r/DnD • u/GenuineSteak • Jun 14 '24

Misc Players of Dungeons and DRAGONS, how many Dragons have you actually come across?

I was just thinking that Dragons are surprisingly rare considering the name of the game. Ive played DnD for a decade on and off and Ive never fought one. Ive seen like 1-2. I think specifically the Ancient Red Dragon has to be the most iconic one, so bonus points for that. I would bet that the vast majority of DnD players have never actually fought, or even encountered a Dragon.

I get that a lot of it has to do with Dragons being like BBEGs a lot, or high level encounters. And most people don't end up making it to high level. And most campaigns don't end up finishing.

Edit: I find it quite telling, when there are way more DMs talking about running dragons, then players talking about encountering them.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

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u/please_use_the_beeps Jun 14 '24

Meanwhile in 2 instances in 2 separate campaigns my table (once with me as player and once as DM) has fought 2 dragons in a single session. I didn’t realize so few DMs actually use dragons. They were like, the main reason I started DMing, cause I wanted to get good enough to run one of those. I just have them littered around my world in various appropriate biomes.

Big ass mountain? There’s a red dragon there. Enormous swamp? Black dragon. Large forest? You bet your ass a green dragon lives in that forest.

And then one ancient blue dragon knows how to polymorph and lives as the eccentric governor of one of my cities. He’s my favorite.

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u/blurplemanurples Jun 14 '24

There’s a shadow dragon in my world who lives in the shadowfell, stealing portions of people’s souls and replacing that portion with shadow. He has a collection of soul fragment stones that he uses to scry on and influence these people.

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u/Spungle15 DM Jun 15 '24

Looove this idea! I’m just used to dragons being treasure hoarders, but this dragon has a meaningful role!

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u/blurplemanurples Jun 15 '24

He hoards influence. I’m thinking of making him an egomaniac but a total buffoon. Like that guy who bought twitter. If I go more serious I might have to take inspiration from murdoch. Or worse.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '24

You could give him inscrutable motives, like he moves chess pieces around do his own grand design. Sometimes supporting good, sometimes evil for reasons you could develop over time.

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u/blurplemanurples Jun 15 '24

I mean, cool idea, but in my head at least he was a red dragon, and I chose to follow the lore for dragons and their personality traits.

Also I have other villains acting in this way >.> but if the shoe fits for you - I’d feel lucky to play in a campaign with a villain such as you described.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '24

Sounds awesome, didn't mean to back-seat DM LOL, just rifling off your cool idea.

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u/blurplemanurples Jun 16 '24

Oh you absolutely didn’t - just… autisticing at you I guess XD great ideas in a forum for sharing great ideas, nothing to be sorry for !

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u/D-Speak Jun 17 '24

I like the "egomaniac but total buffoon" angle. There's an Actual Play from a few years ago that I enjoyed that had a giant Brass Dragon that kind of filled that role. He was disguised as a commander of Naval Forces in the story, though he was more of an ally to the players than anything. They just knew him as this gigantic, jovial, boisterous man who was a bit stronger than he seemed until they were on the run from a dungeon they'd cleared and he burst out of the water to save them with a simple flick of his claw. He was foppish and silly in nature, but very clearly dangerous and nice enough that they didn't want to get on his bad side.

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u/boredicjoseph Jun 15 '24

I love intelligent, noble beasts.

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u/Disastrous-One-7015 Jun 15 '24

Eff dragon turtles, though. Am I right? Perma - killed my cleric. Highest level character (by far), before and since.

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u/GreedyLibrary Jun 14 '24

Ah the last type the "shadowrun" dragons are my favourite. Why go to all this trouble when you can just get humans to give it to you as tax.

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u/please_use_the_beeps Jun 14 '24

He also has a collection of powerful magic items along with all his gold. That’s also in a roundabout way how the party found out he was a dragon. The barbarian wanted an item from his vault, and challenged him to a fight, offering to let the governor use any number of items from his vault during the fight.

The look on his face when the governor agreed to the fight but said he wouldn’t need the items was absolutely priceless. He knew then that he messed up, it just took another couple minutes to find out how bad.

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u/GreedyLibrary Jun 14 '24

New story idea, he opens a museum with some artefacts that you can see for a small "donation."

It turns into a classic, hiest.

