COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
How many of these types of :signed: contracts would work.
  1. Slave- This contract would be signed by a captured person, someone who signs in return for you not killing them that basically requires that they are yours to do with as you please for life. Presumably these would be war/rival captures who would be out of favor with the king and courts.

    Allowing you to enforce these contracts with death as the courts would not be willing to convict.

  2. Indentured servant- This contract is you set a wage, they set a price that they would like to borrow, they then work for free until they pay off their debts for your wages. Abandonment is considered theft, and can be dealt with either by the court, or if the kingdom does not favor indentured servants by yourself.

  3. Employee- The simplest of the contracts, you set a wage, they work for you, you pay them.

  4. Term- This is a loyalty contract. You agree to be under the control of someone one or some group for a set amount of time. You surrender all right to the court, and are under their rules.

    Think of this as something a guild might use.

Which ones do you think would be doable and which ones would you be willing and not willing to sign?


The Keshi family, is intend on bringing democracy and economic stability to Elyria.

3/18/2019 12:06:36 AM #1

Posted By Sackeshi at

  1. Slave- This contract would be signed by a captured person, someone who signs in return for you not killing them that basically requires that they are yours to do with as you please for life. Presumably these would be war/rival captures who would be out of favor with the king and courts.

Wouldn't work. It requires their consent, as slaves are not in game. You can't just "Kill them because they disagree/dont do what you want" in CoE.

  1. Indentured servant- This contract is you set a wage, they set a price that they would like to borrow, they then work for free until they pay off their debts for your wages. Abandonment is considered theft, and can be dealt with either by the court, or if the kingdom does not favor indentured servants by yourself.

This one could work as long as its agreed upon.

  1. Employee- The simplest of the contracts, you set a wage, they work for you, you pay them.

This one would work, it'll be in game, no way it wont xD

  1. Term- This is a loyalty contract. You agree to be under the control of someone one or some group for a set amount of time. You surrender all right to the court, and are under their rules.

This one would make sense because there will likely be guards and stuff you can set this for or mercs etc.


3/18/2019 12:56:15 AM #2

Slave -- not sure. In real life, what you describe wouldn't count as consent. Might in COE, we don't know yet. Also, it is not clear that "death" will be an available penalty for an express contract. I rather think it won't be. Also, service contracts may need to have a defined and limited term -- and "for life" might not be permissible. Service contracts also may need to have a limited and specified description of the the service (scope of work). On the other hand, if things like religious vows or oaths of fealty are to be handled by contract, perhaps lifelong, general service obligations should be allowed.

In any case, penalties for breach of contract don't happen automatically and there will probably be a process for limiting the effectiveness of bounties. If you capture someone in a war with a neighboring kingdom and are able to enslave them (big if, as sparks survive death and souls survive sparkdeath, so threat of death isn’t that strong a motivator), they probably could escape back to their home kingdom, where the contract would not be recognized as lawful. Depending on how the bounty system works, bounty hunters may still be able to try to capture them for the bounty -- but there should also be the possibility of making that an illegal bounty, meaning the bounty hunter would be committing a crime by trying to capture them.

If there is slavery, I would think it is more likely not something agreed to in a specific contract, but rather imposed as a result of something. Perhaps nonpayment of debt. Perhaps capture in war (based on the war terms of the combatants, which might also be some kind of contract (the contract system may be versatile enough to use to set war aims and victory conditions, and, if so, it could also set the consequences of defeat, which could potentially include slavery of captured combatants I suppose)).

That said, I'm sure slavery can be roleplayed if people want -- so contracts would only be used if one of the people didn't want it, and that is problematic. On balance, I hope contractual slavery isn't a thing, but I think it might be too hard to set up contracts such that something like this, at least for a term, can't be approximated, so a prohibition might not come from the game mechanics, but from TOS or some other meta-intervention.

Indentured servants -- That is like slavery light or slavery until some other obligation is discharged. There are problems with that. For instance, depending on the level of control you have, you could prevent the person from ever paying the debt or discharging the obligation. That would make it effectively slavery. As with slavery, I hope that that isn't a thing -- but it might require some meta-intervention to prevent. That said, debt contracts should be a thing -- and repayment by work makes sense as well.

We know employment contracts will be a thing for both PCs and NPCs. We don't know how that will work because the example contract we were given was not an employment contract. It probably should work as payment for defined services or labor. If payment is in advance and the work is not done, that would be a breach entitling the employer to refund. If work is done in expectation of payment and wages are not paid, that would be a breach entitling the employee to collect wages. Both could be the basis of a bounty, and, if collection costs are part of the damages or penalty, those could be added to the amount due.

Term -- that sounds like slavery or indentured servitude for a defined time period, with the same problems. This can be role-played. That said, apprenticeship contracts often worked like that historically, and that might be something worth having.

