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The same way you are free to not use slavery in your games in case you have a player who feels uncomfortable with it.
But freelancers are not free to ignore it in official turnovers if it is part of the setting. Players are not able to avoid it in print. Only when the company chooses to remove it can that happen.
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it's actually really funny and if I seem like I'm getting a little nonserious in my replies it's because "what happened to my European history documentary" went out the door a long, long time ago. Probably around the time we had hillbilly ogres and, you know, um, dragons and runewells and an entire wealthy social caste of "adventurers" that didn't at any point come close to existing in Europe.
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Plus, countless adventuring parties have been fighting slavers in multiple adventure paths for multiple years. Perhaps that's enough dominoes toppled that we've finally seen some results!
And thank you, Kobold, didnt even think of that. (Call me Goofy, the GE3K is a mess lol) in the setting if the neutral countries are abolishing slavery, the evil ones may need to follow suit to maintain relations or risk war with those who *just* fought to get rid of it.
But seriously. The way the slavery economy is in this setting it comes across as if the person writing thought that slavery and its effects are long ago enough that its... well... fantasy. So it was put into this fantasy setting, not realizing the echoes of it are still reverberating and the wounds havent healed.
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My 2e group had great fun taking down the Scarlet Triad
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I live in area where slavery is considered so far removed from local history that people generally think "it was problem elsewhere" hence it doesn't feel too close to home here.
Its also reason why I would never tell people whose grandparents had to experience it how they shouldn't feel offended about it :P Because just because its not considered much of issue locally doesn't mean it isn't issue elsewhere.
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Plus, countless adventuring parties have been fighting slavers in multiple adventure paths for multiple years. Perhaps that's enough dominoes toppled that we've finally seen some results!
Erik Mona specifically said this change wasn't the result of anything player characters had done or will do. In fact, the author of the open letter fiercely criticized Paizo for writing adventures in which setting changes happen, like PFS 9-00.
This change is happening because Erik Mona, and presumably others at Paizo, took to heart a criticism of how LO handles slavery. It's not to involve players.
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Perhaps taking a moment a moment to define "slavery" would help some here understand the issues a little more.
In the united States, the word "Slavery" is almost always a term for the abduction of millions of Africans, who were brought to North America to be considered property by those of European ancestry. As "property", they were denied even the most basic aspects of humanity, and subject to unspeakable treatment with no recourse. This lasted for hundreds of years, and it's effects are still felt to this day. In the Colonies and later The United States, white slavery has always been illegal and rare. (other forms of exploitation of course have been common). So when you speak of Slavery here in the US, it goes without saying that you are talking about Black people enslaved by White people
I realize that there are other, more broad definitions, although some used in this thread are laughably wrong. For example, no one considers mandatory military conscription slavery.
I should also point out those making a "morals were different back then" argument that it only holds up if, like the oppressors of the past, you don't count the opinions of the enslaved. If you consider the victims actual humans with valid opinions of their own, there is no "morals of the past" argument because everyone who has been oppressed knows it sucks.
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Unless these ardent slavery-must-havers are just as furiously arguing that the Ulfen should cleave to the political structures of the historical Norse people, I’m going to call this what it is: bogus! You don’t care about historical accuracy, and your use of it here is weak as hell. Flintlock firearms coexist with mammoths in Avistan! The Lirgeni built a spaceship! The setting is so far detached from any notion of grounded realism that invoking it is laughable.
A thousand thousand breaks from history are baked into Golarion. Stop trotting out this paper-thin argument and be more honest: say “I like and want slavery in this setting.”
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I must say, while Golarion is a world big enough that there are many areas to explore where slavery can be safely ignored, it is interesting to see this announcement when we know there will be an AP set in Geb in the future, and slavery in Geb cannot be ignored.
The fact that there are living people in Geb bred as food for the ruling undeads is something very unique about the nation, and a logical consequence to its fundamental premises. So, do you think they will fix it with some sort of "artificial substitute for meat/blood", they will have "vegetarian vampires" Twilight-style, or they will just ask us not to think too hard about it?
Remember that releases are planned something like two years in advance. An adjustment like this is similar to turning an aircraft carrier; it takes a long while.
Assume that “going forward” applies to new projects from this point, rather than any announced releases we actually know about and see coming soon.
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Also, I'm not sure Gebbite slavery is really going to be conflated with chattel slavery. They might not even refer to them as slaves, since they're, you know, not there for labor, they're food. You could as easily call them "captives" or "hostages".
Still dark, still scary, but not clumsily misappropriating and stepping on a source of collective trauma for a racial group that has historically been given ample reasons not to feel comfortable with the company's actions.
A company that is almost entirely staffed by white people, by the way.
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The nation of Geb breeds humans and other living beings to serve as food and as slaves to trade with other nations on the scale of an economic engine, this has been firmly established in lore. There is no way that they can continue to publish an AP set in that region and skirt that short of the AP itself basically not involving the greater evils of the nation at all and I worry that "softening" it to any degree is going to end up doing way more harm than potential good that it could accomplish.
At this point, I wonder if that project can even be saved given how much of it is probably going to have to be scrapped.
They just don't call them slaves. The word isn't really that important. I mean, they aren't really calling them "slaves" regardless, since they don't speak English, we just choose to translate it to "slaves". We can translate it to something else. Heck, they can literally just make a word up.
Practically speaking, the AP doesn't need to feature the prisoners doing forced labor. It's not a critical part of Geb at all, even if that's what Geb's lore said before (they could just as easily have zombies and skeletons doing it, after all). Pretty harmless change. Not even sure it's a change.
The fact that there are living people in Geb bred as food for the ruling undeads is something very unique about the nation, and a logical consequence to its fundamental premises. So, do you think they will fix it with some sort of "artificial substitute for meat/blood", they will have "vegetarian vampires" Twilight-style, or they will just ask us not to think too hard about it?
In Starfinder, they grew flesh farms in Eox using necromancy. Undead didn't like eating them, but it was their version of fast food. We could be seeing a introduction of flesh farms in Geb in PF2, and Geb does have connections with Eox.
No slaves needed.
Just artificial magic flesh and blood grown in farms. Of course there is gonna be those evil undead that are anti-GMO.
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Are they going to remove the spell Dominate?
Legit question.