10-23-2018, 02:12 PM | #21 |
Forum Pervert
(If you have to ask . . .) Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Somewhere high up.
|
Re: Killing Slavers
I recently ran a fantasy game (I know . . . I know . . . I’m getting mellow in my old age), where humans were enslaved. The party (all non-humans, funnily enough) discovered that humans were held responsible for a magical catastrophe many generations ago and the other races decided that they weren’t “civilized” enough, and needed to be carefully monitored. Thus, slaves.
The party treated all of the slaves they encountered as one would any other employee in an establishment and simply didn’t care one way or the other. They were quick to defend any slave being abused, but had no concern about freeing the ones being sold. They did take extra precautions with free humans they had to bring with them so they wouldn’t be captured and enslaved. Their patron agreed, and protected the free humans they would work with, on the proviso that these humans “don’t break the world again.” The patron also agreed that, while slavery does seem a bit harsh, they’ve prevented the humans from breaking the world a second time. |
10-23-2018, 03:04 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: On the road again...
|
Re: Killing Slavers
In my Ranoc setting, I established slavery as being a social institution as old as civilization, using the Roman model for slavery (including the slave able to have his owner arrested for mistreatment, with one of the punishments being the privilege of owning slaves revoked). with most slaves currently being either convicted criminals or people so much in debt/desperate for work they sold themselves into slavery.
Folks expecting slavers to kill - the kind that raid a place, gather up the townsfolk, and sell them as chattel - are going to be confused or disappointed because those types of slavers don't exist in my setting. There's a bit of a moral dilemma involved in the world, too: the one nation that says "no slaves" is also the one that's super-casual about the creation of undead, an act which all the other nations view as abhorrent on religious grounds. I haven't run many games in the setting, though, as most of my players are from That Other Game and want "D&D-Land" with modern moral sensibilities, and claim that Ranoc is "inverting the tropes for the sake of inversion".
__________________
"Life ... is an Oreo cookie." - J'onn J'onzz, 1991 "But mom, I don't wanna go back in the dungeon!" The GURPS Marvel Universe Reboot Project A-G, H-R, and S-Z, and its not-a-wiki-really web adaptation. Ranoc, a Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy Setting |
10-23-2018, 03:11 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
|
Re: Killing Slavers
I am often tempted to put the PCs in fantasy societies where they are uncomfortable with the social mores ... but I generally stop myself unless the plot is about overturning or subverting said mores. As others have said, the game is about having fun, and moral dilemmas are only fun when there's a solution to them.
|
10-23-2018, 04:15 PM | #24 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
|
Re: Killing Slavers
Quote:
Nastiness is part and parcel with the human condition and makes for great dilemmas. I disagree. I have great fun dealing with "no good solution" problems. On both sides of the screen. |
|
10-23-2018, 05:06 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
|
Re: Killing Slavers
Well I ran Against The Slave Lords as a campaign at least twice. Lots of slavers died. The PCs were highly irked at being made galley slaves, I remember that much.
|
10-23-2018, 05:07 PM | #26 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Killing Slavers
Quote:
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
|
10-23-2018, 05:13 PM | #27 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Killing Slavers
It's not a dilemma if it has a solution, though of course you can have moral challenges in a game that aren't dilemmas.
|
10-23-2018, 05:31 PM | #28 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: Killing Slavers
I generally have found that players love killing slavers and freeing slaves. Of course, they then have to figure out what to do with the liberated slaves, but they have never failed to disappoint.
|
10-23-2018, 06:39 PM | #29 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
|
Re: Killing Slavers
Is that historically possible? I don't think freedmen were permitted to marry free born citizens until Justinian - and I'm not sure they could *ever* have obtained the right of connubium required to marry those of old Latin status, which would've been required to stand for the office of praetor, right?
__________________
-- MA Lloyd |
10-23-2018, 08:38 PM | #30 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
|
Re: Killing Slavers
The DF setting I work on every now and again is intended to have slavery as a common institution, but it's more akin to the slavery found in The Stormlight Archives than chattel slavery. The important bits are:
__________________
GURPS Overhaul |
Tags |
slavery |
|
|