Alternative: Generic Dragon

[Newspaper]

Okay. So I have begun my campaign and my group has learned of a dragon that lives off in the mountains not far from the village they are at. Cliche-ness aside I need some help. In my campaign I decided that dragon's are not restricted to alignment by type, but then I thought, "Why should all dragons be from a specific species? Why can't all dragons just be dragons?" So I was wondering if anyone else has tried this and/or has any advice on how well it works. My main concern is that my players will find it to far-flung from previous D&D sessions.

[Nomadic]

It works fine from my experience. I always did like throwing a few smaug type dragons into DnD games to throw the players off.

[Elemental_Elf]

In one campaign I ran, there was only 1 type of Dragon and it worked fine. They looked like the Dragon on the Welsh flag, breathed Fire and terrorized the country side. My players fought 3 total Dragons and no one complained.

[Ninja D!]

I think taht is how it should be done.

[Newspaper]

I was also thinking I could use the dragons already present as a base for making dragons i.e. black dragon for aquatic dragon, white dragon for a weaker dragon etc. Another idea was that all dragons can breathe fire. If I ever wanted to I could make exceptions such as, "The dragons of the Kagroan mountains spew forth blasts off ice to freeze their prey" or something. It'll probably throw my players off for a bit! ; )

[Drizztrocks]

What I do is have different types of dragons, none completely evil but all having their own habits, characteristics and look to them. Only have a few, don't go overboard unless you have a dragon-based setting. This is a much more interesting method to me, simply because it makes every kind of dragon different and a different fight for my PCs.

      For example, I have forest dragons. They are about ten feet tall and 25-30 feet long, are dark green in color, have spikes all down their back, large yellow eyes, and along tail. Their breath weapon is a burst of flame, lasting only a few seconds but burning everything around horribly. They live in the forest, hunting deer and boars, sleeping in groves at night. They do not keep hoards of treasure. They are expert hunters, being able to stalk through the forest without a sound and let out a burst of burning flame or pounce and devour their prey.
   

 You have the Forest Dragons, with dark green scales and breathing fire, with a wicked streak, but not completely evil. They have no lair, are smaller then the other dragons, but are expert hunters, springing upon their prey in the perfect moment.

[Loch Belthadd]

You could also make every individual dragon be unique. As in no types of dragons and they could be any color with any type of ability. In fact...I had a dragon generator that would randomize everything from color to spell-like abilities. My favorite one was Algorofae, the pink dragon that breathed a line of electricity and could use Otto's Iressistable Dance 3/day. I have to find that.

[Xeviat]

I say still use the stats of other dragons. Just change all the breath to fire and that way you have different stats for different personalities. Some dragons hide and ambush (black), some are so proud that they fight in melee just like a fighter (red), and some are more focused on their breath weapon (blue).

[Newspaper]

I'm gonna have each individual dragon be unique, I know that. If you could find that generator, Loch, that would be great.

[Nomadic]

I did a search for random dragon generators and found these:

WotC Dragon Generator
Dragon Name Generator + Personality
Dice Chart for Dragon Generation

Nothing on actual random stat blocks but hopefully those will help you quickly pump out something.

[Loch Belthadd]

I've been looking but I think it was deleted...sorry. :(

[Superfluous Crow]

I've never really been a fan of all the various draconic subspecies, so making a generic dragon sounds like a great idea. Although I'm not sure i can help you with making it, I personally think that the intelligent/magical part of dragons should be downplayed. They should be more like massive and extremely lethal flying fire-breathing predator lizards than magical geniuses of enormous proportions. No reason to make dragons take up EVERY role in a roleplaying universe. So i'd go for beast level intelligence, only, of course, they should be rather cunning predators. And with a raven's liking of shiny objects :D

[Knight of Ravens]

As far as a 'generic' dragon, Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved had such a beast. Given that his setting abolished the differences between dragon species as part of the direct flavor for his dragons, it may be worth your while to take a look (if you have access to the book).

[Newspaper]

Thanks for the great ideas. I made a couple dragons using the chromatic/metallic dragons as a base to start and then changed them in any way I saw fit. I can't wait to see the look on my players faces when that black dragon blasts some goblins with fire breathe!

[GrumpyOldFart]

My dragons are NPCs. I don't buy the idea of any species having no close evolutionary relatives, so I have several types, but they are based on habitat rather than on color or something equally arbitrary. They each have a lot of heavy natural offense and defense that works well for the environment they evolved in, but ultimately what makes them dangerous is that they are probably smarter and more skilled than you are.
I once had a young male dragon get a "hoard stake" by using spells to give him the aspect of a human, and then getting a gang together and engineering a bank job. Then during "split the loot" phase he let his spells expire, turned back into a dragon and killed off the gang.
Needless to say, just figuring out what the hell happened, much less trying to get the money back, involved a lot more thought than the typical "go into the cave and kill it" response to most dragons.