Slave RP, a feedback/critique post

[La Villa Strangiato]

Before getting into the meat of this post, this is my experience, and you are of course allowed to have a separate experience from me. Some of this is not an objective measure of "what it is like to play a slave character on Arelith"; some of it can be attributed to my character's personality, what I enjoy playing Arelith for, bad luck, a skill issue (both RP and mechanics-wise), and so on. Also, this post is long.

I had a slave character, Atletl, who sat in my vault for several years, and I only recently got back to levelling her. I never intended for this to be a long-term character, but I had a fairly good idea of themes I wanted to write and a direction I could go for her narrative. Most of all I wanted to explore playing a slave character and how the experience held up. Having played in the Underdark a lot, I found slaves run the gamut from very new roleplayers, people who were clearly trying to play a concubine, and evil elves who speedrun the slave clamper. I hadn't heard great things about the experience from my friends who had played slaves, but I thought it would be worth it to try for myself, because I figured I could just roll if anything went too wrong.

That sounds like a great lead-in to say "everything went horribly wrong", but it didn't. But, my time as a slave was not very fun, and I'd like to discuss in this post why it was not fun, and unfun elements which I felt were encouraged by culture and mechanics.

Roleplaying as a Wal-Mart Cashier

I like, and do not mind, encountering dark themes in fiction. A lot of Andunor's set dressing is meant to try and immerse a player in a grimy, criminal city filled to the brim with the boogeymen from children's nightmares. I'd make an educated guess that, given the flavour around the slave pits (how it reeks of desperation and sweat, etc), being a slave on Arelith is meant to feel harrowing. You are meant to have something of a "bad time", but it's similar to the "bad time" you sign up for when playing a horror game -- a form of catharsis, experiencing the shadow-on-the-wall of negative emotions. Of course, it's hard to have a truly harrowing experience on what is ostensibly a server suited for teenagers and adults, but that's a byproduct of having to cultivate an experience that is more universally palatable.

More to the point, I never really felt this "negative catharsis" when playing a slave, except when I got to discuss Atletl's backstory and explore her personality while roleplaying. Actually being a slave on Arelith wasn't "harrowing", it was just annoying. Most of the "oppression" RP I got was pretty minor, to the point that I felt more like a put-upon clerk or service worker -- like a Wal-Mart cashier. Getting called "slave" while having an otherwise completely businesslike interaction, having characters breach personal space (in-character personal space) in an "I'm not touching you" manner, receiving playground insults, and so on.

None of this is anything that breaks rules, and I'm aware it's what I signed up for -- it's just something that's annoying, rather than interesting to roleplay. Ultimately, I wasn't getting anything out of the experience that I couldn't get by playing, say, a male drow.

Bearing the Burden of Someone's Experience

For the majority of Atletl's lifespan as a character, I was owned by Roland DeFleur and hung out primarily with House de Laveau. I have zero complaints in that regard, and nothing but positive things to say about the roleplay I saw from Roland, Seraphine, Xalyth, Rezzen, and others. When Roland wanted me to shine Seraphine's boots, or he told me he expected me to repair my cloak (I was using the frayed cloak model), it felt more like a cool challenge than the "lol stinky slave" backtalk I got elsewhere. It spoke to not only Roland's character, but it fostered the feeling of being immersed. Of course he didn't want me slouching around in a torn cloak, I'm a slave/indentured servant of a noble house! I felt like I really had something to strive for, in regards to my presentation. Little things like that create good atmosphere for me.

I liked the RP so much that I was kinda sad whenever I couldn't randomly come across the top-rankers of the house and update them on my progress. At one point, Roland sent me a tell saying that he hoped I wasn't bored with the RP. It got me thinking; I was bored. But it wasn't his fault at all! RPing with my owner was the most fun I'd had, but I didn't really want to butt my way into all of their RP because I felt like they were the only ones who were considering my experience as a player.

Which leads me to the thesis of this part. When you're a slave, your master is heavily encouraged to be your primary RP link. This puts a lot of pressure on a single person to curate your experience. It wasn't something that I wanted to impose upon these players, because they had other RP stuff that they wanted to do. Of course, there were times where it might have been totally okay for me to butt in and seek them out. But the problem remains that, as my owners, they were expected to interact with me the most, and they bore the burden of my experience.

