Labour laws

[tiddy ogg]

[quote="T-shirt"]

But besides that, almost hal of my characters are dumb laborers. They just work and work. No plans to gain power, influence or wealth (yet), just doing to tedious labor that's needed for the whole of Cantr's civilization to advance. If these characters could be controlled by others, there's no need to have any character operating machines or working on projects. Pretend there are sleepers everywhere and just let projects advance on their own.
I don't see it that way, but then, I suggested that sleepers, if and when they wake, can choose to stop that job. And it's only sleepers that it applies to. Anyone with a job will carry on with it. The only snag there is any idle time when that project is complete, but at that stage, in my scenario, you can quit the imposed job.
Also, if you have to be dragged to someone's project, it'll usually take 2 people at least to get you on their job.

[Mykey]

I love the idea of forced labor, there should be limits though. I`d suggest 3 "slaves" This is an idea, thats time is long past due.

[UloDeTero]

I don't think a character should be able to directly control another character. Even IRL, forced labour is not really 'forced' but rather the person is threatened or something, and decides to work in exchange for freedom or less beatings or whatever. It always requires some interaction.
Besides, it's unrealistic to have sleeping people working anyway, without them working involuntarily in their sleep.

On the other hand, it could be useful to have project queue, that the character could add projects to and which automatically starts the next project when the current one finishes.

It might also be interesting to have something like manacles, so that a prisoner must follow his captor, or the prisoner can be restrained anywhere, not just in a locked room.

[Mykey]

I don't think a character should be able to directly control another character. Even IRL, forced labour is not really 'forced' but rather the person is threatened or something, and decides to work in exchange for freedom or less beatings or whatever. It always requires some interaction.
Besides, it's unrealistic to have sleeping people working anyway, without them working involuntarily in their sleep.

On the other hand, it could be useful to have project queue, that the character could add projects to and which automatically starts the next project when the current one finishes.

It might also be interesting to have something like manacles, so that a prisoner must follow his captor, or the prisoner can be restrained anywhere, not just in a locked room.

Not 100% realistic, no......However very useful. And to free themselves all they have to do is wake up. In RL if you have enough balls too resist the men pointing crossbows at your head, I honor you.


It should have checks and balances like everything else. I do not agree, with not being able to leave the project. That`s silly, and this could just lead too fun with uncooperative slaves.

I`d like the ol` ball n chain myself.

[Antichrist_Online]

The dragging onto a project is a good idea, but once dragged they should act exactly like someone not dragged to the project, and have the same control, so idle people could be dragged to work, but could leave when awake.

[Nixit]

Well, is this even plausible from a programming standpoint? *looks to the Programming Department* It seems like it would need a revamping of some systems.

[Mafia Salad]

Sounds like this would result in free mule characters for whoever is the most awake in every town. I dissapprove. More ways that character can have control over other characters would be nice to spice things up, but I think this way of doing it would cause a lot more problems and whining then it's worth.

When even the way we have it now, where you have can lock someone in a building with no chance to escape is imbalanced, though at least they still have free will over whether they work on the project or not and you have to RP with them in order to enslave them.

Life is unbalanced then.

[Mykey]

Sounds like this would result in free mule characters for whoever is the most awake in every town. I dissapprove. More ways that character can have control over other characters would be nice to spice things up, but I think this way of doing it would cause a lot more problems and whining then it's worth.

When even the way we have it now, where you have can lock someone in a building with no chance to escape is imbalanced, though at least they still have free will over whether they work on the project or not and you have to RP with them in order to enslave them.

Life is unbalanced then.

I disagree....Forced labor could be balanced by work rates, naturally forced labor would not be the speediest method, and in the case of an active character. They shoud be able to resist/sabotage to slow it down more, which would like lead to death....

[Agar]

Forced labour works in real life because the labourers have something to lose - their life/health/sanity. A Cantr character is disposable. That's why forced labour does not work in Cantr. People can just make a new one when the current one's done for.

There are several different tangents being discussed here that affect how this idea may make it's way into cantr.

1: Needing to be dragged to the forced project.

2: Being unable to cancel the project.

3: Needing special tools to force the project (manacles, rope).

How those factors are figured in affect how powerful the idea is. If the persons need to be dragged to the project, then it's a visible event that requires the cooperation of several people, so it won't be a reward for just people who are online alot, but something that requires coordinated cooperation, and it would require a society and culture to create and allow that, as well as requiring the same society and culture to oppose it. Isn't that one of the things we want to create in cantr, as both a RPG and a society simulator?

If people are unable to cancel the project, then this becomes a reward for people who are online the most, as people who can only check in every few days are now slaves. Having some code to check "if the exit is clear", what ever that means, is unnessecary. From what I can understand, it would still allow someone who logs in to stop working and leave, so just let them stop working on the project and leave, just like normal.

Needing tools to force them to work would mean only estabilshed cultures that can make the tools would be able to enslave people. Then it loses it's power as any sort of RP tool and just makes it another way for the guy with the saber to bully people. People with whips, knives or just bare fists can make others work just by intimidating them, so requiring tools for slavery would eliminate it's appeal.

Also being considered is the morality of this idea, from R/L and game points of view.

1: Being able to control what others do

2: Encouraging RP by enslaving people

3: Being able to do this now through RP

Controling what another character can do is impossible right now except through RP, and there are so few RPers in the game any more, and the ones that would want to RP, don't want to RP loss of freedom and would rather go down in a blaze of "glory" fighting "oppression" than consider slavery. We can lock up people now and threaten them, but unless people check on them and the prisoners care they're locked up, all that happens is people sleep to death inside, or con thier way out, run and die. If people were able to be forced to work, then thier keepers would have to care for them or the workers would stop working. If you RP a heartless taskmaster who barely feeds his workers and/or whips them, the workers will start dropping, but if you have a more of a caring manager, who makes sure the workers are in good health, rested, clothed, well fed, and possibly even treats it as an indentured servitude, then people may even approach him to work off a debt.

