PC Slaves

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Heh, nah. Armageddon wouldn't be Armageddon without slaves.

Maybe you could say that PC slaves shouldn't be allowed, but most certianly, slaves should. And I like the option to play a slave.

[spawnloser]

I think slaves should be set free. I don't like the politcal part of slaves in armageddon. This game is structured very poorly in the fact that it lacks a good democrary politics. Slaves should be set free, no oppressed.

(blink)

You're not serious, are you?  This is a game.

[Anonymous]

Game or no game, people are being oppressed and discriminated agaisnt. Just because they are born to one sort of parents and nobles are born to another does not make them any better or worse. I think we should eliminate racism from the 'game' because it hurts peoples feelings. My half-elf could never get a job, and my elves always get labbelled theives.

[Anael]

That's the point   Zalanthas is a lot about oppression, discrimination and prejudices.

[Malifaxis]

So go whine to your feckin lawyer about how damn discriminating and unfair it all is.  Have him draft a letter to Tektolnes.

It'll make you feel better while a few of us figure out a way to turn spineless gibbering into profit.

[Agent_137]

Why are people alright with swearing for life in various clans but not signing up to have their PC be a slave? What is the difference, seriously? How many lifers store or suicide or desert? Why is THIS allowed, but not slave PCs? What is the difference?

If you're going to discourage slave PCs, you best start shaking up all the houses to be able to function without volunteer slaves, that being their lifers.

And to the original poster, you completely neglected one of the largest and most interesting eras of slavery: Roman. Where some skilled people down on their luck would sell themselves as slaves so they wouldn't starve, and then slowly save up pocket change they're given from their masters to eventually buy their freedom back.


p.s.
Anon kank is probably just trying to rile people up, since there should be little to no sexual discrimination in game. But plenty of racial profiling. Further, don't encourage him. Just let him go play Shadows of Islidur where he can be happy and leave us to our harsh world.

[Marauder Moe]

I think the differences between slaves and lifelong employees have been discussed already.  Marko's post on the subject is excellent in my opinion.

[Agent_137]

yea, i'm backreading the thread, and so far only AC's post really gets at the heart of why slaves have troubles:
They have no one to really interact with, since there are so few other PC slaves.

bah, spending too much time trying to craft examples of slavery that would serve the game better. I'm going to go to class and forget this thread.

[LoD]

In my mind, there are only two factors that will likely provide a slave with enough action, interaction and interest to keep themselves from retiring or killing themselves; first is that the slave have a combat role and second is that the slave be in either House Kurac or the T'zai-Byn.  Let me address both points.

Combat Roles

As many others have stated, there are inherent problems with playing a slave.  One of these issues is the lack of free will and goals.  You are usually doing your master's business, and there are many social obstacles which will prevent you from having a meaningful relationship with anyone outside of a fellow slave or your master.  When you serve in a combat role, especially within a clan that needs that support, two things are accomplished:

:arrow: You (the player) are presented with consistent times that you can expect some interaction on the training floor.  Both of these clans operate under relatively strict martial supervision, and the emphasis on keeping "fighting fit" is warranted.  This may be a good 30 minutes, which helps break up the slow pace of "sitting/walking/talking" RP that dominates other roles for the full 90 minute day.

:arrow: You (the character) are given the opportunity to have meaningful interactions between people other than your master.  You have something they need, and given the ability to train, you eventually develop the ability to teach.  This has been one of the common traits to successful slaves I've seen played over a lengthy period of time.

House Kurac and the T'zai-Byn

The reason why PC slaves might succeed here where all others may fail is because interaction and inclusion in RP is almost mandated by proximity.  Each clan is isolated to the point where 80% of their given RP might happen between other clan mates.  They also both have consistent playerbases which are restricted to a fairly small playing space (i.e. Luir's Outpost, Red Storm, T'zai-Byn Compounds).

But why would this be any different than any other Noble House?  Wouldn't some of their slaves also remain mostly indoors and RP almost exclusively with their clanmates?

Perhaps, but you have to consider the worth of personal action in an environment such as the T'zai-Byn and House Kurac versus that of a Noble House Oash or House Kadius.  Within the city, you are one of many that can be replaced at a moment's notice.  No matter how proficient you are at a task, there are thousands of able and willing bodies able to pick up where you left off, either by choice or by force.  You also not only have to obey your master, but obey the other templars and nobles, not to mention the rest of the city-state and their problems.

