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This came up recently in a Con I was attending in Melbourne and caused me a few issues of a roleplaying nature.
We were playing in the special 'Race for the Runecarved Key' (Im not going to spoiler here), and during one of the large rp moments I was introduced to a Chelaxian who sailed a vessel called 'Freedom of Andoran (or something similar). Then I found out he dealt in questionable goods (re slaves). After that I gave the character the cold shoulder.
Now we didnt play on the same table at any point (I was on mid range, he was on high), but it did get me to thinking:
1) I know that PVP in any form is not legal or good form . Does that extend me to me saving a known slaver (and it was clear that he was known). Saving could extend to me stabilising someone, healing someone etc.
What was interesting for me is that this guy was travelling around with a Paladin of Abadar. Personally I would of found it hard to justify travelling around with that pirate guy (even if he wasnt evil) from a pure rp point. I did broach this with that character also but he hoped to be a moderating influence on the Slaver.
I know there is really no answer to the questions Ive raised, I am far more interested to know if others having similar morality issues come up in play and how they deal travelling around with a Diabolist or other such types.
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Morality is in the eye of the beholder. I can totally see a cleric of Abadar traveling with a slaver. I'd be willing to listen to the paladin's concept, too. Remember that slavery is not, and has not, always been considered "evil". Think of the slaves from Star Wars episode 1. Just as lawful in that society to own humans as it is for us in real life to own other species of animals.
Not everyone will see things the same as you. If you're curious, ask them about their character concept. If there's anything players tend to love more than anything else it's when ppl ask them about their characters =)
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Yes I have troubles with some 'morality issue' behaviour exhibited at PFS tables Matt. You are not alone.
I think most of us are fairly tolerant of most behaviour and always keep Explore! Report! Cooperate! in mind, but some players like to push the boundaries. I think those Pathfinder words sometimes become a shield to hide 'ill' aligned characters behind. Somewhere it has to stop.
Just because slavery exists (even legally) in some nations doesn't mean that characters (even from that nation) have to like it. Still, it would be naive to visit these countries and expect to single-handedly end slavery overnight. So all Pathfinders are likely to visit nations with slavery and should know how to act without starting a war.
A Pathfinder character who openly advocates slavery, owns a ship (vanity) named Spirit of Freedom and has the aim of capturing NPCs in game and adding them to his slave property is likely to push the boundaries of a lot of characters (even those who aren't paladins).
In the past as a GM I have given the pirate with the Spirit of Freedom an alignment infraction on his chronicle sheet. I think the player has moderated his pirate character's behaviour. I've played with him since and would again.
This is a hard issue and tough to talk about constructively.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I am always fascinated that, when this stuff comes up, the person playing the good character is the one who is cast in the light of the instigator of pvp.
In our society, if someone decides to pick on the mentally disabled kid, does the person who stands up for that kid get told to shut up? If someone starts cracking rape jokes, is it the person who takes offense to that who is the "problem" in that situation?
I find it bizarre that, when it comes to role playing games, it is, indeed, the morally upstanding person who is told he's going the pvp route. In an effort to "cooperate" that guy just has to sit and let the rape jokes fly while the disabled kid is ridiculed by his small minded peers. This is the one serious flaw I see in PFS.
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Drogon, I think it is because many of us have been on the recieveing end of those few persons who use "the morally upstanding" to be a jerk. The player who plays a paladin - just to be a jerk at the table. Reporting the actions of he fellow PCs to the local athorities (so they will be arrested), being overly critical of every players actions ("How could you possibly stab that Orc sentry from surprise!"), spoiling other PCs planned actions ("I yell out to the orc sentry 'watch out!' so that the rogue isn't surprising him.
Many of us have encountered the Jerk player, playing a Paladin. And we tend to remember those players the most, rather than the other >90% of the nice players. So, when we hear the stories, we get flash backs to our experiences with "the jerk".
Frankly I have had the opposite experience in dealing with people. Characters dancing on the razors edge of evil and flaunting it as players to annoy players with good characters. They gleefully point out PVP is not allowed and the rules keep them safe. It can be frustrating on either side.
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And I keep seeing people say that in these types of threads (which seem to be VERY common lately), but I have yet to see a paladin player behave like a jerk at a table. I have seen a rogue try to steal from every NPC we meet and PC goblins joke about wanting to eat human babies (in character joking - we all knew they wouldn't actually do it), but I've never seen the mythical beast known as the jerk paladin at a PFS table.
