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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8508040">Except Genies in D&D have long had different alignments depending on the types. Efreet are just one type of genie in AD&D. Pretty sure 3E was similar. Can't speak to 5E. Now those types aren't necessarily accurate depictions of the types found in Arabic folklore, but there is a difference in AD&D between a Djinni and a Dao (the former is Chaotic Good and the latter is Chaotic Evil), a Jann or an Efreeti are far more complicated as well. One of the reasons to make them ferocious is because they grant wishes and resent doing so. It makes them more interesting to deal with from a game point of view. But there are lots of differently aligned Genie in the game, not just Efreet. And the city of Brass is prominent not to promote negative stereotypes of Arabic culture, but because evil is almost always more compelling and interesting in a game than good. I believe the Djinni had the Court of Ice and Steel. I think people were just generally less interested in chaotic air elemental cities than fiery and evil Efreet cities. Who can blame them: evil is more fun from a gaming point of view. Game books need villains and antagonists to deal with. And sometimes it is. But the point I was making, is I take it on a case by case basis. I don't think it is automatically bad when they have an American-style monster, with stereotypically negative american traits. There is a hopping vampire film that brings in a western style vampire for instance. It may, for fun have had western or European traits as a villain (it has been a while since I have seen it), but I also remember thinking at the time that all of that was mainly just for flavor. I would contrast a movie like that, against one where there is a clear nationalist message using the trope to make a political point. Very different and I think it would be ashame to lose the former because someone might employ the trope similarly to make the latter (and I even want the latter to exist, because that too can be entertaining). I can watch a movie made in China with a nationalist message, and be entertained by it, while also understanding there is propaganda there. I think what is more important than controlling tropes, is giving people the tools to control their reaction to media. The power of imagery, tropes, and types of media do fade over time with exposure (propoganda posters for example don't have the potency they once had because we understand how they are trying to manipulate------but tweets do have power because it is a new medium and we are grappling with what they really mean and how they influence us). Also allowing for a range of expressions of tropes is important I think. And I consider what the overall intent and message is in the context of what is happening. I think that is the kind of layering these discussions tend to lead us away from (where a thing is simply bad because it has X and Y and X and Y could be interpreted as Z). My point is more about not leaping to conclusions, forming a considered opinion about art slowly without being reactionary. Sometimes there is a bad message in art. I just think we've reached a point where it isn't particularly tenable for gaming. Tropes are considered infected with badness, there are rules governing the polite use of tropes and ideas, and those rules are based almost entirely on optics, not on the actual intention and meaning of the work. I think this is all very well intended. But i just can't escape the feeling it is misguided and untimely pretty unhealthy for us. I know, just for me personally, I started enjoying making things again when I gave this kind of thinking less power over how I function creatively.</blockquote>

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