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Gnaskar · 10-23-2018, 06:33 AM

Societies where slavery is legal or societies where it is socially acceptable? Those are two very different things.

In the Chronicles of Nitara (Modified DnD), the whole point of the campaign as that the titular Empire of Nitara is corrupt, evil, bureaucratic, autocratic, cruel, fascist, and mismanaged. One of the PCs owned a handful of halfling slaves to staff his tavern, which in turn was a front for one of the many competing assassin guilds in the city. The party Face was technically a kidnapping victim forced to assist in missions, so arguably enslaved by the rest of the party, but she was all too happy to help out.

In King of the Hill, we were playing Seers of the Throne in Mage the Awakening. Our patron was the Lord of Mammon (the department of making everything a commodity to be bought and sold; replacing human cares and emotions with soulless capitalism and mindless consumption to keep the mortals from unlocking their magical powers). We bought several party members from them, as well as a wide range of assets. Granted, the transaction was more like buying a football player than traditional slavery. It's very easy to start thinking of the mortals as unimportant pawns in World of Darkness games, and we were playing chess masters.

In Divided We Stand (GURPS AtE where a magical invasion got nuked, doing weird things to the environment and manasphere alike), the players were part of a militia dedicated to rebuilding. They routinely killed slavers and relocated the slaves to friendly villages. On the other hand, they were far more diplomatic about it when dealing with the Roman Empire (a reenactment group which had the skills to thrive in the apocalypse), who's multiple thousand strong legions could probably crush their 100 man militia like bug if they annoyed them. Legality doesn't really come into it in After the End, but might makes right.

In the games I run, slavery is never casually included in the setting. Either I'm running an evil campaign (which can be a lot of fun), or it's included to provoke a reaction from my players. Slaver gangs in AtE are included to provide a chance for the players to feel like heroes when they rescue them, and was added to the Romans to expand on the cold war atmosphere between the two factions and to explore the themes of stability/safety vs freedom.

10-23-2018, 06:33 AM	#10
Gnaskar Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Killing Slavers Societies where slavery is legal or societies where it is socially acceptable? Those are two very different things. In the Chronicles of Nitara (Modified DnD), the whole point of the campaign as that the titular Empire of Nitara is corrupt, evil, bureaucratic, autocratic, cruel, fascist, and mismanaged. One of the PCs owned a handful of halfling slaves to staff his tavern, which in turn was a front for one of the many competing assassin guilds in the city. The party Face was technically a kidnapping victim forced to assist in missions, so arguably enslaved by the rest of the party, but she was all too happy to help out. In King of the Hill, we were playing Seers of the Throne in Mage the Awakening. Our patron was the Lord of Mammon (the department of making everything a commodity to be bought and sold; replacing human cares and emotions with soulless capitalism and mindless consumption to keep the mortals from unlocking their magical powers). We bought several party members from them, as well as a wide range of assets. Granted, the transaction was more like buying a football player than traditional slavery. It's very easy to start thinking of the mortals as unimportant pawns in World of Darkness games, and we were playing chess masters. In Divided We Stand (GURPS AtE where a magical invasion got nuked, doing weird things to the environment and manasphere alike), the players were part of a militia dedicated to rebuilding. They routinely killed slavers and relocated the slaves to friendly villages. On the other hand, they were far more diplomatic about it when dealing with the Roman Empire (a reenactment group which had the skills to thrive in the apocalypse), who's multiple thousand strong legions could probably crush their 100 man militia like bug if they annoyed them. Legality doesn't really come into it in After the End, but might makes right. In the games I run, slavery is never casually included in the setting. Either I'm running an evil campaign (which can be a lot of fun), or it's included to provoke a reaction from my players. Slaver gangs in AtE are included to provide a chance for the players to feel like heroes when they rescue them, and was added to the Romans to expand on the cold war atmosphere between the two factions and to explore the themes of stability/safety vs freedom.