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Old 10-23-2018, 02:12 PM   #21
Mark Skarr
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Default 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.
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Old 10-23-2018, 03:04 PM   #22
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Default 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".
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Old 10-23-2018, 03:11 PM   #23
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Default Re: Killing Slavers

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
In your games, how do your players deal with slavers in societies where slavery is legal?
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.
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Old 10-23-2018, 04:15 PM   #24
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Default Re: Killing Slavers

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I'm fond of RPG's as a way to explore history, and I do play in fairly historical games that feature some of the nastier elements.
I include the 'nasty' in my non-historical games as well.

Nastiness is part and parcel with the human condition and makes for great dilemmas.



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Originally Posted by martinl View Post
As others have said, the game is about having fun, and moral dilemmas are only fun when there's a solution to them.
I disagree. I have great fun dealing with "no good solution" problems. On both sides of the screen.
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Old 10-23-2018, 05:06 PM   #25
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Default 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.
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Old 10-23-2018, 05:07 PM   #26
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Originally Posted by martinl View Post
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.
I have to say we have profoundly different sensibilities here. I don't expect moral dilemmas to have "solutions" as a rule. I expect that different cultures and societies will have different mores, and I like encountering the strangeness of unfamiliar mores. And a lot of my players seem to feel similarly; at least, I've had players volunteer to play in such cultural milieux as Imperial Rome and the Near East at the time of the First Crusade, and in invented worlds with equally exotic values. I like it a lot when one of my players manages to think like a person from a different culture. I suppose you could call it a streak of Xenophilia.
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Old 10-23-2018, 05:13 PM   #27
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I don't expect moral dilemmas to have "solutions" as a rule.
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.
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Old 10-23-2018, 05:31 PM   #28
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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.
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Old 10-23-2018, 06:39 PM   #29
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(In a recent game we had a roman praetor free and marry his former slave. The scandal was a big deal, but not campaign disrupting).
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?
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Old 10-23-2018, 08:38 PM   #30
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Default 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:
  • Slaves can be made as punishment for crimes, or can sell themselves (or in some cases be sold by their families) into slavery to escape debts, provide funds for their family, or similar.
  • Races with very low social rank in a given society are much more likely to be slaves. Ironically, slaves from races that are officially "monsters" are more accepted than non-slaves from such, as the former are assumed to be controlled by someone more civilized.
  • Slaves have fewer rights than freemen.
  • Slaves are paid at a reduced rate compared to freemen doing the same work, but are nonetheless legally required to be paid for their work. A slave cannot choose what job he/she will perform, although their slave contract can forbid or even dictate certain forms of employment (highly dangerous work and sexual work are commonly forbidden by the contract, although the slave can choose to do "forbidden" work, he or she simply can't be forced into it).
  • The owner is responsible for caring for the slave, providing some minimal quantity of shelter, sustenance, and medical care. Anything more than this, the slave will have to purchase with his earned pay.
  • The slave can buy out his contract to gain freedom, or the owner can set him free at no charge. Freed slaves are treated no differently than those who have always been free (and in some cases, will continue working for their former owner, but at the freeman rate), with the exception of "monsters," who are relegated to low social status but aren't considered kill-on-sight.
  • All of the above is twisted and abused by certain individuals.
Slavers who obey the law wouldn't really count as villains, although you could certainly have extremist PC's (probably former slaves who were heavily mistreated) who treat them as such. The slavers who twist, abuse, and/or break the rules would be fair game for some slaver-killing, if players need to scratch that particular itch.
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