PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

[Ragitsu]

For those of you that don't, you mostly don't have to pip in here.

 

---

 

For those of you that do, how is the process handled?

 

What social ramifications are there for the party?

 

If needed, do you make clear(er) distinctions between reality and fantasy?

 

What race(s) do the slaves tend to be?

 

Are the PCs..."Good"...in Alignment?

[Bolon]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

The keeping of slaves is more of an element of "Lawful" if you are looking at alignment. Historically, slaves had rules and rights beyond what is known through the experience of the southern states of the USA. I wouldn't allow it in my games as I usually play more medieval rather than dark ages. Indented servants and a class system is used. In games with a more heroic or fantasy edge, the heroes should be above slaves and above owning them. They would have their serfs or such but different from "slaves". There are few great epic novels with slaves as characters. If you want that high realism, look at Harn and that is high realism. Most want high adventure or high fantasy. Slaves are back story and not main story material in that.

[MisterFurious]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I think running a game involving slavery offers a rich opportunity for storytelling and "world realisation" that most people don't really get to experience or even think about, outside of the whole "black vs. white, southern USA" thing, as mentioned above. Most people seem to accept that slavery was a fact of life in a "history book" sort of way, but have no real emotional conception to connect to, particularly "white" people. Not that I condone it of course... owning another human being (or what have you) and trading/treating that being as property is a pretty f**ked up thing... but it was an everyday fact of life for some of the so-called greatest cultures of this earth for a very long time.

 

I remember a Dark Sun game I played in once a long time ago... our characters were all of noble class and part of a hidden conspiracy to overthrow a Sorceror-King.... and being nobles, we all owned slaves of various sorts... and we were the good guys! We didn't really roleplay the slave owning part much mind you, we were all pretty young and naive and only just starting to depart from the "typical" D*D mindset... it was more part of the flavour of the setting than anything else, but still.

 

But seeing as how we are all products of this modern day and age, incorporating a somewhat realistic depiction of slavery into a game could be an interesting experiment for those with a mind towards such a thing. Consider a Greek or Roman or Viking setting for instance.... the characters could still be "great heroes" battling terrible monsters, enemies of the state or what have you, and yet still bring home slaves as part of their "spoils". Do you just brush that into the background? How do you reconcile the two? Do you give those slaves distinct personalities along with the rest of the NPCs? Clearly there's no problem "in character" as it's simply a cultural fact of life, but what about out of character?

 

As a GM, I'm not sure how I'd handle this facet of life other than the usual making sure my players are able to incorporate it in a mature fashion. Frankly, it's never come up for me since the few games I've run in recent years have all been your more "typical" medieval Europe style games, where only the "Evil" nations/wizard kings/monster lords/whatever keep slaves. The "civilised" nations might oppress women or start wars or have corrupt governments, but at least we don't keep slaves!

[Lucius]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I've played at least one slave as a character.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary reminds me that I was going to post something tonight about slavery in my history thread.

[Old Man]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I'm thinking the answer to this question depends entirely on the maturity of the players. I've played with people who would make PC slave ownership an interesting and thought provoking roleplaying experience. And I've played with people who would have their PCs use slaves as meatshields, sources of illegal income, or food.

[Midas]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I've played with people who would make PC slave ownership an interesting and thought provoking roleplaying experience.

 

And

 

I've played with people who would have their PCs use slaves as meatshields, sources of illegal income, or food.

 

Dif?

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I wouldn't have a problem with it whatsoever as long as it made sense for the character and the cultures involved.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

Yeah, I'm with the "Depends of both the setting and players" camp

 

I've played and run ex-slave characters. And started in one FH campaign with my amoral bounty hunter tracking my G/F's escaped harem slave. That evolved into an interesting party dynamic.

[Markdoc]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I've had one PC who owned a slave in one of my games - and subjected it to mild abuse, to boot. He was, to be fair, playing an obnoxious, untrustworthy character. It made the other players a bit uncomfortable, but in context was not a major issue (that was Hero system, so no alignment issues there). In the end, the character became so obnoxious that the other PCs turned on him. That was in context too, and solved the slavery problem!

 

In general, slavery is a feature of "bad guy cultures" in my games, so moral issues are largely - if not completely - avoided.

