Synthil
Explorer
Depends on how narrow you define slavery. If you include military conscription, then there are people who have arguments for it. But that argument seems a bit of a red herring. I don't think inclusion of bad stuff should be based on possible justifications. Because your bad guys in the setting probably don't have good justifications. Hence why they're the bad guys.Violence, war and theft can be justified.
Slavery can't.
If something is to be included or not, should be based on real world harm done by its inclusion. And this includes the emotional well-being of players. If 80% of players had arachnophobia, than excluding spiders and spider like monsters from mainstream publications would be warranted. Not because it is "offensive" or "problematic" but because it negatively affects players.
I may have been under the wrong assumption that slavery is a done deal in modern society. I thought it was an ideal activity to establish bad guys as evil; like human(oid) sacrifices. The vast majority knows and agrees that it is horrible, but most are not being directly affected by it. If however a large portion of the player base has their fun -or even emotional well-being- diminished by including slavery, then it should be removed. That doesn't have to be from every product, just base products. Niche products can still include slavery and spiders or whatever, even if the majority rather not deal with it.