Improving Slavery

[Nitro]

Yes, hence the suggestion to let the owner decide who can or can not use the slave caller on their slaves, because otherwise there's literally nothing they can do to stop it from happening.

[MoreThanThree]

Sounds like you should just pay 500k GP instead bro.

[Nikko]

I already opened a topic on slavery some times ago, which leaded to minor changes.

As from what I have come to think to :

1) Masters should have more power on their slaves.
2) Masters should be allowed to remove a collar without paying gold.
3) Collars should absolutely be separated. If you are collared by Andunor, get Andunorians writs. By Sencliff, get Sencliff writs. By Sibayad, get Sibayad writs.
Each settlements should probably also have its own freeing quest added.
4) I've suggesting putting a long serie of group-quests to free slaves on the Surface.

All these are good ideas. The mechanics of the system could use some tweaking.

I can only speak as someone who was captured and put into slavery but I think this pertains to all:

( tl;dr - It's up to the slave and master to set expectations and let their cooperative/antagonistic story grow from there. Mechanics can help, but not going to solve the core problems that may exist in specific cases. )

You as a slave should find a master and as a slaver you should find a slave that matches your goals, your playtime, your level of comfort on certain hard topics (abuse,torture,etc.). This really becomes a joint storytelling experience between slave and master or at least like someone added to your faction where you set our faction goals and how that person fits into that storyline. This should not just be a mechanics thing where you get a slave then just make them do random stuff or you sign up to get enslaved then never react to the downside (although I was a little guilty of this myself but I blame mostly on lack of overlap in paytimes). I'd say going a little OOC before buying a slave and settling this sort of stuff to see if it's something you are both interested in and can build a compelling story on is a good idea (when I was collared we did a quick ooc rundown of a possible goal and went over possible bad ends that could come of it if I agreed).

From there is you're going to play as a slave who is going to fight the master tooth and nail the whole way, then you should also RP what happens when you're tortured, beaten, surrounded by scary monsters, etc. Just saying that at some mechanical standpoint you're strong enough to kill your master so you should be able to go free ignores the fact that there are psychological issues and some RP growth or even setbacks in your personality that could come of this journey that would make it more difficult than simply initiating pvp. That being said, your story is yours and if it fits then go for it. I know some wonderful roleplayers who still play the effects of their enslavement months after being free and it makes them such compelling characters.

I was really new to the server when I got clamped and I actually found Andunor scary IC and OOC. Not being able to speak undercommon, ducking out whenever a drow matron started losing her temper, or a group of gnolls starting acting hungry and eyeing you. I found it helpful to keep in mind that you are still a good person, 3 miles below the surface, who can be yoiked back at any time, surrounded by 5 monster races and evil humans that outnumber you thousands to one if Andunor is really the largest city in Arelith. I know we don't put a ton of stock in NPCs here and this is a personal issue for me but, people down there acting like they weren't surrounded by ill wishers irked me more than it does now when someone is talking trash in the castle front yard while I have 18 guys with loaded ballistas standing behind me.

It was also super awesome to actually meet and get to know the ppl you've been pvping during raids and find out they're all a bunch of very interesting, super well thought out and well played group of villians with their own fears and shortcomings and issues. There are amazing players and some of the best characters ever in the UD. Seriously consider taking this detour if it presents itself to you.

The getting the collar off for oneself or helping someone else get free is probably the most rewarding thing I've been involved in.

tl;dr - It's up to the slave and master to set expectations and let their cooperative/antagonistic story grow from there. Mechanics can help, but not going to solve the core problems that may exist in specific cases.

[Ecthelion]

Thanks for summing my post up !

[Petrifictus]

Good improvement ideas thus far:

1. More power to the collars for the masters to keep their slaves under the control.
Like shock effect command and some harsh punishment mechanism against rebellion if the slave attack the master.
Maybe let collar giving some penalties against the master too.

2. Unlock the Underdark writs for the Andunorian slaves. Apply same for the Sencliff and Sibayad slaves with their own writs.
Unique "Slave Writs" also sounded like a good idea, providing gold for the master's bank account and community, while encouraging masters to invest on their slaves with gear, RP, etc.

