MAX cost for a slave in old Conan RPG was 300 silver.  That was for a pre-ordered custom educated, noble blooded, attractive female.  I think the prices may be off.

Quote from: oggsmash;1129394MAX cost for a slave in old Conan RPG was 300 silver.  That was for a pre-ordered custom educated, noble blooded, attractive female.  I think the prices may be off.

Greetings!

Interesting, Oggsmash! That is why I made the thread, at least one topic of inquiry, as to the prices of slaves. Do you use the prices from Conan in your campaign?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: oggsmash;1129394MAX cost for a slave in old Conan RPG was 300 silver.  That was for a pre-ordered custom educated, noble blooded, attractive female.  I think the prices may be off.

Remember, we're basing these prices on the value of a day's labor, which in SHARK's world is 10 sp/day. That's rather high, for instance 10 time the prices in the AD&D 1st edition DMG (bearer/porter 1 sp/day). That means, in an an AD&D campaign, the cost of a prime age male would be about 2,500 sp... or is 125 gp. Which sounds like a lot less, doesn't it?

No idea how that compares to whichever of the Conan RPGs you're referring to.

Quote from: Jason Coplen;1129281I'm going to be that guy and ask - why? Wouldn't that be more of a cultural thing? Wouldn't some good PCs not think poorly of slavery?  I barely remember a series I read as a teen where the PCs (best term for them) were all about freeing slaves, but they initially came from our world and had our sensibilities.

Chattel slavery and indentured servitude, for purposes other than punishment and/or containment for violent intransigent psychopaths, is non-good because it violates the dignity of the human person and it dehumanizes the slave-owner, since, given human nature, having total control over other humans encourages predation on them.

Further, slavery negates the possibility of choosing between good and evil, the possibility of which allows people to either grow in perfection or fall into corruption, and it is this freedom which characterizes properly human acts.

Obviously, more primitive societies have not had the time to think through the ramifications of their actions, thus their level of culpability varies and must be adjudicated by the game master based on a variety of factors. This is not license to re-define what is good, but rather a distinction between neutral and evil.

The institution of slavery served important functions in primitive cultures. It acted as a prison system, it mobilized low-IQ individuals who would otherwise consume vital resources at a time when mass starvation was a real possibility, it asserted control over fractious individuals in a society which lacked a modern police force, and it served as a system of enculturation for foreign peoples, whether introduced to society by being captured in war, or whatever, thereby preventing them from destabilizing society.

As society develops more sophisticated institutions, piece by piece slavery becomes increasingly antiquated, becoming more destructive than constructive.

Roman society was shockingly violent by modern standards, even during the best of times. Slave revolts were common. During the slave revolt known as the Third Servile War, 50,000 combatants died, not including the 11,000 who were crucified. In our own society, slavery ended in the bloodiest war in American history. The inaccessibility to justice causes despair in a population, and it is this fundamental failure of Ancient culture which lead to the development of Christianity.

As a reminder for translation purposes, the modern theological definition of evil is not that it is a thing unto itself, but that it is the absence of good. Thus the neutral and evil alignments both translate into the real world as evil, the difference being the level of culpability. Those of neutral alignment will commit evil acts when they are provoked into doing so, or where it is pragmatic, and this characterizes the majority of human history. Whereas those of good alignment consciously resist committing evil acts, provocation notwithstanding.

So, slavery is not evil because it does something, it is evil because it lacks something.

It is perfectly natural for slave owners to rape attractive slaves, because that's just human nature. It is perfectly natural for slave owners to brutalize and possibly kill slaves who make them angry. There is simply nothing in slavery that encourages the betterment of the human person.

To think of this in modern legal terms, if you kill someone for having an affair with your wife, a natural response to being provoked, you will normally be charged with second degree murder. That such an act might seem perfectly reasonable in other cultures would not be a viable defense since it is assumed that human rights are universal regardless of whether they are practiced universally.

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union committed acts of predatory violence, including slavery, that were fundamentally no different than the actions of Ancient and Medieval states, aside from the industrial scale of their acts, made possible by modern industry. After WWII, the world came to a consensus on the nature of human rights. These ideas were not new, having existed for thousands of years, only the global scope of the consensus was new. Which is to say that people did not have a different notion of what was good thousands of years ago -- people still hated injustice, but there was nothing they could do about it; predation was rampant. States such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which in the Ancient world would have been considered a stabilizing and civilizing influence, are now universally regarded as a pariahs.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1129478It is perfectly natural for slave owners to rape attractive slaves, because that's just human nature. It is perfectly natural for slave owners to brutalize and possibly kill slaves who make them angry. There is simply nothing in slavery that encourages the betterment of the human person.

In other words, without God telling them to behave people are naturally evil, and anybody doesn't believe in God is an amoral monster.

