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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8659355" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I mean, it's not like I've elided everything out. There's significant, severe economic disparity (to the point that there are Robin Hood-esque organizations in the shadows working to balance out the excessive imbalance). Genies in particular are incredibly opulent...and some still engage in slavery, just less obviously so, generally only in Jinnistan, where they rule. (Formally, some still keep slaves, but most prefer a more "wage slave" type model, as there is a major prestige factor in having lots of people dependent on your rule who are genuinely healthy and happy.)More importantly, I work with my players to ensure that there are reasons why things end up differently. As noted, the anti-slavery thing arose from the (completely unrelated) backstory component that the Tarrakhuna had developed its modern culture as the result of a slave revolt. I did that because someone I asked for advice on how to run an "Arabian Nights" game mentioned the Pre-Adamite Sultans, and I wanted very much to incorporate that idea in a different way. So I did, as the ancient genie-rajahs who once ruled the land as tyrants, some benevolent, some cruel, but all ruling absolute, with mortals as their property. The fact that slavery did exist (and to some extent still does in Jinnistan) is part of why noble genies, the ones with the both literal and metaphorical power, are VERY distrusted in the Tarrakhuna. (That and...they have a well-earned reputation of blue-and-orange morality, as saving face and holding the dominant political position is much more important to them than thoughts of benevolence or malice. Living centuries or millennia will do that to a person.)Now, perhaps you might retort with, "Well sure, you can always invent a reason, you're still disingenuously presenting a saccharine candyfloss world." And my response would be that I don't invent reasons willy-nilly, nor do I go out of my way to invent them for all possible things. I do pursue them for the Really Icky stuff that I don't want to subject my players to--things like rape and torture. Yes, in theory, these things still exist (as slavery still theoretically happens in the Tarrakhuna). But compared to our world? These issues far more rarely come up. Because that's neither fun, nor interesting, nor challenging. It doesn't make for a heightened experience, nor does it add any additional grounding that wouldn't already be present because of my stupidly overwrought attention to detail.Other problems, both fantastical and mundane, take center focus. The party has, for example, helped a young man who was being led down a dark path through offers of good money for easy work, so long as he ingested certain strange alchemical substances when instructed to do so...and which had begun physically transforming him, slowly but surely. He's better now, the roid rage is mostly gone and the party have set him up with a steady, legitimate job. But there are many other unemployed folks out there. There are many people who are struggling to get by, or who are suffering and dying from preventable illness (despite the existence of magic and active effort on the part of priests to heal others). People still starve to death. The mundane tragedies of life aren't absent by any means. And the fantastical horrors of D&D fiction aren't absent either; the party has been tricked by a mindflayer (he did not live to regret his trickery), dealt with a mind-control cult, faced off against a wicked hive-mind death-druid sect, opposed assassin-cultists who dream of being able to murder whoever they want, whenever they want, in order to see Death's gate, etc.Whether or not slavery is widely practiced does not really have much impact on whether there are dark things in the world. Nor does it have much impact on how grounded and sober my presentation of it will be. It mostly just helps my players feel comfortable actually playing in said world.</blockquote>

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