Campaign Standards: Slavery yea or nay?

[mmadsen]

A slave could conceivably learn magic to blast the guards (or charm them, or a thousand other things).

That's a bit like saying that a modern slave could learn nuclear engineering.

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.

Slavery is not predicated on ignorance. If anything slavery is predicated on the economic reality of slave labor being worth the military cost to acquire it.

It's hard to argue that either Roman aristocrats or their Greek tutor-slaves were ignorant. They certainly didn't share the same progressive ideals we teach our children in modern America and Europe, but that's not ignorance.

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".

Adventure stories routinely threaten the protagonists -- or their loved ones -- with slavery. For centuries, Europeans worried about being caught at sea by Muslim corsairs who would sell them into slavery. It's not a new idea, and our heroes routinely get captured, escape slavery, lead slave revolts, etc.

 

[Mark Chance]

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.

Oh, hooey. Ignoring the implicit "uneducated" equals "third world barbarian" myth, the facts of history don't bear out your assertion. Some of the most horrific examples of slavery took place (and continue to take place) among well-educated elites and even among generally well-educated populations. That sophisticated, cosmopolitan Germany in the 30s and 40s could institute widespread slavery alone is sufficient to put to rest the tired idea that education leads to virtue.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Slavery has existed in every campaign world I've run. It has usually been relegated to evil societies, but there have been Lawful Neutral societies that practiced it as a form of criminal punishment. It's been the focus at times both as antagonists (The 1E Slavers series) and as a protagonist (a PC duergar slaver).

It also doesn't really fit with D&D's generally modernized/sanitized world (gender equality is a given, for instance).
Slavery is a part of FR; haven't seen much in other D&D worlds.

Slavery is a part of Greyhawk (the aforementioned 1E Slaver series) and was featured in the points-of-light setting adventure for 4E "Thunderspire Labyrinth."

 

[ExploderWizard]

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.

This sounds like a very cool campaign. It was exactly this kind of thing I was talking about. The consequences of engaging in heroic activity should be different depending on the success or failure of those efforts but its nice having them present regardless.

Winning is just the beginning.

 

[Garthanos]

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

Ummm that is what I meant did I misstype? two cultures one uses slavery in a very socially concious responsible way and a dark barbaric anti-slave culture (they kill prisoners of war outright of course after torturing them for information).

 

[billd91]

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.

It depends on what variety of slavery you're trying to model. Historically, there were places where legal protection of slaves from a variety of treatments existed (though generally not the degree of protection you'd see for a free person). I wouldn't consider incorporating those appropriately to be a case of romanticization. After all, while a slave may be protected from having to be sexually available, they're still subject to treatments and controls that free people are not.

 

[Celebrim]

Even the modern world isn't as modern as we'd like to think...

Or as learned. Or as enlightened.

(again I'll point to the gender equality issue for easy comparison...

I don't find this an easy comparison at all. I find it a very strained one. I think an easy comparison to slavery in earlier times would be to the large number of actual (and not 'quasi') slaves and serfs (people without freedom of travel and without entitlement to the fruits of their own labor) living in the world today. In fact, by some counts, though the percentage of free people is trending upward, there are more slaves in the 21st century than there were in the 19th, and more slaves are being trafficed today than at the height of the atlantic slave trade. But, this topic tires me and is likely to provoke a flame war.

However, the modern world is actually far exceeded by most D&D worlds in the ability of one righteous character to make a difference.

I disagree.

A slave could conceivably learn magic to blast the guards....

We also seem to disagree over what makes someone a righteous character or how you might make a real difference.

Slavery is also predicated on ignorance...

No, it's not.

and I'd postulate that education is more widespread and prevalent in D&D worlds than it is in the modern third world.

If you didn't actually grow up in the modern third world, or haven't actually lived there, I wish you wouldn't base your assertions on mere sterotypes about it. While its not universally true, the education available in much of the third world is superior in quality (and more highly valued by those that recieve it) than what you probably got.

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.

