a bunch of stupid shit. Sure, all he asks for a simple question is gold, but what about a more difficult/valuable question, or for offering his services?
It's more like this:
"Did you base this off of an old wizard?"
"No, anyway-"
"I'm just saying, it might be better as an old wizard"
"Ok, anywho-"
"I mean, are you SURE it's not an alternate version of an old wizard?"
"Yes I'm sure, back to-"
"ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE SURE?"
Just drop it dude, already said this has nothing to do with old wizards, it started with offering dragons gold, not "oh boy sure wish I had something cooler than an old coot to give my adventurers advice"
The narrative potential is something for the narrator to decide. Hence the name of the term.
>I'm not using my own take on dragons, I'm using OP's.
I'm not convinced of that.
>The dragon doesn't care about investing in people and there's no way he'd be a good enough adviser for his advice to make people earn money in a reliable, systematic manner.
>And all the dragon wants is gold.
Neither of these are definitives established by the OP.
>Meanwhile the old wizard might want a precious magical artifact that's hidden in the lair of a dragon.
And there's no reason the dragon couldn't also want a precious magical artifact.
From what I'm seeing, your view on this is being colored by your perception of what dragons are and how they operate.
I don't care what it started off as.
The fact of the matter is that your narrative ideas are either
-just your regular "go kill a dragon" plot hooks, and it doesn't matter if a handful of faggots go ask it questions or not
or
-the old wizard happens to be very big and have scales. And it doesn't want you to give him anything interesting and rare. Just gold.
So, if you aren't even trying to justify it as a cosmetic choice (which could be legitimate) then your idea is stupid.
Well if you read OP's post the dragon is visibly at a point in his life where all he wants is gold, maybe a bit of entertainment now and then.
But hey, if you can come up with a believable way to build a profitable economy around the dragon and his advice, do share it.
That could begin to justify OP's claim that his idea is totally neat on a narrative level.
>what if the dragon wants help finding a mate, a better dungeon/cave for his gold, or any number of things that require the adventurers go on to do a bunch of stupid shit. Sure, all he asks for a simple question is gold, but what about a more difficult/valuable question, or for offering his services?
Assuming that a dragon wouldn't be able to do that shit on his own (maybe he doesn't want to leave his hoard) then I guess we've got something like a plot hook there, because convincing a female dragon of hooking up with another dragon is more challenging and requires more imagination than convincing an old hag to hook up with an old man.
> where all he wants is gold, maybe a bit of entertainment now and then.
That's not stated anywhere. The dragon has a steady inflow of gold and entertainment, but he doesn't have to want just that. That's just your assumption.
>trying to satisfy a sperg
Do you even undersand how dragons work, op?
Start an International Bank then established several Universities and create an infrastructure firm.
>Draconis Industries
>Bringing the light of knowledge, for a brighter future.
They're big scaly beast that breath fire. Haven't seen a real one to be sure, you tell me
yeah, but dnd has strict canon for them
Well OP didn't say hes running DnD. So why constrict himself with that.
Even if you're running D&D, nothing says you can't tell official canon to go take a long walk off a short pier.
uh, yeah he did
Read it again, there's no mention of D&D in the opening post, and little mention elsewhere in the thread.
If anything, deendee says you can pretty much tell all of itself to fuck off and do what you want. 5e tries to get as close to doing houserules and homebrew without it being too much of a mess.
and if he's dm he can tell the canon to go fuck itself what's the deal?
Yeah, I could see it be done. Especially as the first, or one of the early, stood on a longer journey.
>The King is ill. Go forth brave adventurers and learn from the Wise Serpent how we can save him.
>Oh, Wise Serpent, how can we save our king?
>There's a flower that only grows on the top of a mountain far south of here. You have to collect one and feed it to him.
And so on.
>horde
IT'S HOARD, YOU CUNTWAFFLE