Campaign Standards: Slavery yea or nay?

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Jack7]

I know what the definition of hero is. I know many applicable definitions. But you didn't answer my question: who said the PCs were heroes?

Well, it says it twice on the cover of the Player's Handbook. Front and back. Unless of course the designer's had in mind the idea that what the World Needs is Hit-Men, and accidentally said Heroes by mistake. If that's the case then maybe an editor needs to find a new occupation, or a fact-checker needs a new dictionary.

But if you think I'm belittling your point I'm not. I suspect there is and always has been a big tension in the game over exactly what the definition of a Hero really is (I got my own, and I ain't likely to change it cause I've seen it in action, and I kinda like how it works), for various reasons. If you and CB for instance are citing the Anti-Hero as merely a hero of another stripe, that is, not really a villain or not even just a Kilroy, but a kind of Hero with counter or unorthodox methodologies (to standard Heroic ideals of operation), I have no particular argument with that assumption. Or with the thrust of that argument in general. I'm the first to say that clever methods often times make very efficient and effective men. On occasion even heroic ones. Assuming methodology isn't the only thing they got going for them in the Hero department.

If on the other hand one means that a Hero is anything somebody wants it to mean at the moment, well, then I'll give you what to me is a humorous little personal illustration of how that actually works out in reality.

Once, in my twenties, I was involved in an international licensing agreement for an industrialist who had developed a new manufacturing technique. It was a private offering. Shopped close to the vest. I was working the project (as a broker) when I got a call from a guy saying he was an investor, had the $70 mil needed to take a license in another continent, and could he take me to lunch to discuss the project in detail. He sounded excited and eager about the potentials. So I agreed.

I got to the restaurant, found him already there, and he started his charm offensive right off the bat. I know sooner sat down Immediately wanted all kinds of details on the project, and this even before the entrees had arrived. So I asked him, if I could answer his questions would he want to meet my principle and start negotiations on when and how to move the money so that we could start building his new manufacturing plant. He hemmed and hawed a bit, and then some more, and so I asked him, "You are liquid for it, right? Or do you need some time, and maybe help with permits?"

Then he told me that if the project was right he had a couple of investors ready to take a 50% share.

So I asked him, "Yeah, but do you have any money, and is it gonna be your plant?" To which he hemmed and hawed again, and then finally admitted that he wasn't going to be participating at all personally, he was just there representing his clients, who wished to remain anonymous.

"So," I said, "you're not really an investor at all, are you, you're just a broker looking for a stake."

To which he responded, "Oh, I'm much more than that."

To which I responded, "You mean then that you're an agent for your principles and sent here to fish out project details on my clients new manufacturing process, and to engage in a little industrial espionage."

To which he looked at his feet, then all around the room, and then sort of smiled at me like a schoolgirl who wanted to ask me out to Sadie Hawkins.

So I gave him my business card my tab for lunch and told him if he ever figured out the difference in definitions between a spy, a broker, and an investor to give me a call. Since he never did I'm just assuming he never did...

So you see a guy can call himself anything he wants.
Proving it is another matter.

My point is if you're gonna call a Spade a Spade, then make sure you can really dig with the thing.

 

[Desdichado]

Which player's handbook? Mine just says Dungeons & Dragons, Player's Handbook, and Core Rulebook I. Then again, I don't play 4e. :shrug:

I never thought you were belittling my point, I thought you just got distracted while responding and never actually ... well, responded. You kinda went off on a tangent. Twice, now, actually.

As I said in another recent thread, though, I think getting bogged down which definition of hero we're using is a bit wonky. Sure, there are esoteric definitions. There are culturally significant differences with the word. A hero to the ancient Greeks isn't like one now.

However, I do think that assuming you possess some level of fluency with English, you can successfully imply from context which definition we're most likely to be talking about, i.e., someone who does good and goes around saving people from trouble, etc.

 

[Baron Opal]

So in your campaign, is slavery a part of it? Huge part? On the fringes? Used to be in vogue and out?

For the most part, slavery is the work of villians and evil. The closest I've come in a campaign where it was established that criminals and POWs were forced into hard or dangerous labor. Even then it was only for the duration of their punishment or captivity. My players, with one exception, never accepted "slavery" as anything other than an institution to be overthrown and abolished.

