Slaves

We will file suggestions here that did not make the cut. Don't expect detailed responses, but the most common reasons are:
- implementing the suggestion is impractical, or too much work for the gain
- the suggestion is thematically against our design philosophy
- the suggestion is too detailed/low-level
Keep your suggestions broad and focused on RP benefits, please, not detailed suggestions of how to tweak X class.

Moderators: Forum Moderators, Contributors, Suggestion Moderators

Locked
Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Slaves

Post by Drowboy » Sun Sep 20, 2020 12:35 pm

Controversial, but: As much as I enjoy outcasts and believe they bring excellent opportunities to the UD, I feel the exact opposite way about slaves.

To get it out of the way: The number of slaves that seem to exist as yoinked-to-the-treadstone cheap sexy elven fun times fodder dressed in slave Leia outfits for this week's drowmiskari edgelord to drag around on all fours around the Hub always seems suspiciously high, and in light of the recent post about 'slave romance rp' (ugh), it seems like that issue is at least known.

Otherwise, they just- don't make sense. As mentioned elsewhere, often, PCs are supposed to be rare, extraordinary individuals, not weird downtrodden examples of fantasy chattel slavery. The amount of mental hoops one has to jump through to reasonably include most slave PCs is a problem, one might argue of fairness:

If I want to be inclusive to a group of players, while still having an evil PC act realistically, that shorts out when the slave arrives. Ideally, an evil pc would treat the slave badly, even tell them to go away, but slaves and owners tend to be ooc friends with an arrangement, and no one wants to see their friend told to bugger off, right. So there's always going to be a disconnect between how one should realistically treat a creature with no rights wearing a magical collar, and the community need to sort of bend and be inclusive. Few, if any, other concepts require that bend at baseline.

Speaking of the magical collar: The number of slaves that are, incidentally, also powerful archmages and weapon masters, fully capable of freeing themselves either through brute money allocation (since slave funds are in no way restricted) or through the slavery quest, makes the entire system a weird joke of apparently willing slavery (see 'sexy elven fun times-bait elf slaves,' above). This problem becomes worse when goodies, surfacers, and people who used the slavery system as a background to escape are seen as the weird ones for wanting to chainbreak- well, why would they risk themselves like that? The slaves are perfectly happy being collared!

None of it makes sense, and it's been inviting sexy elven fun times, edge-case rulebreaks, and a huge suspension of disbelief since its implementation years ago, while creating, I would argue, an ever widening atmosphere of complete apathy towards slave PCs from the evil side, and the good side of things.

If players still want to play slaves? Fine! Let them! Just, through roleplay and behavior, rather than through a tag that lets their elf wander around Andunor unbothered.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

User avatar
The GrumpyCat
Dungeon Master
Dungeon Master
Posts: 6566
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2015 5:47 pm

Re: Slaves

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sun Sep 20, 2020 1:21 pm

This idea has been touted in the team before. And certainly we will be watching the rp of slaves going forward. For now though slaves will stay.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

Locked