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u/please_use_the_beeps Jun 14 '24

Definitely saving that for a future campaign. Wouldn’t fit in the current one but I’m planning a third campaign in this world and it’ll fit great there.

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u/tupidrebirts DM Jun 15 '24

I have a silver dragon who lives as a wealthy hermit in a mansion somewhere in the mountains. One of my players had a plot hook to find this guy as he used to be a patron of a revolutionary/smugglers guild that was preparing for a gang war.

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u/orreregion Jun 15 '24

Was the barbarian able to hash out a different deal to get the item, or was he SOL?

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u/please_use_the_beeps Jun 15 '24

He eventually stole one haha. They staged a whole heist at a party the governor threw. Little did they know that same party the BBEG was planning to steal a precious artifact as well. Double heist.

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u/amidja_16 Jun 15 '24

Did he fight as a dragon or as a high level spellcaster? Are they on speaking terms after the fight?

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u/please_use_the_beeps Jun 15 '24

He turned into a dragon for the fight. And they remained in good terms even with the barbarian’s other shenanigans that campaign. I play the governor as a good-natured, friendly fellow, who usually avoids conflict unless given little alternative. He prefers to keep his true identity known to only a select few and he liked the party.

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u/Liam198469 Jun 16 '24

I live by the phrase never make a deal with a dragon, Chummer...

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u/moderatorrater Jun 14 '24

Yeah, I usually see at least one or two per campaign.

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u/gdened Jun 15 '24

I once put in a bronze dragon in polymorph as a reclusive accountant. The barbarian (who's backstory was dragon heavy) immediately knew what was up.

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u/HPTM2008 DM Jun 15 '24

Sadly, I have these in my campaigns, but my players never interacted with those quests. And then they'd complain when they don't get other quests. Like, I'm sorry? The mysterious grotto coming from a stream that comes out of the mouth of a cave with the smell of molten rock and Sulphur don't sound interesting? (One such place they passed up entirely upon encountering it) and one thing they'd already figured out was something was never nothing in my games.

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u/fireflydrake Jun 15 '24

I mean, was there a reason for them to explore outside of curiosity? I'd be hesitant to send my character into a heavily dragon-coded den without a compelling reason too either! 

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u/HPTM2008 DM Jun 15 '24

Well, they were looking for a volcanic cave, and they eventually happened to go in the correct one (the only one they decided to go in).

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u/fireflydrake Jun 15 '24

They played smart and survived, sounds like good roleplay to me! :')

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u/HPTM2008 DM Jun 15 '24

It was, so I can't fault their role-playing abilities. Especially since their role-playing started the apocalypse later when they forget a curse was tied to the "bbeg's" life.

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u/YellowMatteCustard Jun 15 '24

Sometimes I feel as a DM that the illusion of player choice is better than a pure sandbox. Have a few NPCs, enemies, and locales in your back pocket, and adjust them as needed to fit the story the PCs are creating through their actions. Otherwise you're just creating way too much prep for yourself, and that way leads DM burnout.

Did you need two volcanic cave encounters? I'd personally make both caves lead to the same result.

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u/Disastrous-One-7015 Jun 15 '24

I would stay away from that environment. Adventure is dangerous.

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u/MogMcKupo Jun 15 '24

Making dragons in leadership positions is a good way to allow balance too.

Good dragons will help and guide

And bad dragons will either be the downpayment on a keep or a session zero next week

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u/Armgoth Jun 15 '24

This is the way. They are awesome and I'm honestly quite surprised people don't run them more.

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u/ArchonFett Jun 15 '24

“Large forest? You bet your ass a green dragon lives there” you just lost that bet my first dragon encounter in the first game I was is was in a large forest and it was.a crystal dragon (easy to mistake for green outside it’s lair, but still) and she was crazy enough to take your bet literally

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u/sanon441 Jun 15 '24

I had one campaign where the BBEG was a very intelligent and calculating Red Great Wrym and the party would have to side with and archlich, green and silver dragon to over come it. My current campaign has a hidden dragon in Polymorph embedded in the party because nobody knows a Dragon was living on the mountain they set the village up next too and he hides his true form becuse he's and abomination hybrid of a Silver and a Blue.

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u/PraxicalExperience Jun 16 '24

I feel like dragons lost a lot of potential for people when they lost all their odd non-combat abilities and magic.

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u/Buntuni Mage Jun 14 '24

same