how ignorant can you be?

[RingXero]

I seem to be in a position of possibly agreeing with the outcome.

As I see it, we have a slave society within a LN aligned city, the owner of this establishment is LE. The 'bill' is being taken care of by another party/group, and PC probably has an implied 'cart blanche'. The owner of course wants as much money as possible, he cannot legaly charge for what was not asked for, or mark up his prices, but he can bend the limits as much as he wants.

The PC in question expressed the interest of being alone. This does not make alot of profit for the owner, services rendered is where the profits comes from. The owner then mentioned the possibility of 'making sure' the slave does not relate to anyone what went on inside the room. the PC then agrees. ( the PC I believe could realistically be initially unaware of how the owner 'makes sure' they stay quite)

Why isn't it a blind/mute slave? Unknown, but the following factors have to be considered. A slave is expensive, a blind/mute slave is more so. They have limited usefullness. They have to be taken care of. Only a large establishment, with many people requesting them could keep them on staff. In a magical society, blind/mute doesn't assure anything. There could be mind wipe spells but they in turn wouldn't garauntee silence, as a more powerfull version would break it.

In a society where death resurection spells are unknown, the killing of the slave would be considerd proof against rumor mongoring.


I do not see a LN society looking down on the killing of slaves at all. Remember, a slavery society by its very nature considers slaves merely property. Wanton killing of a slave, may be called into question, but this is a service rendered situation. The client would have to basically 'buy' the slave, and then pay for the killing and disposal service. A barely trained slave would be used most likely. Slavery is different than an 'Indentured Servent'. The former implies complete controll, ownership, and no real way out. The latter is abit better on those issues though.

This could result in a long discussion on what alignment can aprove of slavery, and that is really a personal choice of the DM and how they use/view alignment. Would the above situation cause a shift for the PC? initially, no, but after they became aware, as has been suggested, a good player most likely should atone IF the character does not believe completely with slavery, or does not condone the killing of slaves/sentients in a non-defensive action.


RX

 

[Ysgarran]

It sounds to me like a DM trying to screw with a player, frankly.

I think the consensus is that no, most people would not have assumed the merchant was going to kill the slave and so no, no alignment loss should occur.

Ah, but the character in question has shown NO interest what-so-ever in what really happened. That is a callous attitude. I don't really buy that the character didn't have a suspicion about what has going to happen either but that is not a point really worth arguing.

The really 'out-of-alignment' action was the fact that no attempt at all was made to rectify or find out what really happened when it was clear that the girl was killed out of hand.

 

[Chrysoula]

Hmmm

Even the lack of an investigation doesn't imply alignment problems. A girl's squawk in a slave-based society isn't very meaningful; why would the Swanmay connect it to the murder of the girl who served her? It takes a pretty cynical mind to think along those lines. The player may know, OOCly, that is what happened (this seems likely) but that doesn't mean that ICly the character understands what happened.

And it does seem really quite extreme. I too expected the girl would be mutilated, not murdered. That's just utterly excessive and over the top; it makes no sense. And since it makes no sense, I can forgive a character for not realizing her innkeeper is an evil monster.

 

[Agback]

Rights of slave-owners

And a slave is property, killing a slave is something like putting your dog to sleep. Not everybody likes it or agre's with it but it is not a crime. The owner is LE, but the town in general is LN.

By comparison with most historical examples, this is an extreme legal situation. Most systems gave slaves some rights, and very few allowed owners to kill their slaves with complete impunity. (Sparta did, and the ancient Norse, and maybe the Ante-Bellum USA. Athens and Rome did not.)

For example, Roman convention entitled a home-bred slave to manumission at the age of thirty: which, however, the slave was entitled to refuse unless he had the skills to carry on in a trade or unless his owner made other provision for his support. An imported slave was similarly entitled to manumission after a fixed term of years.

For another example, see Leviticus 25:39-55 for the rights of Jewish and non-Jewish slaves under the Law of Moses.

Slaves in the Aztec empire could own property, even their own slaves. And the property of a slave was not the property of the slave's owner.

Adam Smith made the interesting observation that the rights of slave-owners over their slaves are greatest in systems where the individual slave-owners have most political power, and that the rights of slaves are greatest where the law and the magistrates are least answerable to the slave-owners. In Smith's time the contrast was clearest between British and French colonies in the Americas: British slave-owners were the ruling classes of their colonies and slaves had few rights; French colonies were ruled by governors responsible only to Paris--the owners had few rights and the slaves had many. Thus some of the worst historical examples of the treatment of slaves come from Sparta and the ante-Bellum USA, where all the magistrates were substantial slave-owners, where most slave-owners were or expected to become office-holders, and where the slave-owners dominated politics. And the best examples of the treatment of slaves come from authoritatian states such as Imperial Rome.

