I go with the "Player make up their own tone while playing DF" . Thats why I find it hard to read community stories, they never fit my imagination of what DF is like.
That's interesting. How does others perception of DF (gained through reading community/story forts) differ from yours? Do the others always seem similar?
I don't think DF is that dark, it depends how you play. You could be throwing every child born off the edge of a pit in sacrifice to Armok or just play a peaceful farming settlement with invaders switched off. There probably is something noble about the dwarf militia defending their kin, and I've always thought the mayor had a twisted sense of humour when he demands impossible items just so he can have someone beaten. It's a survival city-builder in its finest form. But DF is great in that you can shift it to be what you want it to be depending on your idea for the game.
Well, my perception is out to change in future when dwarf fortress gets new additional features and more magic, but at the moment its basically like real world with fantastical creatures. Sometimes things go great, sometimes things go down the gutter. In fortress mode, its a long trek to unknown lands and making living there and maybe doing some great things in process, maybe you get overwhelmed by the monsters or invaders and die. In advanture mode you are some young person going in an adventure to become a hero, maybe you actually succeed, maybe you get hit by realism of getting ripped apart by night creatures. Some people seem to have rather dark idea of DF, like Boatmurdered and other bloody hilarious stories, but I just see it as normal life sort of the way. Its hard to explain.
I don't see dwarfs as stupid mad geniuses who play with magma devices and !!science!!, just stubborn people who happen to be natural alcoholics, I don't see elves as hippies, just people who are immortal and happen to live in "naturalistic" way including having no problem with eating other sapient beings, kinda like animals don't have problems with cannibalism, etc. With exception of maybe demon masters, I don't see the setting as standard fantasy setting of good vs evil either. I'm not sure if I'm able to explain it well what I mean ^^;