Slave Freedom Price/Freedom Quest

[Morgy]

Hi!

I agree with the increased motivation for slaves to free themselves secretly/through a path, rather than simply slapping an amount of gold on the table no slave should arguably have.

However, the current freedom quest chain is rather clunky/overly vague in places where it ought not to be. It’s hard to explain without spoilers, but perhaps a dev could take a look at the freedom chain and make a few alterations to some of the tasks?

I believe the chain should be long and hard work, but some of the tasks are simply so unclear you can be left banging your head against the table.

Happy to discuss in PMs/discord if need be!

[Good Character]

While I can understand the frustration some people have with it, the fact that is is deliberately hard and cryptic is one of its most alluring keypoints. It discourages that rebellious slave from trying to chase freedom, while only those who truly can appreciate it and desire it will continue on trying to figure out the puzzle. However, I wish the point of its difficult mystery was rooted in more lore than simply avoiding making the key points and/or figure you need to visit commonly known by nature of being visited often.

[Ascended Mage]

Arelith's players do not take seriously slavery as usual. And as expected to make life hard and to make you think twice - price was increased. Slavery - not only easy ticket to grind and levels.

People openly posts on messageboards in (not)hidden-place what you need to do to complete """SeCrEt QuEsT""" step by step as well encouraging to contact if one need help. It is not hard and it was a common sight when slaves was so easy on completing this quest.
500k was somewhat easy to grind and new price more encourage you to interact with others and seek help.

Now it's left only to change prison collars. They still so heavily abused...

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As one who sometimes plays slaves - I see it as a good change.

[Morgy]

I like cryptic , but some of the instructions don’t make sense. The poison task for example, which could be theoretically completed with numerous food poisons, requires a specific one without any hints at all. Throwing random ingredients at an npc because there are no proper clues is not a puzzle.

Making it a long drawn out process is the right thing to do, but it should be fun and risky.

Also, having completed the chain once means anyone doing it again on another PC can do so very quickly and easily, because it’s simply just remembering what the incredibly vague instructions meant. So this if nothing else shows the process isn’t actually that effective.

It’s a pretty old system and I think it’s fair to say it could do with a review. Personally, I think the ‘buy out’ option of slavery is an odd one and not something I would personally opt to use.

[Edens_Fall]

I like cryptic , but some of the instructions don’t make sense. The poison task for example, which could be theoretically completed with numerous food poisons, requires a specific one without any hints at all. Throwing random ingredients at an npc because there are no proper clues is not a puzzle.

Making it a long drawn out process is the right thing to do, but it should be fun and risky.

Also, having completed the chain once means anyone doing it again on another PC can do so very quickly and easily, because it’s simply just remembering what the incredibly vague instructions meant. So this if nothing else shows the process isn’t actually that effective.

It’s a pretty old system and I think it’s fair to say it could do with a review. Personally, I think the ‘buy out’ option of slavery is an odd one and not something I would personally opt to use.

I agree the quest line has some bugs. I remember the chest that doesn't count stacks being annoying until I was told to separate the items first before placing them to get credit.

Eitherway it could use a once over to correct minor issues and clarify tasks I think.

[The GrumpyCat]

It's been mentioned before and I agree that the slave-freedom quest needs a re-jigging, a swap around to new quests, a fiddling around with old ones.

I think also with the huge disclaimers on the taking of the slave collar we can make it a little more... long term too, if we wish.

[Edens_Fall]

It's been mentioned before and I agree that the slave-freedom quest needs a re-jigging, a swap around to new quests, a fiddling around with old ones.

I think also with the huge disclaimers on the taking of the slave collar we can make it a little more... long term too, if we wish.

Oh such as a minimum term limit before one can even try to get freedom? That's an interesting idea that has some merit.

[Farlius]

Mechanical enforcement of a system such as slavery does free up DM time.
However by doing so players are forced through a quest line or frankly the impossible gold value for an average player.

I doubt I'm going to convince anyone in this thread that slavery should actually be more akin to the prisoner collar since at best that facilitates good rp on both sides since one can leave without having effectively ruined a character, and at worst you can get a DM involved if abused, again by either side.

Rp is after all a co-operative story.

So instead I shall propose you cannot start as a slave. Given you must be level 5 iirc to even be owned, this stops people being stuck in what is now a 2 million pay off or god awful questline.

[The GrumpyCat]

You'd think the prisoner collar might be a good idea, but not so long ago I came across a bunch of people yelling at a pc who had a 'prisoner' collar on the surface to 'let them help take it off or die!' Or words to that effect.

[Farlius]

I would have expected your response to be to report that.
It seems rather a contrived situation that should have alignments looked at, rather than a counter to what I said.

Additionally, I wish to add I said akin to, not exactly the same. But I would leave that to devs to expand upon if considered.

