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

[Voadam]

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?

Form an armed posse of a group to go out and fix a situation.

Keep on the Borderlands, and points of light in general are very frontier oriented.

Everybody has weapons.

Conan is a lot of western stories with a fantasy veneer, Beyond the Black River in particular. Conan is a big model for some of D&D, particularly original model freebooting violent adventurers recovering loot.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Form an armed posse of a group to go out and fix a situation.

Keep on the Borderlands, and points of light in general are very frontier oriented.

Everybody has weapons.

Conan is a lot of western stories with a fantasy veneer, Beyond the Black River in particular. Conan is a big model for some of D&D, particularly original model freebooting adventurers recovering loot.

Isn’t Red Nails A Fistful of Dollars?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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?

Small town, beset by bandits, too weak to defend itself, relies on a group of random misfit outsiders to defend itself.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And, as always, you can take the plot of Lonesome Dove into almost any genre and have a fantastic story. It's not hard at all to change Gus and Call into aged adventurers going out on one last adventure, accompanied by younger party members and running into old paramours and adversaries. It doesn't even require squinting hard to turn it into a fantasy adventure.

 

[MGibster]

Keep on the Borderlands, and points of light in general are very frontier oriented.

Since when does frontier mean Old West? When I hear Old West, I think of a group of literary themes, tropes, and stock characters that are largely absent from D&D. Are there some commonalities? Sure, rugged individualism is one. But I can't point to D&D as a whole and say, "Yup, that's a western!" I guess saying D&D is more Old West than Medieval is true, but that doesn't really make D&D a western.

 

[MGibster]

And, as always, you can take the plot of Lonesome Dove into almost any genre and have a fantastic story. It's not hard at all to change Gus and Call into aged adventurers going out on one last adventure, accompanied by younger party members and running into old paramours and adversaries. It doesn't even require squinting hard to turn it into a fantasy adventure.

I could do the same with the Iliad. But I'm not going to belabor this point and I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I could do the same with the Iliad. But I'm not going to belabor this point and I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

The Illiad is pretty easy to turn into a fantasy story, it's true.

And it's not a hijack, no worries.

 

[Voadam]

Isn’t Red Nails A Fistful of Dollars?

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.

 

[Voadam]

Small town, beset by bandits, too weak to defend itself, relies on a group of random misfit outsiders to defend itself.

Seven Samurai!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

western!" I guess saying D&D is more Old West than Medieval is true, but that doesn't really make D&D a western

Speaking from a European perspective, D&D is far more American/Old West than it is European!