But does detaching alignment from statblock add that much variety? Or does it add any variety at all? If each color has their own alignment, then you can describe them by their alignment, but if any color can be from any alignment, you have 1 less atribute to describe your dragons.
Truthfully it doesn't do anything nowadays and only changed very, very tiny things back in the alignment matters days. Plus, color coded for your convenience is just very metagamable.
But if all red dragons are evil, except “Crimsonclaw the Wise” who is a neutral red dragon pacifist, isn’t him more interesting than, oh, every red dragon can be anything, and this one happens to be neutral just like 1/9 of all other red dragons?
I don’t believe I ever said all red dragons should be evenly distributed between the 9 alignments, just that it shouldn’t be required for them to be evil, much like the example you provided.
it was implied by your meme, if you are making dragons alignment not tied to their color, then they should be evenly distributed. Just because there are exceptions to a rule doesn't mean the rule doesn't exist.
There are a lot of canon creatures that don't follow their default alignment, dragons, drows, modrons, fiends, celestials. If you are going to break a rule, the rule must exist first.
“If you are making dragons alignment not tied to their color, then they should be evenly distributed.”
Nah man that’s some false equivalency right there. All those canon creatures you’re talking about are literal examples of those creatures not being tied to their creature stat blocks.
yes, and you can also meet gargantuan gelatinous cubes, wizard mind flayers, intelligent hill giants, beholders without desintegration ray, doesn't mean the average gelatinous cube, mind flayer, hill giant and beholder will be of any size, class, intelligence or power.
If your point is that every statblock should be allowed to be changed and tweaked to make better NPCs, then welcome to D&D, this was always a thing.
then I misinterpreted your point somehow, because you seemed to be complaining that dragon colors having specific alignment makes them less interesting.
Nah definitely not the point I was trying to make, guess I did I bad job with that. I was trying to say dragons being tied to whatever alignment is associated with their color makes things rigid and instances that break the mold can be fun and interesting.
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u/ReturnToCrab DM (Dungeon Memelord) Dec 19 '23
But like, what's the benefit of this aside from pulling one over your players?