The only game enhancement I see from the slavery contracts mechanic (or slavery light contracts mechanic) is that it could engage the bounty system to enhance master/slave roleplaying by adding a "slave catcher" bounty hunter element. I'm really not sure that that is a road SBS should go down, or should want to go down. If this is allowed, expect Gorean roleplayers to migrate over from Second Life.


Count of Frostale, in the Duchy of Fioralba, in the Kingdom of Ashland, by the Grace of Haven. The above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect those of my Kingdom or Duchy.

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/17117/naw-the-duchy-of-fioralba https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/14124/naw-kingdom-of-ashland https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/30605/of-contracts-and-commerce-a-tldnr-post https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31835/on-taxes-rents-and-ancestral-lands

3/18/2019 1:12:29 AM #3

Just a random thought on slavery: No player would want to become a slave, and they'd sooner be coup-de-graced than become a slave as spirit walking and losing some lifetime would be infinitely better than slavery.

NPCs are another matter but I doubt they'd willingly let themselves be enslaved outside of extreme circumstances.

I doubt you'd see many of these contracts, if any (outside of employment) simply because they are too easily abused and "not fun."

As another side note, I've done a lot of thinking about slavery due to it being a major, negative concept in a story I'm writing, and the implications of doing ANYTHING you want to someone (IE a slave with no rights) are seriously disturbing. For that reason alone, I'd personally oppose adding slavery to CoE.


Expecting to set up as a mayor in one of the three "two town" counties in Bridgespider (Angelica server, Kingdom of Tyria). I'm hoping to end up with a city by the end of exposition for lawmaking ability, assuming I can keep the city sustainable. You will know it's me by the city name Raven's Roost

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3/18/2019 1:50:57 AM #4

The another reason the slave contract wouldn't work is because murder will never be legal. If bandits pulled your over and say sign this or die. They couldn't go to a bounty hall and say "Hey, I was going to murder if he didn't work for me can ou go find him" Unless there will be a bounty hall for illegal contracts but if they we did have that, they couldn't legally enforce the contract.

3/18/2019 1:57:28 AM #5

Posted By Deftly at 9:50 PM - Sun Mar 17 2019

The another reason the slave contract wouldn't work is because murder will never be legal. If bandits pulled your over and say sign this or die. They couldn't go to a bounty hall and say "Hey, I was going to murder if he didn't work for me can ou go find him" Unless there will be a bounty hall for illegal contracts but if they we did have that, they couldn't legally enforce the contract.

I mean, captures from war or battle, not random citizens. Like you capture enemies and then have them sign during the war.


The Keshi family, is intend on bringing democracy and economic stability to Elyria.

3/18/2019 2:01:15 AM #6

Posted By Sackeshi at 7:57 PM - Sun Mar 17 2019

Posted By Deftly at 9:50 PM - Sun Mar 17 2019

The another reason the slave contract wouldn't work is because murder will never be legal. If bandits pulled your over and say sign this or die. They couldn't go to a bounty hall and say "Hey, I was going to murder if he didn't work for me can ou go find him" Unless there will be a bounty hall for illegal contracts but if they we did have that, they couldn't legally enforce the contract.

I mean, captures from war or battle, not random citizens. Like you capture enemies and then have them sign during the war.

Still wouldn't work, you can't capture someone against their will without a bounty token


3/18/2019 3:11:21 AM #7

The worst you could do is as part of a sentence force someone into an indentured servant contract. I cannot see any way based on what we know, that slavery will even be possible.

I'd rather it not be in the game either.

It is fine in say strategy games as a historical abstracted concept. However in an immersive game like this, it would be very traumatic and absolutely not fun for anyone involved.

They would simply [rightly] not play as that character ever again, and no NPC would recognise such a contract as legal.

3/18/2019 1:17:33 PM #8

I'm only against the first, as why would anybody choose slavery over indentured servitude?


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3/18/2019 4:13:15 PM #9

Slavery's already been covered fairly comprehensively, so I won't go into that. Indentured labour done in a certain manner is basically the same thing, though, and this is the road I see things going down if the people running the operation play their cards right. While it might not be possible to make a certain amount of debt a capital crime, the spirit and skill loss from being convicted for failing to keep up with your work contracts would be a downward spiral into economic bankruptcy and probable repeated death (and eventual permadeath) by deprivation as a result.

Granted, there's a lot more story potential there than there is for outright slavery, but indentured labour comes with its own set of problems as a contract option. I like the idea of it as an optional thing, but the reality of it probably wouldn't be all that fun to play.

Employee and term contracts are a given in my opinion, the latter being standard practice for guild memberships. I'd sign the latter if it was work I could definitely complete for that period, and the former is probably going to be the bread and butter worker contract in most places.


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3/19/2019 12:01:23 AM #10

I agree with all the previous statements.

And not to single out this one particular individual, as this may be a new person asking this, but I still do not understand the constant fascination with the topic of slavery in regards to this game.

These topics continue to re-sprout no matter how many times it is clearly stated that there is NO SLAVERY in this game.

What am I missing?

Is there some great demand in the current game community to own slaves?


