The art of Dungeon Fantasy 13: Monsters 1

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Exactly. Now, I personally feel that the silliness is only partially related to the specificity, and that it can be easily be ignored for slightly more serious campaigns. DF can walk this thin edge, and be appropriate for both camps (and it has done so very well so far).

(Bold letters are mine)

I want to second this completely.

Exaggerating the silly aspects (that BTW, aren't exclusive of Dungeon Fantasy in the world of fiction and role playing games (*)) to the point of defining Dungeon Fantasy as comic-relief silly fantasy is committing the characteristical error of taking the partial for the total.


(*)

Originally Posted by tg_ambro

Even though no one pointed out to me how silly an evil black skinned elf who had a thing for spiders and lived in hell (that came in two flavors, one very christian, the other infinite) riding a giant metal spider golem with a palace on it's back, in an entire plane made out of web was, I still thought it was extremely silly.

A black skinned, twisted elf, has the potential of being a symbol, like a plane made out of webs, or an spider god/dess (well, they are actual, acknowledged symbols) . . . but people not understanding or denying symbolism (an unfortunate trait of the current times) will prefer to laugh at any hint of it, hence "silliness in in the mind of the interpreter".
...Even people-heroes-gods entering into caves, killing or defeating dark creatures and taking their stuff out of the cave (treasures, cows, the waters, it's the same) is/was a symbolic scenareo of key cosmogonic importance, between other meanings and a number of applications.
...OTOH, that "black skinned elf with a giant metal spider golem" isn't, by default standards, more silly than certain Starships, Bioships, Mecha with AI, mutants with superpowers and lots of things we have around here usually independently of Dungeon Fantasy. Again, some people will regard some of such things as meaningful or plausible in some degree, total or partial, and not as mere absurdities, so officially classifying them and their respective genres as "hilarious" and "silly" is completely gratuitous for them, if not worse.

For me, it's a matter of understanding, tolerance and respect towards others thinking differently, that don't want to role play with the "silly" label officially stapled in the back.