Value of Slaves

[Elf Witch]

I'll rephrase, although the reply to her implicit argument will be the same, with my rephrase in []:

"Finally, Elf Witch [used the examples of her characters' in-game] looting and related her own dislike for real world examples of it. Well, [I recommend as an experiment that you try] setting up a campaign in which [the game] doesn't force your character to loot to survive as they level up. It's an easy hack, frankly, with the addition of a sponsor or sponsoring organization to your campaign. Alternatively, other kinds of narrative provide for ways to make survivalist behavior perfectly justified. Perhaps you'll make an enjoyable activity even more enjoyable without having to take a step to justify these actions. You may grow even more close with your characters. The same goes for the violence argument...."

If I implied that she was, as a person, uncomfortable with what her characters were doing, I apologize. I had quite a few opposing arguments and examples to deal with in that post.

I simply meant that there are alternative gaming scenarios to "killing people and taking their stuff" mercenary scenario, as she no doubt knows, and to emphasize the advantages of other campaign styles when it came to this issue.

In my campagn the group often uses diplomacy instead of killing things and so far they have done no looting but that is because the foes they have been up again are not evil just on the other side of a conflict.

The characters are all good and I have made sure they were provided with everything they need so there has been no need to loot. Plus everything they have found has belonged to someone alive not long dead.

But as for killing DnD does have a combat side to it. I can't imagine how the players playing fighter types would feel if they never got a chance to flex that aspect of their characters. My game provides all kinds of challanges from combat to puzzles.

I am not uncomfortable with the idea of killing or looting in DnD as I have said I have enjoyed playing more amoral and evil characters from time to time. The reason I am not uncomfortable is that I know it is not real. Flesh and blood people are not really dying.

It is like going to a Rambo film and cheering him on as he mows down other actors. Noone is really dying. And it is so far removed from reality. But I don't like to see real pictures from combat zones.

The reason I dislike shows like CSI is that they are too real they deal with the solving of murders something that happens in real life. And some of the special effects really just get to me.

My tastes in horror fiction runs more to supernatural horror rather then serail killers.

The point I am making is that there is big difference between enjoying something in make believe like an RPG or a movie and having it be a part of your real life.

As I said before I really think you are reading way to much into this.

 

[Elf Witch]

And, again, I'm not saying that the DM wants to see that either. I am saying that --absent other information to the contrary-- that DM who includes such a rape scenario in his campaign for his own and his player's pleasure rather than as a plot device to motivate PC action against the institution of slavery (to take just one possible valid example) is revealing some rather significant lack of empathy and covert hostility towards women.

And I wouldn't want to hang out with them...

... which is a possible cost (or benefit!) to the OP adding comely elf female slave pricing to his/her game.

I guess then with this opinion you also have a low opinion of romance writers and readers of historical fiction aka bodice rippers?

In these books the heroine often finds herself at the mercy of the handsome pirate captain or kidnapped by the masked highway man or carted off to the sheik's harem.

I guess we just look at things different. I am not going to assume that just because a DM puts slavery in his game and that some woman are kept in harems as a sign that the DM has lack of empathy or covert hostility towards woman. Not just from that. And if the players are all men who enjoy playing in a game where part of their rewards is nubile slave women I am still not going to judge them that way. It is a harmless fantasy and has nothing to do with how they really view woman in real life. Just like I would not judge a bunch of female gamers who played in a world where men were kept as pleasure slaves has a bunch of men hating shrews.

I think you are taking this way to seriously and reading something far more into than there is. As long standing feminist I didn't have any alarm bells going off over the OP post.

 

[roguerouge]

I guess then with this opinion you also have a low opinion of romance writers and readers of historical fiction aka bodice rippers?

In these books the heroine often finds herself at the mercy of the handsome pirate captain or kidnapped by the masked highway man or carted off to the sheik's harem.