3. Make removing the slave collar free for the master. This could be some command to open the lock.

4. Different secret freedom quests in the each slave settlements sounds like a good idea.

5. On and off option for the masters with Slave Callers to avoid others summoning their servants away.

[WanderingPoet]

As someone that typically plays surfacers, the one thing I'd like to see is more things that an ally can do to help. If you/your friend don't know about the secret quests and what they require (so that you can help provide the materials for them), then I've not seen much that a person's ally can actually do to help out. They can't go down and break the chains, they have to pay a million to free the person (which is frowned upon), and there is nothing they can do if they do happen to free a person to prevent it from happening a week later again.

This has, for me, always made it feel like slavery was entirely in the hands of the enslaved and just an inconvenience to roleplay that doesn't build any interesting story. They could break out of slavery at any time (so their master really had input into it) and they could only break out of slavery when they chose (so their allies no input into it). While it's great that it is in the hands of the slave, this made it feel like slavery was just a burden - the slave could come and go as they please and might be yoinked back at some point; but hopefully they eventually free themselves so the inconvenience goes away.

Maybe if the master dies then the slave goes back up for sale? Then if the slave manages to kill their master (or sneaks in allies to do so), their allies can then buy them and set them free (using idea 3, for free!).

Maybe allow the creation of collar dampeners with high levels of forging (or art crafting) and GSF abjuration, that essentially nullify the collar's ability to yoink so that you can help someone escape but that the dampener could be removed if the slave is recaptured.

[Petrifictus]

Like others have already said, killing the master for freedom would only encourage poor RP through PvP and never ending slave rebellions.
If removing the collar would be that easy then nobody would bother with the slavery.

I do agree that good guys could use some tools to keep their enslaved friend safe, like the collar dampeners, which would provide interesting RP stories how slavers rally and head to the surface to track down the missing slave they're unable to call.

But first thing slaves need is getting freedom for UD writs!

[Memelord]

Encouraging slave rebellions is in no way "poor RP"; not wanting to deal with the consequences of declaring yourself to have complete control over an individual's bodily autonomy is "poor RP". Slave rebellions are a constant threat in any state that practices slavery; they're a norm, in the system - Andunor/Sencliff are already places where right to property is defined purely by your capacity to defend what you possess. Why should slaves be any different? If you cannot control your slaves, you do not deserve to own them, by the internal logic of the places that practice slavery IG.

It would force slave owners to adapt and adopt new practices, just like slave owners in the real world did:

1) Deliberately keeping their slaves weakened or unable to revolt, or
2) Deliberately creating rifts and divides within their slave populations that don't allow them to unite for a revolt, or
3) Passing social policy or law that lessens the burdens of slaves, making outright rebellion less desirable (a la Rome)

[Petrifictus]

What I meant that if slaves were given two options to earn their freedom, which would be:

A. Earn your freedom by doing a long special quest that can provide interesting RP journey long to be remembered.

OR

B. Just gather your epic friends, kill the master and be done with this.

What I've seen thus far these days, most people rather pick the quick PvP solution which is boring.

[Durvayas]

As someone who plays a character that owns slaves and as someone who HAS a character that is a slave and has gone through the slavery questline...


There should be some mechanic that allows the owner to decide who gets to call a slave via the slave callers. I've had my own slave called away before. I've BEEN the slave called away, WHILE I'm RPing with my owner. The slave caller is incredibly annoying, and needs restrictions placed on it, either by the owner, or the slave themselves, or both.

The cost of 500k to buy freedom is high, but fair, and keeps it from being too trivial, though getting out of the collar is still really quite easy. You either ask a DM if you're REALLY not okay with things, or grind. Getting that kind of gold is effortless if you know the right people. When I played a slave, I had to turn find reasons to turn down not one, but two offers to buy the collar off outright, so clearly this is not as much of a hurdle as people make it out to be.

Some method to magically disable(-5 or 10AB) or harm one's own slave would be a good addition to the system. I've lost track of how many times I've bought a slave I didn't know OOCly and had to fight it (I fought Feng at least seven times), or seen other PCs killed by their own slaves. While rebellion has its place in the system and its RP, there is no real way to prevent it from the owner's side except to not gear your slave at all, or take away their gear in the first place, which cripples them and makes them less useful. Slaves are often more trouble than they are worth, so many are unwilling to bother with the RP on the buyer side of the system, just like many are unwilling to do slave RP on the slave side of it. A means to stack the deck on the side of the owner would be a good addition to the system, I think.