Interestingly, starting in the 1st century of the common era, there was a rather mystical cult - a Jewish heretical sect you might have heard of - that taught that no one was fundamentally different or inferior on the basis of social status, race, or gender and that in the afterlife a slave might concievably be expected to be honored greater than his master. And yet, despite these beliefs, they still lived with and even on occasion promoted slavery until well into the 19th century even after the cult had gained significant political and social power, quite arguably at least in part precisely because they believed that social station of a slave was temporary and even to a degree had a basic dignity which would be rewarded in the next life. These beliefs where held with such deep conviction that there was fundamentally no difference between the beliefs and knowledge for the purpose of how it compelled their behavior. This would I think strongly argue against the notion that knowledge of an afterlife would compel an adversion to slavery, a notion that is even more shaky when we consider that said afterlife in D&D might well include idealized slavery (as for example the Egyptians believed).

Granted, the general trajectory of the aforementioned cult's governance was toward extending freedom to a larger and larger sphere of people, but that there is no reason to believe that slavery is incompatible with the belief of the basic equality of people. For one thing, the Roman ethical codes that were in wide acceptance before this upstart Jewish inspired sect started up, also held that slavery was not enherently dishonorable, and like most of the ancient world often conferred great authority, wealth, and power on people who were technically slaves. In fact, many people of antiquity might have argued that being the slave to someone powerful was preferential in honor to being free but lowly. Certainly, you had a much better chance of getting three meals a day, and what is dignified about starving?

So in other words, there is more in heaven and earth than exists in your learning.

I think slavery would have been a great BoVD topic (with that hard-to-remove "mature" label).

Considering the level of immaturity on display in the BoVD, I would just assume that they didn't try to tackle any actually hard questions of ethics.

 

[hutchback]

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.

The worlds created through D&D magnify one evil characters ability to oppress others through force as well. Thus nullifying your argument.

Furthermore I would debate the very notion that slavery is nothing more than the result of physical oppression. Many factors that allow slavery to pervade are cultural. As well as systematic removal of one's sense of self-worth.

Your line of reasoning that a slave in the D&D world could learn magic to overthrow their oppressor could be paralleled in our world by saying slave could simply take up arms and over throw their captors.

I think we could all agree that that type of thinking over-simplifies the problem and is a bit insensitive as well.

As a sidebar, I encourage everyone to educate themselves on modern-day slavery and how people combat it. Here is a great place to start International Justice Mission - IJM Home

 

[mmadsen]

Interestingly, starting in the 1st century of the common era, there was a rather mystical cult - a Jewish heretical sect you might have heard of - that taught that no one was fundamentally different or inferior on the basis of social status, race, or gender and that in the afterlife a slave might concievably be expected to be honored greater than his master. And yet, despite these beliefs, they still lived with and even on occasion promoted slavery until well into the 19th century even after the cult had gained significant political and social power, quite arguably at least in part precisely because they believed that social station of a slave was temporary and even to a degree had a basic dignity which would be rewarded in the next life.

These beliefs where held with such deep conviction that there was fundamentally no difference between the beliefs and knowledge for the purpose of how it compelled their behavior. This would I think strongly argue against the notion that knowledge of an afterlife would compel an adversion to slavery, a notion that is even more shaky when we consider that said afterlife in D&D might well include idealized slavery (as for example the Egyptians believed).

Well said, Celebrim. Well said.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If you didn't actually grow up in the modern third world, or haven't actually lived there, I wish you wouldn't base your assertions on mere sterotypes about it. While its not universally true, the education available in much of the third world is superior in quality (and more highly valued by those that recieve it) than what you probably got.

So in other words, there is more in heaven and earth than exists in your learning.

Probably true, and I stand corrected on the point that generalizations like this are probably unwise. "Slavery" is a big topic.

Your line of reasoning that a slave in the D&D world could learn magic to overthrow their oppressor could be paralleled in our world by saying slave could simply take up arms and over throw their captors.

That's a bit like saying that a modern slave could learn nuclear engineering

Except that the barrier of entry is lower in D&D, which is kind of my point. The difference between a 5th-level sorcerer and a 1st-level warrior in combat power is huge, and does not require the sorcerer to have guns or uranium.