In an outpost with a long standing history of blood and violence, as well as a mercenary compound that may need your blade at a moment's notice, there is a very real need for every experienced swordarm.  You also have a direct chain of command that rules over every person you're ever going to meet.  This allows both the player and character to have a firm understaning of where they stand in their world.  Their swordarm is important.  They are needed.  They are wanted.

While I agree that most PC slaves will ultimately fail for many of the reasons listed in previous posts, I do believe that someone with the right mindset would have the best chance of success in a combat role within either of these two clans.

-LoD

[EvilRoeSlade]

I think the biggest issue is that there is a massive grey area in what is acceptable for slaves.  Sure, we all know slaves don't have to be locked in a cage when the master is away, but what is acceptable behavior?  Anything a commoner could do within reason?  How do commoners deal with a Borsail slave?  Do they sit down and have a drink and friendly chat?

I'd just like to note that I told my indentured servant to hang around in a tavern and gather information whenever I didn't need him.

After his character died he E-mailed me telling me that he had a blast.

[My 2 sids]

I've always favored slavery in game.  It is in the docs and as one player/templar pointed out it is a good alternative for indentured servitude (also in the docs).

When I was reading through these posts it suddenly occurred to me why slave characters don't work...  Although Zalanthan culture supports slavery, the game does not!  

Slaves, by nature, are (generally)
Job-driven:  They are employed for specific tasks and much of the role-play revolves around those tasks

Not focused on money:  For the most part a slave isn't going to accumulate vast amounts of wealth nor have their own money to spend

"External":  They wear affiliation literally so they usually cannot be played as a spy or informant.... Nor will anyone actively converse around them (you can have a full tavern and _everyone_ uses the Way so as not to have PC slaves overhear anything)

Unfortunately, most city play revolves around money and underhanded politics which would leave most PC slaves out of game play.

[Twilight]

Slaves are human.  Errr, well mostly.  Not code.  They still have a range of emotions.  They still have initiatve.  You can't train out being human.

I'd absolutely hate to be a slave in one of the big organizations.  Even if it was the trusted high ranking servant-like kind.  What would interest me is having an independent as a slave master.  However, from what I've seen posted, it seems like the direction from the immortals is that most, if not essentially all, slaves are owned by organizations.  

Unfortunate, as I think being actually owned by another PC would open up more opportunities.  They don't have an entire House to help them do things, they have you, just you.  Foraging in the wilds too dangerous for your master?  Send the slave, they are after all expendible.  Or take your slave as a travelling companion/kankherder/guard when travelling with your indie merchant from one city to another.  Quite a few possibilities on the master side, as well as the slave side.  After all, if you really want to be free and weren't loyal, you could always kill off the master.  You'd just have to avoid people who knew you were a slave before, for the rest of your life.

[Marauder Moe]

Slaves are human.  Errr, well mostly.  Not code.  They still have a range of emotions.  They still have initiatve.  You can't train out being human.

Why not?

I'd imagine that Borsail, and Winrothol conditioning techniques are quite sophisticated.  Just as commoners firmly believe that nobles are inherently different and better than them, slaves are conditioned to believe that they are just property and are inherently different from commoners.  It's a fact to them.  They can't make decisions, they're slaves.  They can't disobey orders, they're slaves.  They can't be free, they're slaves.

The vast majority of Zalanthan slaves shouldn't want freedom.  They wouldn't know what to do with it.  I could see your average human slave having a panic attack if granted freedom as a reward for good service.  Similarly, a slave who escapes because of a cruel master would probably have an intense desire to seek out another authority figure and resume service.

[Twilight]

I think you took that out of context.  I agree about viewing their place in society as a slave.  I disagree that some fairly basic human traits such as initiative and feelings can be trained out of a person, regardless of societal conditioning.  Or to put more succinctly perhaps, the societal conditioning of a slave is only going to be able to have a limited impact on the genetic predispositions of the subject.

[Rindan]

There were at one time many societies that practiced slavery.  To my knowledge, no one was able to strip them of having human emotions.  I don't think it should be any different in Zalanthas.  Certainly a slaving house might be very good at building a culture and mentality for slaves that encourages them to work loyally for their masters, but I think it is wrong to suggest that they are machines that can't operate without orders.  They still have initiative, they still think things through ahead of time, and they still have a full range of emotions.   Now, a slave might very well be taught to not act until ordered and to not take any sort of initiative, and a slave probably will follow through those orders within reason.  How much initiative displays almost certainly depends upon the master.  Some masters would be happy with a slave that takes initiative and does things before they are told, others masters simply want a slave that acts as close to a machine as possible.