It should be noted that a slave's level is 100% tied to how active they are. You can be the best slave in the world and have the best master in the world, but if you are twice as active as he/she is, you WILL outlevel them quickly, especially if you have a faction and they take you around. This is why you see slaves that are so much stronger than their owners regularly. Additionally, there is no way to enforce equipment and gold restrictions on your slave. They have full control of their bank account, and can buy their own gear. All you can do from the master side of things is refuse to gear them. Its 100% on the slave's player to gear themselves at that point. But as a master, you can't demand gold or anything from your slave without them being able to oocly refuse. Which is fine, but its a disingenous arguement to say "Just be stronger" when you have no mechanical means of enforcing it whatsoever. There is nothing you can do to prevent your slave from walking around in a full suit of adamantine if they want to.


Sibiyad needs a caller, if not a clamper, and Sencliff could use its own quest too.
-----------
Certain aspects of the slavery quest could use a change.

There is a specific item that needs to be purchased some.... 30 times for one of the tasks. Its the only alternative to the slavery quest part involving the cage fight, and the only option for anyone playing a mage. And this particular item only is sold once per reset, from a single NPC in Andunor. So when you have 3-8 slaves all doing the quest at once, this becomes a logistical bottleneck and nearly impossible to accomplish. At best, with no competition, it makes the quest take an RL month. At worst, it could take six RL months or longer.

As someone who played a slave, THAT was the least enjoyable part of the questline for me.

As well, the part of the quest where you 'find the hideout the proper way'. There is no clue as to what the proper way is. I had to be told OOCly, and when I went to complete it, it took me some 12 tries to get the script to fire off. 90% of people I've talked to who have done the quest had to be told OOCly how to do this. It needs to be made MUCH more clear, and the odds of the script firing need to be tuned to happen more than just by complete and total accident for the 1/10 people who get lucky.

And finally, scars needs to have some way of telling you what quests you've already done. If you've forgotten your progress, there is no way to recollect it, and no reminder of what has and hasn't been done. So if you go on haitus, and return to playing that character, you'd have to do the entire quest over again, and I'm talking ALL of the fetch quests... in order to know what you missed.

Aside from this, I do not think the quest needs any changes.

[Hazard]

As someone who plays a character that owns slaves and as someone who HAS a character that is a slave and has gone through the slavery questline...


There should be some mechanic that allows the owner to decide who gets to call a slave via the slave callers. I've had my own slave called away before. I've BEEN the slave called away, WHILE I'm RPing with my owner. The slave caller is incredibly annoying, and needs restrictions placed on it, either by the owner, or the slave themselves, or both.

The cost of 500k to buy freedom is high, but fair, and keeps it from being too trivial, though getting out of the collar is still really quite easy. You either ask a DM if you're REALLY not okay with things, or grind. Getting that kind of gold is effortless if you know the right people. When I played a slave, I had to turn find reasons to turn down not one, but two offers to buy the collar off outright, so clearly this is not as much of a hurdle as people make it out to be.

Some method to magically disable(-5 or 10AB) or harm one's own slave would be a good addition to the system. I've lost track of how many times I've bought a slave I didn't know OOCly and had to fight it (I fought Feng at least seven times), or seen other PCs killed by their own slaves. While rebellion has its place in the system and its RP, there is no real way to prevent it from the owner's side except to not gear your slave at all, or take away their gear in the first place, which cripples them and makes them less useful. Slaves are often more trouble than they are worth, so many are unwilling to bother with the RP on the buyer side of the system, just like many are unwilling to do slave RP on the slave side of it. A means to stack the deck on the side of the owner would be a good addition to the system, I think.

It should be noted that a slave's level is 100% tied to how active they are. You can be the best slave in the world and have the best master in the world, but if you are twice as active as he/she is, you WILL outlevel them quickly, especially if you have a faction and they take you around. This is why you see slaves that are so much stronger than their owners regularly. Additionally, there is no way to enforce equipment and gold restrictions on your slave. They have full control of their bank account, and can buy their own gear. All you can do from the master side of things is refuse to gear them. Its 100% on the slave's player to gear themselves at that point. But as a master, you can't demand gold or anything from your slave without them being able to oocly refuse. Which is fine, but its a disingenous arguement to say "Just be stronger" when you have no mechanical means of enforcing it whatsoever. There is nothing you can do to prevent your slave from walking around in a full suit of adamantine if they want to.


