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Post by Scott on Jun 16, 2016 19:12:46 GMT -5
It seems like everybody in Greyhawk had subdued dragons. It's never happened in any games I've played. Has anybody else DMed, or played a game where subdued dragons were part of the campaign? How'd it play out?
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Post by grodog on Jun 16, 2016 21:35:11 GMT -5
I'd have to ask my brothers to see if they recall more clearly than I do, but I'm pretty sure we subdued some dragons BITD, since I definitely remember tallying damage as a % and re-reading the MM example during play. But, I don't think we ever kept the dragons as pets, mounts, guardians, etc.---I think we sold them after subdual. I think....
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 16, 2016 23:07:53 GMT -5
It was probably a ratio of 1 to 6 that a subdual was successful without "Holy Crap! Just kill it or we're dead!" No one ever sold a dragon that I know of but my cousin Bill "bought" a few dragons (sent adventurers to subdue).
My first subdual was a failure over a black dragon who killed 2 out of 5 players in a 1981 game.
My games were always selling monsters I had dropped the dragon price rate because it was too much after years of handing over the MM price rate for them I went to the "XP = GP ratio" from the PHB to base random bids so I made a giant chart of spelled out dragon xp. Its still more xp than a dead dragon experience-wise (xp subdual + GP sale = XP for subduing dragon).
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foster1941
Warlock
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 16, 2016 23:37:29 GMT -5
I remember at least one subdued dragon being sold. I don't remember anybody trying to keep one - I think we all assumed the subdual would wear off at the most inopportune possible time and weren't willing to take that risk. Pegasi were always our preferred flying mounts - subconsciously inspired, no doubt, by Clash of the Titans.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 17, 2016 9:52:42 GMT -5
What? No hippogriffs?
I don't even know what I did with my monster price list for building your own dungeon it was a crammed together list from every source possible but it was wonky in parts. I have to go see if I still have it.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 17, 2016 10:11:46 GMT -5
Heh, I found it fairly easily I have a big folder called "PRICES" but I never reference it. It has historical references mostly. I had a handout that I had made for the "Broken Castle" campaign that is missing from my computer and I printed it up as handouts but everyone "waghalted" them up. Here are two examples of the 1995 "on the table", two-sided price list for animals/creatures/monsters: This was printed when MICROSOFT OFFICE was fairly new just around the time WINDOWS 95 came out in 1995. So maybe 1994 or 1995?
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 17, 2016 11:35:55 GMT -5
Going all the way back to our pre-AD&D days, with the D&D Expert Set, we got the impression that you had to be on either "Team Pegasus" or "Team Hippogriff," and were all always on the former, while only bad guys were on the latter. That was before I got a monochrome copy of G3 and saw Trampier's great back cover illustration of PC-types riding hippogriffs. If I'd seen that at an impressionable age I may well have ended up on Team Hippogriff and caused a rift with the rest of my gaming buddies
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 17, 2016 12:10:08 GMT -5
My half-dwarf werewolf fighter/magic-user rode around on a green dragon. I think I posted the pic of him.
I guess I didn't.
Does anybody remember me posting that? Bearded dwarf riding a green dragon with owl familiar and homonculus? I know Gary saw it because we were talking about it.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 18, 2016 10:30:24 GMT -5
I found it on the computer labeled "WEIGELSOLDCHARACTER". Its labeled 2007 so that was around the time of the 2007 LGGC convention: This character "Gimli" was renamed and made into an NPC that I reserved for my use only in 1984. His last outing with me as a player was a game that turned into an assassination attempt by another player in 1984 with me getting away by the skin of my teeth. My brother was always trying to assassinate my characters even insisting on using the assassination chart as an assassin character. So you couldn't pull a fast one on me. The "Gimli" name always came up when talking about the "high sci-fi content" games and the post-Gygax effort of removing that from D&D was played out at the table. I had made a flag of this character with a derby hat and a tommy gun that I used to hang up behind me when I DMed but its long gone along with at least a roomful of D&D related art that I did.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 18, 2016 17:27:12 GMT -5
I like the drawing. The fighter/magic-user reminds a bit of Karl Edward Wagner's "Kane." Where did the half-dwarf race concept come from? The only half-dwarf I remember from fiction is Doctor Cornelius in the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 19, 2016 12:49:01 GMT -5
I had a dwarf prior to " Gimli" that elf players would point out the lack of magic made the race useless so instead of making a new race of "magical dwarves" I just opted with half-dwarves are more magical than elves or half-elves but have no bonuses for monsters.
That was expanded in the campaign and represented by demi-humans being non-homogenous except by choice of particular groups.
There were "half-dwarves" called "muls" in 2E's DARK SUN which looked like bald mutant weirdos but this was long before.