The closest I've seen is that my LG Silver Crusade cleric of Sarenrae annoyed some of my fellow players by refusing to let them kill captured, defenseless enemies. But even that cleric would allow it if there no other way to prevent them from committing more evil in the future (ie "We have to be judge, jury, and executioner out here in the wilderness.")
Ironically, my paladin (who happens to be the sister of that cleric) would be more likely to kill the captives, in the name of smiting evil. But only if they were truly evil.
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yep... and often it's the same guy. If you check, he has a paladin and a "dancer" in his stable of characters. The problem isn't the PC (paladin or BBE wannabe) it's the player. We all have to learn this (and try to recognize them).Frankly I have had the opposite experience in dealing with people. Characters dancing on the razors edge of evil and flaunting it as players to annoy players with good characters. They gleefully point out PVP is not allowed and the rules keep them safe. It can be frustrating on either side.Drogon, I think it is because many of us have been on the recieveing end of those few persons who use "the morally upstanding" to be a jerk. The player who plays a paladin - just to be a jerk at the table. Reporting the actions of he fellow PCs to the local athorities (so they will be arrested), being overly critical of every players actions ("How could you possibly stab that Orc sentry from surprise!"), spoiling other PCs planned actions ("I yell out to the orc sentry 'watch out!' so that the rogue isn't surprising him.
Many of us have encountered the Jerk player, playing a Paladin. And we tend to remember those players the most, rather than the other >90% of the nice players. So, when we hear the stories, we get flash backs to our experiences with "the jerk".
Well the only time I every heard PvP mentioned at a PFS table was when a paladin was threatening my witch for throwing sleeping pirate guards over board when we were sneaking aboard a ship. I was low level, so they were only asleep for 6-12 seconds, which was the only way we had to silence them in time. After the paladin got in my face, I asked "So you want to jeopardize the mission, and risk the prisoners lives, so that other people can execute these pirates based on our telling them that they were pirates?" The paladin's answer was basically "Yes, we will leave them here and I'm sure they won't alert anyone." As the next pirate was waking up, unbound and ungagged, as the paladin decided to get into it with me instead of tying and gagging the pirate, I tossed the pirate overboard. Then the paladin started talking about PvP options with the GM, who already said that my conduct was ruthless but not evil.
For a little context, this was in a scenario in which we had reason to believe that prisoners would be killed if they saw us coming. Funnily enough, my witch saved the main prisoner by setting up the invisible rogue for a coup de grace on the BBEG before the BBEG could execute the prisoner. The paladin was not happy about us executing a sleeping guy again, but hey it was the only way to save the prisoner. The DM actually told us this.
In this situation, the player was ok and wasn't violating the jerk law. I was just shocked that the paladin would literally jeopardize the mission, and think about pvp during the stealth mission, all because my character wasn't living up to their standards of morality. Honestly, I didn't feel bad or even think I crossed the line because real life soldiers do very similar things to what I did. The rest of the table and the DM, agreed with me.
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To an extent PFS promotes the walking the tight rope mentality between cooperation and sudo pvp. We are all supposed to cooperate, help each other out, and complete the mission at hand. At the same time we are all different alignments, with different morals, and different factions (which compete for influence in a sudo cold war fashion). Players sometimes have a hard time melding these two sides of play together. I have seen both in-morale characters and super-morale characters cross the line in the name of role-playing.
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Well the only time I every heard PvP mentioned at a PFS table was when a paladin was threatening my witch for throwing sleeping pirate guards over board when we were sneaking aboard a ship. I was low level, so they were only asleep for 6-12 seconds, which was the only way we had to silence them in time. After the paladin got in my face, I asked "So you want to jeopardize the mission, and risk the prisoners lives, so that other people can execute these pirates based on our telling them that they were pirates?" The paladin's answer was basically "Yes, we will leave them here and I'm sure they won't alert anyone." As the next pirate was...yep... and often it's the same guy. If you check, he has a paladin and a "dancer" in his stable of characters. The problem isn't the PC (paladin or BBE wannabe) it's the player. We all have to learn this (and try to recognize them).Frankly I have had the opposite experience in dealing with people. Characters dancing on the razors edge of evil and flaunting it as players to annoy players with good characters. They gleefully point out PVP is not allowed and the rules keep them safe. It can be frustrating on either side.Drogon, I think it is because many of us have been on the recieveing end of those few persons who use "the morally upstanding" to be a jerk. The player who plays a paladin - just to be a jerk at the table. Reporting the actions of he fellow PCs to the local athorities (so they will be arrested), being overly critical of every players actions ("How could you possibly stab that Orc sentry from surprise!"), spoiling other PCs planned actions ("I yell out to the orc sentry 'watch out!' so that the rogue isn't surprising him.