Sub-section: Who Was I Interacting With?

I've already mentioned that interacting with non-slave Andunor amounted to being treated like a Wal-Mart cashier, so you might be asking why I didn't try engaging with other slaves, or the surface.

1. My character was a Bel-worshipping infernalist who wanted to stack Amnian bodies as a tool to get into Bel's favour more. This ruled out good-aligned chainbreaking RP, although I did get some cool interactions about chainbreaking with Velasco and Ryana Durante -- shoutout!

2. There weren't a lot of slaves on at my hours while I played Atletl. The most active ones tended to make me a bit uncomfortable (scantily-clad women, etc.) or were just new to roleplay so they mostly played Arelith like an MMO.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post, part of this could be attributed to a skill issue or getting burned out quickly. I have no doubt that I could have had more RP if I really nudged my way into some spaces, but being treated like a prop (and having a character who was a bit of an asocial jerk anyway) primed me for not really wanting to engage with the rest of Andunor as a slave.

Drudgery and Number-Grinding

I don't think it's especially controversial to say that Arelith mechanics (and NWN in general) can become a grindfest. I don't want my game experience to be frictionless, of course, but from resource-gathering, to levelling, to even crafting, it can become a slog.

Which leads me to another part of the reason I wanted to make a slave -- to figure out how the chainbreaking/freeing-yourself-from-slavery quest worked. I did find it out, but I learned the hard way that it was basically drudgery.

To give it a very detail-light rundown, you have to go on a quest talking to various NPCs and following vague clues to collect a bunch of items and hand them to an NPC. Once you've collected enough items (and you have to collect a lot), you'll be hinted towards another NPC that will take off your collar. After about the fifth round of collecting certain items and bringing them back to an NPC, I was dragging my feet in a big way. The excitement of discovering this secret questline was cool, but the prospect of having to circlegrind a fetch quest became boring so quickly that it made me want to roll even faster.

I get that it shouldn't be "easy" for someone to remove their slave collar. I also don't really have any suggestions for how the quest should be reworked, so it feels disingenuous to critique it. But it's still something I don't want to spend my time on as a player, and it was ultimately the nail in the coffin of choosing to roll Atletl a little earlier than I anticipated.

If you're a slave looking to free yourself, it's hard to tell which path feels grindier. You could rack up millions of gold and hope your master wants to free you (probably the preferred option for an evil-aligned slave), or go on a long fetch-quest with the implied goal being that you stay on the surface and integrate into polite society. Again, it's not that freeing a slave shouldn't be difficult or expensive, it's only something where the process of doing it feels unrewarding and more like a timesink than an interactive roleplay game.

Speaking of timesinks, another painful part to the grindy nature of being a slave is learning Undercommon. Let's be honest for a second, does anyone actually like the process of learning languages? Stand in a room, wait for people to talk in coloured text at you, number go up. I would go so far as to say the bonus languages of Loremaster are the second-biggest reason why it's such a popular dip, even over the convenience of UMD and Lore. It's another element that I can only assume was to create immersion and negative catharsis, but it just ends up being tedious.

In Conclusion

Like I've said in the first part of this post, this was ultimately my experience and my preferences. But it is something that I would tell to someone who was interested in making a slave character, because at the end of the day I wouldn't recommend playing a slave. If a person wanted to engage in harrowing oppression RP in the Underdark, they might be better off making an indentured servant to another character without the (Slave) tag.

If someone forced me at gunpoint to name a way I thought the system could be made better, I'd honestly advocate for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, maybe just sticking to the prisoner system as a way to keep/call captives. But a lot of what I've talked about in this post is also a deeply-ingrained culture thing that can't be fixed with a few minor mechanical changes.

And I don't really blame anyone for doing the things I mentioned finding annoying, either. At the end of the day, nobody tried to do anything creepy to me, which I'm grateful for, and I'm also grateful for House de Laveau taking me in and considering my experience as a player.

you were funny, dante. sorry

[Floral Shoppe]

Well even in the evil underdark you can't expect other players to treat you as awful as they should, for one some of us are just RL uncomfortable with that dynamic and slavery in general... that's been discussed to death and I'm not editorializing, I think it just is what it is and no minds are going to be changed. But for another more IC reason, you're someone else's property so mistreating you could be dangerous-- especially if you don't know what their owner is capable of. You'd have to be a fool to mistreat random slaves in Anundor, they could belong to Drow matrons.

