How to Fix a Slavery situation without murder? (Solved!)

[Derren]

One question. When you free the slaves, what then?

They are probably marked as slaves and when they are caught they will probably killed. So you have freed them and now you have the responsibility to care for them, how will you do that? Bring them into a other country? Do you gurantee a resonable chance that you all will make it, do you even have enough food for all slaves?

And you said multiple times that if the paladin country helps the slaves in any way there will be war. Do you want to risk a war for 24 slaves? If not, is there any other place where you can bring the slaves where they are save?

 

[Amal Shukup]

You asked for a solution that did not include murder...

When is murder not murder? VERY subjective... But I'd go that way rather than trying to avoid killing - every slaver your player's mercy (squeamishness?) saves is another - how many? Dozens? Hundreds of Lives ruined...

The problem your players are faced with are very similar to that faced by the protagonists of Joel Rosenberg's 'Guardians of the Flame' novels, which (despite being fairly substantially trashy) I found quite enjoyable.

Also educational - if getting into the 'freeing slaves' business is in the cards. Drawing loosely, I'd say the lessons therein can be boiled down thusly:

1. It's WAR. "War to the Knife"... It's not good enough to kill a few slavers and move on, that's mere banditry. Aim high: Bring an end to slavery. Force those that traffic in human flesh to stop. If they don't stop, kill 'em all. Blood washes off.

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Aside:
I gots NO truck with the moral relativists hereabouts talking about "it's the LAW", or it's "not wrong by the lights of that society", and "who are we to impose our modern day values?" 'Puckies! Lots of folk throughout history recognized slavery as an evil: The Old Testament has lots of material on the subject - hello? Moses? Aristotle, Socrates and Plato all spoke out forcefully against the practice. Spartacus led a rather well known slave revolt - but before that, Drimacos led one in Greece. Also, Eunus, Salvius and Athenion led a series of them in Sicily after the fall of Carthage. the Methodist and Quaker movements, as well as Britain (belatedly), actively opposed slavery during the late 1700s. Never mind the approximately 250 or slave rebellions and the underground railroad movements in the years leading up to the American Civil War...

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence" - Gandhi (who in no way would approve of the violence I'm advocating, but the sentiment was appropriate)
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2. Only target actual slavers (professional slave takers, slave merchants and such). Do NOT target mere slave owners. Even in the most jaded society, the sort of slavery that allows the excesses and abuses that you've described MUST be at least distasteful to the majority of the population, if not actively despised or feared. An honest person might find themselves a slave next, after all...

By selectively targeting only the 'traffickers in human misery', you set up the possibility of gaining immediate support and allies in the surrounding population. Make sure the surrounding population understands what you're doing, why, and that they have nothing to fear from you if they're not slavers.

3. Yah gotta have allies. Lots of 'em. Neighboring societies eager to put a stop to slave taking raids. Local underground is good too. I'd suggest some deity or religion driven support as well - perhaps a divinely bestowed mandate (and some help).

Raise an Army: Free and arm slaves, like minded individuals, foreign adventurers... Think of it as Franchising: "This is how it's done, here's your t-shirt, go to it!" The leadership feat has potential (particularly if your cohort takes it as well...)

5. Need a base. Or bases. Over a border, in a trackless swamp, Sherwood Forest. Carve out a new country if required.. Out of the easy reach of the bad guys.

6. Ultimately, it's economic war. Make the business of trafficking in human flesh too expensive (and manifestly un-safe). and the society will find another way. Make the slavers PAY for the privelige of being annihilated - take all their stuff when you kill 'em.

Go get 'em...

A'Mal

 

[S'mon]

And your villians are not "just buisnessmen". Abusing a young girl is the dealbreaker there. Period.

This is a good point - beating up and abusing people is Bad. (So is enslaving them, for that matter!). Killing the slavers (and freeing the slaves, presumably?) might not be Good but I'd see it as Neutral at worst, if you're worried about D&D alignments. As GM I'd definitely let the PCs attempt to wipe out the slavers if that's what they want.
Long term maybe the PCs can launch a campaign of conquest vs the slaveholding society, or maybe just starve out the slave trade by attacking slave caravans (qv British empire ending 19th century Atlantic slave trade); and/or maybe working from the inside to reform the society & outlaw slavery.

Oh, congrats on making an NPC they really care about.

 

[S'mon]

Is slavery evil? I think in a human-rights based ethos it is; because it's a denial of the slaves' rights and thus their humanity. So slavery in antebellum USA or default D&D (with its 21st century Seattle ethos) is evil. By contrast in a society with no concept of human rights, slavery may just be a point along a continuum of status, rather than an either/or question. In 5th century BC Persia everyone was technically slave of the Great King. In medieval Celtic Britain (Scotland, Ireland, Wales - no slavery in England after 11th century AD) a slave's status wasn't necessarily much different than a serf's. In the latter societies it's probably best classified as a neutral thing, though raiding for slaves should always be considered Evil in D&D alignments.
When we use slavery in RPGs we almost always use antebellum USA as a model, consciously or not, so RPG slavery almost always tends strongly to evil. IMO.