Many of us have encountered the Jerk player, playing a Paladin. And we tend to remember those players the most, rather than the other >90% of the nice players. So, when we hear the stories, we get flash backs to our experiences with "the jerk".
Paladins live at much stricter moral standards than most people. It's why they are paladins. It's not surprising that they objected to that kind of tactic. It would be more surprising if the paladin just randomly started throat punching people for looking at a Pathfinder wrong. I see it as a reasonable response for that type of character.
As it was pointed out there are people coming together with different views on morality and alignment and personal rules. I could go out with five of my friends because I need money to pay for my sister's hospital bills. I could spot a rich guy, beat him up, and take his wallet. Four of my friends and I could agree that it was okay because the guy clearly has more money and good health insurance. Doesn't mean the vote makes it okay. The one friend that protests and tries to stop us isn't wrong for it because the majority agreed. It's a broad example I know, but it's not necessarily bad if someone doesn't go exactly with the flow.
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I had a similar issue at a GenCon in 2009, playing Sniper in the Deep. We walked into the dockside tavern to gather information on the missing pathfinder. Upon entering we scoped the place a bit, and decided too talk to barthender. Before we could do this the Chelaxian "Paladin" pulled his greatsword invoked flame and announced his intention to murder the bartender in single combat due to some slight to the paracountess, so much for diplomacy. The party let the Paladin do his best, while we took care of the cronies. I was having a great time disarming and laughing my butt off due to the Pladin gett the short end in a very bad way. Our cleric cast hold person on one of the cronies, so I booted him over the rail into the ocean below, FYI my character was CN. The cleric dismissed the spell and we made light work of the cronies. The Paladin was having serious issues so the wizard saved his bacon. Apparently the player took serious issue with me booting the "helpless" cronie into the water and called me EVIL. I pointed out to him that I knew the cleric would "likely" dismiss the spell, but I did not declare murder like him, and pointed out he is Lawful Good and I was not critical of his actions. Needless to say he tried to take every oppurtunity to not help me too complete the adventure and often told me I was evil. Thus when he fell in the water in his full plate, and began drowning due to failed swim and con checks, I did not assist him despite having the best swim in the group(I was also otherwise occupied in lethal combat). The player was a bit angry especially with me for not trying to save him, I sarcastically told him if he has earned enough respect from the paracountess she could raise him. He was not amused, but the GM and the table were. I think this goes to the don't be a jerk to your fellow PC's since you may need them and while PVP is not sanctioned they can ignore you.
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Paladins live at much stricter moral standards than most people. It's why they are paladins. It's not surprising that they objected to that kind of tactic. It would be more surprising if the paladin just randomly started throat punching people for looking at a Pathfinder wrong. I see it as a reasonable response for that type of character.
I guess this is what strikes me as wrong. People think it's reasonable for paladins to make the party risk failing missions or make the party fail missions, but it's not reasonable for other classes to do so. I mean to sit and want to fight another party member during a stealth mission where innocent lives were at stake because that party member was throwing sleeping enemy pirates overboard right before they woke up.
To put this another way, the party would have failed the mission if I listened to the paladin. If the paladin could have, he would have tied me up/fought me for my attempts to save innocent lives, which would have led to the deaths of innocents.
If the paladin was prepared with manacles and gags and such, then sure whatever. He wasn't. He was prepared to cut them in two, but only if they were conscious. My witch wasn't even certain that throwing the sleeping pirates overboard (with 6 seconds left to sleep) would kill them, but it would remove them from the fight and make it much harder to alert the crew.
As an aside, I started bringing manacles along as my witch cannot tie anyone up due to CMB issues. In my first scenario with my now paladin-friendly witch, a GM let a BBEG caster continue to cast once I manacled them and I nearly died. After that experience, while I'm in combat I just behead everything now.
