Slavery, Rape, Madness and War!

[Fred Delles]

This may shock you, but men are much, much more likely to be the victims of violence than women. (What won't shock anyone is that they're also much, much more likely to be the perpetrators of violence too.) What's interesting is that we're appalled when a woman is hurt, but we accept male deaths fairly readily -- in war, in the workplace, etc.

No surprise. But this is only because women are seldom the provokers and almost always the victim when (violent) conflict between a man and a woman is involved.

Also, if a man gets bullied by another man, there is usually the ability to gain revenge ("The Insult that Made a Man out of Stan"), but if a woman gets bullied by a man, they are usually hampered into depression and possibly death (except for those harassment lawsuits and the rare cheesy revenge flick, like Julia Roberts' "Sleeping with the Enemy" or J-Lo's "Enough".)

This may sound sexist, but women generally lack the true ability to fight back, be it physical or mental.

 

[David Argall]

male vs female

"this is only because women are seldom the provokers and almost always the victim when (violent) conflict between a man and a woman is involved."

This is incorrect. Women provoke violence and inflict it on men in quite large numbers of cases. A minority to be sure, but a distinctly large one.
Our feminists got all upset a few years back about cops going to a domestic dispute and just leaving after telling everybody to hold down the racket. So they got laws passed requiring the cops make an arrest of the guilty party. They have been quite unhappy to find that about 1/3 of those arrested were female.
The cartoon character Maggie has a lot of real world sisters.


"if a man gets bullied by another man, there is usually the ability to gain revenge ("The Insult that Made a Man out of Stan"), but if a woman gets bullied by a man, they are usually hampered into depression and possibly death "

Entirely rare. Either sex can dream of revenge, and sometimes achieve it, but for most of us most of the time, the bully wins.

 

[mythago]

They have been quite unhappy to find that about 1/3 of those arrested were female.

Oddly, "our" feminists don't have a problem with female perpetrators of violence being arrested. You beat up another person, you have committed a crime. Maybe "your" feminists are just yanking your chain, David.

So, onto a subject that is largely shoulder-chip-free, how are people handling slavery in their campaigns? How do you deal with those of Lawful alignment; a LG character would likely see enslaving demihumans as evil, but what if slavery were a penalty for criminal behavior?

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Good points Wayside!

NooneofConsequence: Indeed, you have striven to be a fine gentleman! You are, though, entirely welcome to join the thread with your thoughts!

Mythago:

Good question Mythago! How might Lawful--even Lawful Good societies--deal with slavery? One could make the case that not all Lawful Good societies would necessarily see slavery in the same way.

How might the different alignments deal with slavery? What if a Lawful Good kingdom were to have 800,000 Orcs surrender to them? Merely on such of their surrender, I can't quite see them just allowing them to live freely within the Lawful Good society. Might they let them go? Kill them all? Enslave them? Imprison them? There could be good arguments for all of these courses of action by the same Lawful Good kingdom.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Fenes 2]

How do we handle slavery in our campaign? It depends on the campaign, and the PCs.

In one campaign, where the PCs are by and large good, with a paladin a prominent member, and have experienced slavery first-hand, slavers are prime targets. That group will, when possible, free slaves and fight slavers. Still, in entire societies that practise slavery the group will be able to function, as long as their butons are not pushed, i.e. no cruel treatment is encountered, for as long as their mission may take.

Now the other group practises slavery. Several of the PCs own slaves, have recently enslaved a captured foe instead of killing her, and would defend their society (and slavery with it) against all foes, even paladins battling slavery. They did, in fact, foil the plans of a group of adventurers that was trying to free a captured and enslaved member. Here the PCs are more or less neutral, some with a darker side, some with evil tendencies and some outright evil. Still, they do not mistreat slaves, nor use them as cannon fodder or trap detectors - not only because that would be foolishly wasting your property, but also because they have enough "good" left in them.

As a DM, I try to treat slavery as it was historically practised by the Romans, the greeks, and other peoples, and I also have serfdom, which is common in many feudal societies and basically slavery by another name.