 

[Bagpuss]

What would Conan do?

That just has to be quoted, and probably printed on a T-Shirt.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Hmm, well, were it my group there would be one basic decision:

is this an immediate problem for us?

or an insitutional one?

The immediate problem probably involves waiting for a better opportunity to free the slaves while actively setting up plans for places to put the slaves once they are free and setting up local alliances for aid and behind coverage.

If its an institutional one then you probably have the rest of a or a good portion of your campaign mapped out. It seems to me that the biggest solution would be to make slavery, or at least the mistreatment of slaves, highly unprofitable for the actual slave owners and buyers. As it is they get taxed heavily, it would seem that there must be some way to exploit the local market to make it shift in the direction you like. Perhaps by creating an alternate work model and selling it to or impressing it upon the slave owners. Alternately, you might try to take over the kingdom, but that seems slightly ridiculous as the direct political solution might still result in you having to murder the slavers.

Though, to be honest, I don't think there is a solution to this that won't result in blood. I do think there are solutions that will make the difference between "they came at us while we were doing good. We defended ourselves and some of them died," and "we killed them for their sins."

Two notes:

Certainly increase your alliance with the organized crime organization. Traditionally, organized crime has found great profit in acting as a go between for landlords and tennants. Changing the local area to make that model possible could be a major incentive for an alliance.

If these slavers are still actively raiding, you might want to catch them in the act. Admittedly you can't get the local government to then crack down, but if you captured them while they were raiding you would be in a better position to negotiate directly with them as it would be highly unlikely that they could then ask their government for help and would instead look to a more discrete solution. Negotiation might involve paying these guys off, and thus also finding the means to, but while I don't like paying slavers the fact is that if you word the deal right and back it up with cash and threat you can probably do more good than you would if you burned them out.

 

[skippy_the_witch]

Be glad that I am not one of your players, as the reign of terror that I would try to start with this one "farm" would probably disrupt your game. Unless you can make them ALL almost instantly disappear or get rid of them and then clean the scene up so that they effectively disappear without a trace, killing the 40 slavers won't do a damn thing besides get a little revenge. If they ALL disappear, then that is a very spooky mystery. If they are all murdered in their bed, then this is just the work of bandits.

What I would do is decimate them, literally. Depending on the tactical situation, kill one slave per room, or if they sleep in barracks, except for leaders, then literally decimate by killing four of them while the rest sleep and maybe one of the lesser leaders. Killing the main leader is a bad idea, as it leads more to chaos than good old fashioned terror. Keep him alive, as he is most likely the smartest, or at least canniest, individual in the group, and can keep the slavers together as a group, which is important. Otherwise, your effort goes to waste as the group fragments and fights in power struggle. Terror only works if a group maintains a certain structural integrity.

Find out from the girl who the main abuser (s) is, are mutilate the body appropriately (but quickly) after killing him. Then have one of the "good" characters (like a paladin), who I would not let know waht EXACTLY was going on, i.e. allowing him a form of deniability, come to the "farm" and offer to buy the slaves there legally for pennies on the dollar. When they refuse, come back the next night and do it again. Keep doing this until you run out of slavers or they sell their current batch. If I was playing a bard, ghostly tales of vengeful spirits of dead slaves I would be singing in every pub/bar/street corner, and, if it was me, actually sing at the farm itself. Have the cleric (who would not be me, as I NEVER play a cleric), start talking about the immorality of slavery or hellfire and damnation sin of slavery, depending on his style and pantheon. A mid level party could easily do this. The most important thing is A) never be seen doing the killing AND B) have the patients to resist doing anything as melodramatic as causing illusionary ghosts, as this is more likely to attract the authorities to try and destroy an infestation of undead. A bunch of mysterious murders, especially of what has always been universally considered riff-raff in most every civilization, i.e. slavers, is more likely to be ignored. If this works, emancipate slaves legally and move onto next farm. It helps to try and connect up with local abolitionist league to help them spread the word and publicize what is going on. If you do it right, almost every death of a slaver that is even slightly mysterious (or even just not an obvious accident) may begin to be blamed on these vengeful spirits. Rumors are a wonderful thing.

This is also why I consider the bard, if used right, is one of the most powerful classes in DND. Psy-Ops, it's not just for breakfast anymore.

skippy
GM of the Cursed Earth Campaign

 

[jasper]

The questions I want answered is
“Is slavery good evil or neutral in your campaign?”
“How black and white is your campaign?” You are the dm what is good in the world not just this little corner.

Aliro who cares what century you playing in all the gamers are use to twentieth century morals so let that be the base level of decisions. Imc Slavery is EVIL in other campaigns it can be evil or neutral. It all comes back to dm to decide how black and white the total campaign is. From the sound of his posting and his players slavery is neutral.
Since your campaign is neutral then your players have to go out of their way not to kill the slavers and try to keep the splash damage to minimum. The suggestions here in the thread will help.