I find that an abhorrent point of view. Worse than slavery, in many ways.

Quote from: Pat;1129479In other words, without God telling them to behave people are naturally evil, and anybody doesn't believe in God is an amoral monster.

I find that an abhorrent point of view. Worse than slavery, in many ways.

Agreed.  The statement you quoted immediately brought this to mind, with the minor tweak of "what's to stop me from raping my slaves all I want?":

Ethics and morals are not hardwired into human brains. Anyone who disagrees with me should go watch a class of kindergartners or preschoolers sometime. You have to teach that shit, whether it's the Christian 'golden rule', the Wiccan rede, or just 'don't be a dick!'.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1129554Ethics and morals are not hardwired into human brains. Anyone who disagrees with me should go watch a class of kindergartners or preschoolers sometime. You have to teach that shit, whether it's the Christian 'golden rule', the Wiccan rede, or just 'don't be a dick!'.

That's false. If you show babies a triangle helping a circle up a hill, and a square hindering the circle climbing the hill, and then give each baby a choice between a triangle and square, an overwhelming majority will pick the triangle. Studies of early cognitive development have shown the blank slate theory is incorrect; while certain moral traits are learned, while others are innate. Though it's also true there are few absolutes -- it's more the brain is wired with certain tendencies, than the brain is wired to always end up at certain outcomes. If you want an exhaustive look at how human think, using the cutting edge of behavioral and moral psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and neurology consider reading Behave by Robert Sapolsky.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1129554Ethics and morals are not hardwired into human brains. Anyone who disagrees with me should go watch a class of kindergartners or preschoolers sometime. You have to teach that shit, whether it's the Christian 'golden rule', the Wiccan rede, or just 'don't be a dick!'.

It's been proven with experiments with mice and rats that the fundamentals for our morals and ethics ARE hardwired since way back in the evolutionary tree. Meaning millions of years ago rodents and humans common ancestor probably had that same wiring.

Quote from: Jason Coplen;1129281I'm going to be that guy and ask - why? Wouldn't that be more of a cultural thing? Wouldn't some good PCs not think poorly of slavery?  I barely remember a series I read as a teen where the PCs (best term for them) were all about freeing slaves, but they initially came from our world and had our sensibilities.

That would have been Guardian's of the Flame books.

I was just re-reading them the other day.

I really like that series but my favorites are the last three, Not Exactly the Three Musketeers and so forth.

Kindly old Tunnels & Trolls had the sale base set by attributes (5th 1979, 3.7).  10 gp per total points, with premiums added for charisma attribute points.  So, ST 10, IQ 5, CON 10, Dex 9 = 340 gp.  Slave don't have a luck attribute.  Charisma is only there if paid for, additional 10 gp per point (CHA 18 180 gp base).  Usual buy and sell rules apply.  Slaves may be male or female.

Quote from: Arnwolf666;1129381Al-qadim setting listed prices for slaves if that helps. But generally in my setting they go for 5 GP. skilled artisans And the like can go for much more, up to several hundred GP. But Al-qadim details that very well.

Arabian adventures page 92 gives prices for slaves. They start at around 15-30 GP

Yes, Al-Qadim had rules and background content.  Most cities had slaves, as I recall.  The City of Brass that was made for Al-Qadim had an inter-dimensional sourced one.

I was just reading 1st edition Talislanta (The Chronicles of Talislanta, Bard 1987) just last night, and there was interesting (somewhat amusing) game content for this, which was the reason the thread caught my eye. I prefer Talislanta's approach for something like this, where such are built around the various elements of the setting, rather than a set rule. Here are some excepts about Batreans that cover such things as relates to them.

"Male and female Batreans bear so little resemblance to each other that they seem to be separate species: the males are huge, slope-shouldered, hairy, and remarkably ugly.  Slow and ponderous, they posses the manners of swine, and fight among each other with regularity.  The Batrean females, on the other hand, are engaging creatures, slender and lovely beyond compare.  Their movements are graceful, and their manner of speech is charming and at times eloquent."

"For many years, entrepreneuring sea-farers have risked the perils of ocean travel to purchase Batrean females, who bring exorbitant prices as concubines in lands such as Zandu, Arim, Faradun, and Quan. Though Batrean males demand as much as 1,000 gold lumens for even the most modest females, their value in foreign lands may exceed five or even ten times this figure."

"As for the Batrean females themselves, few evince any great sadness at being separated from their boorish, slovenly mates. On the contrary; some have been known to help pay for their release with coins pilfered from the hidden treasure caches of their husbands." (The Chronicles of Talislanta  Bard 1987, 12).

It's at this point that I recommend checking out Grim Jim's Tales of Gor RPG.