Creating the Half-Dragon

[Dimirag]

It ends up pretty well, edit the first post so it can be easily found.
Congrats, you are the father of a nice half-dragon

[MedievalMan]

I will treat it as if it were my own.

[Solomoriah]

D&D gold dragon have wings, but they don't look like the typical bat-wing...

Who said anything about D&D?

I tend to base most things on D&D background,

I suspect you are looking at things from the perspective of a different version of the old game. BX dragons were a bit different than BE(CM(I)) dragons, and both differed somewhat from 1E.

BFRPG dragons are lizardlike and six limbed (four legs and two wings). BE(CM(I)) dragons were lizardlike and four limbed (at least according to the pictures I saw in the supplement that covered dragons in detail, I forget the actual name).

Of course, as always, do it your way in your game. It's how old-school is supposed to work.

[SmootRK]

You know, Half-Dragons are common among newer game editions. I know they are not inherently old-school, but perhaps Solo might add them to the Half-Human document (putting his own personal touch on it)? They are after all, Half-Human, and this would be one of those little gestures to draw in some folks who began play more recently and have other preconceptions of what character races form the 'stock races' of these kind of games.

Honestly though, they are not my cup of tea, and I don't plan on using them (although I don't mind helping generate ideas to build them in a balanced way)... but I can appreciate the fact that others don't share all my preferences. I don't use Gnomes either for that matter...

[Solomoriah]

Okay, here's an indelicate question... how, exactly, does a half-dragon happen?

I know how you make half-orcs, and half-elves, and half-ogres, but... a dragon and a human???

[SmootRK]

Okay, here's an indelicate question... how, exactly, does a half-dragon happen?

I know how you make half-orcs, and half-elves, and half-ogres, but... a dragon and a human???

Pulls up a chair; lets talk about birds and bees and how mommies get babies in their bellies....

but seriously, I am not sure how these games describe these. I never looked that far into the concept. I can understand those that have shapechanging abilities, but for the others... I share your confusion.

But, I assume there is a method... I read a great number of Xanth novels where this accounts for just about everything race-wise.

[Solomoriah]

I guess it just doesn't fit my "model" of the game.

A lot of modern gamers find the restrictions of old-school games, well, restrictive. But if you have a world where every "what if" question is answered with "yes," it gets hard to achieve verisimilitude. After all, in the real world, most "what if" questions are answered with "no." Allowing everything removes the character from the game.

Not saying you shouldn't have half-dragons in your world. That's your business. Just pointing out a design issue that should be considered.

[SmootRK]

Of course we are talking about something within a Supplement, not the Core Rules.

Of the newer supplements that I have been working on, I have taken great pains within an introductory paragraph to explicitly state that materials (all or in part) are completely optional and in the domain of the GM. For instance, here is the text from my recent draft of Quasi-Classes:

The Basic Fantasy Community has a tradition of sharing various iterations of classes written by individuals. Each Game Master is the ultimate arbitrator of which (if any) classes or other supplemental material are used in his or her games. When there exists duplication or overlapping of such topics, there is no “right or wrong”, “official or unofficial”... as all such material is completely optional to begin with.

Similar text should be included in all Supplements to explicitly state the nature of all material outside of the Core Rules.

That all said, I still don't want this particular thing in my games... but I do want such materials produced and shared regularly so as to cater to any particular person's preferences. And to encourage such new contributors to continue such work. It is all al-a-carte anyhow.

[Joe the Rat]

Weis and Hickman used magically corrupted dragon eggs, but they were all evil. And explode. The Nextwave of high fantasy, only with less crazy awesome.

Part of this whole thing is looking at how to do something that a GM wants to allow in their game. Over the decades gamers have pushed the envelope of what can be considered playable. While the core of Old School is about the feel and simplicity, that doesn't mean we can't figure out ways of bringing in "modern" elements. The challenge comes in giving the "modern" concept an "old school" flavored approach.

I get now why you don't want to do an official compendium of additional rules - saying it's an "official option" translates in many minds to "official rule." This seems to be one of the issues of the modern game perspective: Every rule is equally valid. If options are released by the publisher, they MUST be used. If walking furniture is in the core rules, you HAVE to let people play it. If a third party sourcebook tells you how to make a half-beholder, undead, or elemental character, you can play - no, MUST be allowed to play - an undead elemental half-beholder. "Optional" rules are never written as to why they shouldn't be used. (This is also why "Optimal Build" makes my teeth hurt. If I wanted a thousand rules and tweaked point perfection, I'd play GURPS.)

This is why a good GM is a gatekeeper - you only let in what fits your game. You are always within your rights to say "No, that doesn't exist in this setting."

Edit from taking too damn long: Yeah, what Smoot said

[MedievalMan]

Personally I was having the problem of explaining Half-Dragons in a logical way, verisimilitude is just about the most important thing for me in an RPG. So oddly enough I went with the Pathfinder description for Half-Dragons, IE they are magically created but breed true amongst themselves. I never was a fan of "well the dragon transforms into a humanoid, and then gets jiggy with the barmaid" explanation. I mean that was the answer for a long time as far as I know, and for me that stretches belief a tad. I can see that in a very few individual cases where its special, but just take how many Half-Dragons can usually be found in an average campaign in which they appear then the apply explanation above. It paints dragons as creepy sort of fetishists. That's why the magical creation idea holds more water for me. I guess its just easier to imagine a bunch of drunken wizards in a room plotting what two creatures they will mix together next.