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

[Stormonu]

WotC Bigby's Giant book has a Giant Ox in it, and it's blue.

Like it was mentioned earlier, I think a lot of Americans think of our folklore as gauche and don't feel like it fits in D&D.

Eberron takes '20s noir with its newspapers, lightning rails and other modern American tidbits and successfully uses them, so its doable if approached right. I'm sure it taken some American folklore and dropped it in there too.

Personally, I've always been interested in introducing Native American (and Aztec/Toltec/Mayan) bits into my games, as well as some of the old Spanish Mission era lifestyle (having been from California), and because it has Zorro.

One of the odder WotC/TSR attempts to pull that in was Dragonlance, with the likes of the Que-Shu tribes and such, but it felt out of place there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

Yes, I know, I wasn’t suggesting the Western was actually based on REH, just that they independently have the same story.

 

[Shardstone]

Is this a cash grab???

 

[Reynard]

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.

The old west wasn't the old west either. My point is that D&D emerged out of the same very American literary tradition, particularly in the way it is primarily interested in depicting its "heroes" as hard men with questionable morals doing what they want outside of the context of the rest of society, often on a frontier which, yes, it extremely American. European literary traditions talk more about dark places within largely settled lands because by the medieval era, there were no empty places left in Europe. Americans were always pushing farther and farther out into the frontier,seeking gold and glory until they establish a life (that inevitably gets disrupted and they are pulled back into the muck).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Seven Samurai!

Yes, but also literally dozens of Westerns. At a certain point, it's too watered down to say it's a take on Seven Samurai any more. I certainly wouldn't say Silverado or The Harder They Fall are Seven Samurai knock-offs.

 

[Shardstone]

My favorite faux-European monsters are the check notes Mindflayers, Beholders, and Yugoloths.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Like it was mentioned earlier, I think a lot of Americans think of our folklore as gauche and don't feel like it fits in D&D.

That’s a shame, it’s our stories that tell us who we are.

And anything can fit into D&D.

 

[aco175]

I would finally get to use this mini, although mine is still unpainted.

 

[Mind of tempest]

In regards to Indigenous traditions, there is a certain figure from Algonquin faiths that is often portrayed as a antler wearing cannibal cryptid. In the real tradition, there's a strong taboo against saying the name (it starts with a W), which is why I'm not saying it either. However, it has appeared, name and all, in several TTRPGs, and in 3.5 edition. Stuff like that should be handled with care, I'd say.

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.

So by seeing a kaiju ox or a sasquatch people would think "this is too American" and "there must be guns?"

I guess I don't understand how adding these monsters and beasts changes the story beats of D&D

every continent has a hairy ape-man they seem to be an inevitability of the human mind.

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.

those sound exactly the same as half of European myths so I doubt they are proof of anything.

 

[Reynard]

every continent has a hairy ape-man they seem to be an inevitability of the human mind.

Or...