Sibiyad needs a caller, if not a clamper, and Sencliff could use its own quest too.
-----------
Certain aspects of the slavery quest could use a change.

There is a specific item that needs to be purchased some.... 30 times for one of the tasks. Its the only alternative to the slavery quest part involving the cage fight, and the only option for anyone playing a mage. And this particular item only is sold once per reset, from a single NPC in Andunor. So when you have 3-8 slaves all doing the quest at once, this becomes a logistical bottleneck and nearly impossible to accomplish. At best, with no competition, it makes the quest take an RL month. At worst, it could take six RL months or longer.

As someone who played a slave, THAT was the least enjoyable part of the questline for me.

As well, the part of the quest where you 'find the hideout the proper way'. There is no clue as to what the proper way is. I had to be told OOCly, and when I went to complete it, it took me some 12 tries to get the script to fire off. 90% of people I've talked to who have done the quest had to be told OOCly how to do this. It needs to be made MUCH more clear, and the odds of the script firing need to be tuned to happen more than just by complete and total accident for the 1/10 people who get lucky.

And finally, scars needs to have some way of telling you what quests you've already done. If you've forgotten your progress, there is no way to recollect it, and no reminder of what has and hasn't been done. So if you go on haitus, and return to playing that character, you'd have to do the entire quest over again, and I'm talking ALL of the fetch quests... in order to know what you missed.

Aside from this, I do not think the quest needs any changes.

+1

[Cuchilla]

Given that a slave should be considered as property of the owner, without any rights at all, and expected to do not only what the owner tells, but also what most other free underdarkers tells the slave to do, Arelith slaves got quite a lot of freedom!

They can move about, the owner got no other form of punishing, say a runaway slave than the slave caller. Slaves can without any risk of punishment mingle with whoever he or she wants. It is in fact possible to play a slave like it were any other, just with a collar, which just identifies a char, and with the small inconvenience, to be called at an time (and honestly, how many times does this happen during a slave's life?)

Yes, I know about the writs, and Captain Laurick and a couple of other NPCs who won't talk to slaves, and which make the moving about a bit more complicated. Then again, a slave got access to the Hub portal, and some other areas, IG'ly.

So what I'd like to see is that the owner in fact got instruments to do something about a slave. Something that the owner today can't do. So the only type of punishment is to kill the slave. The following - I haven't thought too much about it, just a brainstorm:

- Access to the slave's inventory (similar to a summon), with right to pick out, or drop items there. Mining coal? Right, carry it forr me, slave! Oh, so you got yourself a nice silk shirt? Hand it over! etc. et.

- Access to the slave's bank account. Yes, I mean it. Why would a banker deny an owner access to the property's account? Also with the right to take gold from it.

- Punish the slave, demanding the slave to wear items like Mage Handcufffs, a heavy armour to restrict the speed and movements, and ya da ya da. Find your own variations here.

- Chain the slave to the owner, or some guard, so the slave can only go where the owner wants it to go.

- If the owner finds the slave shouldn't go certain places, be able to close the portals to such places.

- The owner should have the skill to call the slave, not just through the caller.

- The collar should damage the slave when attacking the owner, or doing other things that the owner never would accept. One might even consider that the owner had that ability, when the slave does something unwanted, like talking too much, doing the job bad, mingling with surfacers, etc.

All this of course would cause a lot of OOC problems, I know that, and good relations between the players (not the chars). But, this is the feedback forum. Cheers!

[Petrifictus]

Given that a slave should be considered as property of the owner, without any rights at all, and expected to do not only what the owner tells, but also what most other free underdarkers tells the slave to do, Arelith slaves got quite a lot of freedom!

They can move about, the owner got no other form of punishing, say a runaway slave than the slave caller. Slaves can without any risk of punishment mingle with whoever he or she wants. It is in fact possible to play a slave like it were any other, just with a collar, which just identifies a char, and with the small inconvenience, to be called at an time (and honestly, how many times does this happen during a slave's life?)

Yes, I know about the writs, and Captain Laurick and a couple of other NPCs who won't talk to slaves, and which make the moving about a bit more complicated. Then again, a slave got access to the Hub portal, and some other areas, IG'ly.

So what I'd like to see is that the owner in fact got instruments to do something about a slave. Something that the owner today can't do. So the only type of punishment is to kill the slave. The following - I haven't thought too much about it, just a brainstorm:

- Access to the slave's inventory (similar to a summon), with right to pick out, or drop items there. Mining coal? Right, carry it forr me, slave! Oh, so you got yourself a nice silk shirt? Hand it over! etc. et.

