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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm really surprised that no one (at least as I'm aware of) hasn't leapt on this and published it as a campaign setting.

There are at least three such published 5E settings, including the Ennie-nominated Oz by Andrew Kolb. (I own two different takes on the setting, myself.)

 

[bedir than]

The suturefly from Tome of Beasts 1 feels like something Americana. A tiny monster that will punish you for lying could be straight out of a campfire tale told to kids.

 

[Tonguez]

In a way, I'm surprised that early D&D didn't take more from the Oz novels - its pure American fantasy. It's also a fully-fleshed out campaign setting if you take all the books together. Then again, in another way, I'm not surprised, as it would clash pretty badly thematically with the war gaming and sword-and-sorcery roots of the early years of the game; I'd imagine that it would be considered too "childish". However, these days, it would be perfect as a Domain of Delight in the Feywild, especially as much of the novel series are now public domain. I'm really surprised that no one (at least as I'm aware of) hasn't leapt on this and published it as a campaign setting.

Gygax did Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror though, which wasnt that different from Oz, so yeah it does seem a bit of an oversight not to have drawn from it.

 

[MGibster]

I've said it before, but the fact that D&D reflects modern liberal values is one of the reasons why it's so successful. We tend to value things like individualism, freedom of religion, due process, freedom of association, etc., etc. In D&D, a king who tried to impose his religion on the entirety of his people would likely be seen as a tyrant but it was a pretty common thing throughout history. While D&D is very American, it's viewed through a rather odd pseudo mythical lens. A lot of monsters in D&D come from various world mythologies but a lot of them don't have the same role they did in the cultures they originated. i.e. They don't resonate the same with as they might have with a 16th century Bavarian.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Gygax did Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror though, which wasnt that different from Oz, so yeah it does seem a bit of an oversight not to have drawn from it.

I wonder if that's because the Alice novels were a bit older (35 years before the first Oz novel), which lent them a bit more credibility as an inspiration. They were both "children's novels", but since the Alice novels were over a century old by the time D&D started, they got bumped up to "classic" novel status.

(And Alice had influence in D&D well before those modules, as the vorpal sword first appeared in D&D in 1975).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I suspect it's because of good old fashioned Anglophenia, which American fantasy nerds have traditionally had by the bucket.

Oz is about a kid from Kansas. Alice is about a little English girl.

 

[Baron Opal II]

the beast of gluttony and craving, where the hell did the antlers come from even I know they are not from the stories and I am a ocean away.

By an author who heard of the creature but didn't get a physical description. I'm trying to remember who told that to me, but the description of an antlered corpse creature isn't much older than 20-30 years. It might have been Grimm or Supernatural, come to think of it.

 

[Tonguez]

By an author who heard of the creature but didn't get a physical description. I'm trying to remember who told that to me, but the description of an antlered corpse creature isn't much older than 20-30 years. It might have been Grimm or Supernatural, come to think of it.

Iirc it was the illustration of the eponymously named Algernon Blackwood horror story that first depicted it as an antlered creature, early 1900s. Antler wearing however was a feature of Eurasian folklores from the Celts to the Siberia tundra, it is an example of European iconography applied to American native folklore

 

[Baron Opal II]

Exactly. Although I didn't think it was that old.

 

[borringman]

I think the Star Wars cantina effect present in so many D&D games is due, in part, to the fact that D&D is created by a nation of immigrants where it's always been common to know people who speak different languages than you do at home

I find that doubtful. The creators lived in a homogeneous part of the country and were openly racist. They didn't even want to include Tolkienfolk but gave in to popular demand. The 1st Edition PHB artwork is almost entirely white human men. Suffice to say, Bigfoot would've been a monster through and through, whereas it'd be a playable species today.

Things have changed in the last 50 years, much for the better, but I daresay the recent cantina effect is just Hasbro Marketing maximizing the appeal of their product. Gamers here are big on xenophilic* aesthetics but don't want to think about what it means to be truly different, so Hasbro pushed a "we're all the same underneath" narrative in their recent offerings that looks superficially progressive, but deliberately decouples the aesthetics from the real challenges and complexities of racial diversity.

*by which I mean goblins and tieflings and such, not plain ol' brown or black people -- that's a bridge too far, apparently.