Personally, I think that the HBO show Rome did a damn good job showing interesting slaves.  It showed a wide range of slaves that could potentially make interesting characters.  

Caesar's slave wielded incredible power.  He handled a great deal of Caesar's messages and diplomacy.  Caesar would work out a deal with another noble, then once a deal was agreed to in principle Caesar would simply walk away and let his slave work out the details.  This was a slave who could argue and deal face to face with nobility.  Many times he blatantly rebuked his master, the equivalent of a noble senator or black robed Templar, in harsh terms in private.  He also clearly got around a lot because he knew just about everyone.  He had a very strong and distinct personality.  He was anything but a machine.

Atia's handmaiden slave was also a neat character, though little shown.  This slave knew Atia's every single dirty secret.  Hell, she sat in the same room as Atia while she was fucking people.  At one point Atia was slapped in her bed chamber by a high ranking officer in the army.  Atia's slave was so fanatical that even though she is very old and frail, she drew a dagger to defend her master against a guy who had probably killed hundreds in his life time.  Like Caesar's slave, she too dealt with matters of money and negotiated prices.

[Jherlen]

While I don't have much else to add to this thread, I did want to say I find it pretty hilarious that people think special exceptions can be made for Kurac and the Byn supporting slaves, but other comparable clans somehow can't.

IMO a well-defined slave role is viable in any clan with a sufficient player base and need for a slave, not just those two.

[Marauder Moe]

I suppose I should have specified.  No, I don't think you can train out emotion.  However, I think initiative can be pretty well supressed.  There's plenty of people who lack initiative WITHOUT having undergone years of conditioning.

The lack of initiative and choice is what makes slave roles so hard to enjoy.  Sid Meier defined gameplay as "a series of interesting choices".  The average Zalanthan slave is not supposed to be allowed much choice in their life.  Playing a slave reduces Armageddon from a game to text-acting.  It might be fun to some people, for a little while at least, but I think in the end everyone will decide that playing is more fun than acting in the same environment.

[LoD]

While I don't have much else to add to this thread, I did want to say I find it pretty hilarious that people think special exceptions can be made for Kurac and the Byn supporting slaves, but other comparable clans somehow can't.

Name another clan that is as isolated as communities, militant and self-policing as these two clans and I will be glad to include them.  None of the other clans in the game really have the same environment and steady playerbase to incorporate a combat slave in the same way.  These two clans have common needs and requirements for units of "fighting men" that would be employed on a regular basis.

How often have I seen more than 3 guards from the same Noble House standing in the same room?  Hardly ever.  One could argue that both House Kadius and Salarr would have similar resources, but both of them operate within the city, policed by the respective city-state militias.  I've seen many "hunters" but rarely any "guards" that actually have a need to protect their estate from an attack.

IMO a well-defined slave role is viable in any clan with a sufficient player base and need for a slave, not just those two.

I agree.  Naiona, however, claims that the stastics show this now to be true within the last couple years.  I have seen three slave PC's that seemed to survive the test of time, and all three of them came from either House Kurac or the T'zai-Byn.  I also agree that slave PC's, with or without power, combat or non-combat, well-defined or otherwise, have a tough road ahead of them and my theory is that the organizations I mentioned will provide the best elements for success based upon my observations and interactions with them over the years.

-LoD

[Tlaloc]

I created the T'zai Byn's system of PC-run slaves for two reasons:

1) Players kept sending me special applications to run Muls in the Byn.

2) I felt there was a need in the game to give players an outlet to play Mul slaves in a realistic setting.

The second point was the most important one. Going strictly by the documentation, 99% of the Muls in-game should be gladiators. Unfortunately, gladiator PCs are generally hard to run for many reasons (not the least of which being that they're reliant on other PCs being around 90% of the time), and most players don't like the strict requirements involved with them.

As such, you tend to see a lot more free Muls than you do Slave Muls (at least this was true at the time).

