I'm writing a blog on the monsters of dungeons and dragons (dragonencounters.com), and as I approach the dinosaur section, I find myself wondering if dinosaurs really fit into a fantasy game? Horror monsters have been thoroughly integrated (I doubt more than a few people, on seeing a werewolf in Harry Potter, even thought to say "Wrong genre", but dinosaurs don't seem to belong.

Does anybody else feel this way? If so, how have you handled it (or how would you handle it) in your own games? Not use them, just ignore the problem, or something else? If you have any ideas for how to make them fit better, I would also love to hear.

It's fantasy. Anything can and should fit.

The more important question is "Do dinosaurs fit in the shared fantasy at my game table?"

Maybe your blog can focus on how to decide if Dinosaurs fit into a game (or don't). The impact on the local ecology, peoples, etc.

I think we mostly get the "Dinosaurs=science fiction" mentality from things like Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne's The Lost World, and Jurassic Park. However, I'm pretty sure dinosaurs appear in many of the older properties that early dnd is based off, such as Conan.

We'd find them out of place in Tolkien-esque high fantasy, but in retro pulp fantasy they're right at home, which is more what most dnd fits anyways. 

Not gonna lie, I've played Tomb of Annihilation twice, and I still think it's weird that there are dinosaurs on Chult. Breaks immersion for me, personally. Whenever it came up in-game, I had to put myself in the headspace of, "it's just another monster, pretend you haven't seen this in a museum." I know that other prehistoric beasts are in D&D too, like mammoths and saber-tooth tigers and plesiosaurs...but those feel more fantastical to me because, I think, they aren't as ubiquitous in real life. You don't have saber-tooth tiger pajamas or plesiosaurus band-aids when you're a kid, you know?

Do dinos belong in D&D? Yeah, if that's the kind of story you want to run. I generally don't include them (or many real-world creatures) in my games. 

I have no problems with dinos. But I started playing way back when we were mixing basic and advance modules. Your choice but. If you have problems just stick them in one country. or valley, or island. or in the center of the earth

Why are dinosaurs inappropriate in a fantasy setting?

It's fine to have dinosaurs the creatures but if you are planning on putting in the natural history of dinosaurs where their descendants are birds ect...  that may not be compatible with the idea of ancient elven super civilizations full of demigods like you get in lord of the rings.  At least not without some explanation 

DInosaurs in a faux-medieval setting are an anachronism because dinosaurs weren't known prior to the 19th century, though it's possible that people found dinosaur fossils and decided they were dragons. There's also the issue of most fantasy worlds not being hundreds of millions of years old, but if you're having dinosaurs in your setting you're probably ignoring real timelines anyway.

The game has dragons, beholders, vampires, insects the size of Volkswagens, and wizards, but you draw the line at dinosaurs being unrealistic?

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

The game has dragons, beholders, vampires, insects the size of Volkswagens, and wizards, but you draw the line at dinosaurs being unrealistic?

 More dissonant than unrealistic.  

If you have a story in your world that humans were created by a god 100 years ago out of sea foam but then also have fossils showing the gradual evolution of humans over millions of years then you have two histories of the world that don't agree with each other. 

For example I don't think  that in Faerun dinosaurs would be thought of as prehistoric animals. Instead they're probably thought of as monsters from the far off foreign land of chult which have no relation to native animals.

Dinosaurs coexisting with humans makes no sense at all; the very idea is- is- what's that word... Phantasmagorical? Far-fetched? Fanciful? Something beginning with an "F," anyway...

Quote from Solarsyphon >>

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

The game has dragons, beholders, vampires, insects the size of Volkswagens, and wizards, but you draw the line at dinosaurs being unrealistic?

 More dissonant than unrealistic.  

If you have a story in your world that humans were created by a god 100 years ago out of sea foam but then also have fossils showing the gradual evolution of humans over millions of years then you have two histories of the world that don't agree with each other. 

For example I don't think  that in Faerun dinosaurs would be thought of as prehistoric animals. Instead they're probably thought of as monsters from the far off foreign land of chult which have no relation to native animals.

 I think that sounds more like imposing outside expectations on dinosaurs due to OOC knowledge than an actual issue with having dinosaurs in the game.

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Quote from Solarsyphon >>

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

The game has dragons, beholders, vampires, insects the size of Volkswagens, and wizards, but you draw the line at dinosaurs being unrealistic?

 More dissonant than unrealistic.  

If you have a story in your world that humans were created by a god 100 years ago out of sea foam but then also have fossils showing the gradual evolution of humans over millions of years then you have two histories of the world that don't agree with each other. 

For example I don't think  that in Faerun dinosaurs would be thought of as prehistoric animals. Instead they're probably thought of as monsters from the far off foreign land of chult which have no relation to native animals.

