Slavery - Fix/Add-on

[Chinsei]

okay, so...i recently went into a town sold one slave. bought 2 more.

one of the slaves i bought joined my squad. the other was tagged as 'friendly ' just followed me out of town an ran off.... now to some degree of altruism , if i could state that was my intent i'd be fine with that i don't mind the whole 'abolitionist buying slaves to free' them idea..although i find it a silly way to end slavery. since if the slave taker is making money from owning the slave then that just prompts him to take more slaves...but anyway!

and i know this has been suggested many times. but we should be able to enslave people since one reason we can't kill has been stated is that "if you can do it to them, they can do it to you" - to which a lot of people in the community would be fine with that from what i've seen.(sometimes it beats laying there for 20 mins(or 5 mins if ya fast forward) waiting to die... but moving on >.>

which using the "if you can do it, they can do it" arguement. if the AI can take my people and enslave them , then it stands to reason i should be able to enslave them . if they are unwilling slaves then i should be able to put shackles on them an give them orders , while they wait for opprotune moments to try and escape. ideally even willing slaves could be kept in this manner an not have to join your party unless you want them to.

this i think adds to the immersion of the game , and if you want to play a slave trader you should imo be able to. both in opening your own slave shop , by adding a tag to cages to tag which prisoners you want to sell, an which you dont, since sometimes you want ot keep prisoners for more practical reasons such as skill training, or experiments. it would also allow you to take someone as a 'slave' which would allow them to walk under escort with your group instead of forcing you to carry them to the slave trader . after all who would really want to carry a +100lb person across a desert when you can force the person to walk on their own? i know a lot of people use carrying someone to build up strength but from a RP perspective and a speed perspective. carrying someone tends to just slow you down . and add undue hinderance to your character whose forced to carry this person who is for some reaon no restrained. because we can't put shackles onto them. because when we unshackle slaves the shackles disappear. which i don't think they should i think they should remain an you should be able to forcefully enslave someone.

as for the Fix. when buying a 'slave' from captivity. i don't think they should get a choice in joining or not. they definitely shouldn't be able to just run off after i paid 1k to 'own' them. now some people might be fine with this because its a good deed. but when i buy a Shek i expect the shek to do as he is told! up until the day he betrays me an kills me in my sleep!...i would have just knocked him out , taken him prisoner an chained him to a pole till he agrees to join but alas... vanilla wise this doesn't seem to be a feature. i know there are a few mods that do this but..they don't seem to have much criteria on whether or not it works.

the main way i think it should be determined of course would be how hungry they get while chained to the pole. and how likely it is someone might save them.

i know that the current stance on this is "no" but if Kenshi is supposed to be a world where your just another person. then it stands with in reason that you would potentially follow the roles of the Slavers just as much as any other role.

[lucidmadness]

I bet it wouldn't be too hard to add dialogue commands to the fcs that commands npcs to do things for you, but the trick is having them still be yours and doing your commands after an import.

However with a 256 player limit mod there really is no point in worrying about not enough manual labor.

Based on the fact they named a dialogue package pro slaver asshole I'm really not sure they want us to be the pro slaver assholes, but RPing a slaver asshole is your choice. I would rather take the iron overmind route since enslaving people as a human being is one of the lowest points in human history I'd rather not replicate in character.

[Surprisekitty]

I agree with the OP. It's always puzzled me as to why we can't own slaves in the game. It's really immersion breaking to go to the slave market, buy a slave, watch them run off, and not be able to do anything about it. The "if you can do it, they can do it to you" argument never made much sense to me either.

Kenshi is a difficult, unforgiving game, and it seems to me that a lot of the community enjoys Kenshi in large part due to that. Adding something to make it even more difficult and unforgiving doesn't seem like a bad idea, especially if it goes towards improving immersion.

That said, I hope that either a good mod comes out to improve the slavery system, or the developer changes his mind in the future.

[Sol Lignum]

Bloody hell, let's take that horse out of its' grave and just beat it more, why wouldn't we?

Why the mere fact that we can already own anywhere from 30 to whatever-is-moddable squadmates isn't enough fo you? Why you want your squadmates suffer any more humiliation then working for food and (hopefully) equipment. How is having them mostly mindless and derived from any form of free will is much diffirent from slavery is beyond my understanding. So how is it?