 

In a much earlier game, our PCs became (or were) nobility and most of us owned slaves (this game was set on Tekumel). And we were "good guys"! In that case it was simply in the background (much as it would be, I imagine for people raised in that culture). It was rarely discussed in the game - apart from one memorable instance. After dealing with a bad guy on the border of Yan Kor, we magnanimously told his slaves "You're all free now" to which they wept and wailed, saying that they were now homeless and clanless. They couldn't return home (they were now Nakoné: legally dead to their clan) and would all die if we abandoned them (which, actually, was probably true). I ended up taking them home and putting them to work on my family estates, though we glossed over the actual details.

 

I think that's the closest we ever came to discussing the issue in a game context.

 

cheers, Mark

[Legatus]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

IMHO it is all up to the GM and his GMing skills.

 

In all my games followers, be it slaves, mercenaries, family members etc., all proved to be trouble for the PCs. They have rights and they demand them. They cost a lot of money (food, lodging etc.) and constantly get involved into problems the PCs would rather want to avoid. That alone discouraged my players to own slaves.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

Depends on the genre and players, it's not inherently bad.

[baronspam]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I am going to go with an epic "It depends". Genre, tone and type of campaign, maturity and interest of players, etc. With really, really mature, smart, capable players in appropriate historical setting, might work.

 

Then there are the guys I play with. . . I am thinking "Horrific Idea".

 

But your millage may vary.

[Ragitsu]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I don't ever see myself playing a character that owns slaves.

[Badger]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I'm thinking the answer to this question depends entirely on the maturity of the players. I've played with people who would make PC slave ownership an interesting and thought provoking roleplaying experience. And I've played with people who would have their PCs use slaves as meatshields' date=' sources of illegal income, or food.[/quote']

 

Well, the food thing is a bit MUCH. (not that the others arent, but cannibalism? Woh.)

 

In any case, it would depend on the owner on how the slave gets treated. Slaveowners would have limits, if nothing else for practicality in "destroying" a valuable resource. (I remember a story in New Orleans pre-Civil War, where a Madame LaLarie basically got ran out of town, with threat of being hung, because it was found she had a penchant for torture and mutilation of her slaves*)

 

Note: *One wonders why they didnt put 2-and-2 together, and think if that was so horrible, why they didnt stop and think that maybe slavery wasnt great to do. But, I probably shouldnt try to put 21st century thought in 19th century. It'll screw with your mind.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I think running a game involving slavery offers a rich opportunity for storytelling and "world realisation" that most people don't really get to experience or even think about, outside of the whole "black vs. white, southern USA" thing, as mentioned above. Most people seem to accept that slavery was a fact of life in a "history book" sort of way, but have no real emotional conception to connect to, particularly "white" people. Not that I condone it of course... owning another human being (or what have you) and trading/treating that being as property is a pretty f**ked up thing... but it was an everyday fact of life for some of the so-called greatest cultures of this earth for a very long time.

 

I remember a Dark Sun game I played in once a long time ago... our characters were all of noble class and part of a hidden conspiracy to overthrow a Sorceror-King.... and being nobles, we all owned slaves of various sorts... and we were the good guys! We didn't really roleplay the slave owning part much mind you, we were all pretty young and naive and only just starting to depart from the "typical" D*D mindset... it was more part of the flavour of the setting than anything else, but still.

 

But seeing as how we are all products of this modern day and age, incorporating a somewhat realistic depiction of slavery into a game could be an interesting experiment for those with a mind towards such a thing. Consider a Greek or Roman or Viking setting for instance.... the characters could still be "great heroes" battling terrible monsters, enemies of the state or what have you, and yet still bring home slaves as part of their "spoils". Do you just brush that into the background? How do you reconcile the two? Do you give those slaves distinct personalities along with the rest of the NPCs? Clearly there's no problem "in character" as it's simply a cultural fact of life, but what about out of character?

 

As a GM, I'm not sure how I'd handle this facet of life other than the usual making sure my players are able to incorporate it in a mature fashion. Frankly, it's never come up for me since the few games I've run in recent years have all been your more "typical" medieval Europe style games, where only the "Evil" nations/wizard kings/monster lords/whatever keep slaves. The "civilised" nations might oppress women or start wars or have corrupt governments, but at least we don't keep slaves!

 

I missed commenting on this earlier, but yeah.... what he said

We used to play a lot of short run FH games in various historical Epic settings (because a couple of us were big Epic Poetry geeks) as well as a variety of various Author's playgrounds. Can't do Newhon or Hyboria, Epic Norse, Epic Celtic, or Epic Achaean without addressing the question of slaves.

