Why is the Dragon Frightening?

In Dungeon World, the dragon is frightening because its hard moves can ruin the PCs, and there are limited ways to fight back against it.

In Troika, the dragon is frightening because it acts deliberately. Consider one of the most beautifully written explanations of a game rule that I have ever seen, which has informed a lot of my own monster and encounter design: 

“The goblins have few [initiative] Tokens because they are cowardly, not because they are slow; the dragon has many because it knows exactly what it wants, not because it is fast.”

In D&D 5E the dragon is frightening because… it has a mechanic that says “save or you’re frightened.” Which the PCs will ignore, because they cast Heroes Feast that morning. Oh good, I was afraid something exciting might happen.

OK, that’s a little harsh. I’ve run perfectly good dragon fights in 5E. The first dragon our 5E group encountered was novel just because it was A Dragon. The last dragon they fought pulled out every trick in the book: casting spells, unleashing a Prismatic Spray breath weapon on the PCs, and nuking the battlefield when bloodied. And they could only fight it to a draw.

But what I’ve found from big 5E fights is that they don’t succeed on DPS and big HP totals or immunities. Damage acts like a clock on the fight, to ensure it doesn’t go on forever. But the really tense fights came from monsters that threatened the PCs in unusual ways, and objectives that differed from race-to-zero slugfests.

To whit, we’ve had multiple tough fights where the group healer looks around afterward and asks “who is injured?” And the PCs realized that despite the tension in the fight, they took very little damage. Because the encounter was attacking something besides their HP total.

Next: High-Stakes Encounters in Practice