The Tavern

So, when I initially read this description it rubbed me the wrong way. Later on I found it incredibly offensive. Finally I decided I'd sleep on it rather than making a knee-jerk post. I am convinced this has to change and will outline my reasons. My issue is simply this:



I find this line to be shockingly offensive and anti-theistic while contributing little of value - and actually *misleading* me when I first started playing my now-XL27 Djinn. While I have personal reasons that I will refrain from going too much into I find that - objectively - it also clashes with the theme and tone of the rest of the game and would like to see it changed. A possible re-write:



Or perhaps:




Though honestly, this leads me to question just why such a confusing line is included in the description at all, as it leads the reader to the impression that Djinn *require* sustenance in the Crawl sense of the word. . . which they do not (they are hungerless with no alternative food-clock).

Reasons :

1.) Incongruous Tone:
-) Flipping through 10-20 other species descriptions (Minotaur, High Elf, Deep Elf, Tengu, Centaur, Naga, Troll, Human, to name justa few) reveals that the creation-myth/origin-story of these unique species is *NOT* something that is 'uniformly' discussed. Tengu are an ancient race of bird people. No mention of their creation, origin, etc.

2.) Thematically Incongruous - "God":
-) Dungeon Crawl's deities are, for the most part, within the game. The idea that there is a different creator outside of the game who has created the Djinni, Angels, and Demons is at odds with the already rich lore DCSS has developed for its pantheon. It also leads to issues (in my mind) since in-game Angels are servants of TSO. . . which befuddles matters further. So there's a seperate creator god (who is deranged?! And retarded?) that none of the other gods know about?

3.) Anti-Theistic tone:
-) Whether by accident or by intent, Crawl has not been disrespectful of cultural practices, race, sexual orientation, or religious creed thusfar. It's one thing to make up a god and then give it flaws (like, say, Beogh or Makhleb being bloodthirsty evil-doers). This is unlikely to offend anyone and anyone who *IS* offended should seek a different game to play, as this is suspension of disbelief.
But the quoted passage above seems to far more strongly insinuate *THE* god. As in, the IRL Abrahammic God (or perhaps just Islam?).

This isn't "The Binding of Isaac". There's no need to put this sort of 'humor' in the game.


4.) Confusing Wording:
-) The in-depth discussion of their need to eat/not-eat and sustenance actually proves confusing rather than helpful! I went into my first Djinn game fully expecting I had to somehow disenchant magical items in order to 'eat' to keep going. It even uses the word 'sustenance' which crawl *specifically* uses to describe hungering and the food-clock. Why not simply describe them as not needing nourishment but being magically able to eat/drink for pleasure as they desire? Simple.


5.) Trivial Effort
-) Changing the description would take literally a matter of minutes and require no actual development time. Could probably get rid of the (duh!) from later in the description while we're at it.




Now, I have personal reasons why I find this offensive as well. It feels obvious to me that my holy scriptures (The Qur'an) are being at least partially used as a significant source of the inspiration for Crawl's Djinni. As a devout Muslim and proponent of evolution I resent the implication that somehow my all-knowing creator would be ignorant of it. Or, by extension, that my God would be caricatured and mocked.
If my reasons were 100% personal, I might not have taken this step and simply opted to ignore it. But as this forum is *specifically* designed to be a place to discuss aspects of this Game's Design that we think need imroving; and as I believe this change actually lowers the quality of Crawl for all the reasons I've discussed above, this seemed worth posting.

-AHMAD

My knee jerk response is that PERHAPS the original scribe was referring to a magic user cresting a Djinn whole cloth, not unlike a golem or homonculus, rather than it being anything theistic.

I did not write the description, but that was how I read it.

Djiini where created by Sif Muna, who knows a lot about magic but very little about evolution, so she left an fundamental flaw that reveals its artificial nature. your god was not involved, dont worry.
I would take that as a compliment, actually: nothing in the real world could match that description, because if god exists, its creation is perfect. dont take that too seriously, it is just a game, after all.
-HIRSCH

I also got the impression that the phrasing of the Djinn description was intended as a slam against Islam.

Instead of a giant rant though, this could have been more comprehensibly resolved with, "I take offense at everything after the '-' in the Djinn description. Remove it or change it to something that doesn't read like a slam against a religion."

While I totally agree with your thesis and reasoning, I think at this point in time we should just cut Djinn.

but it doesn't... T.T
I loved the description, please don't remove it!
well, if you do remove it, Then I get offended by item destruction, please remove it aswell.

I also found the phrase "some deranged god" a little off-putting. I suspect it was someone's in-joke against the actual coder of the race, rather than intended to be a punt at any religion, but It's still overly negative for a race description IMHO.

I thought the "creator with no knowledge of evolution" was the person who designed the species
Anyway, at this point, I think the consensus is that Dj is broken and that it needs significant redesign. Since no one is working on it and nobody active seems interested in fixing them, we should at least disable them from trunk. They don't need anymore playtesting.
The code can stay there to avoid rotting, if nobody has stepped up to fix them in a couple of versions, then purge them.

Well, but his problems with the description aren't just that it is liable to offend, but also that it misleads in certain respects. The OP could stand to be a bit better formatted I suppose, but it didn't read like a rant to me.

At any rate, I agree with OP; I think a rewrite is in order. I like that Crawl takes standard myths, fantasy tropes, etc., and turns them on their head, but in this case the parallel with supernatural beings of a religious heritage is liable to offend due to the (entirely unnecessary) reference to "a deranged god" in the text. Which, aside from potentially offensive, is unneeded and off tone compared to the other flavor text in the game.

