D&D General Should D&D feature fearsome critters and other Americana?

[Paul Farquhar]

They'd be fine but a lot are really obscure and the references would probably be lost on most except for a Sasquatch/Bigfoot.

Sometimes it’s good if the players don’t know the story you are ripping off!

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Did someone say...Critters?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I know I am more likely to think of a Liger from Napolean Dynamite than a Kalidah from Oz for a chimeric tiger beast, I had to do some searching to remember what the creatures the cowardly lion fought off in the book are.

I love the Oz setting and have two versions of it for 5E on my shelf (out of three that I know of), but I was thinking more of the tone than the explicit setting. It's nominally feudal, but life in Oz actually resembles late 19th century and pre-World War I America than it does medieval Europe, for instance.

 

[Vaalingrade]

They'd be fine but a lot are really obscure and the references would probably be lost on most except for a Sasquatch/Bigfoot.

Doesn't even take much: just look to all the absolutely in no way Bigfoot related native legends that bigfoot grifters insist are actually proof of a historical reference to bigfoot. Things like red headed giants who ate people, iron toothed hermits, otter women, etc.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

from "Why does the village keep losing handles to farm implements?"

How about a cultist who was told to collect four candles for the demon summoning ritual?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It may be due to playing lots of pirate games but I've always thought DnD more 16th Century anyway, by which time the new world was a known region. 17th century isnt that different. Armour, sword and polearms were still in use in the 17th century with the only major addition being firearms. The prominence of Wizards Academies and technologies is more in line with Enlightenment thinking than it is medieval.

Ivy-covered wizard colleges "back east" definitely feels right.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A jazz musician whose body is piloted by cranium rats!? Sounds inspired to me!

This also opens up one of my favorite tropes: Warlocks entering into fiendish pacts at the crossroads.

 

[ilgatto]

(...)
But should D&D go all the way and embrace this idea of American fantasy? Should it feature monsters from tall tales like fearsome critters, actual North American myths and legends, cryptids like Bigfoot? (...)

There's some interesting (AD&D 1E and 2E) articles on the subject of Native American mythology, history, and monsters in Dragon 61 (1E) and Dragon 205 (2E).

 

[MGibster]

D&D adventurers are distinctly American thematically. They are more Old West than medieval-- which is not surprising given it was the American pulps that spawned the genre and guys like Howard wrote plenty of cowboy tales too.

Are they? I don't know of many D&D adventures that involve thwarting a cattle baron who is driving innocent homesteaders off their land because he wants to secure water rights for his herd. I've heard the argument that D&D is very American, and sure, that's fine, but Old West? What themes does D&D share with Old West literature or movies?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Are they? I don't know of many D&D adventures that involve thwarting a cattle baron who is driving innocent homesteaders off their land because he wants to secure water rights for his herd. I've heard the argument that D&D is very American, and sure, that's fine, but Old West? What themes does D&D share with Old West literature or movies?

The cattle Barron is hiring goblin raiders to drive of the homesteaders? I could see that. Villagers hire a small group of mercenaries to defend them from orc bandits? Three PCs with incompatible alignments hunt for a lost gold shipment?