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Wow FK, you need to find a new venue. :/
I really do wonder who he's been playing with. Since moving to the area, I've been playing at the same venue as him for the last 3 or 4 months, and we even played at the same table 2 or 3 times, and I've never seen any of this nonsense. I think he just needs to switch to a different table.
I'm running Storming the Diamond Gate next Monday, and we've only got 5 players signed up so far. Come join us! I promise I don't let manacled spellcasters cast spells. At least, not if the spell requires somatic or material components. If you don't gag him and he gets off a verbal-only spell, that's on you. Always gag enemy bards.
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People think it's reasonable for paladins to make the party risk failing missions or make the party fail missions, but it's not reasonable for other classes to do so.
Those people are wrong, and those Paladins are violating the "don't be a jerk" rule.
Any Paladin who's got a problem with killing people better have the Feats, Traits, Equipment, and/or tactics necessary to non-lethally dispatch enemies. Otherwise she's just a burden on her party.
Also, the sleeping pirates would wake up as soon as they hit the water, and since they're pirates, I imagine they can swim. I also imagine they'd start screaming bloody murder, so I'm not sure that would have been the best bet for stealth.
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Wow FK, you need to find a new venue. :/I really do wonder who he's been playing with. Since moving to the area, I've been playing at the same venue as him for the last 3 or 4 months, and we even played at the same table 2 or 3 times, and I've never seen any of this nonsense. I think he just needs to switch to a different table.
I'm running Storming the Diamond Gate next Monday, and we've only got 5 players signed up so far. Come join us! I promise I don't let manacled spellcasters cast spells. At least, not if the spell requires somatic or material components. If you don't gag him and he gets off a verbal-only spell, that's on you. Always gag enemy bards.
Table variation is high. But the paladin isn't in the group we play with. Honestly, that was the player's perception of the character and the code, not the player per se. That was a local con.
I would love to play Storming the Diamond Gate, but I already did at a local con. During that one I was forced to let aspis my witch put to sleep run around free in the tapestry because killing captured foes would be evil and tying them up would be akin to killing them. This was despite my asking the VC in character during the briefing whether we should kill captured aspis and getting a yes.
The manacle thing though was from our group though.
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Always gag enemy bards.Then they just start tapping out a rhythm with their manacles, in a decidedly Inspiring way. ;)
They can "drum" up inspiration all they want, but they can't cast spells. Have you ever noticed how ALL bard spells have verbal components? And they aren't eligible for the Silent Spell feat? Bards literally can't keep their mouths shut if they want to cast spells.
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There's actually a pretty obvious answer to dealing with captured Aspis agents in Storming the Diamond Gate.
As for the manacles thing, I'd be mildly curious who the GM was. That's just clearly wrong. The Core Rulebook specifically says in more than one place (magic chapter, grappling rules, etc) that you need a free hand for casting, not to mention access to material components, if necessary. Unless it was a verbal-only spell, of course.
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I'm running Storming the Diamond Gate next Monday, and we've only got 5 players signed up so far. Come join us! I promise I don't let manacled spellcasters cast spells. At least, not if the spell requires somatic or material components. If you don't gag him and he gets off a verbal-only spell, that's on you. Always gag enemy bards.
I'll be at that table. I'll kill some Aspis for you.
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This is a hard issue and one where there is mostly only opinion to go on.
But (to answer Nosig), have a look at the Guide to Organised play. You'll find in the Alignment Infractions section that Alignment Infractions are to deal with Evil Acts, not Good ones.
When I GM I am not completely comfortable giving out an Alignment Infraction, but when I did, the act committed was both evil and it disturbed the enjoyment of the other players at the table. It fell in the 'don't be a jerk' category. Perhaps I should have asked the player to leave the table. I dealt with it in the way that I felt was appropriate.
The slavery discussion is a tough one too. Those who imply that because some nations permit slavery, that it is a non-issue seem to imply that therefore no evil occurs with slavery. I think it does (opinion). Capturing a person and depriving them of their liberty for the purpose of making financial gain is committing and evil act in my book, and while that doesn't make everyone in a slave based country evil, it makes the slavers people who commit evil acts.