On the specific topic of the thread: This was noticed way back on the first Dj thread so I don't know why it's suddenly flaring up now. I don't see as much worse than Zin, whose arbitrary and long list of conducts is purposely designed to satirize the three main Abrahamic religions.



I just want to reiterate my notion that Dj mechanics would work much better on a god than a species. So a Felid could worship this Dj-god and fuse their MP/HP into essence, receive rF+++ at top piety, cast with glow, etc.

To me, both Dj and LO quirky mechanics fit nice for a god(s) worship rather or at least as valid as a species

Purge themmmm

Why is that off-putting when there are actual deranged gods in Crawl? I realize that it may be a moot point since Djinn seem to be going away anyway, and I suppose there's no reason to needlessly offend people, but why would a reference to a deranged god be offensive in a game where you can worship Xom, Makhleb, Jiyva, Vehumet, etc? It seems silly to take any reference to a god as a commentary on real world religions when the game has its own religious Pantheon anyway.

Djinn has a clear valence to Islam. We don't get to block the associative leap from Crawl Djinn to Islamic Djinn by playing the "just pretending" card. If there is in fact no "commentary on real world religions intended", and Djinn were to stay, then the flavour text would have to change or the race would have to be renamed.

Yes, this is different. The description contains a direct quote from the Quran, which has Allah creating the Jinn "of smokeless fire" (Quran citation). Imagine if you are actually Muslim. The connection is clear, whether intended or not.

Edit: Here try this: "Mundane and average, Humans were made from the dust of the ground by some deranged god."

I was not aware that the quote was directly from the Quran. I still don't think it's particularly offensive, but at the same time, I also think there's no particular benefit to leaving it in if some people are being offended. So I'll agree that it should be removed if Djinns end up staying or getting put back in later.

Yeah to be clear I'm not Muslim either, but still. If someone comes up and says "X might offend people of group Y" the correct question to ask is not "does X offend me", it is "will X offend people of group Y"

This whole thread belongs in the Crazy Yiuf's Corner.

If you get offended by something like that, you don't belong in the internet.

DCSS mocks a lot of stuff, and i don't see how religions should be an exception. (Even when in this case there is no clear connection to the average reader)

Don't find the djinn description "incredibly offensive" and "shockingly offensive" and then use phrases like this in your complaint please

Still, I can't see anything wrong about Djinni description. They were created from smokeless fire. Right, that's taken from Islamic mythology, as are angels from Christian and tengu from Hindu etc. In the end we will slaughter them all. And eat them.

Playing a game without seeing it as a game is rather strange. At least for me.

Allowing them to drink magic potions increases their odds of survival significantly, so their creator apparently knows more about "evolution" than whoever wrote the description (in th senses of the word in which it is not nonsensical given the description)

Unless it is in fact a slight against their out-of-game creator, which I find kind of weird and mean-spirited (I think the species doesn't work but it has nothing to do with potions) unless he or she wrote it I guess

The description is clearly intended to poke fun at religion and religious people, and to offend fundamentalists of all varieties. Considering who wrote it there can be very little doubt about that. I think poking fun is fine, but it goes a little too far in this case.

I remember a talk about about cutting Dj(and I didn't read this thread), so probably won't need that much fixing in the description... I don't care anyway, personally. Isn't it just tiresome to get offended by every bad joke?

Yeah use of the term "retarded" in OP was hypocritical, but his point remains.

I'm not religious personally; in fact I'm staunchly atheist. (Went to a Catholic school for education, in fact, so I was rigorously trained to be an atheist from a very young age. )

However, the description is completely inconsequential to game play and doesn't add anything. It isn't funny and, rather than make someone chuckle, is more likely to come off as lame "lol muslims" xenophobia in the Fox News style. I really don't think that was the intention, but that's because I'm familiar with Crawl and some of the developers (even if only virtually) and that experience makes it easier to assume good faith. But it could leave a sour taste in the mouth of other people, and it would be a shame if that dampened someone's interest (in however small a way) in the game or in the development process behind it. Especially because it is so completely unnecessary.

Also, even on a functional level, the description isn't good. Although granted it would be hard to write a good description for a species that has a bunch of random gimmicks tossed on top of each other, which is why simply removing djinn isn't a bad idea, but whatever.

Also it's just hilarious if the description ends up being the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, and prompted djinn's removal from trunk. I'm all for it.

You really aren't familiar with the specific developer who wrote the description

Djinn Blood and Djinn Souls for Makhleb!!!

I have to admit I got a small chuckle out of the Djinn description, mostly because I thought it was poking fun at the intelligent design crowd.

Nevertheless, bringing references to religion into anything has a tendency to make people cranky, so I'm in favor of just changing the description to something more ambiguous as opposed to making a big deal out of this (assuming the devs don't decide to just remove Djinn entirely). The OP came up with a couple of rewrites of the description that I'd be just fine with.

True, but I (would like to) think I'm familiar enough with Crawl development and the community in general that my intuition is correct, and this was simply a joke in rather poor taste, rather than an expression of bona fide xenophobia. That's what I'm saying.

you may like to think that, but

you may like to think that every single person on this earth that ever says anything does it to make fun of a group of your choosing, but that is quite far from the actual truth.

FWIW I don't think xenophobia has anything to do with this. To take inspiration from the Qur'an you first have to know at least parts of it, and that requires being interested and being open to learning about it. I assume it's just an innocent joke about religion taken a little too far.

This has gotten pretty, um, not related to GDD. Locked.