- Access to the slave's bank account. Yes, I mean it. Why would a banker deny an owner access to the property's account? Also with the right to take gold from it.

- Punish the slave, demanding the slave to wear items like Mage Handcufffs, a heavy armour to restrict the speed and movements, and ya da ya da. Find your own variations here.

- Chain the slave to the owner, or some guard, so the slave can only go where the owner wants it to go.

- If the owner finds the slave shouldn't go certain places, be able to close the portals to such places.

- The owner should have the skill to call the slave, not just through the caller.

- The collar should damage the slave when attacking the owner, or doing other things that the owner never would accept. One might even consider that the owner had that ability, when the slave does something unwanted, like talking too much, doing the job bad, mingling with surfacers, etc.

All this of course would cause a lot of OOC problems, I know that, and good relations between the players (not the chars). But, this is the feedback forum. Cheers!

+1

[Aodh Lazuli]

This is absolutely astonishing, in that my personal suggestion would be the total removal of the mechanical slavery system.

If slavery is a matter of ooc consent (which it always should be), then everything suggested here can be achieved more effectively and with greater integrity through pure roleplay than through the mechanics designed to facilitate it.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the mechanics of slavery actively obstruct the building of ooc trust and collaborative spirit necessary to make slavery roleplay interesting, by reducing the interactions and the entire slavery dynamic to a mess of mechanical enforcement. Adding more layers or features to this wouldn't solve the problems with it as a system.

[Diilicious]

This is absolutely astonishing, in that my personal suggestion would be the total removal of the mechanical slavery system.

If slavery is a matter of ooc consent (which it always should be), then everything suggested here can be achieved more effectively and with greater integrity through pure roleplay than through the mechanics designed to facilitate it.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the mechanics of slavery actively obstruct the building of ooc trust and collaborative spirit necessary to make slavery roleplay interesting, by reducing the interactions and the entire slavery dynamic to a mess of mechanical enforcement. Adding more layers or features to this wouldn't solve the problems with it as a system.

wholeheartedly agree with this.

[Hazard]

This is absolutely astonishing, in that my personal suggestion would be the total removal of the mechanical slavery system.

If slavery is a matter of ooc consent (which it always should be), then everything suggested here can be achieved more effectively and with greater integrity through pure roleplay than through the mechanics designed to facilitate it.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the mechanics of slavery actively obstruct the building of ooc trust and collaborative spirit necessary to make slavery roleplay interesting, by reducing the interactions and the entire slavery dynamic to a mess of mechanical enforcement. Adding more layers or features to this wouldn't solve the problems with it as a system.

Y'know. That's actually a very good point. The best slave RP I ever had (my character was the slave) we weren't even using the hardcore slave collar. We just used the 'temp' iron one and pretended they were the same thing. None of the mechanics ever came into play and it was incredible. I was 1000% immersed into the UD. It was really magical.

It's easy to get all caught up in this and that mechanic but now that I think about it, it's all just sprinkles and icing. There's nothing stopping us from adding a collar to our character's descriptions and RPing being a slave with someone.

[micspam]

This is absolutely astonishing, in that my personal suggestion would be the total removal of the mechanical slavery system.

If slavery is a matter of ooc consent (which it always should be), then everything suggested here can be achieved more effectively and with greater integrity through pure roleplay than through the mechanics designed to facilitate it.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the mechanics of slavery actively obstruct the building of ooc trust and collaborative spirit necessary to make slavery roleplay interesting, by reducing the interactions and the entire slavery dynamic to a mess of mechanical enforcement. Adding more layers or features to this wouldn't solve the problems with it as a system.

Agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. I love the idea of slavery in the mod and applaud its inclusion here, but implementation could use some work so its not a limiting system.

The thing that makes the slave system enjoyable is the, quite frankly, fantastic roleplayers who serve as the masters. (Have personally massive respect for Dante in this capacity as he is who I've dealt with, indirectly, most.) The mechanical slave system has, largely, hindered good roleplay in my experience and frustrated a lot of people IC and OOC.

