Quote from: Ghostmaker on July 13, 2022, 10:17:36 AM

Quote from: Dropbear on July 13, 2022, 08:50:33 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 13, 2022, 04:58:09 AM
The current era is too stupid for me to include slavery in nuanced form in any of my settings. My tolerance for stupid noises at the table has dropped to zero, so slavery is something only evil non-humans do.

But even then, most of my non-human races only see humans as food because as soon as you go down the slavery-as-a-practice road, you get into non-consentual fucking of the slaves.

But fantasy games have Charm spells...so now you have magical slavery without that pesky trying-to-escape part. There's no whipping, beating or rough talk with your Charmed pets, even though their real minds might be screaming inside or totally oblivious to what happened to them - depending on how you interpret the spell.

The Charm Person spell in 5E at least is toothless and worthless. Unless you just want to make sure somebody wants you dead anyway. Its entirely too easy to save against, especially if you are in combat. It lasts a mere hour, and it's not subtle, as the subject knows they were charmed as soon as it's effects are over and exactly who charmed them. It can hardly be called a worthwhile spell to take at all in this edition.

One might as well forget entirely building a character based upon enchantment magic in 5E. So it's better just to play any other edition if you are considering such.

Charm Person is a first level spell, and it's not good for long term compulsions. However, targets could tell they were charmed all the way back in 1E/2E, and the trick to using Charm in 5E is to tag a weak-Wisdom save enemy to keep him out of the fight or convince someone to do something when you don't care about long-term issues ('Hey, buddy, why don't you open this door for us?').

Magic in 5E got nerfed solidly anyways. Concentration doesn't stop you from casting other spells, but sustaining a spell definitely limits some of your magical options.

Yeah, Charm Person and most mind affecting magic in general were always kinda weak since before 5e, specially considering that they're binary hit or miss spells that do absolutely nothing if your target makes their save. At least damage spells do half damage on a successful save, and damage immunity is rare and applies to specific damage types. But enemies with immunity to mind affecting or "charm" effects at least are a dime a dozen.

But Charm Person is only a level 1 spell at least, and one hour might not be much, but it's still VASTLY longer lasting than most other spells in 5e and doesn't require Concentration, unlike 90% or so of all duration spells in 5e.

I see no reason why good societies wouldn't enslave orcs and goblins. It keeps them out of mischief and as slaves to humans they would often be better off than in their own tribes.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on July 13, 2022, 10:17:36 AM

Quote from: Dropbear on July 13, 2022, 08:50:33 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 13, 2022, 04:58:09 AM
The current era is too stupid for me to include slavery in nuanced form in any of my settings. My tolerance for stupid noises at the table has dropped to zero, so slavery is something only evil non-humans do.

But even then, most of my non-human races only see humans as food because as soon as you go down the slavery-as-a-practice road, you get into non-consentual fucking of the slaves.

But fantasy games have Charm spells...so now you have magical slavery without that pesky trying-to-escape part. There's no whipping, beating or rough talk with your Charmed pets, even though their real minds might be screaming inside or totally oblivious to what happened to them - depending on how you interpret the spell.

The Charm Person spell in 5E at least is toothless and worthless. Unless you just want to make sure somebody wants you dead anyway. Its entirely too easy to save against, especially if you are in combat. It lasts a mere hour, and it's not subtle, as the subject knows they were charmed as soon as it's effects are over and exactly who charmed them. It can hardly be called a worthwhile spell to take at all in this edition.

One might as well forget entirely building a character based upon enchantment magic in 5E. So it's better just to play any other edition if you are considering such.

Charm Person is a first level spell, and it's not good for long term compulsions. However, targets could tell they were charmed all the way back in 1E/2E, and the trick to using Charm in 5E is to tag a weak-Wisdom save enemy to keep him out of the fight or convince someone to do something when you don't care about long-term issues ('Hey, buddy, why don't you open this door for us?').

Magic in 5E got nerfed solidly anyways. Concentration doesn't stop you from casting other spells, but sustaining a spell definitely limits some of your magical options.