Anyway, if this setting is one of those that allows slave-owners to murder their slaves with legal impunity, then it is unusual, and I would have no hesitation in classifying it as evil.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Chimera]

As abhorent as I find the whole idea of slavery, I have to take issue with a basic assumption of those who expouse the "slaves are just property" line as an excuse for killing them with little regard.

While ultra-rich and powerful nobles might be able to do this (ala the Roman Empire), those self-same Roman nobles also threw money around by doing incredibly stupid and wasteful things like paying to have a street cleaned down to the pavement, then sending thousands of gallons of wine down it just to create a "river of wine" in the streets.

In most cases, a single slave costs as much as a nice car or even a luxury vehicle in our terms. You and I would be incredibly miffed if our valuable slave was killed. They (literally) make our Bread and Butter.

That being said, I can still see the Innkeeper killing the slave and then adding the expense to the bill. Most probably NOT for the secrecy reasons, but because the Innkeeper *wanted* to get rid of this particular slave and was using this as an excuse to do so, and still re-coup his losses.

As for the original line of questioning, I think the GM was unfairly setting up the player for failure. S/he was intended to be shocked and upset by this.

 

[Agback]

slave rights

Remember, a slavery society by its very nature considers slaves merely property.

This statement is not in complete accord with historical examples.

In Greece before about 400 BC most slaves were prisoners of war from neighbouring cities, and every soldier was aware of the turns of Fate that make a man a slave. Aztecs' slaves could themselves own property, over which their owners had no rights. They could even own slaves of their own. Under Islam, any slave who makes the Profession of Faith is entitled to be freed. Roman slaves under the Empire were entitled to be freed at the age of thirty or after a term of years, and their owners were legally obliged to feed and shelter them and to nurse them when they were sick.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Ysgarran]

Re: Hmmm

Even the lack of an investigation doesn't imply alignment problems. A girl's squawk in a slave-based society isn't very meaningful; why would the Swanmay connect it to the murder of the girl who served her?

Why are you trying to interpret a 'death-cry' as a squawk?
Are you telling me that you if a DM said you hear a
'death-cry' that you would say
"Oh, Just ignore that, it really is nothing that concerns us..."

We could ask the DM in charge just how clear he made it but I get the impression that it was pretty darn clear that a murder had just take place.

 

[Agback]

squawks

Even the lack of an investigation doesn't imply alignment problems. A girl's squawk in a slave-based society isn't very meaningful; why would the Swanmay connect it to the murder of the girl who served her?

Good point. People squawk for lots of reasons, including being goosed by a dog with a cold nose, being startled by a supervisor while reading a message forum on company hours, seeing a burglar, being caught in a game of tag, orgasm.... It wasn't a slave society, but I lived for two years in a medium-sized student residence on campus at ANU, and I seem to remember hearing at least one girl's squawk nearly every night. Not a one of them turned out to have been murdered.

In the situation described it would take a fevered imagination for the PC to leap to the conclusion that any girl had been murdered, let alone that it was her fault in any way. Far, far more likely that a chambermaid got surprised in bed with a patron, or that a scullery-maid saw a mouse in the pantry.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

Re: Re: Hmmm

Why are you trying to interpret a 'death-cry' as a squawk?

Probably because that's what it is most likely to be. I am not aware that there is a characteristic, recognisable sound that people make when and only when they are dying. It isn't like the PC ignored cries of "Help! Help! Save me!".

Squawks, squeals, screams, grunts--people make them all the time. Spend just one semester in a co-ed dorm and you will hear every possible one without a single murder having occurred.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Chrysoula]

Re: Re: Hmmm

Why are you trying to interpret a 'death-cry' as a squawk?
Are you telling me that you if a DM said you hear a
'death-cry' that you would say
"Oh, Just ignore that, it really is nothing that concerns us..."

We could ask the DM in charge just how clear he made it but I get the impression that it was pretty darn clear that a murder had just take place.

If a GM told me I just heard a death-cry, I'd ask how I knew it was a death-cry. I hear rabbits and deer make death-cries, but as far as I know, lots and lots of people die without making a sound, and I doubt, not listening specifically for a 'death-cry', I'd interpret any noise made by a woman that ended abruptly as a 'death-cry'. Now, if I was close enough that I heard the sound of a sword as it entered her body, along with the slippery-soft sound of blood pouring out and her final gasps after the shriek... I might wonder.

But I'd also really wonder about a lot of other things too, including a lot of meta-game issues.

I don't know. I tend not to play 'nosy!' unless I have a reason to do so. OOCly, I may know that hearing a truncated shriek described by a GM will probably come back to haunt me, but I always feel kind of silly acting on the knowledge that I'm in a narrated game IN the game. Flavor and mood descriptions happen. If a GM wants me to actively investigate something, he'll give me more than a suspicious noise. Say, sending the sister of the murdered girl to bitch out the Swanmay.