If you're making deals you're obviously a favored slave or one with some independence so yes you might feel like a cashier. But as a slave player you do have agency to direct your RP. Be so miserable you're useless and unable to work and see what happens. Be a rebel with an unbroken spirit and refuse to take orders and make them punish you. Don't befriend your master (which most slaves do, honestly), don't just jump in and follow every order, don't expect them to be responsible for all of your RP... make them work to make you work. You'll probably die often, but it sounds like you want to experience misery and that's one way to do it.

[Kalthariam]

I'm not personally a fan of Slave RP.

Infact for the most part I avoid interacting with slaves as a whole, because 99.5% of the time it's simply not worth getting involved with slave characters. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that does this either.

I'm just not a fan of the whole concept, there's really no point, even if you "Buy" a slave, you don't actually own that slave you are "Renting" the slave, because that makes sense? The Slave still belongs to the city, somehow...? Apparently PCs are the only one's not allowed to actually own slaves, plenty of NPCs fully own their slaves but PCs? No no.. you are only renting them, still belongs to the city.

Honestly I think the setting would just be better off without the whole system, rework it purely into a prisoner system.

[Power Word, Haste]

This is a great post, La Villa. Well written and clear. I agree with its message and I think most people on the server would agree with your points to some degree.

[Rei_Jin]

The slave experience is a challenging one to quantify, because if we examine it sociologically? Andunor is a trade city, so everyone has a position within it based on their relationship to trade.

Wealthy merchants are respected and/or hated, as others seek to emulate them, use them, or destroy them so they can take their place.

Powerful warriors of all kinds are the one who drive trade and protect the conditions of trade, so they are given benefits and support.

Slaves ARE trade products, and create trade products with no control or authority or rights towards the fruits of their labours. They are beneath the merchants and warriors, and as such the best they can hope for in many situations is to be ignored by them.

When you’re on the bottom of the social hierarchy, it makes sense to not make waves and to keep your head down. Others above you ignore you, and you should welcome that! Others at your level may connect with you, but they have to be very careful about doing so as their own lives could be at risk if they displease their master in some way.

This naturally makes playing a slave a lonely thing to do.

Now, of course your master can mediate this if they wish either by directly working with you, or by giving you authority, but the default is that slavery is miserable and lonely, and that is normal and expected. Anything else would be at odds with the reality of slavery.

Slavery is grinding drudgery. Of course it is! This should be expected.

Yes, the “collar breaking” quest line is simplistic. It has to be because of its automated nature; BG3 this is not.

Personally I would be happy for the slavery system to be yeeted into the Abyss, but the decision was made for it to be retained, and so we have what we have.

It’s not for everyone, and I’d not recommend it to most people.

But, it has its place.

Caveat Emptor.

[ThisIsNotADrill]

I do tend to go out of my way to avoid interacting with slaves and slavery (especially but not limited to the aforementioned concubine archetype trying to do their princess Leia bikini thing, stop emoting about your soft armpits). Encountering dark themes is one thing, but directly interfacing/participating with them is, for me, another. Since I tend to play with slavery blinders on, I'm sorry if we shared space and I didn't help make some fun for you.

Another thing I go out of my way to avoid are the as-described time-sink drudgery slogs that feel to me to be more like a punitive action or a calculated disrespect of my time rather than a real effort-in to reward-out pipeline. Of course things shouldn't be free, and some won't mind jumping through hoops, but dang it I hate hoops and especially so when they seem arbitrary.

As regards above, I'm of two minds about language learning. Passive language learning (standing around and listening to people say things you don't understand at all) is some of the most boring play I've ever experienced in my history of playing this or any other game. Active language tutoring (teaching phrases and translations, creating interaction) has been thoughtful and engaging. It's very unfortunate that the latter doesn't actually yield a greater impact in your learning performance.

I've got nothing spicy to say about the 'rental system' of slavery; if there must be slavery then it's really the only reasonable way to implement it at all. Actual permanent ownership is just too incompatible with player agency. Certain considerations have to be made to keep it a game and keep it playable. Talk about being even more heavily saddled with the burden of someone else's experience.

