In Praise of Small Dragons

"For a game called Dungeons & Dragons, there aren't a lot of published adventures featuring dragons." Variations on this sentiment were pretty common when I was a younger person – and they're not wholly mistaken. Prior to the publication of the Dragonlance modules – a series created specifically to showcase AD&D's many dragon types – the only significant early adventure to feature a dragon that I can recall is module G3, Hall of the Fire Giant King, though I am sure the comments will quickly fill with additional examples that I've forgotten. Regardless, I think it's fair to say that, in the grand scheme of things, dragons are much less common in D&D adventures than the name of the game would suggest, especially when ones considers that a dragon has appeared on the covers of every Basic Set or its equivalent, since 1977. 

This creates, I think, an expectation that dragons will be prominent opponents in the game, an expectation that has rarely been realized – and not just in published adventures. I'd wager that this relative paucity of dragons carries over into homebrew adventures and campaigns as well. That's certainly been my experience and I'd be surprised if I'm unusual in this regard. Dragons tend to be treated as video game-inspired "boss monsters" and are thus saved for ultimate encounters rather than being yet another foe the characters might battle while exploring a dungeon or other adventuring locale.

If you look at the monster level tables in Volume III of OD&D, you'll notice that the sixth table features dragons. According to the matrix for monster determination, that table may be used as early as the third level of the dungeon, though the odds of it are not great until the eighth level beneath the surface. The likelihood of encountering a dragon in the wilderness is slightly greater, as dragons are categorized as both "dragons" (naturally) and "flyers," each of which gets a separate entry. The Monster & Treasure Assortment, at least in its 1981 reprint, provides the possibility of encountering a dragon as early as the fifth level, while the wandering monster tables in the Cook/Marsh Expert Set don't allow for this possibility till the sixth level. Still, the very idea that a dragon could be encountered as a wandering monster no doubt seems strange to gamers who view these beasts as "big bads."

Why this is so is likely complicated, owing to a combination of cultural factors and rules changes. I can believe, for example, that Gygax felt that the presentation of dragons in Volume II of OD&D was too weak, hence the need to make them more powerful in the Monster Manual. I can also believe that media portrayals of dragons, such as the 1977 Rankin-Bass cartoon, The Hobbit, contributed to some gamers' ideas about dragons being huge and nigh invulnerable. There are undoubtedly many variables at work here, some of which present us with a chicken and egg situation. Regardless, there can be little dispute that, from 1975 on, dragons in D&D became not only more mechanical potent but also less commonplace as foes (though, again, I am prepared to be convinced I am mistaken on this)

I would like to push back against this trend. I think dragons should be more common in Dungeons & Dragons. I also think reducing dragons to the role of a "boss monster" is creatively limiting. It's interesting that, when you look at most artistic depictions of dragons, from antiquity up through the 1960s, the vast majority of them are small. Take look at any medieval image of St. George or even Arthur Rackham's illustration of Fafnir, what you'll see is a beast that looks very small by the standards of contemporary portrayals of dragons. 

I'd like to see more of that in RPGs. Why should only high-level characters face off against dragons? The first dragon that appears in the aforementioned Monster & Treasure Assortment has only 18 hit points. Even though they're focused on levels 1 through 3, both the Holmes and Moldvay rulebooks include entries for dragons. Did they do that solely out of some sense that a game called Dungeons & Dragons had to have such an entry? It's possible, I suppose. I'd prefer to think it's because, even as late as 1981, there was still a lingering sense that there's nothing special about dragons. They're just monsters, no better or worse than goblins or owlbears or green slime. I'm not advocating overusing them: dragons shouldn't be in every dungeon, but I think they should be much more common. That's something I've already done with Urheim and I urge others to consider in their own dungeons and campaigns.