Middle Men and Power Vacuums

Questions and suggestions about the rules of the roleplay and how things work

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Re: Middle Men and Power Vacuums

Postby L`aquera on Sun Sep 25, 2016 9:23 pm

I can get aboard what SB is sussing out to be sure. That would be, most interesting.
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Re: Middle Men and Power Vacuums

Postby Farvel on Sun Sep 25, 2016 9:23 pm

Joytoy wrote:Can everyone else be clear that I never said 100% to take away a player's right to enslave without a slaver?

I'm sorry, but you did say it. There's just no way this line can be read in any other way:
#1. Anyone not a Slaver cannot 'enslave' another character.

Then you read the responses, realized your suggestion was unpopular and modified it accordingly - kudos to that. We can now start a different discussion based on your reformed suggestion rather than the original.

But please have the honesty of not pretending you never said it, it's insulting people's intelligence. :roll:
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Re: Middle Men and Power Vacuums

Postby Shogeton on Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:05 pm

Giving this a month to cool down, I've been thinking about 'the flesh trade' myself. I do enjoy it as one of the expression of slavery, while at the same time acknowledging that for the most people, the catching and training of a slave is very much part of their RP, and there is no amount of money or flattery that will get them to use a slaver. And that is fine and well and good. And, for the most part, the private capturing of a personal slave works very fine, and we should definitely NOT make it harder or more expensive for that to happen for the sake of the slavers. SB himself said it, so that part of the suggestions I feel are non-starters.

So, instead, let's look at the slaver, and what can be done for that. I'm particularly intrigued by the concept of the slaver being allowed to 'rent out' their merchant slaves, both as a way to 'recoup investments' and of course to allow interested parties to sample the merchandise before buying it. It also adds a very nice aspect of objectification and humiliation. So giving slavers the solo right to do that allows slavers very much a niche, and would encourage it. Especially combined with a doubling of the 6 to 12 weeks. I very much applaud that suggestion from Tawny. Especially if we look that SB ponders the posisbility of slavers long term 'renting out' of merchant slaves. If a slaver can only hold a slave for 6 weeks, than renting a slave out for two weeks is already a third of their time. While I can understand that we don't want slavers to hold their merchant slaves for unlimited time, considering the amount they pay to KEEP their merchant collar is equal to what you'd pay to hold a slave in the first place, I'm not even sure there is a really good reason to put a time limit on it?

Then there are the auctions. I guess I can see why they'd be somewhat difficult to encourage. People are wary of ending up in what should be a long term RP without really being able to 'feel it out'. Since by definition, going into an auction, you don't know who you'll end up with, especially for the slave player, but even the owner player has no guarantee they'll get the slave they want. On the other hand, that is also its strength. It allows players to mix it up with players they are entirely unfamiliar with, and might create great RP opportunities. So how to encourage this?

For one, considering Auctions are a thing Stormbringer wants to encourage, it's actually discouraged by current policy. The ISA takes a 10% of the price from the top (20% if a non-slaver sells them) and if the slaver is unlucky and nobody wants to buy it at his asking price (or at all) he still has to pay a fee of 10% from that asking price. A slaver would have to be really sure he'd have a really good buyer to take the chance to go to an auction, and if you're sure you have a really good buyer, why not sell directly and keep that 10% for yourself? I propose those fees are dropped. In fact, if we really want to encourage this, give people that buy a slave from the auction a bonus. Also, going back to Ehl's 'teapot vendor' analogy, what about a 'money back' guarantee. If you buy a slave from an auction, and it doesn't work out, the money is refunded. (potentially the slaver gets a second chance for an auction? Because it does mean the Slaver is left kind of in the cold if that happens and the slave is just uncollared) OOC-ly we do this because we want to encourage slavers and auctions, without getting in the way of players who just want to catch their own slaves, IC-ly, the ISA wants to encourage the slave trade, which is very much one of the economic staples of the Empire.
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Re: Middle Men and Power Vacuums

Postby Farvel on Tue Nov 01, 2016 9:48 pm

Shogeton wrote:For one, considering Auctions are a thing Stormbringer wants to encourage, it's actually discouraged by current policy. The ISA takes a 10% of the price from the top (20% if a non-slaver sells them) and if the slaver is unlucky and nobody wants to buy it at his asking price (or at all) he still has to pay a fee of 10% from that asking price. A slaver would have to be really sure he'd have a really good buyer to take the chance to go to an auction, and if you're sure you have a really good buyer, why not sell directly and keep that 10% for yourself? I propose those fees are dropped. In fact, if we really want to encourage this, give people that buy a slave from the auction a bonus. Also, going back to Ehl's 'teapot vendor' analogy, what about a 'money back' guarantee. If you buy a slave from an auction, and it doesn't work out, the money is refunded. (potentially the slaver gets a second chance for an auction? Because it does mean the Slaver is left kind of in the cold if that happens and the slave is just uncollared) OOC-ly we do this because we want to encourage slavers and auctions, without getting in the way of players who just want to catch their own slaves, IC-ly, the ISA wants to encourage the slave trade, which is very much one of the economic staples of the Empire.


I like this. 8)
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Re: Middle Men and Power Vacuums

Postby xmastersethx on Wed Nov 02, 2016 5:46 am

Wow, i didn't realize this was a thread until someone pointed it out to me today.

I'm Carthad's player, and yes my MB name has nothing to do with my character's name. It's from a long time ago.

I've been a "slaver" for about as long as I've been playing the game, and have taken a handful of merch collars that became personal slaves, and trained Merch collars and sold them privately (Aru and Tolin come to mind immediately).

I'm with SB on basically everything that he said. What i've found to be the most prohibitive portion of the merch collar is the time constraint. The 6 week maximum means that if one RL even takes you away for a week or so, you've lost a lot of your potential time in training a slave. Also if you have other ongoing storylines, you need constantly say "Sorry we can't play that, I only have two more weeks to train a slave."

I can say that i would be -much- more liberal with my merch collars if I knew I had time to develop the RP and the slave to a point where the character would be comfortable selling them.

I'll let all of you work out the auction portion stuff though, seems like an awful lot of math for a dull witted necromancer.
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