As an aside, I do not try to make my world a better place than historical earth, and truly good individuals are scarce, and people who are good and share our modern morals almost non-existent.

IMC, even a LG person will see usually see nothing wrong with the death penalty for many crimes, with killing your enemies, and with living in a caste- or class-based society. Power will corrupt, and people will abuse their power. Nobles may have a ius prima nocte, of "Braveheart" infamy, be premitted to kill offending peasants without trial, and their words may have more weight in a court than those of commoners.

In that context, I treat slavery, rape and war as they were and are practised in our world.

 

[mythago]

Power will corrupt, and people will abuse their power.

But isn't this one of the things a strongly LG character would want to prevent?

I can see someone who is LG approving of a caste- or class-based society, if it is portrayed as a good thing--the peasants are protected by their lord, the "lesser races" really do need the care of their betters, etc. Abusing such power is evil, not good, even though holding the power is itself lawful (or even LG).

 

[Fenes 2]

But isn't this one of the things a strongly LG character would want to prevent?

I can see someone who is LG approving of a caste- or class-based society, if it is portrayed as a good thing--the peasants are protected by their lord, the "lesser races" really do need the care of their betters, etc. Abusing such power is evil, not good, even though holding the power is itself lawful (or even LG).

I was a bit unclear in formulating my post. I meant those two sentences to be separated. LG may very well be "evil" by our modern standards, oppressing people and upholding a feudal system, which in itself - imho - is evil as it is opposed to democracy.

That power corrupts should have been another topic, even though I can see a LG Lord being slowly changed by the trappings of his office, by all the small sacrifices for the "greater good" he has to do, ending up LN or even LE.

Still, I do not equal the D&D "good" with my own definition of good behaviour. A LG character may very well be the epitome of modern evil, enslaving "barbarians" "for their own good" and to further his country, god and ideals, killing foes and oppressing peasants. Now raping is not exactly a thing I see a LG do, but then I don't think there are too many LG characters around anyway, in any race. I see most humans and demihumans as neutral, often with good tendencies, but neutral.

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

Posting again after such a pleasant invitation.

On Edena of Neath's thread about the "Alignment Wars" I raised the idea that Lawful vs Chaotic can be viewed as placing different values on rights vs responsibilities. Chaotics are focussed on the rights of the individual, lawful are focussed on the responsibilities - especially responsibilities to wider society.

With such a perspective a Lawful Good society could endorse legal slavery. For example an LG society might have a form of judicial slavery, where criminals work off their debt to society as slaves. Add to this the possibility that such a society might believe in reincarnation or posthumous judgement of the soul. Because LG values resposibilties over the rights of the individual, they might see slavery as a merciful way of forcing a person to work off their bad karma before going into the afterlife.

 

[mythago]

I'd assume, also, that in a Lawful society, slavery would have to be orderly and predictable. You can't have a stable, lawful place if pretty much anyone can become a slave should a slaver cast an eye on them. There would be strict rules about who could be a slave, how (if at all) a slave could be freed, and so forth.

How would different alignments regard the treatment of slaves? Are they just property, like a farm animal, or do they have some basic protections under the law? I'd guess that outright cruelty would be seen as evil, possibly even unlawful. It's interesting to contemplate a LG system where killing a slave under certain circumstances is acceptable (as long as it's done humanely, and for good reasons, just as you'd kill an untrainable dog), and a LE system where killing a slave is unacceptable (because slavery is a punishment imposed for a fixed term by the Priest-King, and killing the slave means failing to obey the Priest-King's decree).

 

[David Argall]

slavery & LG

Lawfuls, by definition, believe everybody is a slave. There is no such thing as freedom, merely failing to do your duty.
Accordingly, our LG has no objections to slavery. He can and does make objections to who owns the slave and how he is treated, but the idea of freeing the slave makes no sense to him.

Being Good, he works for the benefit of the slave, as defined by LG, but the slave is supposed to benefit others as well, and the LG master can insist on quite a heavy workload. Of course his own is generally at least as large.