You know the score:

A dragon swoops down inside or outside a city and promptly slaughters every stupid yokel in sight before being taken down by the guards. The 80-year old biddy market trader - with all the intellectual capacity of your average potato - screams "Time to die, Dragon!" before rushing at the terrifying beast of legend clutching a table fork.

Unfortunately she is also a quest giver.

Sort this out Bethesda. Can we have a patch where useless in battle yokels choose not to "enter the fray" but instead run screaming back home and take cover. This is much more realistic and would reduce the number of broken quests.

Outside Markarth last week, one dragon took out six named NPCs, three of them quest givers. After Dhovacock had creamed all the glory, I found 2 of them floating in the river where they'd been hurled.

This is ridiculous. Any chance of a change?

Yeah I had it the other day with a Frost Troll, at the moment I am basically inneffectual against them, nothing I do hurts them, so I ran and lead it to the guards in a nearby hamlet.

Low and behold, one of the local women, a nice girl with a very sharp wooden spoon, decided to stand shoulder to shoulder with the guards.

Needless to say she's dead now.

you know... I've fought around 8 dragons around Dawnstar, and they've yet to harm a hair on an NPC's head...

thats cause theres hardly anyone in Dawnstar to begin with

I had one kill an NPC called Hogarth the other day too. He was the main subject of the next quest I did but it seemed only I knew he was floating face down in the river. lol

The quest went on as normal except I knew the terrible truth the Dev team who created it didn't even know.

Are you playing on PC or console? If you're on PC you can temporarily fix the issues yourself either resurrect them if they're dead or use "setessential" command which you can use to make the NPC immortal (NPC still takes damage but after taking enough damage he will just fall on his knees instead of dying) or mortal and immortal is what you propably want in this case.

I think that other things are killing NPCs as well when you are not around. I am starting to find NPC's bodies scattered all over the world. Not sure if they are questgivers but I did find someone who had been one of my followers. On the one hand, it is kind of cool that they can be killed without even being with you - its closer to real world experience. However, if they are follower candidates or questgivers, there should be some kind of way to avoid this. At least, make it where questgivers hide/run away like you said and followers can only be killed if with you.

Doesn't bother me.
It reflects real life, s#it happens.
We all know we will play this game over and over till the next one comes out. Every game will follow a different path. No need to finish every quest.
Would be nice to be able to delete buggered quests from the journal though.

For me, the only casualty in the war against the dragons has been poor Alvor the Blacksmith.

Oh well, he was an Imperial milk-drinker, anyway.

For one of my characters, Riverwood's blacksmith has been killed by a dragon. That's life in Skyrim. As I don't feel I have to finish every possible quest, it doesn't bother me if a NPC dies.

It's just very inconsistent, in my opinion. So many complain they can't kill certain NPCs because they're flagged essential, because, you know, they're quest givers. Other quest givers aren't.
And it's not just that. The other day I used my Dovahkiin power (a.k.a. console) to make Muiri my follower. It fitted my RP style of "nice duo just trying to get by". So she joined me, I gave her the appropriate skills (because Light Armour and One Handed 5 seemed a little too nice for me) and some outfit. Alright, let's roll.
The first random dragon spawned not shortly after. So I charged into battle and halfway through the fight I noticed Muiri was nowhere to be seen. Oh well, it was at Winterhol, so I suspected she got stuck behind a rock or couldn't find the way up the bridge (*hint at AI*). I went back into the city only to find her kneeling down, hands above her head screaming "Leave me alone" and "Aiiiigh", obviously being scripted to being scared of a dragon. Fair enough, I thought. It's only logical, she's an apothecary's assistant, after all.
Turned out, she was afraid of every enemy NPC in the game. Which made the company rather useless and I decided to undo it.

Long story short, NPCs that aren't supposed to be fighters DO have the script to just run away in fear. So I wonder why some other NPCs just don't give a toss and charge into battle with their iron daggers and clothing, because most people you meet aren't exactly the world-weary type.

That led to some funny anecdote though, when I fast traveled to Windhelm, I believe. There's this elf who works at the stables. I often talked to him before, so I don't think it was scripted.
I once again asked him "Aren't you afraid of dragons?" to which he replies something along the lines of "Pa told me not to worry about things I can't change. If I'm to die by a dragon, so be it". And of course that was the moment when a random dragon spawned and of course he was one of the first to charge into battle, only to find himself being instantly eaten by the dragon. So in this particular case, you can at least say it's not that far off, even though I think there's still a slim line between "I don't mind" and deliberately trying to get the dragon to kill you.

How odd, same here. He was chewed and spat out (I guess Dragons don't like milk).

Only NPC a dragon killed in my game is Faendal. Wich was a shame, because I really liked him.

I gave him a nice burial though.

If the scripting is there for the character to run away and hide, then why does old biddy bartender suddenly think she's Boadicea when a Dragon appears? Can't wait to get this Creation Kit so we can tick the right boxes for ourselves.