Slavery in D&D Campaign Settings

[TheYeti1775]

Best advice - continue to play the game without worrying about it. If you can't than change directions or simply TALK TO NEW GUY. Most players are appreciative if you tell them your concerns.

Cause you told the new guy (assuming this) about the current course of the campaign when he joined on. If you feel uncomfortable with it, then 'find a way' that they escape. Now you gave yourself an evil organization that can be a recurring 'villian' in the campaign arc. Constantly sending recapture/kill teams.

Now also take into account your Rating for your game: G/PG/PG-13/R/NC-17/XXX
How far do you take your descriptions, I've always been a fan of the PG-13 to R area. Using a little Fade to Black for the more descriptive portions. Let them figure if they want more than the FtB, your players might ask for it.

Good luck with it.
Yeti

 

[haakon1]

Discussing it is actually treating him like a mature adult, instead of a child and I think your player is going to respect you more for it. I mean just something along the lines of...

"look my campaign deals with mature issues such as...now I've talked to my other players to get a feel of the type of things they do and don't feel comfortable with, since your new I just wanted to give you the opportunity to let me know how you feel."

At this point you've opened a dialog, now you may have to compromise(yeah I'm cool with it as long as the actual specifics can be a sort of implied thing), he may opt out the campaign(Yeah that's not for me.) or he may be totally fine with it(Naw I don't have a problem with that it's just a game.). But I think opening the dialog and treating him like a mature player is the most important thing. Just my .02

Well said. Obviously, different players have different attitudes to what they find offensive/crosses the line. As a DM, I prefer not to walk to close to that line -- quickly implied badness seems safer than direct, in your face, lots of detail and repetition badness.

Think of it this way: When Han Solo is tortured in "The Empire Strikes Back", we don't see exactly what happened. We just know it was unpleasant, Han is impaired temporarily afterwards, and "They didn't even ask me any questions." It seems safe to yadda yadda bad stuff in D&D too.

As in: You are captured and knocked out. You awaken in a dark pit, and are giving small, one-hand picks -- like climbing axes -- to work the salt face. The salt gets in your wounds and reddens your eyes. You're at half hit points and a -4 Con penalty from overwork, lack of food, the occassionally beating by the guards, and the foul salt getting everywhere. After 10 days of this, you see your chance when two of the hobgoblin guards get in a fight with each other. Whaddya do?

I wouldn't go more detailed, for taste's sake and because it doesn't seem relevant.

 

[Emirikol]

Slavery is common in our Hyborian game..both against the PC's and in the environment around them. Our campaign follows the REH Conan books closely. Players kind of need to know that..but we're all adults..that makes it easier. Another thing that makes it easy in most D&D games is when the PC's are slaves to monsters rather than setting your campaign in pre 1968 southern america.

Here's another thing for you though: Here's QUESTION #17 from our POTENTIAL PLAYER QUESTIONAIRE that every player fills out prior to being 'allowed' as a player at our table:

What kind of aversions do you have towards descriptions of violence, gore, vile evil, tasteless jokes, foul language, gamers that drink and game, ancient slavery, common PC death, prostitution themes, historical female and male family roles, in-party romance, references to adult situations, and intolerance of rules-lawyering?

This question is really good at helping us rule out 'certain' types of players.....yes, you can imagine the types of answers we've gotten on that question.

jh

 

[GQuail]

If the player hasn't said anything, then the GM should either go ahead and run it and see how it flies, or ask the player outright "this may be a sensitive subject to some people; I know the rest of the group are cool, but how about you?"

In general, I would have no problem with using slavery in a fantasy context: it's a staple of some genre stories and so common in one form or another in history that it's absecne would grate far more to me. Like fantasy games without any sort of religion, it might not offend some people but it would possibly push my believability. That's a matter of taste, though.

And some people have very different taste. Eveyrone has a different "hot button" subject, and for all I know some things you and all your D&D friends have done for twenty years would make me drpo the game on the spot. When I had a new player join the group, I had to reconsider a plot thread involving a town where female slaves rebelled and there was a war between militant feminists and slaver mysogynists - the new player was a woman, and though we had anothe rplayer in the group who was a woman already, I was worried the new one might not be comfortable in that kind of set-up. It turned out alright, but unless you ask, you never know.

 

[Oryan77]

Whoa these type of "shouldn't be playing comments really irk me.

I think you misunderstood my point, or I wasn't as clear as I thought I was.

Slavery is just another evil in the world that has happened to every race, every sex, in every culture since man existed and it still exists today. So my point is, if a person makes an issue about slavery in D&D, then why doesn't he have an issue with evil NPC's killing innocent people, or any other number of evil things? That's the whole point of D&D, we play heroes so we can stop the evil that upsets us. My original comment was more of a joke. What I could have said was, "If a player has a problem stopping bad guys from doing what bad guys do, maybe he shouldn't be playing a game where the entire point of the game is to stop people from doing what people shouldn't be doing."

By that player not playing in a slavery focused game, he's basically losing that one chance in life to save people from something he actually feels passionate about!

 

[NewJeffCT]

I think you misunderstood my point, or I wasn't as clear as I thought I was.

Slavery is just another evil in the world that has happened to every race, every sex, in every culture since man existed and it still exists today. So my point is, if a person makes an issue about slavery in D&D, then why doesn't he have an issue with evil NPC's killing innocent people, or any other number of evil things? That's the whole point of D&D, we play heroes so we can stop the evil that upsets us. My original comment was more of a joke. What I could have said was, "If a player has a problem stopping bad guys from doing what bad guys do, maybe he shouldn't be playing a game where the entire point of the game is to stop people from doing what people shouldn't be doing."