I'm concerned that completely abolishing the mechanical aspect of slavery will lead to (over the course of a few months) reduction/total disappearance of player slaves. I think (slave) next to the name, in description, and reducing slave calling to consent much like -yoink are worth keeping, but otherwise get rid of the, quite frankly, immersion breaking, roleplay limiting quest and have it removable by the player like the prisoner collar.

[Ecthelion]

As someone who plays a character that owns slaves and as someone who HAS a character that is a slave and has gone through the slavery questline...


There should be some mechanic that allows the owner to decide who gets to call a slave via the slave callers. I've had my own slave called away before. I've BEEN the slave called away, WHILE I'm RPing with my owner. The slave caller is incredibly annoying, and needs restrictions placed on it, either by the owner, or the slave themselves, or both.

The cost of 500k to buy freedom is high, but fair, and keeps it from being too trivial, though getting out of the collar is still really quite easy. You either ask a DM if you're REALLY not okay with things, or grind. Getting that kind of gold is effortless if you know the right people. When I played a slave, I had to turn find reasons to turn down not one, but two offers to buy the collar off outright, so clearly this is not as much of a hurdle as people make it out to be.

Some method to magically disable(-5 or 10AB) or harm one's own slave would be a good addition to the system. I've lost track of how many times I've bought a slave I didn't know OOCly and had to fight it (I fought Feng at least seven times), or seen other PCs killed by their own slaves. While rebellion has its place in the system and its RP, there is no real way to prevent it from the owner's side except to not gear your slave at all, or take away their gear in the first place, which cripples them and makes them less useful. Slaves are often more trouble than they are worth, so many are unwilling to bother with the RP on the buyer side of the system, just like many are unwilling to do slave RP on the slave side of it. A means to stack the deck on the side of the owner would be a good addition to the system, I think.

It should be noted that a slave's level is 100% tied to how active they are. You can be the best slave in the world and have the best master in the world, but if you are twice as active as he/she is, you WILL outlevel them quickly, especially if you have a faction and they take you around. This is why you see slaves that are so much stronger than their owners regularly. Additionally, there is no way to enforce equipment and gold restrictions on your slave. They have full control of their bank account, and can buy their own gear. All you can do from the master side of things is refuse to gear them. Its 100% on the slave's player to gear themselves at that point. But as a master, you can't demand gold or anything from your slave without them being able to oocly refuse. Which is fine, but its a disingenous arguement to say "Just be stronger" when you have no mechanical means of enforcing it whatsoever. There is nothing you can do to prevent your slave from walking around in a full suit of adamantine if they want to.


Sibiyad needs a caller, if not a clamper, and Sencliff could use its own quest too.
-----------
Certain aspects of the slavery quest could use a change.

There is a specific item that needs to be purchased some.... 30 times for one of the tasks. Its the only alternative to the slavery quest part involving the cage fight, and the only option for anyone playing a mage. And this particular item only is sold once per reset, from a single NPC in Andunor. So when you have 3-8 slaves all doing the quest at once, this becomes a logistical bottleneck and nearly impossible to accomplish. At best, with no competition, it makes the quest take an RL month. At worst, it could take six RL months or longer.

As someone who played a slave, THAT was the least enjoyable part of the questline for me.

As well, the part of the quest where you 'find the hideout the proper way'. There is no clue as to what the proper way is. I had to be told OOCly, and when I went to complete it, it took me some 12 tries to get the script to fire off. 90% of people I've talked to who have done the quest had to be told OOCly how to do this. It needs to be made MUCH more clear, and the odds of the script firing need to be tuned to happen more than just by complete and total accident for the 1/10 people who get lucky.

And finally, scars needs to have some way of telling you what quests you've already done. If you've forgotten your progress, there is no way to recollect it, and no reminder of what has and hasn't been done. So if you go on haitus, and return to playing that character, you'd have to do the entire quest over again, and I'm talking ALL of the fetch quests... in order to know what you missed.

Aside from this, I do not think the quest needs any changes.

I agree with a lot of this, except the point on the 500k of which I do not understand the purpose.
I don't think grinding is anything useful to the story of really fun.
I would add the points I've underlined earlier in the thread.

As about removing the slavery system completly ... Well, it makes sense too.

[Emotionaloverload]

Please don't remove slavery completely. I have played a non-mechanical slave and a mechanical one (yes, I've been here that long) and the second is infinitely better. The mechanic helps your rp be taken as real and true whereas without it it is not taken seriously at all and in too many cases not rp'd by other characters. Make no mistake, characters have been trying to take slaves for ages but it didn't become prominent until the mechanic allowed it to be true and serious.