In Cheliax they deal with Devils. It is a nation in the thrall of devils through the Thrune family. Devils are evil and the people who summon them to keep themselves in power and the nation in thrall to them, are committing evil acts. But that doesn't make every Chelaxian evil. Once again, a Pathfinder visiting Cheliax will know about that nation, and if he has a mission to complete then he should decide on a way to deal with completing his mission regardless of the state of the nation. He isn't there to declare war on Cheliax. The same way in a slave nation, the Pathfinder isn't there to declare war on Slavery.
Anyway, this is highly based on my opinion. Keep it in mind if I'm your GM, but I will always speak to a player about potential evil acts before taking any action, and I will discuss these thing with other GMs and VCs VLs in my region to get a general feeling of how people feel about things.
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This is a hard issue and one where there is mostly only opinion to go on.
But (to answer Nosig), have a look at the Guide to Organised play. You'll find in the Alignment Infractions section that Alignment Infractions are to deal with Evil Acts, not Good ones.
When I GM I am not completely comfortable giving out an Alignment Infraction, but when I did, the act committed was both evil and it disturbed the enjoyment of the other players at the table. It fell in the 'don't be a jerk' category. Perhaps I should have asked the player to leave the table. I dealt with it in the way that I felt was appropriate.
The slavery discussion is a tough one too. Those who imply that because some nations permit slavery, that it is a non-issue seem to imply that therefore no evil occurs with slavery. I think it does (opinion). Capturing a person and depriving them of their liberty for the purpose of making financial gain is committing and evil act in my book, and while that doesn't make everyone in a slave based country evil, it makes the slavers people who commit evil acts.
In Cheliax they deal with Devils. It is a nation in the thrall of devils through the Thrune family. Devils are evil and the people who summon them to keep themselves in power and the nation in thrall to them, are committing evil acts. But that doesn't make every Chelaxian evil. Once again, a Pathfinder visiting Cheliax will know about that nation, and if he has a mission to complete then he should decide on a way to deal with completing his mission regardless of the state of the nation. He isn't there to declare war on Cheliax. The same way in a slave nation, the Pathfinder isn't there to declare war on Slavery.
Anyway, this is highly based on my opinion. Keep it in mind if I'm your GM, but I will always speak to a player about potential evil acts before taking any action, and I will discuss these thing with other GMs and VCs VLs in my region to get a general feeling of how people feel about things.
In real life it is not doubt it is up their with genocide.
In golarion the devs have specified that it is a lawful not evil thing. Apparently its how you treat slave in golarion. Most states have slavery. It might just be galt and andora who ban it I. The inner sea region.
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Any Paladin who's got a problem with killing people better have the Feats, Traits, Equipment, and/or tactics necessary to non-lethally dispatch enemies. Otherwise she's just a burden on her party.
The blade of mercy trait (Religion: Saranae) Is great for this. You do MORE damage when you whap em with the flat of the blade.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Those who imply that because some nations permit slavery, that it is a non-issue seem to imply that therefore no evil occurs with slavery. I think it does (opinion). Capturing a person and depriving them of their liberty for the purpose of making financial gain is committing and evil act in my book
Thing is, taking slaves via capturing otherwise free people may be how America did slavery, but it's not the default assumption in Golarion.
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Wow, thanks for all of the replies. It has been interesting to see all the points of view.
The character I was originally talking about is a Galtan who follows the Andoran Ideals. He is also a follower of Milani, a Goddess common to Galt and who espouses revolution of the oppressed etc. I should have posted all that in my original post. The character was just stunned to learn that there were essentially 'slavers' in the Society ,as he has built up a view of what types of people the Society generally has.
I have other characters who believe in slavery (to different extents.. my Wizard from Rahadoum has a belief that Clerics are simply slaves to their Gods: beggars constantly hoping for coin from their gods). Im a firm believer is using what the setting provides as a way to influence my characters personality, which is why I love Golarion so much. There is so much variety!.
FuriousKender: Having read the Galt entry in the Inner Sea World Guide, Im sure many things are banned!. Apparently there has been some very strange decress from the revolutionary council (who must be getting very short on members)
(Im hoping for a Galt softcover sometime soon)
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Those who imply that because some nations permit slavery, that it is a non-issue seem to imply that therefore no evil occurs with slavery. I think it does (opinion). Capturing a person and depriving them of their liberty for the purpose of making financial gain is committing and evil act in my bookThing is, taking slaves via capturing otherwise free people may be how America did slavery, but it's not the default assumption in Golarion.
Gnoll slavers in Qadira catch people.
Slavers in varisia catch people.
