Do Your Characters Engage in Slavery?

[S'mon]

Most of my PCs would rather be enslaved than killed as well, and in most feudal countries the difference between a slave and a serf is purely semantic.

Well in English-style feudalism, a serf could not be sold - they were tied to the land. In Russian-style feudalism the serfs were basically slaves, as I understand it, and could be traded between landowners.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I get the impression that according to modern American 'heroic fantasy' moral values, enslaving people is MUCH worse than killing them. For historical reasons, in American culture there's a much bigger taboo mark against the word 'slavery' than against 'murder'.

well, lets face it, slavery means something different to americans than to many (older) cultures. In many cultures, slavery brings the question "how?" Indentured servitude, valued servants, good friends could all be technically defined as slaves. But in america, the word slave really has only one major connotation, and its of a practice that was far more disgusting than merely killing people. (Comparing slavery to murder is just silly. Murder by definition is an unlawful killing. No self defense, defense of others, war, etc. The vast majority of PCs do not engage in what I would describe as murder, IME, though they may kill regularly.)

I also wouldn't nessaccarily equate imprisonment with labor as slavery, depending on the reasons for imprisonment. Again, with the major connotations slavery brings to americans, slavery is not a punishment which may or may not be deserved. It is something done to another human being for no reason except the advantage it would give the slaver. In some cultures punishment could include what I would consider slavery, but I don't think of prison work crews as slaves.

Anyway, none of my pcs have ever been the type to engage in either the wanton slaughter, or object like ownership of another senient being. OK, I had one druid who would have gone out and "exterminated" a nest of salamanders if given the chance, but she had a pretty limited veiw of other creature's sentience. Depending on how my DM chose to portray those sort of races, she could have been convinced to change her mind.

basically, I don't play particularly evil PCs. So that eliminates both (american definition) slavery and (useful definition) Murder.

Kahuna Burger

 

[S'mon]

well, lets face it, slavery means something different to americans than to many (older) cultures. In many cultures, slavery brings the question "how?" Indentured servitude, valued servants, good friends could all be technically defined as slaves. But in america, the word slave really has only one major connotation, and its of a practice that was far more disgusting than merely killing people.

Hi Kahuna - yup, that's what I meant, I agree entirely. Outside the USA, when one thinks of slavery in a fantasy-medieval context, one probably doesn't think first of antebellum-American style racial slavery. I guess the usual model is classical Rome, since medieval cultures that practiced slavery, like Ireland, Scotland, pre-conquest Wales) are less well known than those that didn't (eg England after the Norman conquest, France).
Also the British Celtic cultures are commonly romanticised for some reason these days, and people don't like to think of them as having practiced slavery, so they're rarely used as sources of information on medieval slavery even where it's available (AFAIK I'm mostly Celt myself, with some Anglo-Norman).

-S'mon, just back from 2 weeks in the Deep South.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Hi Kahuna - yup, that's what I meant, I agree entirely. Outside the USA, when one thinks of slavery in a fantasy-medieval context, one probably doesn't think first of antebellum-American style racial slavery. I guess the usual model is classical Rome,

Though I will say I would have considered a different answer if the orignal poster hadn't specificly meantioned enslaving the "women and children" of a soon to be slaughtered village. If he had seemed to be indicating specificly a more genteel form of indentured serviture style slavery, I would have considered it in some campaigns. (in fact I recomended that form of "slavery" on the boards for a DM whose PC wanted a slave/servant.)

Kahuna Burger