[chris a gogo]

Unread post by Kalthariam » 08 May 2025 02:38

I'm not personally a fan of Slave RP.

Infact for the most part I avoid interacting with slaves as a whole, because 99.5% of the time it's simply not worth getting involved with slave characters. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that does this either.

I do this.

But it is always IC as slaves are property so i treat them like they are just part of the background.

[Eira]

If a slave's description goes into detail to how lush, sultry, and nubile they are, if they flirt with people, if they act provocatively, if they do anything close to that, I report them. Time and time again, I will always report them.

Everyone else should too.

[But Will It Blend]

I have only done slave RP under very specific circumstances. Even from an owner perspective

1) I trust the other player. This is basically number one, highlighted, underlined, bolded over and over. I feel this is kind of just required.

2) I need to be able to reach out OOC. Normally, I prefer not to. But as noted in the post. Taking on this task does mean I am very specifically tying my character experience to theirs. And I need to make sure the other player is both comfortable with what is going on, and also getting the experience they seek out of it. Obviously, for many reasons, relationship RP with slaves is banned. As it should be. But making sure people are comfortable with certain themes is key. Especially with a power dynamic.

3) There needs to be alignment of play times and otherwise shared expectations and storytelling goals.

I try not to pre-plan much. I find that slave RP needs way more of that. Not that its a bad thing inherently. But its the only way I am comfortable doing it. So I really don't have many characters who have owned slaves.

[ClockworkRed]

I would prefer the tag be changed to something that can be interpreted more broadly such as Bob(Unfree) to include the retainer style of many slaves.

[Kenji]

Interesting retrospective and reflective read. I've never played a slave character before and the OP's perspective is a welcoming addition to that knowledge, or my lack thereof.

[La Villa Strangiato]

I do tend to go out of my way to avoid interacting with slaves and slavery (especially but not limited to the aforementioned concubine archetype trying to do their princess Leia bikini thing, stop emoting about your soft armpits). Encountering dark themes is one thing, but directly interfacing/participating with them is, for me, another. Since I tend to play with slavery blinders on, I'm sorry if we shared space and I didn't help make some fun for you.

I'm not personally a fan of Slave RP.

Infact for the most part I avoid interacting with slaves as a whole, because 99.5% of the time it's simply not worth getting involved with slave characters. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that does this either.

I did want to include this tangent in my post but couldn't think of a good place to fit it -- I don't hold it against someone at all for not wanting to RP with a slave, because on my previous characters, I found that it was basically not worthwhile to interact with slave characters either. Nobody's obligated to interact with me, especially when they have no idea if I'm about to start emoting how soft my armpits are (thank you, ThisIsNotADrill).

The other reason you might want to interact with a slave, that being to help/free them, also runs into a bit of a snag when slavery is (or should be) a consensual state placed on a player. They've got an arc, and unless they're actively seeking out how to chainbreak you might as well just sit back and see if you get a board-post talking about how the Temple of Lolth sacrificed the fleeing elf slave you saw running around, lest they actually worship Loviatar and you get scry-ganked/board-posted about x300 for trying to be a CHAINBREAKER. (I'm being only a little hyperbolic.)

Another thing I go out of my way to avoid are the as-described time-sink drudgery slogs that feel to me to be more like a punitive action or a calculated disrespect of my time rather than a real effort-in to reward-out pipeline. Of course things shouldn't be free, and some won't mind jumping through hoops, but dang it I hate hoops and especially so when they seem arbitrary.

As regards above, I'm of two minds about language learning. Passive language learning (standing around and listening to people say things you don't understand at all) is some of the most boring play I've ever experienced in my history of playing this or any other game. Active language tutoring (teaching phrases and translations, creating interaction) has been thoughtful and engaging. It's very unfortunate that the latter doesn't actually yield a greater impact in your learning performance.

I totally agree, but even interactive language learning RP feels like a slog because you're writing five messages trying to repeat "thank you" and "apple" and getting screwed over by the randomization system. Like you say, it's arbitrary, and something of a case of fake difficulty. It's a pretty neat system that exists, but I wish it was less grindy and rewarded doing fun stuff for. if(lang < 50) = understand words with less than 5 characters?

[silverpheonix]

The fetch quest isn't that long. People do it in two days.