The art of Dungeon Fantasy 13: Monsters 1

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

. If you're bound and determined to play it straight, you can.

However, it's a particular kind of playing it straight. To me, "serious" gaming in DF is the self-important seriousness of a 1970s martial arts movie or a heavy metal album cover. It's the fantasies of the teenagers we once were when we started playing, simple in structure but epic in scale. If that's how you want to play it, I'm going to try to stay out of your way. Indeed, it's the way I usually play it. However, the 40-something author also appreciates that very seriousness in a less than serious way than the teenager who came up with it. My gags depend on the comedy lurking on a meta level, enjoying the absurdity of the whole thing without necessarily needing it to comment ironically itself, break the fourth wall, or subjecting the characters to overt jokes rather than the players. I'm not at all certain that that's Kromm's original vision, but I like to think that at least it doesn't actively conflict with it.

There's a couple of terms floating around the computer programming subcultures that is, I feel, pretty appropriate here:

"Haha-serious" and "only serious" (contrast with "only joking", as in "I was only joking").

The heavy-metal album covers (and heavy metal in general) are actually a really good comparison, because quite a few heavy metal bands are fully aware of how silly they look (and they appreciate the humour value!), but they're still doing the whole thing seriously and passionately, not out of "hipster" irony.

Just because something is ridiculous, and you know it, doesn't mean you can't do it to the hilt, throwing yourself into it wholeheartedly and with great passion and enthusiasm. Being able to laugh at yourself, and appreciating that other people are laughing at you (rather than resenting it) doesn't mean you're doing it for laughs.

It goes the other way too - totally sober and serious, weighty things that you can make jokes about spawn what's known as black humour. Black humour doesn't deny that death and tragedy are serious, grim subjects, and isn't trying to insult or degrade them by finding something funny about the situation. You just spot the funny stuff anyways.

Historically believed-in monsters, like the leucrocotta, aren't any more or less ridiculous than manticores, chimeras, or minotaurs. Or dragons for that matter. Some people think leucrocottas are ridiculous looking, while I think chimeras and minotaurs are totally ridiculous looking. I still like playing minotaurs regardless, and I think chimeras can (and do) make great monsters. The leurocotta is a deceptive ambush predator that uses cunning, mimicry, and/or outright mind control to draw away travellers from the path so it can eat them. It's made out of a pile of animal parts.

It's smarter and thus potentially far more dangerous than an owlbear, and yet owlbears have proven themselves to have serious staying power in the dungeon fantasy genre - they're the subject of endless jokes, and yet everyone wants there to be owlbears in every edition.

I just don't see what makes the "standard" chimerical monsters somehow "less ridiculous" or "more dangerous" in their D&D treatment - D&D didn't change the description of the leucrocotta at all for it's version (It's in the 2e monstrous manual, right across from the Lamia).