Here's a random but related question.
When you play, do you prefer characters who adhere to tropes, or do you prefer characters who violate them?
Likewise, what do you prefer when you're DMing?
Yes, and yes.
Tropes are tools. If you always follow them to a T, things become stale. But if you
always violate them no matter what, then the subversion itself becomes a new trope--and becomes stale in the process.
For example, I have a Court Vizier (effectively "Prime Minister") in the city of Al-Rakkah. One of the things widely known about this man, Zaid al-Ansari, is that he may be a slimy businessman, he may be
very intent on always getting the better end of a deal when it's his money on the line...but he has a reputation for being a genuine patriot and putting the good of the city first in his
political dealings. He served as Regent for several years while the current Sultana was growing up (her senile-and-dangerous father had been assassinated when she was only ~12, so she needed a regent for a few years), after which he freely stepped down from that role. I find the "Court Vizier is
always a scheming, conniving, backstabbing snake" trope incredibly tired and boring. So I...didn't do that. I have always left open the possibility that there's more to his loyalty than meets the eye, but in general, the more interesting story has been to portray him as altogether human in different ways, ones that invite the PCs' help rather than their ire.
Likewise...as a religious person myself, it gets pretty grating to see that religious people are so often portrayed as all Secretly Evil, unless they're the local parish priest who has no contact with the hierarchy. So I didn't do that. There are good priests and bad priests--and the Priesthood has a
VERY serious internal police force (the
Asiad al-Khafyun, the "Hidden Masters") who have very low tolerance for priests who abuse the power vested in them to hurt others.
But there are other tropes that I've played fully straight, like noble genies being manipulative bastards who use careful wording to lie to people in order to get what they want. Or wizards (Waziri) mostly being officious bureaucratic academics who go through a year's supply of red tape in under five minutes....and, often, being highly ambitious and driven to doing terrible things seeking success. As a player, for example, I love just playing genuine, unabashed good guy Paladins. Not Lawful Stupid moral policemen, but sincere "knight in shining armor," cares-for-the-downtrodden, Superman-esque
good people who go out into the darkness to save people from it, because they know they can, and not doing the right thing when you know you can do it is not tolerable.
I like subversions when they create interesting new story by breathing life into well-trodden concepts. I get
extremely tired of so-called "subversions" that have so thoroughly displaced the original that choosing
not to do the subversion actually surprises people.