Bodice rippers tend to be thinly disguised narratives about the conversion of the male barbarian by the civilizing woman who has a covert form of agency. They are not, repeat not, comparable to Alzrius' example of gamers "enjoying" a scenario of raping an female elf slave for the LULZ. There is no arc there. The act is its own "reward".

I guess we just look at things different. I am not going to assume that just because a DM puts slavery in his game and that some woman are kept in harems as a sign that the DM has lack of empathy or covert hostility towards woman. Not just from that. And if the players are all men who enjoy playing in a game where part of their rewards is nubile slave women I am still not going to judge them that way. It is a harmless fantasy and has nothing to do with how they really view woman in real life. Just like I would not judge a bunch of female gamers who played in a world where men were kept as pleasure slaves has a bunch of men hating shrews.

Probably, yes, we do look at things from different perspectives. But, yes, I would suggest that the female were working through feelings of aggression towards men. And if they were to then claim that they weren't doing so, I would also learn that they were not yet ready to face that fact and were protecting themselves through denial. Sometimes denial is a healthy way to go through scary psychological changes that promote emotional growth; sometimes denial inhibits that growth.

I think you are taking this way to seriously and reading something far more into than there is. As long standing feminist I didn't have any alarm bells going off over the OP post.

Clearly I'm not reading into it too far because you find enough evidence in what I say interesting enough to keep coming back to debate it further.

Also, I'm an educator and a debater. This is a "teaching moment." Surely, you, as a feminist, can recognize the value of investing time and energy into "consciousness-raising," even when it's in front of a skeptical audience?

 

[heirodule]

So this is all a debate on the location of narrative ontology (you ARE to some extent, the story of your life) in the realm of fictional narratives experienced by a person.

Cool.

 

[Dave G]

Come on people, agree to disagree, this is getting repetundant.

 

[Elf Witch]

Bodice rippers tend to be thinly disguised narratives about the conversion of the male barbarian by the civilizing woman who has a covert form of agency. They are not, repeat not, comparable to Alzrius' example of gamers "enjoying" a scenario of raping an female elf slave for the LULZ. There is no arc there. The act is its own "reward".



Probably, yes, we do look at things from different perspectives. But, yes, I would suggest that the female were working through feelings of aggression towards men. And if they were to then claim that they weren't doing so, I would also learn that they were not yet ready to face that fact and were protecting themselves through denial. Sometimes denial is a healthy way to go through scary psychological changes that promote emotional growth; sometimes denial inhibits that growth.



Clearly I'm not reading into it too far because you find enough evidence in what I say interesting enough to keep coming back to debate it further.

Also, I'm an educator and a debater. This is a "teaching moment." Surely, you, as a feminist, can recognize the value of investing time and energy into "consciousness-raising," even when it's in front of a skeptical audience?

I find the subject interesting. How people use fantasy to explore facets of their personality and their dreams.

For example playing a character that is not tied down with pesky morals can be liberating.

Having a beautiful slave whose only job is to fulfill your every wish can be a nice fantasy. It is a common enough male fantasy. And it has some basis in history look at the cultures that allowed men more than one wife and allowed hundreads of concubines.

And one of the themes in a bodice ripper is that in the end the woman wins because she has all the power because the man ends up wanting her more than anything else.

Woman who play that they are a dominant society and men are nothing but slaves there to do their bidding maybe having some fun feeling the rush of power of being in control and being the one with the power.

I just disagree with you that there is something more to it that there is some kind of pathology involved. Or that is says something fundmental about the person's outlook on life.

There does not have to be any thing deeper other a few hours of pretend kids do it all the time ,the woman for example don't have to be angry with men and are working that out through role play, the guys don't really have issues with woman and only feel comfortable if they deal with woman from a postion of complete power.

A man who day dreams he is James Bond with a beautiful different sex partner every day of the week maybe actually be a happily married man.

