VN Ren'Py Harem Hotel [v0.18.2] [Runey]

[Porn Pleb]

It's a porno game, you are supposed to think about fapping to whichever girl gets you hard, not think about slavery in a porno game.

Porn with plot my dude... and there's a whole lot of both.

 

[ankhtar]

lin <3

Your profile image reminded me of when I opened my laptop in public while briefly forgetting I had a lewd image of lin in her leaf outfit as my background. Oops.

 

[Runey]

I'm not going to argue about whether or not slavery is beneficial to a country in terms of long-term development. The article you linked makes sense - the most powerful economies rely on purchasing strength of their working/middle class, so having a permanent underclass with effectively no purchasing power seems certainly worse, in economic terms, than throwing those individuals into a capitalistic rat-race. Though I'd also point out that the US is hardly the best example to study such effects in, since its economic growth had a lot to do with geography and initial sparse population density (thank you, genocide!).

However, the place where MC has his hotel is, as far as we know, neither the size of the US, nor particularly resource-independent. IIRC, at one point the dialogues indicate that agricultural production makes up a large portion of its economy. More to the point, while elf slavery may have a negative long-term economic impact on the country (moral side of things completely aside), it's short-term extremely beneficial to leverage humans' position. Remember how Ms. Ren took care of Ashley while her dead-beat father lazed away in front of TV? Elves are stated to be almost exclusively used for the "crap jobs" - heavy manual labor for males, and "service" industry for females. This leverages the position of humans doing the "middle-class" jobs and higher (or just lazing away their life in better conditions than they could without slaves), regardless of the long-term consequences.

Syl'anar is twice the size of North America and its biodiversity should allow it to be fairly resource independent, but I haven't really thought that much about this specifically haha

Agriculture, mining, stone cutting, wood working, masonry, capentry, all of this would have been major parts of Syl'anar's early economy and all things slaves likely would have taken care of. The Humans would have been able to manifest their destiny all over Syl'anar at lightning speed with this slave labor, and with the usage of that massive river that cuts the continent in half, they were able to do just that.

Runey's presentation makes it clear that country is nowhere near the tech level of places that do NOT have access to elf slaves. The Capitol being primary example of it. Syl'imbadatnames is relatively "wealthy" only because its population keeps pretending that elves are nothing but animals (and therefore do not need rights), despite having daily contact with them proving the contrary (remember the meeting with the "actress-queen?" She has a TV show, she is an author, and she does a lot of things you would never expect "an animal" to even understand, much less perform, if you were honest about it). If you want to overanalyze things, also keep in mind that despite having a literal monopoly on elf slavery (and elf breeding), that place still doesn't have enough labor force to prevent Kali (later Lucy) from doing low-pay "pizza delivery" job. Ashley's family was still poor enough that she went hungry and didn't even have access to clean water at times (think she mentions that in a confrontation talk with the twins as the reason why she WAS dirty). So DESPITE elf slave labor, that country is nowhere near wealthy enough to provide financial support for its legally-recognized citizens, unless of course Ashley's pop drank or otherwise blew away the money they were getting (kind of questionable, since she gets kicked out of home when her mother loses her job and daddy dearest declares they won't have enough money for basic necessities).

I sincerely doubt people like Ashley's parents would be bothered by keeping a (government-assigned) slave, even IF cultural norms changed to see it as something bad. Look around our "modern" real world, and you'll see plenty of the same apathy in less developed places, frequently caught using child labor, creating products for western consumption. Or, for a more on-point examples, people buying iPhones certainly hardly changed their purchase habits when Foxconn had workers suiciding due to horrible work conditions. You think the same people would've done anything meaningful if underage labor was involved, or if slave labor was legal to use locally? Because I don't. The "world" doesn't give a shit if it brings the price of some popular good down. We still have cartel-run avocado farms in Mexico, where the farmers are often little more than serfs, making bank due to (mainly US) exports. We still have the proliferate SEA sweat shops for textile production for western markets (how many decades now?). Hell, we have constant reminders that African mines still run on child labor in one form or another.

It's true that elves get the lowest skilled of labor jobs. In the modern era, this is stuff like poolboys, maids, low level cooking, carpentry, factory working, farming, etc. In the case of Ashley's elf, Ms Ren, she was a welfare slave. Their faither didn't have work, but the mother did. So it's safe to assume even in extremely wealthy Syl'anar, the low class still can't afford to live comfortable on 1 job.