I had characters fighting mixed monster groups of unknown alignment for so long that I recall a 1983 game featuring a tribe of goblin-dwarf-medusa werewolf berserkers. My number one rule was there was no pattern to figure out by playing it a certain way because when I started in 1981 people were saying stuff like "dragons wouldn't do that!" as if it was a routine for every game which I thought was cheesy.
The first person that I talked to had an "engineer" dwarf which made believe that you had to construct compatible parts for the game. I was wrong, I believe he may have got it from a fanzine, but that didn't change my belief that the entire game had to have work put into it. So that's why the "quarterlings" and "gob-men" throughout my campaign. Probably the worst monster that I ever made was the "unicorn werewolf" which was a magical crossbreed of the two.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 20, 2016 8:38:41 GMT -5
One of my first DMs had a race option he came up with called half-humans. It was sort of a "Do you want to try what's behind Door #3?" option. You know humans, and demi-humans, but this third option had an unknown element. You started out knowing you were human but didn't know what the other half was. That would only come out in play. I always suspected the other half was demonic (pre-Cambion era), but who knows. It was left open enough to do anything with it. I don't remember anyone taking that option, although now I wish I had.
Your half-dwarf concept just reminded me of that.
I once came up with a NPC-only race called the Tasarians -- they were the "men of the sea" rumored to be related to the gods because they were almost uniformly superior to men. I think I wanted to have a race similar to Atlanteans or Melniboneans but I just didn't think AD&D elves captured that flavor. The Tasarians weren't morally superior, though, and sometimes would show up as elite mercenaries working for scumbags.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 20, 2016 10:13:28 GMT -5
The usual off the book human hybrid choices were half-halfling, half-troll, half-goblin, half-hobgoblin, half-kobold, half-gnoll, half-giant and half-bugbear. Later on I started coming out with all kinds of weird mixed humanoids.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 21, 2016 7:06:08 GMT -5
Did you ever have any players of dragons or half-dragons?
I'd have to imagine subdual rules would not apply to dragon player characters... although, it might be funny if they did.
"Some fighters start hitting you with the flat of their blades... It doesn't cause that much damage, but it really stings!"
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 21, 2016 13:31:17 GMT -5
Not in a game but a person that I had played with in high school around 1984 to 1986 had a character an already established PC (circa 1983) married to a dragon with children.
He was always into official D&D product so when FR product showed up he "tuned in, turned on, dropped out" and never looked back.
I recall when COUNCIL OF WYRMS boxed set (1994)came out thinking of him when they had half-dragons as a race with this really crappy image of one. I was thinking thats not the way this guy would have imagined his half-dragon.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 21, 2016 20:22:47 GMT -5
Even though the subdual rules in UNEARTHED ARCANA (1985) are more open they wouldn't apply to those 2E half-dragons as they were slightly large human height and not "giant" enough.
Most monsters just have to be "killed" to be brought in alive for "justice" or for sale just stabilize them after they've been bound.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 22, 2016 8:26:11 GMT -5
How are subdued dragons bought and sold, if there is a price chart and market for them? I can't see adventurers being allowed to bring dragons into a city like Greyhawk, but maybe I'm wrong about that...
An adventurer approached the city gate with his retinue -- he knew the guards well. "Hey Bob, Hey Carl, I'm just getting back from the dungeon again..." "Wait up a sec," one of the guards said. "Is that a... a... dragon you're trying to bring into the city?!?" "Yeah," replied the adventurer, "But it's nothing to be concerned about. He's subdued, just look at his hangdog expression." "Oh," Bob the city guard said. "I guess it's okay then. Go on in!"
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 22, 2016 11:23:40 GMT -5
I assume you'd leave the dragon tied up a couple miles outside of town (with a few guards to make sure it stays docile) while the rest of the party went into town to line up prospective buyers and then bring them out to inspect the goods, take delivery, etc. On the one hand the location should probably be sufficiently hidden and remote to discourage dragon-rustling (and/or alarming the local authorities), but on the other hand parking it right outside of town and drawing a crowd of spectators might help drive up the price and increase the party's reputation (for good or ill)
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 22, 2016 11:39:51 GMT -5
I don't think Gary allowed monsters "downtown" either much less even the "drain catch" of the Foreign Quarter.
I have a specific quote by Gary in SLAYER'S GUIDE TO DRAGONS (2002)that infers they're going elsewhere before sale:
This is pretty much how I handled it. There is no airport inside any major city's walls in my campaign well except for one... but thats another story.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 22, 2016 13:36:48 GMT -5
"That's a fine dragon you got there. How many hit points does she have?" "Eighty-eight. She's ancient and large." "Hmmm... then the price should be no more than 8800 gold pieces -- according to the book."
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