I am not sure about 1E, I'd have to look it up but in 2E there is no provision in the rules for the spell for the target to automatically know it was charmed and exactly who charmed it. They only retain full memory of the events that transpired while they were charmed. So not exactly full identification that a specific spell was cast on them and specifically who cast said spell, unlike the precise wording for Charm Person in 5E which enables just that.

Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 13, 2022, 11:14:25 AM
I see no reason why good societies wouldn't enslave orcs and goblins. It keeps them out of mischief and as slaves to humans they would often be better off than in their own tribes.

It makes sense... Especially in a 'fantasy' setting given our own history with slavery. Plus Orcs are vile bastards that would do the same to humanity if they could assuming they had leftovers after eating our faces off.

This whole 'new' notion of Orcs being potentially good is ludicrous given their nature, and the way they are created. Sure, you can make them fluffy in your own game if you want, but that's just a way of telling yourself that it's bad to be 'wacist. For all of us with a lick of common sense, we already knew that and WE never thought of Orcs representing any real human race.

Again that's a first-world woke scold problem.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on July 13, 2022, 11:24:23 AM

Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 13, 2022, 11:14:25 AM
I see no reason why good societies wouldn't enslave orcs and goblins. It keeps them out of mischief and as slaves to humans they would often be better off than in their own tribes.

It makes sense... Especially in a 'fantasy' setting given our own history with slavery. Plus Orcs are vile bastards that would do the same to humanity if they could assuming they had leftovers after eating our faces off.

This whole 'new' notion of Orcs being potentially good is ludicrous given their nature, and the way they are created. Sure, you can make them fluffy in your own game if you want, but that's just a way of telling yourself that it's bad to be 'wacist. For all of us with a lick of common sense, we already knew that and WE never thought of Orcs representing any real human race.

Again that's a first-world woke scold problem.

I agree with this for the most part, with only Eberron or Shadowrun being games that I have run where orcs are not your prototypical monsters ready to rape and pillage and kill and enslave anyone and everyone that opposes them.

I don't even recall what their analog is in Dark Sun anymore, maybe Gith?

Quote from: Dropbear on July 13, 2022, 11:28:47 AM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on July 13, 2022, 11:24:23 AM

Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 13, 2022, 11:14:25 AM
I see no reason why good societies wouldn't enslave orcs and goblins. It keeps them out of mischief and as slaves to humans they would often be better off than in their own tribes.

It makes sense... Especially in a 'fantasy' setting given our own history with slavery. Plus Orcs are vile bastards that would do the same to humanity if they could assuming they had leftovers after eating our faces off.

This whole 'new' notion of Orcs being potentially good is ludicrous given their nature, and the way they are created. Sure, you can make them fluffy in your own game if you want, but that's just a way of telling yourself that it's bad to be 'wacist. For all of us with a lick of common sense, we already knew that and WE never thought of Orcs representing any real human race.

Again that's a first-world woke scold problem.

I agree with this for the most part, with only Eberron or Shadowrun being games that I have run where orcs are not your prototypical monsters ready to rape and pillage and kill and enslave anyone and everyone that opposes them.

Yeah, plus if orc in your game are more like "beastmen" rather than "created to kill" they could still work as not necessarily evil even if they're predisposed towards violence.

QuoteI don't even recall what their analog is in Dark Sun anymore, maybe Gith?

Yeah, plus also wild Muls to an extent. Dark Sun is so savage and life is so harsh, you could drop raiders from any PC race and make them work. Elves in particular tend to engage in a lot of raiding, though it depends on the tribe and what their current circumstances are. Some are more into stealing or trading (often both), but a bad year can flip them into raiding easily.

Quote from: VisionStorm on July 13, 2022, 10:03:43 AM

Quote from: tenbones on July 12, 2022, 04:35:00 PM
I have slavery as a caste, I have slavery as indentured servitude, I have slavery as punishment instead of death sentences, I have slavery as a "profession". Depends on location and setting assumptions.

Generally speaking, you don't have "civilization" without slavery. It's almost a developmental mandate to get past "Iron-Age" technological levels for a civilization. There are no ancient cultures that did not practice slavery and since most of the details of my fantasy games are informed directly or by analog by these cultures, it's pretty common in my fantasy games.