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3/19/2019 12:58:09 AM #11

Posted By kajoreh at 5:01 PM - Mon Mar 18 2019

I agree with all the previous statements.

And not to single out this one particular individual, as this may be a new person asking this, but I still do not understand the constant fascination with the topic of slavery in regards to this game.

These topics continue to re-sprout no matter how many times it is clearly stated that there is NO SLAVERY in this game.

What am I missing?

Is there some great demand in the current game community to own slaves?

I am an attorney in real life, and, once every few years for the last twenty years, I have had someone contact me to ask about drawing up a master/slave contract that binds them in real life. People want to use Powers of Attorney for that. They want to use residential leases for that. They are very imaginative about what they think might work.

And, the thing is, without the 13th Amendment, I could probably draw up a document that approximates that relationship and that is, on its face, legal. I don’t for a moment imagine that a court, even without the 13th Amendment, would uphold it. Such a contract would be declared “void as against public policy” — but it could be put together using the available contract law tools.

SBS is planning to give us a toolset. They might say there is no slavery and they don’t want slavery, but I think that, if the toolset gives us many things we want (durable oaths, general or unspecified service agreements, apprenticeship, asset forfeiture for default, etc.), someone will be able to combine things into something that looks and feels a lot like slavery. So, either we will have slavery, despite the majority wish that we don’t, a wish shared by SBS, or SBS will have to have some intervention that just says “nope, you can’t use that combination of contract terms that way.” And, more, this is probably not something they can realistically think of and prevent in advance.


Count of Frostale, in the Duchy of Fioralba, in the Kingdom of Ashland, by the Grace of Haven. The above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect those of my Kingdom or Duchy.

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/17117/naw-the-duchy-of-fioralba https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/14124/naw-kingdom-of-ashland https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/30605/of-contracts-and-commerce-a-tldnr-post https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31835/on-taxes-rents-and-ancestral-lands

3/19/2019 1:46:18 AM #12

SBS is planning to give us a toolset. They might say there is no slavery and they don’t want slavery, but I think that, if the toolset gives us many things we want (durable oaths, general or unspecified service agreements, apprenticeship, asset forfeiture for default, etc.), someone will be able to combine things into something that looks and feels a lot like slavery. So, either we will have slavery, despite the majority wish that we don’t, a wish shared by SBS, or SBS will have to have some intervention that just says “nope, you can’t use that combination of contract terms that way.” And, more, this is probably not something they can realistically think of and prevent in advance.

This. I don't think they will go as far as banning people for manipulating the system to their advantage even if they disagree with it, since it would look bad for a game that "lets you do what you want" I think it will end up being a battle, and is likely to turn into a big conflict in game just as in real life that could add more to the story line.

You are right, If there is a will people will find a way.


The Keshi family, is intend on bringing democracy and economic stability to Elyria.

3/19/2019 2:24:40 AM #13

I imagine most, if not all, of the kings and queens will ban any contracts that look like slavery (working without pay, and/or at the absolute mercy of the other party, among others), treating them as legally unenforceable and making signing of any contract under duress illegal with stiff punishments for the one forcing the signing, at least.

If loopholes are found, I imagine they'd be plugged up quickly as they are found as well possibly with ex post facto nullification thereof

After all, do you want to be the kingdom that allows such a barbaric practice?


Expecting to set up as a mayor in one of the three "two town" counties in Bridgespider (Angelica server, Kingdom of Tyria). I'm hoping to end up with a city by the end of exposition for lawmaking ability, assuming I can keep the city sustainable. You will know it's me by the city name Raven's Roost

Friend code: 23F484.

3/19/2019 2:40:41 AM #14

Posted By Sir Zyr at 10:24 PM - Mon Mar 18 2019

I imagine most, if not all, of the kings and queens will ban any contracts that look like slavery (working without pay, and/or at the absolute mercy of the other party, among others), treating them as legally unenforceable and making signing of any contract under duress illegal with stiff punishments for the one forcing the signing, at least.

If loopholes are found, I imagine they'd be plugged up quickly as they are found as well possibly with ex post facto nullification thereof

After all, do you want to be the kingdom that allows such a barbaric practice?

I highly doubt there will be any involvement on the kingdom level when it comes to workers being treated poorly. I don't think slavery will be a thing in-game so I won't comment on that portion.

3/19/2019 4:32:40 AM #15

Posted By kajoreh at 5:01 PM - Mon Mar 18 2019

I agree with all the previous statements.

And not to single out this one particular individual, as this may be a new person asking this, but I still do not understand the constant fascination with the topic of slavery in regards to this game.

These topics continue to re-sprout no matter how many times it is clearly stated that there is NO SLAVERY in this game.

What am I missing?

Is there some great demand in the current game community to own slaves?

I think the notion of slavery is power porn.

The indentured servitude mentioned in the original post wouldn't work as simply as described. Without payment, there would need to be a room and board provision. There would also need to be working conditions and working hours provisions.