dragonsdungeons-and-dragons
I was playing in a friend's in a 5e session a few weeks ago, and we encountered a young green dragon, I was absolutely convinced it would do fire damage, but I was very much mistaken to find it was poison.
Has there ever been a time when green dragons do fire damage or have I just not been getting enough sleep recently?
...shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.
This makes challenge rating a better instrument to measure how monsters stack up against a party of adventurers than how monsters stack up against each other.
A more precise instrument to measure how a monster-on-monster battle may run is effective character level (ECL). The Draconomicon lists the lowest-Hit-Dice young red dragon as ECL 19 and the lowest-Hit-Dice young copper dragon as ECL 15. Using these figures (instead of the creatures' challenge ratings or Hit Dice or whatever) makes the aforementioned young copper dragon's encounter with the young red dragon very difficult (DMG 49), which, as you've noted, it is.1
But even this slightly more precise instrument is still a club not a scalpel. Determining which monster wins in an unseen monster-on-monster fight should be the DM's call and used to further the plot, making excuses for the lower-powered monsters when necessary to enhance verisimilitude (e.g. "Yeah, the copper rolled nothing but critical hits and the red failed every saving throw--it was amazing; it's too bad you missed it").
Dragons' CRs are far too low if all their strengths are played to--each is, at least, a sorcerer engine in a dragon chassis, after all, and sorcerers are already among the game's most powerful classes--, but dragons are much closer to their printed CR if played like big, meaty melee monsters with the default feats from the Monster Manual (e.g. no Rapidstrike et al., no Shock Trooper, no Travel Devotion). It's the DM's task to make sure that the dragon and the environment in which the dragon's confronted are appropriate to his PCs' abilities instead of either slaughtering the party or allowing a legendary beast be unceremoniously assassinated (unless that's the goal).
A customized-by-the-DM wily young copper dragon that efficiently uses all of its resources can, certainly, defeat a straight-from-the-Monster-Manual young red dragon that's down on its luck, hungry, caught unawares, and used to biting everything to death... but either of those could be an EL 7 encounter. It's part of the DM's job to evaluate each monster to determine its suitability. Encounter design, unfortunately or not, is more art than science.
What I'm seeing in your question is that you don't have a D&D group, you have a sexytimes fantasy roleplaying group. Being in an RPG group that's not what you thought it was is a more basic problem* than getting your D&D players to change behaviour, because you don't have D&D players.
(It's not that D&D can't include sexuality, or even can't be totally about sexuality like this, but for your purposes “friends, let's play D&D!” didn't result in a D&D game as most people — and you — understood the proposed activity. You got something totally different.)
Break it down: you proposed playing D&D, but your friends aren't interested in exploring the wilderness, heroic adventures, fighting monsters and looking for treasure, debating queens and emperors — or any of the many things that a D&D game usually consists of. They strongly resist any inducements to adventure, and resist your attempts to reduce the sexytimes roleplaying.
So you have a group of friends interested in exploring their and each other's sexual fantasies, as a group.
That's the diagnosis of the situation. Now for the solution.
Do you want to have a weekly sexytimes roleplaying session with your friends? No rhetorical question implying inherent judgement there — it's the question you're faced with and it's a fair one. Some people might say “actually, yes.”
But I'm going to assume, based on your question, that your answer is a clear “no”.
Since you don't have a D&D group, you should stop trying to make your sexytimes fantasy roleplaying group play D&D. Accept that they already aren't playing D&D as you understand it, and proceed accordingly as if you don't have an established D&D group — you don't.
That's the conceptual shift you need to make. Now here's a social script that you can use (directly, or for inspiration) to move forward in the actual situation you're in:
Before your next game — another social gathering, a meeting to discuss the game, or over email, whatever works — talk to your friends about the weekly game.
Hey friends. I realise now that what we want from our roleplaying group is different. I want a traditional adventure game that's similar to fantasy novels and shows, and I'm not getting that. You want to have a game that's focused on sexytimes† — and that's fine. It's just not something I'm interested in doing.
So I'm going to step down as the DM. I want you to continue enjoying your roleplaying game, but it always has been yours, not mine. I may or may not participate — honestly, probably not — but in any case I won't be running it. That also means that I won't be trying to make the rules and accidentally cramping your style either (*grin*).
I don't know which of you might want the DMing role, but I'm happy to give advice to whoever ends up stepping into that job. If you're all thinking that DMing sounds no fun, well, just remember that the DM gets to have many sexytimes characters. Maybe it'll have benefits you don't expect.
So that's just what I wanted to say. I'm glad I introduced you all to something you enjoy so much.