Ajanders I like your number 3 suggestion.

Kemrain you are confusing me if slavery is ok and a slaver is good what harm is being done if the slaver loses his freedom to other slavers?

I am amazed that some think abusing a young girl is deal breaker but slavery is ok.

 

[fusangite]

Manumission

In any society that has multi-generation slavery based around individuals captured in war, there is always a manumission process. How, in your society, do people become ex-slaves? In the Roman state and colonial Spanish and Portuguese states, there were two basic processes for people ceasing to be slaves:
(a) Purchasing Freedom: All slaves had the right to purcase their freedom; if your master didn't want you to do so, you went to a court, got the court to assess your value and, once you accumulated and paid that money, the court would order your master to sell you to yourself. You would thus become a freed person.
(b) Voluntary Manumission: For various reasons, your owner might decide to grant you your freedom. This was typically legally documented so that there was no danger you could actually become a slave again. A common reason to grant manumission was that your master was pleased with your service and believed that he had gained more in value from you than he paid and you deserved to retire. Another reason might be that your master had taken a shine to you and wanted you free so that you could be legally married.

Almost any society with legal slavery has legal processes for getting out of it. The antebellum slavery of the US, with people crossing state lines to capture escaped slaves, was really an exception to this. So, what you need to think about is how slaves are usually freed.

Also, in any normal society, slavery is not going to equal abuse of slaves. There must be good, humane models of slavery which even if not generally practiced, are held up as the social ideal for good slavery by the government. Listen to some Stephen Foster songs to get the hang of this one -- ask yourself: what kind of master has happy slaves? Your society will almost certainly believe that some must.

WIth these tools at your disposal, you have a number of options:
(a) These particular slavers, by virtue of abusing and mistreating the slaves, have violated some local statute that prevents slave abuse. Thus, they can be brought to justice even though slavery is legal.
(b) These slavers can be forced to grant voluntary manumission to their slaves -- at swordpoint if necessary.
(c) These slavers can be forced to sell the slaves to the PCs -- at swordpoint if necessary.

Only point (a) directly addresses the question that you are concerned about: the fear that these slavers will get slaves in future and abuse them. This is something modern society is becoming increasingly obsessed with -- predicting future crime. This has not been a big concern of most societies, however. It's only in modern society that people are punished on spec, based on the fear of what they will do rather than revenge for what they have done.

Still, if your characters have these highly modern values, there are a number of non-lethal approaches to this problem:
(a) The PCs could make a case to the local slave regulators that based on their abuses, these slavers should not be allowed to purchase slaves in future. There might even already be a list of people in the kingdom of people not allowed to own slaves for any number of reasons (e.g. staged insurrections in the past, were only buying slaves to free them, etc.)
(b) The PCs could exact a vow or promise from the slavers that they get out of the business for life on pain of the PCs returning and killing them then.
(c) The PCs could financially and materially destroy the slavers to the point where they lost the capacity to purchase or capture slaves in future.
(d) The PCs could use a legal technicality or situation of their own creation (for instance somehow placing the slavers deeply in debt to them) to make the slavers their slaves.

Hope this helps.

 

[Kemrain]

“Is slavery good evil or neutral in your campaign?”
“How black and white is your campaign?”

Our campaign is grey. The black is just dark grey, the white is just light grey. Even a demon can love, or so they say. Though we use DnD alignments to describe morality and ethics, we're using human morality to view the gameworld.

I'm sorry I spoke of DnD alignments before without explaining this situation, but, having played this way for years I'd forgotten that this way isn't cannon.

My character sees slavery as evil because it strips humans of their rights and dignity. That is her moral view of the situation. Slavery is evil, but capturing, beating, raping, and dehumanizing slaves is Evil. Those who actively go out and 'harvest' for the farm are the ones she wants to make die. People who own slaves are wrong, not evil; they don't deserve death, they deserve to be shown right and stop slavery.

However, I can only speak for my character. Each God will tell you what is Good and Evil, and they're all different. None of the Gods admit to being Evil, they point the finger at one another. Alerum, Lord of Justice, the most recognisably Good god by modern morality, says Sarx, God of Strife, is Evil. But Sarx has good reasons to back up the things he does, and those who follow him are taught that the church of Alerum is foolish for their beliefs, even if their God is powerful.

My character holds such a 'modern morality' because she was raised by the Temple of Alerum, and believes that his path is true, even if she does not walk it. She wears his symbol, and though it is Holy, and she a demon, she suffers no ill effects- Alerum wants her to walk the just path.

By modern standards, slavery is illegal and immoral, and Melissa shares these opinions. However, when a Power tells you you're completely justified in your actions, even if other Gods disagree, it's hard to see yourself as Evil.

- Kemrain the Moral Relativist by the Gods' Will.