PFS: Now legal to own SLAVES in PFS - Your thoughts please

[Emirikol]

It's now legal play for player characters to purchase, use and sell slaves in Pathfinder Society.

As a GM, this puts me in a pickle. I've always considered human trafficking, rape, and kidnapping to be evil..but now it's evidently not. It leaves us GM's at the table to decide if the player 'pushes it too far.' Problem for me is "slavery is evil" and if I don't allow it at the table, I can be BANNED as a GM.

Also, considering that PFS is /not just a home game/, I'm wondering how this plays out when I've got my black friends at the table or perhaps some children when you've got a player getting his rocks-off on the slavery issue. Suddently as a GM, ___I'm___ going to be considered the bad guy by both sides.

Any thoughts on the issue?

jh

 

[frankthedm]

It's now legal play for player characters to purchase, use and sell slaves in Pathfinder Society.

As a GM, this puts me in a pickle. I've always considered human trafficking, rape, and kidnapping to be evil..but now it's evidently not.

Says where? Is there a ban on PFS characters performing evil acts?

Despite the inherent danger, trade in captured griffons and stolen eggs is brisk, with their eggs worth up to 3,500 gp apiece and live young twice that. Characters eager for griffon mounts, however, should note that buying or forcibly domesticating intelligent creatures like griffons is still recognized as slavery by most good deities, and winning a griffon's allegiance of its own free will is no easy task. Reaching a mutually agreeable accord (or even a friendship) is a much more elegant and safe route to securing a griffon mount.

Any thoughts on the issue?

I want a wall of text, a link or at least a page reference.

 

[TheNovaLord]

Version 2.2 of the PSGOP lists under Adventurer's Armory: "Everything in this book is legal for play with one exception: a pseudodragon is not legal for purchase unless you’re a wizard with the Improved Familiar feat."


In Adventurer's Armory, there are 5 different types of slaves listed as available under the heading Black Market Items. This would seem to make it clear that slaves are now available for purchase and use within Pathfinder Society, or was there an oversight that needs correcting in the next version of the PSGOP?

 

[Nebten]

You would think they would put it under the text of "hirelings" instead of "slaves" to avoid such a hot topic.

 

[Crothian]

It is still a black market item so the PCs might not be able to locate them to find. Also most black market purchases are against the law of the land so while PFS might not disallow PCs from doing so that doesn't mean a Paladin can't make trouble for PCs that do. Do their alignment rules mark slavery as an evil act? You can have the slaves revolt and take down the PC that buys them. You should have options as a DM to still allow a PC to buy slaves and still make it hard on them with in the rules of the game.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

I'd think that whether or not slavery is considered 'evil' in Pathfinder terms would depend on the area/culture from which your character originates. Andorans certainly abhor slavery (in any form) and an Andoran Paladin would likely find the ownership of slaves to be an evil act.

However in Katapesh slavery is not only legal it's actively encouraged - slaves are one of the biggest trade items. A Paladin born and raised in Katapesh might not be averse to the ownership of slaves at all.

Note that this is in no way a statement about my personal beliefs; just an acknowledgement that we're playing a game here, and that the characters we play are not the people we are.

We watch movies in which slavery is a part of the culture or the plot (any movie set in ancient Rome, for example). In most cases where it plays a major part the characters who own slaves are fine with the practice even if they don't enthusiastically endorse it. I suspect the actors who play the characters are not so sanguine about the topic.

I sometimes play Assassins - evil characters who kill solely for profit - but not often. We all play characters who go out and kill other sentient races for a variety of reasons. Most of the folks I game with play good guys, but some are neutral. Even the good ones, though, usually don't think twice about taking the loot from the 'bad guys' and equipping themselves with it or selling it for profit - even though it was certainly looted or stolen from someone else originally. Where I (the player) come from, that's considered both illegal and immoral . . . but my characters still enthusiastically loot the corpses they leave in their wakes without a thought in their heads of trying to return all that stolen stuff to it's rightful owners.

 

[ruemere]

It's now legal play for player characters to purchase, use and sell slaves in Pathfinder Society.
[...]
Any thoughts on the issue?

jh

*warning! rant approaching!*

It is a game. If there is something you don't like about that, there is an explicit rule (pointed out several times over at Paizo version of this thread), that you are free to disallow stuff you don't like.

Quoting: We’re all friends here and we’re all playing a game together
with the singular purpose of (hopefully) having a wonderful
time... Extreme forms of dysfunctional play will not
be tolerated.

Myself, I have no problems with mature stuff in my games. It's a responsibility I know I can handle... and if some person ever tries to tell me that they cannot tolerate something, we can resolve it properly and politely.

Oh, if there is one thing I dislike, it is a politically correct person telling me that something is not right because someone else may take dim view of that.
So if someone was to come over to me and told me that "PFS blah blah allows slaves blah blah and my friends are black blah blah", I would say:

"Ask your friends first. Don't think for them - they are adults, too, and they can think on their own. Remember, political correctness is evil because it tries to think for you."

"Oh, and if they laugh at you, bear with it. You were the one to overinterpret the rules."


Regards,
Ruemere

 

[frankthedm]

Almost forgot to post these...


Ogre Slaves in chains counteersheet
img594.imageshack.us/img594/8619/ogresinchains.png

 

[pawsplay]

It's now legal play for player characters to purchase, use and sell slaves in Pathfinder Society.

As a GM, this puts me in a pickle. I've always considered human trafficking, rape, and kidnapping to be evil..but now it's evidently not.

Slavery isn't evil, simply unfair. It puts the owner in the position of being able to do evil, and weakens their empathy for the slave as a human being. But ultimately, it's simply involuntary economic activity. It is not, in principle different than role-playing a PC who demands 70 hour work weeks of steel mill employees, or a PC who purchases defaulted debts, or a tax collector.

Now, if the player actually wants to roleplay performing evil acts against the slave, well, then you have a stickier issue.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Slaves are a part of Golarion and slavery is practiced in most of the nations, about half or so . Buying or owning a slave is not an evil act.

List of nations that have slaves in no order

Absalom
Cheliax
Katapesh
Osirion
Thuvia
Qadira
Geb

pretty sure others do as well but we know those are active in the selling of slaves.

Simply put it is a part of the world much like it was a widely practiced part of our own.