[MorpheousXO]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

I played in a game of Rifts for a while where my cyborg character was introduced to the group as being a slave bought by one of the other characters. Even tho he didn't free me it didn't affect my playing of the character... other than having to listen to him complain in character about constantly having to pay for new MDC armor.

[Tasha]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

Some cultures took slaves of defeated foes, then over time would make that slave part of the community. Eventually freeing the person to become a full citizen of the culture. Doing that with a mind toward freeing the slave eventually would be ok for most characters I run. Taking slaves and treating them like intelligent livestock to be used hard, till they die, selling off the slave's children, now I don't have single character who would be ok with that style of keeping slaves.

[Markdoc]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

Some cultures took slaves of defeated foes' date=' then over time would make that slave part of the community. Eventually freeing the person to become a full citizen of the culture.[/quote']

 

What culture are you thinking of? I've got a reasonably broad historical background, but I can't call to mind any that behaved like that.

 

cheers, Mark

[LordGhee]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

Mark,

 

off the top of my head,

 

Joseph went from captive slave to right hand of Pharoh.

Ancient jewish culture, which my law limitied how long you could keep a slave. The ancient greek culture (bronze age), later the ancient Greeks would send you to the mines.

Russia liked to take prisoners and work them for twenty yearsand some would stay other went home (swedish, French).

 

I know of two prisoners who where captured during WWII who when returned home came back to US casue they like what they saw when working as POW labor and one who was smart enough to stay after release.

 

Lord Ghee

[McCoy]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

What culture are you thinking of? I've got a reasonably broad historical background, but I can't call to mind any that behaved like that.

 

cheers, Mark

Rome, if "eventually" is interpreted as "a minimum of three generations." (POW becomes a slave, child of a slave could be a freedman, child of a freedman could become a Citizen.)

 

For that matter I seem to recall some Plains Indians where POW's might eventually marry into the tribe.

 

Interpreting "slave" very broadly, I had a professor in college who fought for Germany in WWII, was captured, sent to the United States, and offered a "work release" program. Was a small wage involved, but main attraction for the program was the men involved always came back to the POW camp loaded down with food; fresh fruit and vegetables, bread, sandwiches, even fried chicken, that their employers had insisted they take with them after they could not eat another bite. He fell in love with the daughter of the farmer he was working for, and they married. At the end of the war he was repatriated to Germany, got out of the army, and returned to the United States as a War Bride. Decades later he insisted that had it been widely know that American prisoners got fed fried chicken, there would have been enough mass surrenders to end the war two years sooner.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

What culture are you thinking of? I've got a reasonably broad historical background, but I can't call to mind any that behaved like that.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I believe there are some African tribes who behaved like that.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

It was very common for white (or heck, black too) "prisoners" of various American Indian tribes to be adopted into the tribe and be reluctant or even actively opposed to going back. And of course, they were seen as prisoners or even slaves by the European-descended American governments.

 

The flip side of that coin is that often, Indian kids were taken in by whites and "civilized", which was seen as charitable by the whites and imprisonment/slavery by Indian leaders.

 

At any rate, there's one style of slavery that dominates American thinking, but that's not the only form that ever existed. In some times and places, slavery was brutal and dehumanizing, in others it was fairly benign as such things go.

[Folded]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

We actually have two separate RuneQuest campaigns right now that somewhat address this issue. Both Jerrin and Enlo are run (ironically) by the same player, Rudy.

 

Rabbit Hat – Jerrin, after mustering out of an elite military force, was put in charge of growing the small frontier town of Rabbit Hat. His title was mayor. Another PC, quite unknown to Jerrin, was growing drugs in the forest. This was discovered, and the other player managed to pin it on Jerrin. As his criminal punishment, Jerrin was reduced to slave status. This is in the Lunar empire, roughly based on Rome, where criminal slaves were fairly common.

 

Along comes Blingus, run by Matt. He is the new mayor of Rabbit Hat, and has been assigned Jerrin as his slave. So we have one PC who legally owns another. Abuse has occurred, but not downright torture. It's an interesting situation, especially as the rest of the party likes Jerrin, and is convinced (legitimately) that Blingus is using the development of Rabbit Hat to line his own pockets.