This doesn't mean there aren't locations where the practice is banned, of course. Or that there aren't cultures that that abhor it - but they tend to be smaller cultures or those that lean heavily on magic. That pyramid ain't gonna build itself - slaves or otherwise.

To add to this: slavery is so central to civilization we still practice it today. We just don't care because we just call it something else and it mostly happens in other parts of the world, so it's out of sight out of mind. But every time we use our computer and smartphones to type posts like these we're using the products of slavery, which we participate on every time we buy these products—specially those of us (not me) who feel like neurotic need to always have the latest mobile device as a status symbol.

The materials for these devices are mined by slave labor in Africa. The devices are assembled by people working in factories with suicide nets in China. Globalism at its finest! Slavery's everywhere, we just don't see it even though we participate in it all the time.

And if things are that way today, imagine how how they would be in the type of ancient worlds most fantasy games are based on. That's why I always assume that slavery is going on in all my campaigns even if I don't explicitly make it an issue PCs encounter all the time.

Quote from: oggsmash on July 13, 2022, 05:58:53 AM
  I guess we could moralize whether we should or should not have slavery...but morally, killing someone is considered the worst "crime" and adventurers kill all the time, sometimes at genocidal levels.   Is it better to let those who are certain to die have a chance to live as a slave?   Not for me to say (I do not have situations where players can engage in slavery, buying selling or suggesting) but somehow slavery is considered "worse" than murder or killing.  Most adventurers live in a gray area and are going into other creatures/beings homes and killing them and taking their stuff, with few if any questions asked.

I view this more as a modern cliche than the way reality really works. There are worse things than death (what's described in Metallica's song "One" comes to mind), and people used to kill each other even over petty shit like insults right up until relatively recently in history. And they still do sometimes, but it used to be socially acceptable to challenge someone to a duel and just kill them cuz they publicly disparaged your character or whatever. And being forced into slavery is far worse than being insulted.

IMO, life itself is pointless and meaningless on its own. It's what you get to do with it that has any value. But merely being technically alive while being someone's property and not being able to do anything with your life is pointless, and depending on how you're treated and what sort of things your "owner" gets to do to you, death might just be a more merciful end regardless.

   You can always kill yourself.  Seems most slaves historically did not.  Same with those iphones, if slavery is worse than death it seems iphones are getting made anyway.  Slavery is NOT worse than death for one reason, realistic or not a slave can always hope for freedom. 

Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2022, 11:29:03 AM
Do you use different kinds of slavery in your campaigns? How have you used slavery in your campaigns? Lots of good drama, storytelling, and plot development becomes available when using slavery in a campaign!

I've rarely had much slavery in my fantasy campaigns, similar to not having much rape or fatal disease. Some historical realities simply aren't fun for most players. I played in a few historical, alternate-history, or pseudo-historical games like Harn where slavery was practiced, but we mostly skimmed over that side of life rather than delving into it.

That said, I've had slavery feature in a few games. I played Mutant Year Zero for a while, which is a post-apocalyptic game where one of the classes is literally "Slave" which was my PC. It had the "shake it off" ability to take a lot of punishment, and I ended up with some coincidentally thematic insect-related mutations.

I've had bad guy slavers in a few other broad fantasy games, but it was mostly local plots that quickly got broken up by PCs, rather than a widespread slavery system.

Quote from: oggsmash on July 13, 2022, 07:05:24 PMYou can always kill yourself.  Seems most slaves historically did not.  Same with those iphones, if slavery is worse than death it seems iphones are getting made anyway.

As was mentioned, some slave factories are designed to prevent suicides.

QuoteSlavery is NOT worse than death for one reason, realistic or not a slave can always hope for freedom.

How do you know that? Have you ever been dead? Realistic or not a (soon to be) dead man can always hope for resurrection.

Quote from: oggsmash on July 13, 2022, 07:05:24 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on July 13, 2022, 10:03:43 AM

Quote from: tenbones on July 12, 2022, 04:35:00 PM
I have slavery as a caste, I have slavery as indentured servitude, I have slavery as punishment instead of death sentences, I have slavery as a "profession". Depends on location and setting assumptions.