 I think that sounds more like imposing outside expectations on dinosaurs due to OOC knowledge than an actual issue with having dinosaurs in the game.

Right, what I mean is that dinosaurs have baggage and you dont have to take that baggage with you but allot of dms  will but probably shouldn't. 

Dinosaurs don't have to be ancient extinct bird ancestors. They can be their own thing. You can  then also adjust their aesthetics to be more fantastical. There are some pretty cool fantasy dinosaur designs out there. 

There's only baggage if you insist that there's baggage.

I personally love dinosaurs in my DND games. As a DM I don't throw them in every arc, but there are definitely dinos at least more than once. 

If the problem with them is that they're real creatures, then we better get rid of basically all Beasts from the game too. My can't have the immersion of an owlbear ruined by the fact that the game has owls and bears. 

The whole point of fantasy is that anything can go, as long as it obeys it's own internal logic.

If you are going to have dinosaurs, then you need to use them in a way makes sense. Are they native and endemic to the region? Than the party should encounter them with the regularity they would any beast for that area. Are they native to a certain specific region, but one that is accessible to traders and adventurers? Then maybe they show up, but only rarely, having been captured and traded, so are sought after pets etc by the rich and powerful. Are they from another dimension so they maybe only show up when powerful mages can summon them? 

Fantasy/magic can be a difficult genre to write and create in because it is so easy to hand wave anything away as "magic",  but the key is building, and obeying an internal logic. Anything CAN go, as long as it follows the rules you have established for your universe.

Do gunpowder, firearms and cannons belong? Artificers? Futuristic weapons or technology? Flying ships? Space ships?

Because all of these have appeared in official material in one form or another.

The question to me is "Why shouldn't there be dinosaurs?"

What is it about them that makes you feel like they don't belong?

As some of the other people here have said, it largely depends on the theme of the campaign and what sort of player-DM dynamic you have. I feel, however, that there is one detail that people often forget when talking about this sort of thing:

Not everything in a campaign has to make sense.

Of course, if your heavily lore-focused political intrigue campaign isn't a good fit for your dinosaur encounter, then that's perfectly fine, but in most casual campaigns, sometimes it's nice to not overthink things and enjoy the unique experience. I feel like including dinosaurs in a campaign, perhaps even as just a one-off, can be a perfect way for your party to test their skills, check their lore theorist brain at the door and have some good nonsensical fun: Almost everyone encounters a dragon at some point in their D&D experience, but your first dinosaur in D&D can be truly special (not to say that your first dragon isn't).

friends, romans, countrymen, LEND ME YOUR EARS(seriously, they got stolen by a green hag), dinosaurs belong because of all the sick things you can do with them, consider...

• druids. they can wildshape into a T-Rex. you just have an elf, and when s*** goes down, (insert batman transition sound effect here) giant dinosaur *chomp*
• green hags. they do all sorts of things with things having to do with green places, swamps, jungles, forests, all teh places you would encounter a fairytale witch. imagine a coven of green hags with some velociraptor fammiliers that they feed offal and organs from their grotesque magic to
• green dragons. they hoard powerful allies. and live in forests. Former_Queen_Yvonne missed this duo, DRAGON AND DINOSAUR!!!!!

So, what we are talking about is basically giant reptile-avian beings.

In a game where there is a giant flying reptile on the cover.

a game inspired in part by the idea of areas of a world that have been forgotten by time.

Yes, Dinosaurs belong in D&D. the question isn't "are they dissonant" or not, nor is the question "do they belong" -- not in terms of the whole game; they absolutely do, and it would be dishonest and startlingly biased to argue otherwise.

Do they belong in a given setting, though? 

There are no dinos on Krynn that I know of -- it doesn't quite work there. The rest of the published worlds at present either have them or do not -- I doubt Strahd has much of an issue dealing with Dinosaurs.

It is going to depend on the kind of setting, and the kind of game you like. Dinosaurs are the original Kaiju -- the original giant monsters that cause havoc and wreck things -- be it out of hostile or accidental reason.

I have an entire continent of Dinosaurs. Among them live a "lost people", and there is a whole pile of odds and ends around that. But the main play region doesn't have dinosaurs because they would probably wreck things -- but nothing says that down the road my intrepid band of hardy adventurers wouldn't end up bringing back a few to show off in the Empire.

They key with Dinosaurs is that they have to work well with what people are doing -- having a T-Rex munching its way through Cormyr probably wouldn't work quite as well, but some v'raptors in Chult is fine because why the hell not?

The whole point of the game is fantasy, and anyone who has seen old pulp novel covers or looked at Boris and Frazetta art can tell you that dinosaurs fit in -- read tarzan or Amtor or Haggard -- dinosaurs were n fantasy long before D&D even existed.