Could similar systems be set up for other Clans? Sure. However, not all clans are going to be ideal for PC Mul slaves (or slaves of any kind). The main argument isn't that the Clan's can't run a slave PC. The argument is that some clans are more suited to having PC slaves who have a full list of options available to them in terms of play...while still maintaining realistic restrictions that should follow suit with roleplaying a slave.

I mean, if you're playing a Slave who's rights and responsibilites are exactly equal to what a commoner might have...then what's the point of playing a slave?

[jmordetsky]

I am a slave.

A slave to love.

[My 2 sids]

Personally, I think that the HBO show Rome did a damn good job showing interesting slaves. It showed a wide range of slaves that could potentially make interesting characters.

I think it can be hard, especially for Americans, to understand slavery.  American slavery was a horrible anomaly which put an entire race below a "non-class" system.  Rindan give a much more accurate example.  Slavery simply becomes a "rung" on a tiered society; reserved mostly for the extremely poor, criminals, and concurred peoples. Slaves are good, bad, cherished, abused and all things in between because they are individuals functioning in their own societal category.  A great example would be the biblical account of Joseph (the one with the fancy coat) who was sold into slavery... and eventually would marry and become the most powerful many outside of the nobility, all of which he did as a slave.


Again however, I don't think the way we play the game allows for slaves.  Everyone can be employed, nobles still get offended when some "nobody" guard employed by their house gets a cross-eyed look from across a tavern, employment is for life, all people are trusted on the same level... there just isn't a place for slaves.

[Naiona]

First, let me say that there are NPC slaves in game with a great deal of power.  As staff, we try to portray an ingrained slavery system that covers all aspects of society and I will try to get those new documents available in the next week or two.

Secondly,  I have yet to see anything in this thread that hasn't been tried in game yet.  I've been very carefully watching PC slaves for a couple of years now, with hopes of 'fixing' the problem.  It has been one of my central focuses.  Unfortunately, even when these 'new' approaches are tried, the slave PC still suicides or stores with a very few exceptions.  

Does anyone have additional ideas that might help but haven't been mentioned yet?  I would very much like to implement some very limited in-game slaving raids, but at this point I see no way to do that without considering the capture a PC-death and insta-storing at that time.    Until we come up with a method that people feel comfortable with, the slaving project is on hold.

[Ritley]

First, let me say that there are NPC slaves in game with a great deal of power.  As staff, we try to portray an ingrained slavery system that covers all aspects of society and I will try to get those new documents available in the next week or two.

Secondly,  I have yet to see anything in this thread that hasn't been tried in game yet.  I've been very carefully watching PC slaves for a couple of years now, with hopes of 'fixing' the problem.  It has been one of my central focuses.  Unfortunately, even when these 'new' approaches are tried, the slave PC still suicides or stores with a very few exceptions.  

Does anyone have additional ideas that might help but haven't been mentioned yet?  I would very much like to implement some very limited in-game slaving raids, but at this point I see no way to do that without considering the capture a PC-death and insta-storing at that time.    Until we come up with a method that people feel comfortable with, the slaving project is on hold.

More freedom to the role. How about creating larger slave pens, with about fifteen rooms with lot's of oportunities for solo emoting.  Perhaps a regiment of things to do for slaves as well.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Well, first we should compile everything that has been unsuccessfully tried into one big list.  After that's done, we should carefully consider that list, think of the underlying themes that each example on the list has in common, and try to devise new approaches that fall outside that scope.

I'd really love to help but I can't work with a bunch of disparate posts full of hearsay and inaccurate player perspectives.

[Tlaloc]

Secondly,  I have yet to see anything in this thread that hasn't been tried in game yet.  I've been very carefully watching PC slaves for a couple of years now, with hopes of 'fixing' the problem.  It has been one of my central focuses.  Unfortunately, even when these 'new' approaches are tried, the slave PC still suicides or stores with a very few exceptions.

Not to undercut Naiona here, but of the 4 (or there abouts) Byn Mul's I've seen roll through the clan, only one stored due to boredom/inactivity. The rest I've had really good responses with, with a couple PCs pointing to those roles as some of the high points in their playing time here. All died in variously spectacular ways in combat in one way or another.

I will say that all of the Muls had to deal with long periods of 'nothing much to do'. However, these periods typically coincided with lulls in the Byn itself. As the clan got bigger and more active, the PC Mul's found they had much more to 'do' and generally had more fun.

Maybe some of those players could chime in on this discussion (if they haven't already), and give their impressions?