[bk3000]

I bet it wouldn't be too hard to add dialogue commands to the fcs that commands npcs to do things for you, but the trick is having them still be yours and doing your commands after an import.

However with a 256 player limit mod there really is no point in worrying about not enough manual labor.

Based on the fact they named a dialogue package pro slaver asshole I'm really not sure they want us to be the pro slaver assholes, but RPing a slaver asshole is your choice. I would rather take the iron overmind route since enslaving people as a human being is one of the lowest points in human history I'd rather not replicate in character.

I agree with all of this. I see people who want the slave thing and I think... from a gameplay perspective, how is it different to possess a slave over a regular squad member? You don't have to pay them regular wages... just don't let them starve. They'll do whatever you say from fighting to mining. Where does a player-owned-slave differ? It says "Slave" and that's it.

Or maybe they try to escape you? Well then that's only a step backwards. Doesn't seem desirable to me.

Much like player-side cannibalism, mods have this covered anyhow.

[Hatsune_Neko]

Slavery was added to be against the player and add something to the game.
though the Dev is not against adding it into the game for the player, He intended only for the NPC so that you have something else to do. like mount rescue missions.

As the Dev mentioned, adding it for the player would be not easy, for new triggers would need to be added, new dialog, What happens if you enslave someone important?
and the list goes on.

The Dev has already thought it through and for now , players owning slaves will not be added due to the nature and complexity of adding it into the game would be. sicne only the part for NPCs is in game.

[Vandala]

I see people who want the slave thing and I think... from a gameplay perspective, how is it different to possess a slave over a regular squad member?

Very different actually. It's the difference between pretending its in the game, and it actually being a system in the game you can play with.

You can't honestly see the characters you have under your control as slaves, it would require you to turn a blind eye to how you got them in the first place (usually "bought" from a bar). It also means there is no fundamental difference between slaves and free people, since there are no systems in place to differentiate them, we can pretend all we like but its not actually in the game, which is rather weird because it contradicts the lore. Besides, this ought to be a harsh world, yet somehow we are forced to wear kid gloves when it comes to slavery and play pretend instead.

I mean, you can pretend that some of your characters are slaves, and pretend that they have uprisings and such but that's not good enough for some of us. Besides, even the people who pretend can't do this properly, since you can't have your own characters fight each other, so you can't even pretend an uprising properly. (not that I'm asking for in-fighting btw, this is just an example)

Plus there's a host of things that just don't feel right, like being able to "buy" slaves but not actually being able to buy slaves because the fuckers just run off if they feel like it. XD It's fine for people that want to be nice guys and free people, but what about the assholes who really are looking for a slave to own? It adds flavor to the game, and not just for the asshole players who want to own slaves, right now there is no moral dilemma, you can't choose to own slaves anyway so there is never any moral choice to make.

Its stuff like this that makes the game feel rather inadequate as an RPG. There is a limit to how much we ought to pretend, having proper systems in play makes for a far better experience.

[Sol Lignum]

Very different actually. It's the difference between pretending its in the game, and it actually being a system in the game you can play with. (...)

If it plays the same - why bother adding anything?

There is a diffirence between free people and slaves, you don't tell them what to do unless you buy them. They just aimlessly sit in the bar, sure, but they still has some form of free AI.

Good point on buying slaves, but since we already can own several dozens of people who'll follow us no questions asked, i guess the only point to buy slaves is to free them.

Kenshi is nonconventional RPG, mind you, it's also an RTS and a town builder. An indie game can't be perfect in every little aspect, especially when it has several levels of approximation simultaneously. It can though, but be prepared to wait 20 years for it to be finished

Honestly, aside from roleplaying, slavery mechanics isn't much diffirent from what we have now with squads, gameplay-wise. They can't riot and they're not chained, but they still have to work for you and are unable to quit by themselves. It's serfdom, if you like.

[Vandala]

If it plays the same - why bother adding anything?

There is a diffirence between free people and slaves, you don't tell them what to do unless you buy them. They just aimlessly sit in the bar, sure, but they still has some form of free AI.