As a woman I sometimes grind my teeth at the lastest gaming artwork with the female fighter in chainmail bikini with a cold metal thong riding up her butt. Not because how dare men want to look at cheesecake but because it is a stupid picture. I am like how she can fight in that. I know some feminist scream about art like that reading much more into it than the simple fact that men like to look at beautiful half naked woman. They see it as men don't really want female gamers at the table. That it used to put woman in their place.

I think there is a tendency today to read to many ulterior motives in to things.

My first reaction when I read the first post was not OMG he wants to put the rape and degredation of woman into his game. As I said there could be a lot of reason a comely elven female would cost more. In Victorian times pretty servents made more money and were used as parlormaids and homely servents were scullery maids and below stairs servents. It was a matter of status to have pretty maids.

Or maybe they have an eastern arabain nights feel to their game with sultans and harems.

I just find it kind of interesting that you tend to see some kind of pathology and deeper motivations to this.

 

[Elf Witch]

Come on people, agree to disagree, this is getting repetundant.

I agree on this statement. And I do think that we may at this point be starting to go in circles.

 

[Alzrius]

I consider this stand, as an absolute, just as unsupportable as it's opposite.

I wasn't trying to make an absolute statement, though I suppose it did sound that way. My intent was deny the absolute nature of roguerouge's statement. Namely, that one cannot implicitly say that what fantasies one enjoys/engages in necessarily say anything about them as people.

Someone who enjoys a violent fantasy MIGHT be a person who is likely to actually hurt someone in the future. But they just as likely (and, I think, more likely) are a person who would never do that. Since there's no way to know for sure, and no way to be certain, you can't attach any intrinsic meaning to a person's character based on what they enjoy when they're not hurting people.

 

[Alzrius]

And, again, I'm not saying that the DM wants to see that either. I am saying that --absent other information to the contrary-- that DM who includes such a rape scenario in his campaign for his own and his player's pleasure rather than as a plot device to motivate PC action against the institution of slavery (to take just one possible valid example) is revealing some rather significant lack of empathy and covert hostility towards women.

That's you imposing your own judgment on the situation, though. A person who engages in role-playing such a scenario because he and the other players enjoy it does not necessarily indicate that they lack empathy, or hate women.

Absent any other information, you can't make that judgment about them as people. You might not want to hang out with them, but you have no basis, nor right, to judge them for it.

 

[Orius]

I agree on this statement. And I do think that we may at this point be starting to go in circles.

Starting? My mind's been spinning for like the last thirty posts.

Some of the cultures in my campaign use slavery. That's not because I have deep seated urges to chain girls up in a dungeon somewhere (and I find such perversions to be unappealing and disgusting besides), but because it fits the flavor that I want for the campaign. I want something like ancient classical society or pulp fantasy where slavery is part of the class structure of the society. And it's not just comely young females, there's galley slaves, gladiator slaves, common laborers, even slave tutors. And there's also similar nasty stuff like press gangs (better be careful where you get drunk!)

It's possible players that encounter the campaign might feel the urge to go out of their way to free said slaves. They're free to do so, but they'll have to deal with the consequences of how they approach it. Eaxmples:

• They go into a slave market and try to bust it up with their swords/fireballs whatever. Then the authorities come in and suppress them by any means necessary. If they manage to escape, then they find themselves as outlaws.
  
• They go into the slave market and buy slaves to free them. The authorities don't care.
  
• They attack a slave galley on the high seas. If they survive, well the sharks will be eating well for the next few days.
  

I remember some 2e books had prices for slaves under equipment. I don't remember offhand which ones they were, but I think they were Arabian Adventures and Age of Heroes. I'll use those sources as a basis for whatever pricing my campaign uses.

And IMO it's also doubtful that high-level PCs (or similar NPCs) would be captured and sold as slaves unless the slavers themselves are high or epic-level challenges. Most of the slaves IMC would probably be 1st level commoners or other low level NPC classes (like experts for skilled and expensive slaves).