You keep talking about Heroes with a capital H. Whoever said PCs were heroes?

*shrug* Because that's how we roll. Indeed, I wouldn't play if it wasn't an option. Others are entitled to their own preferences, of course.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Well this started out an interesting thread. So trying to get back onto the original topic.

I do have slavery in my campaigns. It can be a part of any society for any of the various reasons stated above (for crimes, debt, chattel slavery etc) The quality of slaves' lives can vary greatly even within the same society. Frinstance: in Rome a house slave of a nobleman (even a cruel one) was much better of than a galley slave or a mining slave. Except for many years ago when I ran the A1-A4 series slavery has not been a central facet of any games I've run.

Should the heroes oppose slavery? Well that's up to my players and how they see their characters and what their characters see. I am happy to accomodate them however they go. Now of course a society that condones slavery will be a hard thing for the heroes to change. Simply killing a few folks and taking their stuff (by which I mean slaves) won't have a very wide impact. But the how is up to the players.

When I'm playing it will depend on what character I want to play. The only character I am currently playing would be strongly opposed to slavery should it come up (it hasn't) but is a believer (albeit not a very strong one) in a caste system. Which brings up the question of what practical difference does my character see as between an Untouchable and a Slave? (I don't know, hasn't come up.)

 

[Desdichado]

I had a character recently who was very anti-slavery. But that's because he was a hobgoblin from a city-state that had just been absorbed by an expansionist hobgoblin empire, so that was part of his backstory.

Another character in that same game actually bought a slave to use for anthropomancy. :shrug:

 

[Dykstrav]

That is strange. Murder, torture, mind control/domination are all worse than simple slavery as an evil to be fought. If your bad guys have ever engaged in any of these practices did your player think you were endorsing them?

This is something that has always bothered and puzzled me about American culture. I've never thought that my players endorsed real-life home invasions just because their characters murder kobolds and gnolls in their own homes and take their valuables. You'd think that you would not have to explain the reality/fantasy disconnect to fantasy gamers.

We indulge in horrific, soul-numbing violence to the hilt in most forms of entertainment. But if something is politically controversial (and violence never really is unless a terrorist attack or something just happened), some players blow it way out of proportion. If you introduce a sexist, racist, or otherwise bigoted NPC (even a villain), some players immediately begin to question your motivation for including it.

I personally want my villains to be Evil with a capital E. If the villains don't perform despicable, disgusting, wicked acts, they're merely antagonists. While D&D certainly has room for gray areas, one of the fantasy genre's biggest appeals to me is the existence of absolute good and absolute evil. For good and evil to exist as a spectrum, it needs two distinct poles.

 

[Chainsaw]

I've never thought that my players endorsed real-life home invasions just because their characters murder kobolds and gnolls in their own homes and take their valuables. You'd think that you would not have to explain the reality/fantasy disconnect to fantasy gamers.

I hear you. I would no more consider invading a gnoll/kobold lair a "home invasion" than I'd consider invading Hitler's bunker a "home invasion." This topic reminds me of another thread that touched on a trend of personifying the beasties. When you leave them as beasties - evil, murderous, inhuman and non-human, you don't run into these issues.

 

[Wormwood]

For the most part, slavery is the work of villians and evil. The closest I've come in a campaign where it was established that criminals and POWs were forced into hard or dangerous labor. Even then it was only for the duration of their punishment or captivity. My players, with one exception, never accepted "slavery" as anything other than an institution to be overthrown and abolished.

This, in spades.

The mere mention of 'slavers' results in the heroes drawing blades from scabbards.

Which is precisely why they are heroes.

 

[evileeyore]

I hear you. I would no more consider invading a gnoll/kobold lair a "home invasion" than I'd consider invading Hitler's bunker a "home invasion." This topic reminds me of another thread that touched on a trend of personifying the beasties. When you leave them as beasties - evil, murderous, inhuman and non-human, you don't run into these issues.

Which is why I never leave any sentient as a "beastie".


My games are run with a "Shades of Grey" theme, deep morality issues and such. The heroes in my games are probably much like the heroes in Hobos, based more on classic greek and celtic myths. Flawed, brave, tragic, boastful, wise, stupid, cowardly, etc...


One of my favorite character from a few years back was a slave of another character (indeed the entire group was the 'party leaders' slaves). It was a blast.