When I was on my slaves, I just rp'd that the master had access to their accounts and inventory (although the slaves were well geared up since a useless slave is help to no one) because it didn't make sense otherwise. I think if they could mechanically have access to the slaves account in some way, that would really be great.

I have never had any trouble being called by others :/ I wasn't aware that anyone other than the master could do it. If this is the case, I can't imagine why it is like this. Perhaps we can add a section to -factions that allows the master to assign that power to individuals within that faction rather than everyone being able to do it.

I'm not entirely convinced that you need a system strictly for harming your slaves. (Generally I prefer to emote it out but I'm bias.) Only because we allegedly have a system of doing harm without killing although I haven't had the opportunity to use it. Perhaps instead of doing something separate for slaves, that system can be improved instead to ensure that the character is in fact subdued and not subdued all the way to the fugue.

Lastly, I don't know why slaves can't do writs in the UD but this is the reason I am holding off playing my first UD based slave (sorry). To be made to come up to the surface or losing the chance to learn the areas through writs is super disappointing to me.

-S

[The GrumpyCat]

There is a specific item that needs to be purchased some.... 30 times for one of the tasks. Its the only alternative to the slavery quest part involving the cage fight, and the only option for anyone playing a mage. And this particular item only is sold once per reset, from a single NPC in Andunor. So when you have 3-8 slaves all doing the quest at once, this becomes a logistical bottleneck and nearly impossible to accomplish. At best, with no competition, it makes the quest take an RL month. At worst, it could take six RL months or longer.

This item can now be found in certain book cases, but it is still rather rare. But it is at least found in other places than the vendor. Personally I'd suggest increasing the frequencesy of it's possible locations.
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Lastly, I don't know why slaves can't do writs in the UD but this is the reason I am holding off playing my first UD based slave (sorry). To be made to come up to the surface or losing the chance to learn the areas through writs is super disappointing to me.

If you start off as a slave in the UD, you can do writs just fine. It's only if you take the collar as a captured surfacer that you can't.

[Memelord]

This is absolutely astonishing, in that my personal suggestion would be the total removal of the mechanical slavery system.

If slavery is a matter of ooc consent (which it always should be), then everything suggested here can be achieved more effectively and with greater integrity through pure roleplay than through the mechanics designed to facilitate it.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the mechanics of slavery actively obstruct the building of ooc trust and collaborative spirit necessary to make slavery roleplay interesting, by reducing the interactions and the entire slavery dynamic to a mess of mechanical enforcement. Adding more layers or features to this wouldn't solve the problems with it as a system.

Dotting to show support.

[Zeskay]

There is a specific item that needs to be purchased some.... 30 times for one of the tasks. Its the only alternative to the slavery quest part involving the cage fight, and the only option for anyone playing a mage. And this particular item only is sold once per reset, from a single NPC in Andunor. So when you have 3-8 slaves all doing the quest at once, this becomes a logistical bottleneck and nearly impossible to accomplish. At best, with no competition, it makes the quest take an RL month. At worst, it could take six RL months or longer.

This item can now be found in certain book cases, but it is still rather rare. But it is at least found in other places than the vendor. Personally I'd suggest increasing the frequencesy of it's possible locations.

I agree, still pretty rare but I wouldn't increase it too much. It creates nice opportunities for RP as you can ask friends to keep an eye out for you and gives them a chance to help you on your quest.

I also subscribe to the idea that mechanically enforcing things that can be RP'ed seems excessive and fosters laziness. Want something from your slave? RP, if the slave doesn't comply you have some work to do.

Allowing captured surface slaves to do writs in the Underdark would be a great. Also, old war code keeps certain captured slaves from accessing some districts. No matter if your slave wears a collar with the name of a big house, they won't be allowed in the district and that severely limits the usefulness of the said slave and hampers the experience. Want them to take something to the temple? Too bad. Supposed to go shopping for you? Ain't happening. Demand their presence at owner's property? Would love to, but can't do that.

[Durvayas]

There is a specific item that needs to be purchased some.... 30 times for one of the tasks. Its the only alternative to the slavery quest part involving the cage fight, and the only option for anyone playing a mage. And this particular item only is sold once per reset, from a single NPC in Andunor. So when you have 3-8 slaves all doing the quest at once, this becomes a logistical bottleneck and nearly impossible to accomplish. At best, with no competition, it makes the quest take an RL month. At worst, it could take six RL months or longer.

