Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ChrisBradford 01-25-04, 12:47 AM	Dragons and other intelligent living creatures who live on the Prime have free will, and are perfectly able to decide as individuals their philosophies of life. So why is it that many of races are list as being "Always" a given alignment? Would it not be far fairer to change that "Always" to "Usually"?
Vaalingrade Ashland 01-25-04, 01:21 AM	Agreed. It really makes no sense, especially given dragons in DnD really don't have a society.
The_Dark_One 01-25-04, 01:29 AM	Always doesn't mean without exception. There are good red dragons and hideously evil gold dragons. They're just not common.
Pyromancer 01-25-04, 01:35 AM	Personally, I just say that dragons hatch with parts of their parents' personalities. A wyrmling hatches with an int score in the human range. A human would have time to develop a personality while their int score matures to that level. Dragons, obviously, do not. Therefore, unless they are born without personalities, it has to come from somewhere. There are a few possibilities: Their deities, in which case chromatics would be tainted by Tiamat, and metallics by Bahamut. Its genetic, in which case the chromatics have evil bred into them, and the metallics have good Their parents. Few people's outlooks on life change in adulthood without severe shock, dragons do not get shocked easily, and even if a silver (for example) dragon shifted over to neutral (again, for example) good, if it bred with an ordinary silver dragon, the kid would be between NG and LG, barring anomalies (which happen). Over some generations, it would have LG children. Their alignments are closer to always (one exception per million) than to usually (a majority). I'd probably put the exception rate at about 1%, maybe as high as 10% if I wanted it to be extreme.
Brian.C 01-25-04, 02:50 AM	Creatures that are "always" a particular alignment (even Material Plane natives) are highly magical creatures. Good or evil is in their blood. Dragons are more than just monsters - they are living forces of nature at its fiercest. Evil lies in the soul of even a newborn red dragon, and goodness eminates from the smallest gold hatchling. Does this mean that dragons have no free will? No. But they are supernatural creatures who have a role to play in the world. Good and evil are like instincts to them. Note that just because a dragon is evil doesn't mean that it goes out of its way to commit evil acts. A green dragon might be content to a hermit's lifestyle, feeding on game animals, collecting treasure, and just let humans and demihumans know that they are to leave it alone. It would likely kill anyone who violated that "rule" and bothered it, sure, but that doesn't mean it would decide that life as a real villain is the ideal choice. - Brian
unusualsuspect 01-25-04, 03:17 AM	The green dragon you described seemed to exemplify chaotic or true neutral more then evil...
ieattrollsforbreakfast 01-25-04, 05:17 PM	I dont take "Always" to mean without exception. With outsiders I take it as they are always 'born' that way but could change through magic, but with material plane residents like dragons, I would have to go Pyromancer. I have always thought of dragons as creatures that pass on knowledge and personality to their offspring, although not entirely. This could lead to exceptions however, since genetics doesnt always go the same way. These exceptions will be few and far between though they do exist.
R.M.G.C.L.F. 01-25-04, 06:05 PM	I personally feel that dragons would fit much better with an any alignment. I mean, their arcane magic incarnate, and it doesn't make sense for a creature of a magic with so few ethical or moral spells to be 99% an alignment. Keep in mind that many creatures in original D&D had a seemingly arbitrary always alignment. Orcs where always evil in the one of the older versions of the game. I think that the "savage" humanoids got changed because their very anthropomorphic, whereas dragons are monster-y monsters. Most of the always alignments are distributed arbitrarily and carelessly anyway.
EvilPettingZoo 01-25-04, 08:57 PM	I personally prefer my homebrew setting where no kind of creature has any alignment tendencies.