In modern Syl'anar, there are growing portions of the population, specifically in colleges that believe Elves should be equal. This culture change lead to some rights for elves 30 years ago, but the movement continues to grow. This is why Jia the "fake" queen is shown so often. She's the political way of saying "Not all elves are bad" or "This is one of the good ones". It makes the liberals happy because it's representation, and the conservatives still get to laugh at the funny elf girl and her fake influence. And of course it makes the elf population happy because most of them fall into the lie that she's one of the few that was able to get out of the system.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, a country with monopoly on slavery of "others" (one that is firmly established to not be common knowledge outside their borders, at that - and I find this part less belivable than the concept of slave-labor-driven economy), one that doesn't really have much else going for it, will absolutely maintain status quo. For the simplest of reason - because its citizens would want it to. It makes their lives easier, gives them the same form of self-validation at the expense of others that is still a massive influence on American politics (years after abolishment of slavery here), and any politician trying to point out long-term economic disadvantages of this practice wouldn't be one for long.[/SPOILER]

Exactly, most are happy to continue to live in the status quo. Syl'anar works great for the humans, and Elves literally still remember a time where all they had was sharp stick with a rock at the end of it. And maybe a hut. The quality of life for an elf has improved tremendously in the eyes of most. Clean water, guaranteed food, guaranteed roof. Some elves may even see humans as gods who came to give them a better life.

Outside of Syl'anar the elf thing isn't spoken about much other than in political or moral debates. They know of elves, but not much about them other than how they look, which isn't incredibly special to the average citizen. The slavery aspect is more shocking to the average person as slavery has never been done to other humans in the culture Syl'anar originates from.
But slavery has lead to so much wealth both in Syl'anar and to it's allies that most just accept it and move on.

 

[Deleted member 929426]

Porn with plot my dude... and there's a whole lot of both.

I'd like to think that I came for the porn but stayed for the plot. Of course, I came after for the Lin (many times and inside, of course).

 

[Jerecapra]

lin <3

Best girl, hands down. Hope we can marry her some day. <3

 

[Deleted member 2107272]

As for the claim that the US economy grew after slaves were freed, that's probably true but a little something called the Industrial Revolution also came at that time.

The Industrial Revolution happened in other countries too, that did not have slavery to start with, like Sweden or Switzerland. And those countries were richer than the Southern US states back then, and even are richer than them today - both the poorest are richer AND the richest are richer. The places in the US that benefited from the Industrial Revolution most were industrializing even before the Civil War.

Slavery is an expensive thing to operate. You need infrastructure to buy and sell slaves, guards to make them do absolutely anything and ensure they aren't running away (and even in HH, they seem to be quite willing to run away, Nia appears to be quite prolific in her slave-breakout operations), and you can only get them to do so much. Also, a lot of what slaves do can be automated - that, too, is also happening even in HH, where slaves seem relegated to being servants and sex toys, and even there Kali's gonna automate them out of even that job.

modern slavery consists of chinese wage slaves working for scraps to make things cheap for the US.

Terminology of "wage slavery" and mechanics of how it arises aside, that doesn't make a powerful economy. China is actually developing out of that stage, picking up more advanced manufacturing, and their workers are actually starting to run out and be paid decently well. The image of "chinese wage slave working for peanuts" is from the 1980s, not 2020. That stage in economic development is now relegated to places like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, or Vietnam - hardly the most economically powerful nations. Because any form of slavery just doesn't make for a powerful economy.

An army of warrior slaves makes you powerful

Heyo, Spartacus called, asked me to tell you that an army of warrior slaves makes a massive rebellion. You never ever ever arm your slaves. Most you ever do is use them as barely armed cannon fodder. Unwilling soldiers are soldiers that are likely to defect to the enemy just to spite you. In fact, oppressed population are extremely willing to take up arms and fight their oppressors just out of spite, even if not given weapons by their oppressors (which like, happened so rarely if ever that I literally can't think of a single moment in history where someone took unwilling slaves, gave them weapons, and forced them to fight) - also happened in the US civil war.

Whenever slave armies happened, or even such things as the draft happened, there was some actual incentive to fight. They don't fight under threat, they fight to become free (Mamluks) or to get access to important government offices (Janissaries) or similar. If you threaten your soldier they're likely to just turn their weapons on you

If you have 1,000 people mining gold for you as you only pay them in bread, do you really think you're not going to become wealthy?

Considering that you need a guard for about 7 slaves, you wouldn't become as wealthy as you'd become having 10 miners with dynamite, drills, and excavation machinery. Not even as wealthy as you'd be if you took that money that you give to the (quite expensive) guards, and the money you spend on slaves, and just gave that to 1000 free workers.



In general, while I take a lot of issue (and I mean a LOT of issue) with the politics of the game, I don't wanna be too nitpicky, and I am letting most political messages slide under the implicit "it's fiction." response. But economics of slavery is one thing I just can't allow to slide. It is important to me that people understand that slavery just doesn't work, that people view slavery in the same way as they view bloodletting - a horrifying practice that doesn't even work. That they not only oppose it on the basis that it's horrible (since some sociopaths might not care about that), but that it's also stupid and just doesn't work.