Whether using that directly or something else, it's important to stick to talking about yourself and your wants, and what you are going to do — and when you do mention their activity preference, that it sounds generally happy for them. This helps you avoid going anywhere near accidentally being judgemental.
Not only is avoiding judgement philosophically important because hey, consenting adults can do what they want with their imaginations, but it's super-important for getting what you want, which is your friends' active acceptance of your feelings and choices for what you do next. Someone who feels judged isn't listening or in a position to be understanding of what you feel, need, and choose. You don't want them to fight about this, just accept what's already true — that you're moving on, and that's fine.
Now, that might be it. You've stated that you want different things, and (super-important) you've said what you are doing without implying that there's any negotiation, or that you need their permission. You're just an adult exercising your adult prerogatives to decide how you use your time, and you're not throwing them any shade in the process. All good!
So now what if they object? I can think of one that might have led to this situation:
Yes, sure, but “anything” doesn't always mean that the people in a group are interested in the same “anything”. No one game can contain everything, so you have to pick and choose what your roleplaying “anything” ends up actually being about.
But that's still a misconception I can imagine leading to your present situation, and if so, it might come up and it's good to have a similarly non-judgemental, self-possessed response lined up, just in case. So, another script to use or munge as needed:
Absolutely, roleplaying lets you do anything you want. What we want to choose off the menu of “anything” is just different, that's all. That's okay. Some people like to read or watch heroes being heroes, some people like to read or watch space adventures, and some people like to read or watch stuff with lots of sex in it. Our tastes in roleplaying don't have to match, just like they don't have to match in other entertainments.
So do you have any idea which of you might make a good DM? Or hey, maybe you don't need a DM. It's not actually a necessary job in some roleplaying groups. I can get you some resources‡ for that, if you like.
This responds to the misconception, again without judgement, and then (super-important) redirects the conversation to something that includes moving past this issue, so the conversation stays productively focused on what they want to do next, because you demonstrate that you're already decided about what you are going to do.
* There is an excellent article series on the basic problem of playing completely different games at the same table, how to solve the problem, and a group-discussion tool that's popular to help dodge the problem entirely with new groups (aptly called the Same Page Tool).
† “Sexytimes” is a playful term in my own social circle's idiolect. If it's too unusual for your social group, by all means use a more appropriate term! I chose “sexytimes” because, where I am and for us, it conveys lightheartedness without any suggestion of being mocking or judgemental. Any term that is neutral and light would fit my intentions in these scripts.
‡ i.e., ask us a question to help us help your new-DM friend or your new GMless-roleplaying friends. :)
Best Answer
Green dragons have never breathed fire in D&D
Various fantasy artwork, both old and recent, has depicted a green dragon who breathes fire. This is generally because in some myths, including those which inspired D&D's conception of the creature, dragons are imagined as reptilian, who are often green; and in some myths and stories, including The Hobbit, dragons breathe fire. More recently, Tohru, the green dragon in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (and, it is implied, who is named after Tolkien), breathes fire.
However, in D&D, the green dragon has always breathed poison gas (or corrosive acid gas, in later editions), but never fire. This is been true since the original D&D (1974).
D&D creator Gary Gygax describes the story how he invented D&D's dragons in The Slayer's Guide to Dragons. First, there was what we now call the red dragon, which breathes fire as per The Hobbit. (Gygax does not specifically credit The Hobbit for this in D&D, though it is noted as such in D&D's precursor Chainmail, which is now known to have taken many of its fantasy elements from a 1970 fan-made Middle Earth wargame by Leonard Patt, and the fire-breathing dragon in that is inspired by the dragon in The Hobbit.)
Next, looking to the original Norse myth that inspired The Hobbit (perhaps to fend off claims of plagiarasing Tolkien), Gygax noticed the dragon Fafnir in the Saga of the Volsungs, who breathes or exudes poison, rather than fire. In the original Dungeons & Dragons, this inspired the green dragon, who breathes a 5" by 4" cloud of chlorine gas.
Gygax actually says he invented the new chromatic dragon types to create more variety for his players, who could otherwise reliably outfit themselves with fire-proofing before any dragon fight. In other words, not only were you surprised that a green dragon did not breathe fire, but so was the first gaming group to ever fight a green dragon in D&D.
It's entirely plausible that somewhere in the myriad of official and third-party D&D books there's a spell or variant that lets a dragon use another dragon's breath weapon. A potion of dragonbreath which lets a player character breathe fire could be used by a green dragon, for example.
I faintly recall an old Nodwick comic where a village asks the heroes to fight a green dragon, so they show up equipped with a Green Orb of Dragonkind. One unfortunate encounter later, they learn that it was actually a red dragon, and a rare genetic trait causes everyone in that village to be red-green colour-blind.