This item can now be found in certain book cases, but it is still rather rare. But it is at least found in other places than the vendor. Personally I'd suggest increasing the frequencesy of it's possible locations.

Good to know its been expanded.

But moving on...
People who are advocating for the removal of the slave collar and want the prisoner collar to be the only way to do slavery, or worse, no collars at all, forget that at times, prisoner collared 'slaves' have been executed on suspicion of being spies. The fact that the collar can be removed at any time removes any degree of weight to the collar as evidence that any given PC is, in fact, a slave, and the collar is very rarely used for slavery RP as a result.

An actual slave collar tells us, from the evil side, who this slave belongs to, who to RP with if there is trouble, what faction this slave answers to in general. Its is a tool for fostering RP, and legitimizing that this character is in fact what they purport to be.
Quite frankly, the slave collar is a nescessary part of the system. It grants access to the portal in the hub, and the slave caller, while occasionally annoying, is useful and gives the slavery system teeth in that a poorly roleplayed slave (that runs around the surface and server like its not actually a slave) or a well roleplayed slave doing their occasional rebellious attempts to run away or kill someone and hide, can be brought to the owner immediately.

But most importantly you lot asking for the system to be removed have forgotten that the entire system IS consent based in the first place, and people playing slaves literally signed up for it and everything it entails. Don't like it? Don't play a slave, or take your chances with the prisoner collar.

Saying that we can rely on player integrity and that the removal of the system would improve things is painfully naiive and I have to wonder what server you've been playing on. We've seen time, and time, and time again that arelith has people who can and will abuse OOC trust until a whole concept of roleplay is nonviable. If we removed the slavery system, there would quickly be no slaves, because we'd have an impossible time telling them apart from spies, and rapidly have so many spies mixed in that we'd start killing off NEW slaves because there would be no way to verify if this person or that was captured or if they just put a collar in their description to blend in. And they'd have no portal access, and zero access to any storage, which would make being a slave harder. You argue that you want the system removed, but really, what you want would do more to simply ensure slavery RP stop being a thing almost entirely.

We NEED the collars to give portal access to those who should have it and not those who shouldn't.

We NEED the collars so people can use those slave quarters, because it makes no sense for slaves to own any kind of building or bank vault, and since they cannot become district citizens, they cannot use district storage.

We NEED collars so that we know who belongs to who, for roleplay reasons, free citizens need to know who they can go to about issues/infractions with said slave or they'll just start killing them as there will be limited recourse otherwise.

We NEED the slave background so that generated slaves can do writs. Remove the collar and you have an outcast by another name.

We NEED the slave collar to have a quest or high cost associated with it otherwise people will use it for the old outcast grindtrain(be in UD, grind quickly, go to surface)

The slavery system is absolutely nescessary. Prior to its implementation, I can count on one hand the number of slaves I ever saw roleplayed in the UD, and I've been here nearly a decade.
Since its implementation, I've seen dozens upon dozens. The system works, and has allowed slavery RP to thrive. If you don't like it, dont participate in it.

[Hazard]

at times, prisoner collared 'slaves' have been executed on suspicion of being spies.

Personally, I would report this. That does not seem like appropriate behaviour for a roleplaying server, IMO.

[Durvayas]

at times, prisoner collared 'slaves' have been executed on suspicion of being spies.

Personally, I would report this. That does not seem like appropriate behaviour for a roleplaying server, IMO.

Usually there was more RP involved than that. Said slaves would be interrogated as to who collared them and owned them, when they were captured, etc. Usually, they'd give a name, and that'd be fine, until we actually asked that character and they were like "Who?" leading to an execution. For a while, this happened often enough that if a prisoner collar slave gave a name that wasn't online, they'd often just get killed because it couldn't be verified.

The actual slave collar having a name on it spares everyone the roleplay equivalent of 'stop and frisk', in that a prisoner collar slave could get stopped by several unrelated parties in the same session. This was usually a danger for the first few days a prisoner collared slave was in the UD. Those who lasted long enough to become a fixture, or were being led around enough it was clear who owned them, didn't have much of a problem with this.


Edit: This is going to sound facetious, but if the collars were removed, we'd literally have to go back to a "Paper's please" system, and I know people don't want that.