My Players Want to Free a Slave

[Redopz]

So my players are currently in a city that keeps dwarves as slaves. This has not gone over well with my players (especially the dwarf). They want to start a rebellion of sorts, and lead the slaves to freedom. However, I'm a newer DM with many juggling way to many balls here as it is (cultists abound, a war with giants looms, a plague has struck, and the king has a secret pact with the BBEG. I may have been to ambitious). I've tried to steer them away from a full-on revolution, but they're really stuck on this idea.

As a compromise I was thinking about letting them help one dwarf, a blacksmith they've grown to like. They asked the king to help free him already, however the law states that only the owner can grant his freedom. In my next session I believe the king will attempt to buy the dwarf's freedom, but I don't want it to be that easy. The owner is quite rich already, and needs the dwarf to keep the contract he has supplying the city's guards. I was thinking the players may do something to lower his quality of life, so he needs the money, though I'm at a loss of ideas as to how they could do that. I'm also open to other suggestions that involve the players working to free this slave.

Thanks in advance for reading this and any helpful comment.

[hymer]

Maybe you could read them some chapters from ASoIaF? Specifically the ones where Daenerys frees a bunch of slaves, only to have most of them die of hunger, and the survivors left in a highly unenviable situation.
If it isn't that kind of campaign, I'd advocate giving the players what they want. Put all that other stuff on hold for three sessions, or however long it takes, and recast it in the post-rebellion world.

[R.Shackleford]

Does the blacksmith want to be free? If slavery is all they known then freedom can be both scary and a foreign concept to them.

We like to romanticize that everyone wants freedom and hates their captives but it is more of a gray area due to humans being illogical and irrational at times. If treated well they may not want to leave.

Out of game just tell them you are new and can't handle that much work load.

[Temperjoke]

What you might want to consider is tying in what your players want to one of the other situations your currently have in play at the moment.

1. "Cultists abound" - The blacksmith's owner could be a cultist, the revelation of which could potentially ruin him and cause the seizure of his property, including slaves.

2. "A war with Giants looms" - if there is the potential for war, it's not unfeasible that the king would confiscate resources in a push to prepare the city, such as skilled slaves. It's not entirely inconceivable that the king could offer freedom to slaves in exchange for fighting for the kingdom. Such a thing happened in the Civil War.

3. "A plague has struck" - If the players still want to free a large quantity of slaves, they could fake the plague running rampant through some of the groups of slaves that work in close quarters, such as miners, with the idea of forcing the "infected" out of the city to preserve the general health of the population.

4. "the King has a secret pact with the BBEG" - I'm not sure how this could be tied in, especially if the players don't know about it, but if they do, they could either blackmail the king or attempt to cause a revolution with the king's enemies, utilizing a ready source of dissatisfied people who are ripe to revolt against the current order, the slaves. Timing a coup inside the palace, while outside the slaves are distracting the troops in the city could earn the slaves a chance at freedom, either because the new political order rewards them for their assistance, or they seize the chance to flee while things are in chaos.

[Redopz]

Thanks for the helpful advice guys. I especially like making the owner a cultist. It's a good way to let them free the dwarf while uncovering more about the cult.

As a side-note the cult is run by the BBEG, the plague and war are his machinations as well, all just to get the well-meaning king to seek aid for the BBEG. Not that this really adds anything to the situation, but we've been playing this plot for 4 weeks, and it's going to be at least another 4 before I can reveal everything. If nothing else, this experience has given me a newfound respect for DM's and their ability to keep secrets.

[Temperjoke]

Thanks for the helpful advice guys. I especially like making the owner a cultist. It's a good way to let them free the dwarf while uncovering more about the cult.

As a side-note the cult is run by the BBEG, the plague and war are his machinations as well, all just to get the well-meaning king to seek aid for the BBEG. Not that this really adds anything to the situation, but we've been playing this plot for 4 weeks, and it's going to be at least another 4 before I can reveal everything. If nothing else, this experience has given me a newfound respect for DM's and their ability to keep secrets.

Okay, so you don't have that many things up in the air, it's just one big thing with lots of tangles and knots. :smallbiggrin: This is a good opportunity for you to lead in to the players discovering the over-arching plot. If they're not satisfied with just freeing the blacksmith, you could expand it to reveal that a number of the prominent slave owners are also cultists.

[Laserlight]

a newfound respect for DM's and their ability to keep secrets.

It's not keeping secrets that's hard, it's getting the players to notice the clues and figure out the secrets that's tough.

[lunaticfringe]

Have the group do a few revolution style side quests to start/solidify a dwarven resistance. Once established, have the dwarves say "Thanks! This is Dwarf business outsiders, we got this." I imagine Racist Dwarfs would be common as more became free, if they weren't before (unlikely).

[MBControl]

I want to suggest some more straight forward ideas. If you feel that you have a lot on your plate, these may be simple solutions, while seeming rational.

A couple simple solutions, or paths to consider. If the Slave owner doesn't need money, but rather the contract to be fulfilled, you could simply allow the party to find an alternate way to provide weapons and armor.

A debt of honor. If the owner is not all out bad, he may see the need to repay a debt of honor. Put him in a life threatening, or comprised position. Your party can step in to aid him, under the condition that he frees the slave.

There is one other option I like. It's not as clear cut, and will make your party think hard about things. Have the Owner agree on the condition that the party provide him another blacksmith to become his slave. Will they place another person into slavery to save somebody they've come to care about? It's a big moral choice, and if all goes well, the poor soul they enslave may become an enemy in the future. He may hunt them down for revenge, after being forced into live a life of slavery.

Somebody previously mentioned that the slave may not want to be, or is scared to be freed. I like this idea, and might play it a little different. He may want to be freed, but he would carry over learned behaviors, and kinks that he has a hard time letting go of as a free man. For example, many prisoners of war, or long term captives cannot sleep on a bed, and prefer the floor. Some even have to sleep in closets. He would likely be submissive to anybody, and would be very un-trusting.

[Knaight]

Go with the revolution. That's what the players have keyed on, that's what they're trying to do, and while you can resist it and keep trying to go to your existing primary plot, it appears that what these particular characters would rather be doing is staging a revolution to free the slaves. It's a complex situation with a number of sides, they're up against an established status quo with a great deal of power, and it's generally a big problem - it's the sort of thing that will generally take several sessions to resolve. So, spend the next several sessions on that, and let there be an arc about what happens when the PCs try to free the slaves. Maybe they succeed, maybe they fail, maybe there is a TPK and that's the end of the campaign. Regardless, run with it.

Yes, the cult will likely get stronger during this time. So will the PCs though, so all this does is delay the conflict with the cult, and probably escalate it a bit. The looming war with the Giants will either be looming a lot closer at that point, or have started. That's not a problem, the world goes on in the background while the PCs are engaged in this struggle, and if they come through it successful they can then turn their efforts towards the things you planned, instead of the part that caught you by surprise.