By that player not playing in a slavery focused game, he's basically losing that one chance in life to save people from something he actually feels passionate about!

There is a difference, however. Stopping the bad guys from enslaving the town/city/kingdom is different than actually having the PCs endure the slavery. If the DM had planned to go into extensive & gruesome detail, he might rightly be concerned about how a new person would feel about it.

Now, if you ran a campaign that went into graphic detail on slavery, rape and had sexual situations, but you found a new player that was going to be around for a year - real nice guy, supposed to be a terrific player, but after the year, he would be entering the priesthood, would you inform him of the nature of your campaign? (real situation - my old group had a gamer that was going off to become a priest... he had no problem with RPGs, though.)

 

[Destil]

In my current Thursday night game the 3 PCs who have been playing from day one started out on a filthy, freezing slave barge in the middle of the ocean headed to what should have been our grave in the frozen north. We had been captured during a civil war against a powerful empire and were basically being sent to work ourselves to death in their emerald mines.

Both the wizard and I were whipped and beaten several times (he had a real problem of picking fights in the worst possible places... still does actually). We had also been stripped of all our gear. We were assigned to work in a haunted tunnel, the head miner in that tunnel had lost six separate teams of diggers over the past two decades, all found dead in their beds. My companions dreams were not their own, each night becoming more and more detached from their lives, wandering a city they had never seen.

In the end we broke through to a man-made tunnel beyond our mineshaft, releasing some sort of ice demons. The entire prison population was slaughtered in their sleep systematically with the exception of ourselves; the imperial garrison locked the prisoners in their cells and barricaded themselves in their barracks. The imperials were all dead by the time we managed to escape our cell. The tunnel beyond our cramped mine shaft led to a ruined underground city and was our only way out as the main entrance to the prison had been frozen shut under feet of solid ice.

So, in effect, yes I think slavery can have an excellent place in a D&D game / campaign setting. (one of my favorite moments from this is that months later when we found out that we had inadvertently several laws my druid turned to the rogue and asked, uneasily "Is slavery a legal punishment in Halthorn?")

 

[Oryan77]

There is a difference, however. Stopping the bad guys from enslaving the town/city/kingdom is different than actually having the PCs endure the slavery. If the DM had planned to go into extensive & gruesome detail, he might rightly be concerned about how a new person would feel about it.

If I had to actually even consider informing a player about an issue such as slavery in a game where the goal is to kill people, pickpocket/steal things, lie to people, and pretend to worship false gods; I would simply tell him that maybe my game isn't for him. But first of all, I would hope that anyone like that would inform the DM about his conserns before the group lets him play with them. A personality like that is more hassle than I'm willing to put up with for a fantasy roleplaying game. At least there seems to be other DM's willing to cater to this type of personality (so he can still find another game), I'm just not one of them.

Now, if you ran a campaign that went into graphic detail on slavery, rape and had sexual situations, but you found a new player that was going to be around for a year - real nice guy, supposed to be a terrific player, but after the year, he would be entering the priesthood, would you inform him of the nature of your campaign? (real situation - my old group had a gamer that was going off to become a priest... he had no problem with RPGs, though.)

Not unless he asks about it. I would assume anyone interested in playing D&D is going to expect to deal with a thousand different issues and he is willing to deal with whatever bad guys bring his way...that's why he's wanting to play.

If a priest has a problem with slavery, rape, or sex in an imaginary game, but he doesn't have a problem with players pretending to worship made up gods; I'd ask him why he's being silly and making a big deal about such a trivial thing (trivial as in, it's imaginary and not really happening, so who cares). Obviously he doesn't really feel sincere about his consern or he would have issues with many other aspects of D&D. Coincidently, I experienced that exact situation with a new player last year who worked for a church. He played a cleric for 3 sessions before telling me he has an issue selecting a deity because of his real life religion. He didn't give me an answer when I asked why he is a fan of playing Planescape when the entire campaign is revolved around made up gods. That, along with many other things from this player showed me that he was going to be a hassle player. Luckily he left the group for personal reasons.

People are strange. They do things to get attention and don't even realize how contradicting and hypocritical they are being. There's nothing wrong with simulating slavery in D&D. The DM isn't spending 8 hour sessions talking about how the slavers are whipping your backs and making you move rocks. If a PC is a slave, it's usually for a brief portion of the game with no real detail about it other than setting up for the moment that you escape and get revenge. NPC's might still call you a slave, but after the escape, you became an adventurer/hero. Anyone that complains about that is making a big deal just to get attention. I try not to take the game that serious. That's being on the verge of not being able to separate fantasy from real life. If it wasn't, the person would be dealing with it in the game.

There's too many gamers that are high-maintenance and try making the rest of us walk on eggshells just to cater to them. I prefer to spend my time around more laid back people.

 

[Hussar]

There's too many gamers that are high-maintenance and try making the rest of us walk on eggshells just to cater to them. I prefer to spend my time around more laid back people.

And that's fair enough, but, it doesn't hurt to check. Let people know that certain things are going to be expected in the game is just good manners honestly.

 

[S'mon]

And that's fair enough, but, it doesn't hurt to check. Let people know that certain things are going to be expected in the game is just good manners honestly.

You're both right - prima donna players are a pain, but politeness costs nothing.