Campaign Standards: Slavery yea or nay?

[ExploderWizard]

More interestingly, PC's are quite likely themselves to practice things that either are or look alot like murder, torture, and mind control, and then stand in judgement of slaveholders in self-righteous assurance of their own virtue.

How very true.

Now that we have slain the foul slavers, taken thier loot,and left behind a downtrodden population that is now free to starve to death, lets be off to exterminate the orcish race!

 

[Garthanos]

Slavery exists in my campaign worlds, typically as part of large decadent nations or evil empires (the heroic hometown, if there is one, generally won't tolerate it).

I have an EVIL DM trick where there is a good slave culture and an evil antil slave culture ... in the one slavery is a criminal punishment (with incredibly strict social more about how you can treat slaves), the other culture likes to mutilate and kill criminals whose crimes may include swiping a loaf of bread.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I have an EVIL DM trick where there is a good slave culture and an evil antil slave culture ... in the one slavery is a criminal punishment (with incredibly strict social more about how you can treat slaves), the other culture likes to mutilate and kill criminals whose crimes may include swiping a loaf of bread.

I see evidence of only one slave culture here. Mutilating or killing petty crimminals is barbaric but isn't slavery in any form.

Ah. Just saw the "anti" nevermind.

 

[billd91]

I've included some form of slavery in most campaign settings I've run. In some regions, it works differently from others with differing levels of violence and coersion (and opposition from PCs). We've even had PCs slaves from time to time (mainly in Al-Qadim).

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[TerraDave]

It was in "official" 1E, as villany.

In my own games, I always kind of assumed it was there, it just never got to be front and center. Though the PCs did buy a boy once, but that was more of an aprenticeship thing.

This does lead to one in game implication: PCs as glorified slavers. It may sound bad, but if it works for Pokemon...

Another fantasy implication is magically enforced slavery. Like the Genie bound to serve, and the Arabian Nights is all about the slavery, or through charming. In fact a whole D&D inspired fantasy series whose name I have forgotten was all about the slavery.

 

[mmadsen]

If a game world has no slavery, are all wars then wars of extermination? Why else would you keep a prisoner alive, except to ransom him back, if he's from a wealthy family, or to use him for slave labor, if he's not?

 

[Jack7]

How very true.

Now that we have slain the foul slavers, taken thier loot,and left behind a downtrodden population that is now free to starve to death, lets be off to exterminate the orcish race!

For a Hero, winning the War is half the job.
Winning the Peace is the other half.

Both are extremely difficult in their own way.
But if all you ever do is win the War in whatever manner possible, then all you've really done is engage in an adventure, not an accomplishment.

It was in "official" 1E, as villany.

Yeah, whatever happened to villainy?
Somewhere along the line I think it got traded in for extra hit points.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Not trying to be argumentative, but this line of reasoning is not supported by the existence of the millions held as slaves in the world we currently live in.

Just sayin.

Even the modern world isn't as modern as we'd like to think (again I'll point to the gender equality issue for easy comparison, or the continuing classist/racist/etc. aspects of the world). There are certainly many forms of quasi-slavery; even basic poverty has similarities. The D&D worlds are frequently quite idealized.

However, the modern world is actually far exceeded by most D&D worlds in the ability of one righteous character to make a difference. A slave could conceivably learn magic to blast the guards (or charm them, or a thousand other things). A single good-minded character (including a PC, as several posters described) can and frequently does take down slaver networks.

Slavery is also predicated on ignorance, and I'd postulate that education is more widespread and prevalent in D&D worlds than it is in the modern third world. Certainly, almost anyone living in a sovereign kingdom in my world knows that there are outer planes where you go when you die and that divine magic comes from those planes and that anyone can access that divine magic and anyone can go to any of those planes upon death. Thus, it's hard to look on another person as being fundamentally different or inferior.

To me if evil is to be evil, then it must be real evil, not cartoon evil. Or clean evil, or sanitized evil, or whatever the term might be. Otherwise it is not really evil. It is merely a pretense and a facade, without much force, and it does not present much in the way of being a real threat or danger. (And if evil is not a real threat or danger, then it is toothless, and clawless.)

And if evil, real evil does not exist, be that on the individual level (crime, terrorism), the monstrous level (some monsters are definitely evil and destructive), or the social/cultural level (group injustice, repression, slavery, human sacrifice, etc) then what is a Hero to agitate against, and what is he to fight against, and just as importantly, what does he fight for?

I agree 100%. However, D&D is marketed to kids and there is still a level of fear and mistrust surrounding the game, so official materials (and individuals) have to be very careful in dealing with "real evil".

I think slavery would have been a great BoVD topic (with that hard-to-remove "mature" label). Personally, I've found that adding "real evil" to the game greatly enhanced it, and made the PCs' quest more satisfying. Other people, however, prefer a less dark and more romanticized game, and don't want to spend their recreational time thinking about these kinds of things, which is certainly a valid point-of-view.

D&D often seems to take a guarded approach on slavery by using the fantastical. Intelligent constructs and aberrations like the mind flayers and the neogi are often involved, which detaches the concept from its real-world version of peole enslaving other people. That's probably a good way of handling it, with darker versions reserved for those who want them.

 

[Barastrondo]

How very true.

Now that we have slain the foul slavers, taken thier loot,and left behind a downtrodden population that is now free to starve to death, lets be off to exterminate the orcish race!

I'm fortunate enough to have players who are more of the "Now that we have slain the foul slavers and taken their loot, we can use their loot to set the downtrodden population up better, and offer some of them the opportunity to settle nearby" model. It's like stronghold phase play! The violence is just the "cutting up the apple" phase of baking a cobbler. Now you get to the part where you start adding other ingredients.

Slavery isn't something I'm terribly enthusiastic about romanticizing, and I honestly can't help but see setting up "good" examples of slavery (wherein slaves are protected from abuses like being expected to be sexually available to their owners) as romanticization. I was more a Guardians of the Flame than a Gor reader in my impressionable teenage years.