This can be a good idea, it all depends on how things are decided. It would be very interesting to see how ProgD thinks about if this idea is even codable, wether or not it's feasible.

[Marian]

I think something like this would work if it was toned down a little, because my main problem with this is how overpowered it is.

Kreed is saying it'll increase RP and all that, but actually I think it'll do the opposite...from the original post it seems like he's thinking of new regimes and slave revolts, but hasn't thought of any of the really obvious uses for it.

Who always needs more workers? Business owners, who of course own a business. All they have to do is get someone in a back room with a job offer or whatever, and then they lock the door. (Cantrians all have this 'out of sight, out of mind' mentality, and nobody's going to notice that a newspawn goes into a building and never comes out.)

Since there's no way for the victim to leave the room, there's no way to cancel the project, so they just get put on one after another. This of course doesn't require any interaction or talking, just someone coming inside every few days to click a button, and the only way out of it is to starve or have a heart attack. People would rather kill off their chars then spend three whole days in jail...there's no way someone would play a slave no one's bothering to RP with longer than it takes to starve themself.

[Mafia Salad]

I don't mind slavery and making people work against their will. I actually think it's something missing in Cantr. It's the anybody making sleepers work that bugs me.

Special tools or multiple people should be needed. People with bone clubs shouldn’t be able to force people with crossbows to work for them. It's hard to say, this is something that would need a lot of thinking about how it will be used in game if it is implemented, but I can see a lot of positive factors in this.

[Kreed]

I would not like to have any of my characters imprisoned, forced labor or not.
But besides that, almost hal of my characters are dumb laborers. They just work and work.

Any of your characters can already be imprisioned, and if they are already dumb labourers I kind of fail to see your objection.

I don't think a character should be able to directly control another character. Even IRL, forced labour is not really 'forced' but rather the person is threatened or something, and decides to work in exchange for freedom or less beatings or whatever. It always requires some interaction.
Besides, it's unrealistic to have sleeping people working anyway, without them working involuntarily in their sleep.

The whole realism thing is a red herring, Cantr is'nt real and has some very unrealistic areas. I like this suggestion because to me it fits in with the flavour already present. As you say IRL there is always some interaction. This requires some interaction, working out if you can get away with what your about to do, setting up the project and passing it onto some poor chump. For those who would say thats not good enough consider dragging, IRl dragging someone would be acheived by grabbing hold of them or their clothing bracing yourself them using your strength and weight to move them, thats pretty interactive. In Cantr this is achieved by clicking a button and picking names from a list!

In RL if you have enough balls too resist the men pointing crossbows at your head, I honor you.

I don't think a character should be able to directly control another character.

This comes down to what I'm really trying to address, although it is possible to force someone to do something, its practically impossible when compared to how relativly easy it is IRL. In game I would guess that most people imprisioned are killed quickly or starved to death. I still think that will happen but maybe a little less given the new option of having them work. Even with this suggestion I think slavery will be fairly rare considering how pc Catarians seem to be. I also think that passing work onto your fellow townsmen while they sleep would be very frowned on and a lot of places would have bans against it.

3: Needing special tools to force the project (manacles, rope).

I think having anykind of prerequisite for tools restraints would be an awful idea. First it would make slavery something the richer players would have more access to, and this definately needs to be an equal opportunity thing. And secondly it would remove or restrict role play. If it requires manacles then it can only be played as slavery or punishment, that sounds limiting to me.
It would be like suggesting dragging requires a strop.


I dont think it would reward people who are online alot anymore than any other aspect of the game does. Most sleepers I look at are collecting potatoes or making wooden shields. And what if I do catch one empty handed, no harm no foul. They either wake up mad at me or they dont. Seems to ADD chances to role play to me.

I think the aurguments coming up on this thread support this idea be they for or against, Cantr needs conflict.
Conflict builds feelings and new ideas and partnerships.

[Agar]

The main thing I oppose, and pretty much everyone else doesn't like, is not being able to cancel the project. That feature would be coding in the removal of free will, eliminate any RP, and make this not slavery, but mere automation.

If someone is locked in a room long enough, with food to eat, they will eventually get so bored that they will be going crazy enough to do something, anything, just to have something to do. We don't need to code in something to keep people from stopping working, they would eventually decide to do so on thier own.

[The Sociologist]

Very bad plan. It smells like automation.

Thank you.

[Pie]

to defend my machene deal... that you need something to force people to do something... is the fact that you either have to be rich, or you have to have alot of influence in cantr to do this, nomater how you look at it. If you make it a dragging thing, than you will need influence. If you make it a tool thing, than you will need to be rich.

Oh, and irl, the rich always dominated the poor unles t is in a sociaty wich is a diplomatic one, and even then, there is still domination between the rich and the poor. in cantr right now, the rich always dominate the poor, unles it is in a sociaty wich is a diplomatic one, and even then, there is domination between the rich and the poor. It's unavoidable. So i suggest this to make it more intensified, thus making more outbreaks of outrage by cantarians, thus making more R.P, thus making cantr a better game.*smirks*


anyway, dragging is good to. I just want a way to do this, caus without it, ALL MY SLAVES WILL DIE!!!! DO IT BEFORE I MAKE YOUR CARACTERS DIE OF SLAVERY TO!!!