Cheliax catches slaves from areas it conquers.
and halflings are born into slavery.
It seems very much like the american slavery model, not the ancient greek one.
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I guess this is what strikes me as wrong. People think it's reasonable for paladins to make the party risk failing missions or make the party fail missions, but it's not reasonable for other classes to do so. I mean to sit and want to fight another party member during a stealth mission where innocent lives were at stake because that party member was throwing sleeping enemy pirates overboard right before they woke up.To put this another way, the party would have failed the mission if I listened to the paladin. If the paladin could have, he would have tied me up/fought me for my attempts to save innocent lives, which would have led to the deaths of innocents.
If the paladin was prepared with manacles and gags and such, then sure whatever. He wasn't. He was prepared to cut them in two, but only if they were conscious. My witch wasn't even certain that throwing the sleeping pirates overboard (with 6 seconds left to sleep) would kill them, but it would remove them from the fight and make it much harder to alert the crew.
As an aside, I started bringing manacles along as my witch cannot tie anyone up due to CMB issues. In my first scenario with my now paladin-friendly witch, a GM let a BBEG caster continue to cast once I manacled them and I nearly died. After that experience, while I'm in combat I just behead everything now.
But is it anymore fair to say that everyone else has to fit into your ideals exactly or they're wrong?
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I guess this is what strikes me as wrong...
You're problem is not with paladins or other "do-gooders" its with the PLAYER/S who are taking these actions. In every single occurrence of potential PvP I have witnessed, it is due to one of the players violating the "don't be a jerk" rule. Some classes seem to be the cause, but its more because the players who are jerks build characters that will emphasize their behavior. Paladins are perhaps the easiest class to "jerkify," that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the class itself.
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I will side with the camp of "Slavery is evil in our modern context, but it is painting with broad strokes to say every character in every setting should think it such." If you look at the big three monotheistic religions, you will find provisions for slavery in texts they all call holy. While most modern apologists will claim those standards are not meant for this era, an extremely significant number of people throughout history call, or did call, those texts with provisions for slavery the ultimate guide to goodness.
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One of the ways of slavery in history (and you see Robert Jordan make good use of it in Wheel of Time) is if you lose in a battle, you must be a slave to the victor for a year. Of course honor says you treat your property well.
And as many have said, paying for a crime by becoming a slave was often more preferable to death.
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I will side with the camp of "Slavery is evil in our modern context, but it is painting with broad strokes to say every character in every setting should think it such."
Not every character.
Just the good ones.It isn't what is good or isn't thats changed: its the idea of slavery. At some point it was only for prisoners of war that you couldn't do anything else with or debtors. It got expanded to be anyone you could catch.
Golarion tends a lot more towards the latter, more modern MEANING of the word. Given that golarion society is closer to Renaissance / colonial time period than ancient greek/roman this isn't a surprise.
If you look at the big three monotheistic religions, you will find provisions for slavery in texts they all call holy. While most modern apologists will claim those standards are not meant for this era, an extremely significant number of people throughout history call, or did call, those texts with provisions for slavery the ultimate guide to goodness.
Which would highlight the lawfulness of such an opinion, not necessarily the goodness of it.
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I will side with the camp of "Slavery is evil in our modern context, but it is painting with broad strokes to say every character in every setting should think it such."Not every character.
Just the good ones.It isn't what is good or isn't thats changed: its the idea of slavery. At some point it was only for prisoners of war that you couldn't do anything else with or debtors. It got expanded to be anyone you could catch.
Golarion tends a lot more towards the latter, more modern MEANING of the word. Given that golarion society is closer to Renaissance / colonial time period than ancient greek/roman this isn't a surprise.
If you look at the big three monotheistic religions, you will find provisions for slavery in texts they all call holy. While most modern apologists will claim those standards are not meant for this era, an extremely significant number of people throughout history call, or did call, those texts with provisions for slavery the ultimate guide to goodness.Which would highlight the lawfulness of such an opinion, not necessarily the goodness of it.
It is very possible for massive numbers of people to be wrong, but I think it clear that many people think very differently about good and evil given context.
I absolutely love eating meat, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least if in a thousand years people look at meat eaters with some level of disgust. Will they think we were evil?
To say all the good characters think slavery in any setting is evil is to condemn some pretty major groups of "good guys" in history, both religious and secular.