Good point on buying slaves, but since we already can own several dozens of people who'll follow us no questions asked, i guess the only point to buy slaves is to free them.

Kenshi is nonconventional RPG, mind you, it's also an RTS and a town builder. An indie game can't be perfect in every little aspect, especially when it has several levels of approximation simultaneously. It can though, but be prepared to wait 20 years for it to be finished

Honestly, aside from roleplaying, slavery mechanics isn't much diffirent from what we have now with squads, gameplay-wise. They can't riot and they're not chained, but they still have to work for you and are unable to quit by themselves. It's serfdom, if you like.

That's the whole thing though, it wouldn't play the same. If slavery was a properly implemented system then your slaves would not just be more characters under your control, there would be significant differences.

We don't really "own" people right now, we have characters that are under our control, Player Characters, we play as them, they are us. This is different from owning slaves. Slaves would be NPC's that would be forced to work for you with mechanics in play that make it clear they don't want to work for you, there would be risk of rebellion. The way you recruit them would be different as well, slaves could be a far more plentiful source of labor if you could turn any NPC into a slave. It's also unlikely you would even truly care if you lost a few slave NPC's to a raid, just do a raid yourself and get some back.

I know Kenshi is unconventional, that's what made me interested in it in the first place, but this has nothing to do with that, this problem is a glaring inconsistency between gameplay and lore.

[Sol Lignum]

I'm trying to imagine it, but aside from "rebelions" and "unwillfull labour" and "easier to obtain" i can't see any significant diffirence between hypothetical slavery and the current followers system. It appears the same to me, because in its core it is the same thing, with couple of extra details.

Besides, if players would be able to enslave, or cannibalise for that matter, that'd be a nice little precedent for all kinds of lawsuits. Of course, Lo-Fi =\= R*, and no one would probably even bother... But you really can't do something potentially triggering and just hope it won't fire.

[bk3000]

I see people who want the slave thing and I think... from a gameplay perspective, how is it different to possess a slave over a regular squad member?

Very different actually. It's the difference between pretending its in the game, and it actually being a system in the game you can play with.

You can't honestly see the characters you have under your control as slaves, it would require you to turn a blind eye to how you got them in the first place (usually "bought" from a bar). It also means there is no fundamental difference between slaves and free people, since there are no systems in place to differentiate them, we can pretend all we like but its not actually in the game, which is rather weird because it contradicts the lore. Besides, this ought to be a harsh world, yet somehow we are forced to wear kid gloves when it comes to slavery and play pretend instead.

I mean, you can pretend that some of your characters are slaves, and pretend that they have uprisings and such but that's not good enough for some of us. Besides, even the people who pretend can't do this properly, since you can't have your own characters fight each other, so you can't even pretend an uprising properly. (not that I'm asking for in-fighting btw, this is just an example)

Plus there's a host of things that just don't feel right, like being able to "buy" slaves but not actually being able to buy slaves because the fuckers just run off if they feel like it. XD It's fine for people that want to be nice guys and free people, but what about the assholes who really are looking for a slave to own? It adds flavor to the game, and not just for the asshole players who want to own slaves, right now there is no moral dilemma, you can't choose to own slaves anyway so there is never any moral choice to make.

Its stuff like this that makes the game feel rather inadequate as an RPG. There is a limit to how much we ought to pretend, having proper systems in play makes for a far better experience.

Look again at what you're responding to. I underlined and made it bold. You're talking about your imagination here, not game play. Those are very different perspectives. While I do appreciate the importance of details that affect immersion, it still isn't gameplay.

Now if this bothers you so much... as I've mentioned just download one of the mods that address player-side slavery and cannibalism.

[Vandala]

Besides, if players would be able to enslave, or cannibalise for that matter, that'd be a nice little precedent for all kinds of lawsuits. Of course, Lo-Fi =\= R*, and no one would probably even bother... But you really can't do something potentially triggering and just hope it won't fire.

Considering both subjects are already a part of the game anyway I think that ship has long since sailed.

[Sol Lignum]

Considering both subjects are already a part of the game anyway I think that ship has long since sailed.

Absolutely, and even in this state it can still cause issues. It's a russian roulette. And handing these options to players is like loading every second chamber.