Black Dragon: How To

from: RedSky1895 on Reddit

Any dragon would be plenty capable of being social, so there's no reason he wouldn't find some allies to help solve a problem. It's also possible, being young, that he's more impressionable to such a lesson and merely learns from it, perhaps even seeking out the one that defeated him to form an alliance - after all, there was obviously not enough animosity there to actually kill him for some reason.

I tend to not treat dragons as being immutably bound to their racial descriptions and instead formed into them on the average by a combination of nature, upbringing, lifestyle, and perception. Each is an individual in no lesser way than any of us. As such, I use the racial descriptions as points of personality rather than overall life outlook and decision making: I've played a neutral good red dragon in the past, and his 'destructive, chaotic evil nature' appeared in the form of quickness of temper, impulsiveness, and easily-violent protectiveness of those he cared about rather than constantly having bad intentions. Basically, you can have a destructive nature and not use it to be an ass to everyone, and that can apply to dragons as well.

I'd recommend treating him as more of an NPC. What is his personality? His life story up until then? His goals? How do those things interact with what happened to determine a course of action? Obviously you don't want to waste a lot of time on such things for a minor character, but he could play as large of a part as you wish, and you can be as quick and vague about answering those questions as you feel sufficient. In the end some of it will be determined by how much you want to stick to dragons being pre-programmed despite being sentient and intelligent: I find it to be contradictory at face value and rectify it by balancing between the two, but YMMV.

Edit: Adding a few example 'revenge' ideas below if that's more what you're looking for here. Most of these came from games I have played in rather than run; some were done by NPC dragons, some by a couple of my better PCs from the past (also dragons).

1. Learn of their history and goals, and meet with them to send them astray or into a trap. Leaving this one generic since it can be used in all sorts of ways, and it's not necessary to be disguised at all (though the example I pull this from was two dragons meeting, so it wouldn't have mattered much since they both already knew).
2. Go after people they care about and can't protect at all times. Flight is powerful, use it to be faster than them and crush them with hopelessness trying to stop it. You can turn this to your advantage pointing back to #1 with false flag ops, which is rather similar to how the example of #1 came about in the first place.
3. Make deals with their allies and spread word against them. Again, a disguise is not necessarily required: People want a dragon as an ally, and you can always be one genuinely (always recommended) since you will be getting what you want out of the arrangement. This is generic as well since it can be whatever fits in your game.
4. Fight dirty: You have wings, that guy doesn't. You can kill him with utter impunity if you think through the problem a bit. Drop heavy things on him. Pick him up and drop him, for that matter...especially if he sleeps outside while traveling.

Note that none of these, save for the fighting dirty in the specific methods described, apply only to dragons. That's really the point. The main thing a dragon brings to the table that any other NPC might not is enough personal power to be easy to sell and persuade with.

As another aside: Acid is the most useful breath weapon, especially if you consider that 'non-weaponized' uses of it probably don't consume uses or require recharge. Acid can do everything from destroying metal bonds and opening locks to severing ropes, rendering water sources unusable, pocking rock faces to make them more climbable (bonus points to anyone who knows where that idea, relevant to dragons, came from), destroying sails on ships (that one too), and many, many other creative uses. Even fire is not as versatile. Think it through a bit and you can be pretty clever with it.

For more tips on playing Black Dragons, check out this other handy guide from Reddit.