Why wouldn’t they be valid? They’ve always been valid, there’s just been a few egregious examples of RPers who use the concept to claim the spotlight and shine over others rather than playing cooperatively.
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Akin to declaring your character prince of redridge wth all the authority this entails (in their head), a dragon is a powerful being with a great deal of influence; a free leap up the ladder to be respected and to lord one’s power, social and magical over others.
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Only if the player depicts it that way. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it.
tell that to the thousands of whelps that have been killed for battle pets
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I think it’s important not to mistake every drake as being on the power-level of someone super special like Wrathion, either.
Like many other possible roles, I cannot, from many years of experience, trust anyone to handle it responsibly and I’ve never been shown wrong.
What are you even talking about? How come you speak of strawmen you end up creating one? My entire point was that you started the convo about how we shouldn’t shame centrists. Okay, correction - Vixi did with the meme. I didn’t, so why are you blaming me for something I didn’t start and you started Zaphius-posting about? You’re the one turning this thread into political arguments through essayposting.
??
Then by all means, give me an example of moderate discourse on topics of human rights wrt minority groups, pick your topic you want to. 99 times out of ten the position is far right one disguised as moderate to be palatable for the ignorant masses to further far right ideals.
It just so happens that
is hard to do when currently outrage culture has shifted over to the right where any positive change for a minority group is met with immediate outrage from the right that drives the controversial clickbait views into profit, and the vast plethora of misinformation flying around unchecked is very hard to unlearn. You speak of doing the right thing, but appeasing the far right in any discussion to appear palatable for the wider public will end up only helping the far right in return, see: you take a step forward, the fash takes a step back and asks you to meet in the middle.
Because I am talking more generally, not with you in mind. You felt it pointed towards you, so you can answer why that is.
Good golly, imagine talking about micro aggressions in a thread of PET PEEVES. Guess what - you have completely missed the point of whatever the discourse about micro aggressions have been, if you think preventing those is special treatment of minorities.
Peeve (as this is the thread for it): some people in the AoE2 community use other conspiracy theories about white replacement as part of their names or tactics, so that unassuming people might think it’s a new tactic, so they google it and happen on the conspiracy theory instead. And I don’t even know how to report this. Maybe I should write an email to the devs. 
Seeing Alex Jones get slammed with a billion dollar outcome is so cathartic for all the damage current media has caused with promotion of misinformation and deception.
(sorry for essayposting)
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It’s valid in the sense that nobody’s taking your RP license away, but given how rarely actual dragons would be around and how rarely they show their dragon form it is going to end up with you functionally playing Just Some Guy - it’s a weak concept and still is.
Hence why it leads to the only real reason to play the concept is to have an easy way to stand out and/or have power over other characters - and I can tell you for free that it is one of the worst ways to do both. Dragons are supporting NPCs in WoW’s narrative for a reason
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one of my team have put in a formal complaint against another member. which means i now have to mediate and investigate
yay 
A very important point, and the notion that you can just debate bad ideas out of existence assumes that no party is being dishonest. Fascism thrives on lies and misrepresentation. Especially the idea that their rguments are made in good faith as moderates.
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He means me, probably
tell them to settle it with a children’s card game, like all disputes should be settled
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Bring back jousting tbh.
I guess I’m just fundamentally opposed to the idea that because others have historically done something badly that it therefore cannot be done well by anyone.
It’s not like I don’t get where you and Levey are coming from – I’ve been around long enough to be as cynical toward others as the two of you. But I don’t think arbitrarily saying that dragons cannot be depicted well is the right position to take.
They’re powerful enough on average that it would be best for the RPer to be careful with how they manage the character and what they do, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Plenty of players enjoy taking on the ‘support’ role in their RP, too.
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Call it a combination of knowing how difficult the archetype is to play in a writing sense and also knowing how terrible trying to represent the dragon side of things is in-game and also that the reasoning for wanting to play such a character is normally based in insecurity about making your character interesting, which leads me to say that while you can play the concept [because I’m not your dad and don’t pay your sub], you shouldn’t.
If someone is a good enough player to pull off a concept like that, they can pull off a much more interesting one without all the baggage.
On the topic of dragon rp, its just been one of those things i never dipped into. Seen and heard stories about some bad things, but it is ultimately a part of the setting so I can see the interest.
That said, Dracthyr looks really cool and I really do want to play one and probably do some rp too.
What’s interesting is subjective, though, and I don’t think it’s fair to make assumptions about what causes people to play concepts like dragons – they’re an extremely popular fantasy staple, after all.
I play elves because I think they’re cool and if I did, I would play a dragon because I think they’re cool too.
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Don’t let this discussion on Dragon roleplay distract you from the fact that there are Pokemon-themed crocs being released.
Real issues, people.
The idea of a bronze dragon character writ as Aeon von Wrath of the Righteous is immensely appealing while also being utterly unworkable except as a plot device.
Too bad the Aeon mythic path is lame huh