 

The Seven Cities – In this campaign, Rudy plays a Trollkin character named Enlo. In Trollish, Enlo means slave, but the character does not really understand this. Most Troll children don't become full trolls, and are roughly equivalent to goblins. Rudy has had great fun playing a very low-IQ character who is currently bursting with pride because he has not only three walls for his house, but half a roof, as well. He recently lost his most prized possession, a book, when a fellow Trollkin ate it. While it is largely played for laughs, Rudy is maintaining a very strong commitment to thinking like a freed slave, and it does occasionally bring up some of the issues being discussed. Note that there are several types of slaves in Trollish society, and the food slaves do not work in the kitchen (Trolls' most notable attribute is the ability to eat literally ANYTHING, including metal, dirt, and stone).

[Markdoc]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

Mark,

 

off the top of my head,

 

Joseph went from captive slave to right hand of Pharoh.

 

If we stick with the original series, Joseph was able to get promoted because he interpreted a dream the pharaoh was plagued by, not because there was a tradition of freeing slaves. (There wasn't, in Egypt.) Slaves were often worked to death: for example in the dreadful gold and copper mines of Nubia and Sinai, where, according to the Greeks, water was rationed and slaves died in great numbers from exhaustion and dehydration in the desert heat. We know from wills found in tombs that the children of egyptian slaves were also slaves and on the owner's death were passed on to his heirs like any other piece of property. Slaves could be freed (doing so was considered a morally good act) but there was no law forcing it.

 

Ancient jewish culture' date=' which my law limitied how long you could keep a slave.[/quote']

 

Really?

Here's what Leviticus 25:45-46 has to say on the subject:

Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.

And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever.

 

"For ever" sounds like a long time to me. There's great deal more on the subject in the Mishnah (Babylonian Talmud) but nothing indicating that slaves should as a rule, be freed after a period of time. There is, however, a great deal about inheritance and sale of slaves, indicating that they were treated as chattel of a household and expected to owned for long periods.

 

The ancient greek culture (bronze age), later the ancient Greeks would send you to the mines.

 

Not so, in both cases. We know from Homer that in the Greek Heroic ages the slave (dmôs) was enslaved for life. His master could free him, if he wanted - agains, this was seen as a virtuous act - but neither law or custom compelled him. The Gortys codex makes it plain that at least in that part of Greece, the children of slaves were also slaves. In the classic greek age, slavery was for much more than mining (though they did use them for mining - the mines of Laureion were notorious as a death sentence for slaves): in wealthy cities like Athens, most families owned at least one slave - the result of the extensive campaigns overseas of the Athenian league. Slave in Athens were far better treated than many places,: rape, severe beatings and murder of a slave were all illegal (though forcing a slave to work in a brothel was not considered rape and flogging was not considered unreasonable punishment). Xenophon though this was frightful, and complained about Athenian slaves: he recommended treating slaves like you would treat any other domestic animal.

 

Russia liked to take prisoners and work them for twenty yearsand some would stay other went home (swedish, French).

 

I know of two prisoners who where captured during WWII who when returned home came back to US casue they like what they saw when working as POW labor and one who was smart enough to stay after release.

 

Lord Ghee

 

Ummm. I don't think 20th century prisoners of war - however badly treated - have much to do with ancient traditions of slavery.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: PCs owning slaves: Do, or Don't?

 

Rome' date=' if "eventually" is interpreted as "a minimum of three generations." (POW becomes a slave, child of a slave could be a freedman, child of a freedman could become a Citizen.).[/quote']

 

I think in most classical era civilizations slaves could become free and their children (or children's children) could become citizens. I just don't know of any cultures where that was the general rule (or even terribly common). In viking cultures, for example freed slaves could become property-owners and even (if they were lucky) wealthy: but that wasn't the general rule. Also not without risk: in Eyrbyggarsaga, a freed slave who prospers on a small bit of land his former owner gave him is murdered: his killers escape with mild censure in part because his neighbors thought it improper that a former slave should become wealthy. As part of the same feud a Godir (rich landowner) hangs two of his neighbor's slaves for bad behaviour. No-one complains.

 

Slavery was a complex business: both social and economic. As an example, and as a nitpick in the example you gave, a freed slave in Roman society was generally given his owner's name as a family name. Since affluent Romans kept good track of bloodlines, that name would mark the family as former slaves. Marcus Antonius complained that even though he was wealthy and respected, patrician families still snubbed him because his name marked out that his grandfather had been a slave.

 

cheers, Mark