Generally speaking, you don't have "civilization" without slavery. It's almost a developmental mandate to get past "Iron-Age" technological levels for a civilization. There are no ancient cultures that did not practice slavery and since most of the details of my fantasy games are informed directly or by analog by these cultures, it's pretty common in my fantasy games.

This doesn't mean there aren't locations where the practice is banned, of course. Or that there aren't cultures that that abhor it - but they tend to be smaller cultures or those that lean heavily on magic. That pyramid ain't gonna build itself - slaves or otherwise.

To add to this: slavery is so central to civilization we still practice it today. We just don't care because we just call it something else and it mostly happens in other parts of the world, so it's out of sight out of mind. But every time we use our computer and smartphones to type posts like these we're using the products of slavery, which we participate on every time we buy these products—specially those of us (not me) who feel like neurotic need to always have the latest mobile device as a status symbol.

The materials for these devices are mined by slave labor in Africa. The devices are assembled by people working in factories with suicide nets in China. Globalism at its finest! Slavery's everywhere, we just don't see it even though we participate in it all the time.

And if things are that way today, imagine how how they would be in the type of ancient worlds most fantasy games are based on. That's why I always assume that slavery is going on in all my campaigns even if I don't explicitly make it an issue PCs encounter all the time.

Quote from: oggsmash on July 13, 2022, 05:58:53 AM
  I guess we could moralize whether we should or should not have slavery...but morally, killing someone is considered the worst "crime" and adventurers kill all the time, sometimes at genocidal levels.   Is it better to let those who are certain to die have a chance to live as a slave?   Not for me to say (I do not have situations where players can engage in slavery, buying selling or suggesting) but somehow slavery is considered "worse" than murder or killing.  Most adventurers live in a gray area and are going into other creatures/beings homes and killing them and taking their stuff, with few if any questions asked.

I view this more as a modern cliche than the way reality really works. There are worse things than death (what's described in Metallica's song "One" comes to mind), and people used to kill each other even over petty shit like insults right up until relatively recently in history. And they still do sometimes, but it used to be socially acceptable to challenge someone to a duel and just kill them cuz they publicly disparaged your character or whatever. And being forced into slavery is far worse than being insulted.

IMO, life itself is pointless and meaningless on its own. It's what you get to do with it that has any value. But merely being technically alive while being someone's property and not being able to do anything with your life is pointless, and depending on how you're treated and what sort of things your "owner" gets to do to you, death might just be a more merciful end regardless.

   You can always kill yourself.  Seems most slaves historically did not.  Same with those iphones, if slavery is worse than death it seems iphones are getting made anyway.  Slavery is NOT worse than death for one reason, realistic or not a slave can always hope for freedom.

Yes, iPhones are still being made. In factories with suicide nets. As in: work conditions were so bad people did try to kill themselves by jumping out the window, and the factory's response was "lets just install some nets outside to prevent people from killing themselves if they manage to jump." But like I mentioned, this depends on how you're treated and what sort of things your "owner" gets to do to you. Certain forms of slavery are very mild compared to others. Plus most people don't have the balls to off themselves, partly cuz people's sense of self-preservation is too high.

Also, some slaves historically didn't kill themselves, but they did wage slave revolts that often ended in their deaths regardless. IIRC Spartacus and all the slaves who followed him ended up getting executed once the Romans caught up to them. It wasn't suicide per se, but it was the next best thing: to take a couple of your tormentors with you on the way out in the hopes of maybe attaining freedom if you killed enough of them first. That sort of stuff can serve as a basis to run campaign come to think of it. You could call it "Liberty or Death: The Great Uprising!"

Quote from: Dropbear on July 13, 2022, 11:28:47 AM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on July 13, 2022, 11:24:23 AM

Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 13, 2022, 11:14:25 AM
I see no reason why good societies wouldn't enslave orcs and goblins. It keeps them out of mischief and as slaves to humans they would often be better off than in their own tribes.

