Author Topic: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls  (Read 6000 times)

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Offline sgb

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Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« on: December 06, 2009, 12:04:11 AM »
As it's commonly known now, there's isn't any reason to make a character a slave at the moment.  There is no benefit beyond being able to sell them, and generally there is no reason you'd ever want to sell off a girl.  Slaves can still refuse things, run away, attack your gangs, and earn less money.  The question is what can be tweaked here to make slaves worthwhile?  For starters Slave brothel income should no longer be penalized as it makes no sense.  From there, some random ideas off the top of my head:

-House % of free girls could be capped.  Nobody would willingly work for you if you told them your were taking 100% of their income, and they would quickly quit or run away.  Only Slaves should be able to go beyond, say, 75% house take.
-Slaves cannot refuse anything.  Actions where they would attack you instead just generate some PC hate/fear points.
-Slaves cannot run away (say you can magically track them via their mark).  Actions where they would try to escape instead just generate some PC hate/fear points.
-Slaves cannot develop addictions on their own (they aren't allowed out on their own, and so never run into any drug dealers).  They can of course if you give them drugs yourself.

There would of course need to be some penalities to even this out:
-As DocClox suggested, require a license before you can make slaves.
-Slaves can never reach maximum PC Love
-Slaves can never reach 100 happiness; cap of ~80?
-Slaves may try to kill themselves if hapiness is 0 for an extended period.

Any other thoughts on this?
« Last Edit: December 06, 2009, 12:11:36 AM by sgb »

Offline Alugere

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2009, 12:23:56 AM »
I'd say no instant suicide thing, but maybe the refuse to eat and start losing health until their happiness rises? Any sort of, 'Bam! They're Dead!' with no warning wouldn't be right.

Offline zodiac44

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2009, 12:25:09 AM »
As free girls get better at their jobs, they should demand more from the player (a bigger percentage of the cut, better accommodations, more time off, higher paying jobs, their pick of clients, whatever).  If they don't get what they want, they can always walk away and find employment elsewhere or set up shop on their own.  When you offer to hire them, the base house percentage should be negotiated, and if it's too low, they won't work for you.

Under this system, slaves would cost less in upkeep, earn the player more income, and be less of a hassle to manage (they still could ask for stuff, but the player is free to say no - the worst she could do is attempt to run away [or, come to think of it, assassinate the player if that gets implemented]).
Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse."

Offline Mehzerz

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2009, 12:42:28 AM »
I wouldn't cap house percentages for non-slave girls. I would either have them outright refuse to work after going past a specific percentage. 75% isn't a bad starter.... or steadily decrease in happiness if you don't pay them enough. Maybe even both.
Your ideas make sense Zodiac... but I don't know how I'd like it as a gameplay mechanic. Various jobs will require girls to be non-slaves. So, I don't like the idea of having a girl walk out on me if I don't give her more money. If girls are going to be able to just walk out on me, we need to set up a script to where they confront you about it.
They come up to you, saying they're going to move on. At this point you can convince them by giving them a pay bonus, a higher cut, a nice item maybe? or convince them through other text options. Depending on your method or how well you do it, will determine how many weeks you have to make her happy again.
But this is all assuming they're fickle and hard to manage. Which may not be the case.
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Offline zodiac44

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #4 on: December 06, 2009, 01:41:21 AM »
I meant that they would ask, and if refused they might walk out.  We could write the script so that they ask several times if refused, each time making the implication that they will walk out on you stronger, then with a final encounter where they are walking out, the player can attempt to appease them, though it would likely involve giving a lot more than the girls originally asked for.
Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse."

Offline DocClox

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2009, 03:37:40 AM »
I've been thinking that if a non-slave runs away/walks out on you then you shouldn't be able to hunt her down and recapture her. If she's not a slave, she's entitled to leave.

Another option is that if you're ever raided and you're found with illegally enslaved girls, or free women held against their will, then then consequences are far more severe - possibly up to Game Over. 

I think slaves have to keep running away - the difference being that you can get them back. That said, I'd make them refuse to work much, much less often, probably with the happiness/hate/fear mods already proposed.

I agree that free women shouldn't ever work for zero cut (I didn't know they would).

Slaves ... can have their own money. They can steal it (and if you're not keeping an eye on them, some of them will) and I'd also like to be able to give them pocket money: the occasional reward for being a good slave. That said, it's going to be a lot harder for them to develop a habit, just because their money supply is so tightly controlled. In fact, role play considerations aside, the addiction thing is one reason I prefer my girls to be slaves.

Offline Alugere

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2009, 04:09:06 AM »
That would be why I modified my item's file to remove drugs from the shops.

Offline Rose

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2009, 09:46:19 AM »
I don't think PCLove and Happiness should be hard-capped below maximum for slaves, but I do think it should rise a lot slower (say that for example all PCLove+ modifiers are reduced by 75% and all happiness increases are cut by 75% if happiness is already over 50).
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Offline dcb42

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #8 on: December 07, 2009, 03:51:55 AM »
(This is a duplicate of a post I made in the "Slavery Ideas" thread in the New Features board, but it applies to this thread too. If you've already read it, feel free to ignore it.)

Honestly, I like to look at it the other way around - not "let's findways to penalize slaves," but instead "let's find ways to make freegirls better."

I mean, you have to figure that in acity like Crossgate, which is explicitly stated to be run by criminals,the rule is basically "might makes right;" slavery has to be incrediblywidespread. It should be the norm for a brothel owner, and a free whore should be a rare thing indeed.

Sowhy free your girls? Well, for one thing it makes them very happy -they see slaves every single day, and get reminded that their livescan't be all bad - at least they're not slaves, right? - giving a daily(small) bonus to Happiness and PCLove. For another, they know full wellthat they have to do good work in the brothel, or elsethere's always the threat of being enslaved and sold off; they shouldhave a lower chance to refuse to work. Also, their greater freedomshould make the Free Time "job" more effective; for them, it really isfree time, as opposed to a slave's free time, which is still withincertain strict limits imposed by their owner. Maybe only free girls arepermitted to carry weapons, too?

In Crossgate, slavery should beeverywhere. It's the default. There's no sense in sugar-coating it, Ifigure. so don't penalize it; just make the alternative moreattractive, nice little bonuses in exchange for the loss of completecontrol.

Offline Alugere

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Re: Slave Girls vs. Free Girls
« Reply #9 on: December 07, 2009, 01:26:02 PM »
Honestly, I like to look at it the other way around - not "let's findways to penalize slaves," but instead "let's find ways to make freegirls better."
Currently, the discussion is this:
Slave girls are currently extremely weak when compared to free girls, therefore we need to either penalize free girls or make slave girls better. You seem to have gotten slave girls and free girls confused.