Back at the turn of the century, I remember a lot of talk on the message boards about “making dragons special” and how they were overused and underplayed in D&D. How they should be powerful, uber dangerous, and basically a capstone enemy – not sword bait.
I’m the other camp though. This is Dungeons and Dragons we’re playing. Not Dungeons and Orcs. I use dragons pretty frequently in my games, because damnit, that’s what the game is about. Now, I don’t just throw “out of the book” dragons at the players, I like to reskin them and make them unique, but I definitely don’t skimp on them.
And Matt over at Asshat Paladins, he’s into the whole dragon-dicing business also. He’s doing a great set of articles each presenting a dragon for Swords and Wizardry for a different level of party to encounter, starting at level 1. Yeah baby, level 1 dragon-slayin’ heroes! Each of the dragons is fully described with background, accomplices… and maps.
Maps so far from myself and from the other Matt over at ..lapsus calumni..
So check out the awesome – Killin’ Dragons
Dyson's Dodecahedron 
Dragons exist to challenge players. Right? I mean, mythically speaking, dragons exist to be a terrible challenge to some hero. It’s the same in the game. If the dragon isn’t a challenge to the players, it’s just boring. An orc might be a pushover or a distraction or a resource drainer, but if you do that with a dragon you’ve wasted the concept. Killing a dragon out of hand with a few spells and arrows and splitting its paltry load of treasure is not fun, at least nowhere near as much as slaying a mighty beast and becoming rich. In order for a dragon to pose a threat to the players, it needs to be more powerful than their characters. That makes it hard to use effectively at 1st level, because if your game has any kind of freedom then rather than risking their lives, players can just leave it alone until they’re level 3 or so, then come back and curb-stomp it.
Using a dragon effectively at 1st-2nd level can be done; I have done it before. Just have to put in the right type of circumstances; let the party earn their way to the beast (picking up resources along the way). Maybe make the dragon a youngling of some type, or possibly, recovering from injuries suffered fighting a prior group of slayers (an injured dragon is much more dangerous to deal with). Then, maybe 4-6 levels later, have a vengeful “relative” of the slain dragon seek the party out. Makes for lots of interesting situations 😉
I am behind that idea entirely, I am planning a Dungeon World game, and I plan to make it as much about dragons as about Dungeons, since it is part of the D&D family.
I even posted my thoughts on that on my blog, the idea is simple, it won’t only have dragons, the game starts with one in front of them.
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