It makes sense... Especially in a 'fantasy' setting given our own history with slavery. Plus Orcs are vile bastards that would do the same to humanity if they could assuming they had leftovers after eating our faces off.

This whole 'new' notion of Orcs being potentially good is ludicrous given their nature, and the way they are created. Sure, you can make them fluffy in your own game if you want, but that's just a way of telling yourself that it's bad to be 'wacist. For all of us with a lick of common sense, we already knew that and WE never thought of Orcs representing any real human race.

Again that's a first-world woke scold problem.

I agree with this for the most part, with only Eberron or Shadowrun being games that I have run where orcs are not your prototypical monsters ready to rape and pillage and kill and enslave anyone and everyone that opposes them.

I don't even recall what their analog is in Dark Sun anymore, maybe Gith?

Or Tareks.
Really, Athas is such an extreme environment, good characters can get away with a lot more simply because the alternatives are usually worse.

Moving away from fantasy slavery, science fiction slavery can bring about more fun gnashing of teeth over definitions.

Setting assumption where human cloning is customizable, cheap, reliable, and fast. Most of these are grown just to be canon fodder or grunt laborers or as humaniform wombs for growing the population (a worst case scenario IMHO). their physical attributes may be above average, but their intelligence is low and they are only educated to be skilled in their particular duty tasks. Are they still human? Are they just tools? If they are designed from the ground up to not be self-aware, do they even have the potential to be human? Or are these creatures just biological robots for use by those who call themselves human?

Lots of wiggle room for questions of slavery in game for that.

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 13, 2022, 09:19:55 PM
Moving away from fantasy slavery, science fiction slavery can bring about more fun gnashing of teeth over definitions.

Setting assumption where human cloning is customizable, cheap, reliable, and fast. Most of these are grown just to be canon fodder or grunt laborers or as humaniform wombs for growing the population (a worst case scenario IMHO). their physical attributes may be above average, but their intelligence is low and they are only educated to be skilled in their particular duty tasks. Are they still human? Are they just tools? If they are designed from the ground up to not be self-aware, do they even have the potential to be human? Or are these creatures just biological robots for use by those who call themselves human?

Lots of wiggle room for questions of slavery in game for that.

Yes, that's what also interests me about androids. An android character would probably be property, but very expensive property and thus perhaps more valuable than actual human beings. Playing an android who was corporate property might be fun, because you'd have a kind of sense of self-preservation not for your own sake but because you are programmed to protect your corporation's property and that includes yourself.

William Gibson's Neuromancer introduced the concept of cybernetic sex slavery. AKA, to make money, you could allow your consciousness to be turned off while a hooker AI program ran your body. There was a question about how many of these now-mindless sex slaves were there voluntarily.

Slavery in cyberpunk gets very messy, especially when you get into corporate wage slaves who are unable to leave their arcology.

Slavery in post-apocalyptic settings like Gamma World have similar issues like fantasy Charm spells as Gamma World has plenty of mutants capable of warping minds into submission.

But again, what wasn't questioned at the game table 20 years ago BECAUSE ITS A DAMN GAME OF IMAGINATION, now apparently causes retards to make retard noises and cryfests.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on July 13, 2022, 08:51:31 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on July 13, 2022, 07:05:24 PMYou can always kill yourself.  Seems most slaves historically did not.  Same with those iphones, if slavery is worse than death it seems iphones are getting made anyway.

As was mentioned, some slave factories are designed to prevent suicides.

QuoteSlavery is NOT worse than death for one reason, realistic or not a slave can always hope for freedom.

How do you know that? Have you ever been dead? Realistic or not a (soon to be) dead man can always hope for resurrection.

  I have never been a slave either, but a casual glance at history shows millions of people were quite willing to be slaves rather than die.  Personally I would fight to the death, but I do not know if that is a worse/better scenario even for myself...it is just the belligerent nature manifested with something for me to lash out at. I would be an outlier case anyway and the sort that slave taking cultures would have killed at the get go to prevent problems or fed me to lions in front of a crowd.    I am not making a personal experience observation here, but a historical one, and history says most people who took the poll preferred slavery to death though death was available.