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To say all the good characters think slavery in any setting is evil is to condemn some pretty major groups of "good guys" in history, both religious and secular.
I have no problem with that.
Its called heroic fantasy for a reason. If your actions fall in line with some real life royal ugly dudes who were... pretty obviously not nice people, its pretty much a given that your alignment is going to fall south of neutral regardless of how they were received in their own times.
If you don't want an evil label you don't put in an objective force of good into the mechanics and the system.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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Those who imply that because some nations permit slavery, that it is a non-issue seem to imply that therefore no evil occurs with slavery. I think it does (opinion). Capturing a person and depriving them of their liberty for the purpose of making financial gain is committing and evil act in my book, and while that doesn't make everyone in a slave based country evil, it makes the slavers people who commit evil acts.
It's not opinion. Capturing people, putting them in shackles, depriving them of their liberty, and beating them until they work for you is evil.
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Capturing people, putting them in shackles, depriving them of their liberty, and beating them until they work for you is evil.
That's pretty much what one species (Homo sapiens) does IRL to a whole host of other species, and the vast majority of Homo sapiens have no problem with it, so why would it be wrong for Gnolls (Canis sapiens) to do the same?
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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Capturing people, putting them in shackles, depriving them of their liberty, and beating them until they work for you is evil.That's pretty much what one species (Homo sapiens) does IRL to a whole host of other species, and the vast majority of Homo sapiens have no problem with it, so why would it be wrong for Gnolls (Canis sapiens) to do the same?
There are gnoll PCs?
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It's not opinion. Capturing people, putting them in shackles, depriving them of their liberty, and beating them until they work for you is evil.
I agree that beating people until they work for you is not good. I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it EVIL without knowing more of the nature of the beating, and why the beating is taking place. It would not be unreasonable for a person to beat a belligerent servant. Why would it suddenly be unreasonable to beat a belligerent slave?
Capturing people is not inherently evil. We have been doing this since the dawn of time.
We have also been employing shackles as a means to keep people captured for just as long.
Obviously that deprives them of liberty.
I think in Golarion slaver is considered neutral as a base. Depending on how the slaves are treated and sold makes a big diference. For instance the Ulfen raid and take thralls, slaves if you will, but will release them after a set time and only ask for hard work. This seems neutral to me. At least it does if you assume that anyone you are raiding is your enemy.
What if there was a slaver who only bought people who were desperate or had nowhere else to go, trained them and placed them in a position while a slave was a better spot then where they were. Seems to me that could be considered good.
And of course we have the situations where pirates kidnap and sell you to the highest Chelaxian bidder who puts you to work under a cruel task master in the fields. After beating you, despite a lack of belligerence, and abusing you every step of the way.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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I agree that beating people until they work for you is not good. I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it EVIL without knowing more of the nature of the beating, and why the beating is taking place. It would not be unreasonable for a person to beat a belligerent servant. Why would it suddenly be unreasonable to beat a belligerent slave?
Are you seriously suggesting I can beat the hell out of the guy I pay to mow my lawn because he didn't do it right or gave me lip?
Capturing people is not inherently evil. We have been doing this since the dawn of time.
Murder, rape, robbery, random thuggery have been done since the dawn of time also. Are those also not inherently evil?
I can *almost* see offering a person slavery as opposed to killing them as being somewhat justified, but if your *goal* for attacking someone is is to enslave them, then it is outright evil. If a person describes themselves as a slaver, that's exactly what they do, it is the definition of the term. And that is what was being described.
I think in Golarion slaver is considered neutral as a base. Depending on how the slaves are treated and sold makes a big diference. For instance the Ulfen raid and take thralls, slaves if you will, but will release them after a set time and only ask for hard work. This seems neutral to me. At least it does if you assume that anyone you are raiding is your enemy.
You think act of raiding a village, killing people who resist, looting their homes, burning their homes to the ground for fun, and killing their livestock for food; then offering them "only hard work" (or death) is neutral? That is ridiculous.
What if there was a slaver who only bought people who were desperate or had nowhere else to go, trained them and placed them in a position while a slave was a better spot then where they were. Seems to me that could be considered good.
Which has nothing to do with the point I agreed with. But I'll ask you, should we start rounding up homeless people, putting them in camps where they can do light work and where they will get fed well and get a warm place to sleep? What if they don't want to work or live in your camp? Do you do it in spite of their desires?