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

[Paul Farquhar]

every continent has a hairy ape-man

That’s because they travel the world on their faerie roads.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Or...

or what?

 

[Voadam]

For American monsters we already have plenty of Cthulhu Mythos options in D&D.

 

[Tonguez]

According to wikipedia A Fistful of Dollars is a Wild Western Yojimbo, both a couple decades after Red Nails.

I see a few similarities to Red Nails though.

REH was a doctors son who spent his early life in real cowboy towns across texas, so he absolutely was writing westerns in the guise of swords and scorcery, he also wrote a few actual westerns

 

[Gammadoodler]

As a European medieval fantasy simulator, D&D isn't great. The TSR settings, especially, show an American mindset about population densities and modern attitudes have peeked through -- or been completely dominant -- in the game since its inception. And the region around the City of Greyhawk looks suspiciously like the region around Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, plus or minus a dragon. Which is great, to be clear: I'm not interested in playing Dung Heaps and Dysentery, and I don't think many other people are, either.

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? Should it draw from distinctly American fantasy works like the Oz novels (the Harry Potter novels of their day)?

Would your players enjoy dealing with lake monsters while keeping watch to prevent getting attacked by a hidebehind? Or would that be an unwelcome flavor in your fantasy?

I kinda feel like as long as you can code a monster's appearance, behaviors, and abilities as sufficiently fantastical, you can get away with most anything.

If there's a risk, I think it mainly comes down to the names you use for things.

Edit: For example, does this sound like a D&D monster?

It is generally described as a heavy creature, reptilian and alien-like, roughly the size of a small bear, and with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail

Does your opinion change when I note that this is a description of a 'chupacabra'?

 

[Morrus]

As a European medieval fantasy simulator, D&D isn't great. The TSR settings, especially, show an American mindset about population densities and modern attitudes have peeked through -- or been completely dominant -- in the game since its inception. And the region around the City of Greyhawk looks suspiciously like the region around Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, plus or minus a dragon. Which is great, to be clear: I'm not interested in playing Dung Heaps and Dysentery, and I don't think many other people are, either.

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? Should it draw from distinctly American fantasy works like the Oz novels (the Harry Potter novels of their day)?

Would your players enjoy dealing with lake monsters while keeping watch to prevent getting attacked by a hidebehind? Or would that be an unwelcome flavor in your fantasy?

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[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For American monsters we already have plenty of Cthulhu Mythos options in D&D.

No offense to the squamous horrors among us, but I am full up on the mythos.

 

[aco175]

or what?

They can just be orcs, or women instead of men.

 

[Voadam]

When Running a 5e conversion of the Carrion Crown module Trial of the Beast and the party was investigating the swampers of Morast I had the locals warning them about seeing a big Wampus Cat lately.

The party figured out it was a regional name when they got jumped by a displacer beast.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There are a lot of stories about people seeing large blacks cats in the UK at the moment.

It’s now clear that the truth is what they are really seeing are displacer beasts.