[Watchful Glare]

You'd think the prisoner collar might be a good idea, but not so long ago I came across a bunch of people yelling at a pc who had a 'prisoner' collar on the surface to 'let them help take it off or die!' Or words to that effect.

I had a similar experience in Cordor; had my slave character escape to there and ask for help in removing the collar. The captain of the guard kicked him out and told him she'd kill him if he came back and that it wasn't their problem, made me chuckle.

[The GrumpyCat]

I would have expected your response to be to report that.
It seems rather a contrived situation that should have alignments looked at, rather than a counter to what I said.

Additionally, I wish to add I said akin to, not exactly the same. But I would leave that to devs to expand upon if considered.

Ah fair enough, I missed the 'akin' to. Not enough sleep of late. My apologise.

[Hazard]

I thought it was a rule that you had to RP both collars as the same thing.
When I had a character of mine enslaved, I used the temporary collar because it was my first time.

My experience was like described above. Surfacers were very dismissive, even threatening to kill her because "it's not a real collar" and "you can take that off anytime! you want to be a slave!" .. It was super lame to have people unwilling to RP it, but .. BUT~!

The underdark at the time was the opposite experience for me. My slave ended up really fitting in and being valued highly as a good, well-behaved slave, and I kept the collar for a couple months.

Looking back, I would have just gone with the permanent collar knowing I would have had so much fun and been in such great company, but if there wasn't the option of the temporary one I might never have been brave enough to give it a shot on that character and I could have missed out on some of my favourite experiences on the server.

I really like that the collar is more expensive to remove. I hope the quest will be a bit harder, and I'd like to see the slavery system expanded to make life a little harder for slaves. Too many indignant slaves walking around Andunor. It's cool if there's a few rare cases of this, but when it's most slaves? It's a lot like good drow. Good drow is a cool concept, but when it loses its rarity it stops being cool and just becomes annoying.

[Edens_Fall]

I hate to say it, but on the surface slaves are viewed as evil servants insteqd of people forced into service. I've had the same experience before where you are ignored, hated, or killed if you don't remove the collar right then and there by "good" PCs.

There is alot of meta game mechanics that bleed into IG with use of the prisoner collars. Even trying to RP "the collar is enchanted or needs key" is met with "oh you want to be a slave and thus are evil."


!

[LovelyLightningWitch]

I hate to say it, but on the surface slaves are viewed as evil servants insteqd of people forced into service. I've had the same experience before where you are ignored, hated, or killed if you don't remove the collar right then and there by "good" PCs.

There is alot of meta game mechanics that bleed into IG with use of the prisoner collars. Even trying to RP "the collar is enchanted or needs key" is met with "oh you want to be a slave and thus are evil."


!

On the flipside though, barring what is done - the other alternative is to essentially ignore slavery as you can't do anything about it anyway. Befriend someone and they turn out to be a slave or get enslaved? Might as well treat it as if they permadied the way I experienced it. Not an ounce of fun, nor did it aid immersion much if not negatively affected it.

[Curve]

Slavery is no different than a hundred other things on arelith, it is what you make it. If you put zero effort into making something immersive, depend on the systems to make sense of everything and limit yourself to black and white answers or solutions then almost all of this game makes no sense. I don’t say this as a way to stop the conversation or say some systems don’t need altering or outright changing, but just as a general way to make your whole game experience better.

Try as hard to make things make sense as you do to make things not make sense, seek out players who do the same.

[Fava Beans]

If the quest ever gets a look at, i beg that if it requires a skill check, it be more clear on what skill you need, and that non combat characters be kept in mind! i banged my head at this quest for months and in the end there were a couple tasks i simply couldn't do, so i gave up and just paid out the coin.

[Aren]

While I do not feel one way or the other about slaves or slave roleplay - I find it very interesting that people are firmly advocating in-game systems to restrict player agency or choice.

"B-but some people abuse the system."

Yes. You will always have people who circumvent such things mechanically. But ask yourself - why do they do this? Because they are malicious metagaming poo-heads? Sure, some probably are. But others might feel they "have" to, in order to actually do the things they want with their character, without bugging a DM for help.

I will even put my neck on the line: I personally tried the whole circumventing thing, by putting a prisoner collar on a non-UD-native warlock, who came from Skal. It was not my plan to do so. I did not want to do so, but it was the only way my character could mechanically function in the UD, since the Faerzress absolutely wrecks non-UD-natives. I eventually ended up tossing the character, even though he could function with a prisoners collar - because him being collared was so out of character, that I just could not go through with it. And I really liked that character.

I think my point is, that the more you restrict the players in what they can actually -do-, the more you pigeonhole players into playing characters a certain kind of way if they want to do a certain thing. You essentially restrict creative freedom. And I think that is a shame.