I'm not sure where to post this, but I thought I'd ask for confirmation (if possible) on a game event. I was wondering if the first encounter with Delphine (for the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller) puts a temporary pause on random dragon spawning. This seems to have happened before in one of my playthroughs, and in the current one I'm in now. I think dragons won't spawn until you finish defeating the one at Kynesgrove.

That isn't to say dragons aren't out there at all. You'd just have to look for them at Word Walls.

The reason I post this is also a sort of heads up. I find it a more convenient way to explore the world, while also proceeding with the Main Quest. The only other way to control dragon spawning is not finishing Bleak Falls Barrow at all. At least this way, you can sort of put a pause on the main quest, without totally avoiding it. At least it seems that way (it'll be funny if I after I write this, I get ambushed by some dragon ).

What I do is talk to Delphine, then reject her cloak and dagger nonsense, go back to High Hrothgar and learn my shots through Arngier locating Word Walls. This kind of satisifies me on a narrative level too.

You get no random spawning dragons till you go to Kynesgrove and Alduin starts waking the dragons, before that all you have a scripted dragons and the word wall dragons. So you can go visit Delphine, and get the Horn, just do not go following her any where else. I never really saw the point of avoiding Bleakfalls Barrow, you end up getting one scripted dragon to fight, and the guards can kill it with no help at all. it is pretty easy to avoid all the scripted dragons if you do not want to fight them.

Random dragons spawn after BFB/Dragon Rising. I have one character who never progressed the MQ further than that, and he as about as many random dragons as the others.

The dragons do go in vacation when you've started the Kynesgrove quest, though, and come back when you've finished it.

Ok cool. I thought so. Yeah, I had done the whole avoiding Bleak Falls thing before, but this is better. Plus, it's a way to actually make use of Arngier's locations. At least for roleplaying reasons, I feel like an actual student. Instead of just rushing through the main quest and trying to juggle all the elements at the same time.