 

[nolli]

I hate to get political here of all places, but I wonder what Runey's politics are.

Now, I get that this is a game, and at a certain point you get to explain away certain problems with "it's fiction.", but I don't think you quite get to do that with the economics of slavery. Plenty of people believe that slavery is beneficial to the slaveowners, but it's not. Slavery did not benefit a country like the US, in fact, the US had more economic growth after slavery was abolished. Slavery doesn't only mean that slaves have it horribly, it also means that the wealthy, the masters, also have it worse than they would if slaves were free - after all, slaves don't have much money to spend, slaves need guards to ensure that they work, and slaves never get to be managers or entrepreneurs or similar, even if that's where they would be the most beneficial to the society. Even in the modern world, there is an obvious difference between the countries that had slavery in 1750 and those that didn't, when comparing their economies.

Slavery doesn't make anyone wealthy or powerful. The "country X is powerful because they have slaves" line is wrong. Slavery is unnecessary. It makes things worse for everyone, and it doesn't make anyone powerful. What improves economies is liberty, freedom to work whatever job you want, to create whatever business people demand and lead it the way you see best, and freedom to trade freely with whomever you want. If slavery worked, you'd see a lot more of it in the wealthiest places on the planet, and you'd never see it abolished. But it doesn't.

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Absolute crap, to say that the richest families in the US and GB and the rest of Europe never benefited is complete nonsense have a look at the London mansions (built on slavery) of those poor slave plantation owners from the West Indies, by your logic they were all idiots for having to hire men to keep them from running away and they actually never made any money. Dear god what did they sell? Cotton, Sugar, Molllasses these people were millionaires in thier time. Do your own research.

 

[TheDevian]

Yeah but I was curious about the fact he said each main character had a side character which sticks around - the likes of Moon, Ellen, the Sanctuary slaves are side characters in their own right but I was thinking of the MC based side characters specifically.

Maria of course has her old BFF on the scene now and will be a prominent feature, Ashley will likely have Kate who not only is a classmate of hers but literally is declaring an interest in threesomes and watching MC bang her and of course Kali and Lin have their sisters ie Lucie and best girl Jin. Jin might I add is also the clearly designated side character for Violet - a very wise choice indeed my little vampire.

Whats less obvious is the specific side girls who stick around when you think of Android, The Twins and Autumn unless they've not been added yet or quite ready to be prominent in the story alongside them (Autumns sister a likely option but we need to be further on with her before we add her into the mix).

As for the much discussed missing Sylvia scene are you referring to love or slave route? You should have an option to begin her training pretty quickly into her story and I did that café scene with her long before bothering with Nia related content and also before i even touched the newest story content with Lin and their litte adventure together. This of course was the slave route on my playthrough.

Well, the MC's side character is possibly his sister, who the prophesy says will visit some day in the future... Low, when the stars align and the hotel is ready, some say she will come looking for work.

The twins are a mix, they both have each other, and share a lot of side characters with Ashley.

Autumn's new, but her main side character seems to be her sister, who works with her at the cafe.

Android seems to be the exception, but she is supposed to be a secret, so that makes sense.

Syl'anar is twice the size of North America and its biodiversity should allow it to be fairly resource independent, but I haven't really thought that much about this specifically haha

Agriculture, mining, stone cutting, wood working, masonry, capentry, all of this would have been major parts of Syl'anar's early economy and all things slaves likely would have taken care of. The Humans would have been able to manifest their destiny all over Syl'anar at lightning speed with this slave labor, and with the usage of that massive river that cuts the continent in half, they were able to do just that.



It's true that elves get the lowest skilled of labor jobs. In the modern era, this is stuff like poolboys, maids, low level cooking, carpentry, factory working, farming, etc. In the case of Ashley's elf, Ms Ren, she was a welfare slave. Their faither didn't have work, but the mother did. So it's safe to assume even in extremely wealthy Syl'anar, the low class still can't afford to live comfortable on 1 job.

In modern Syl'anar, there are growing portions of the population, specifically in colleges that believe Elves should be equal. This culture change lead to some rights for elves 30 years ago, but the movement continues to grow. This is why Jia the "fake" queen is shown so often. She's the political way of saying "Not all elves are bad" or "This is one of the good ones". It makes the liberals happy because it's representation, and the conservatives still get to laugh at the funny elf girl and her fake influence. And of course it makes the elf population happy because most of them fall into the lie that she's one of the few that was able to get out of the system.




Exactly, most are happy to continue to live in the status quo. Syl'anar works great for the humans, and Elves literally still remember a time where all they had was sharp stick with a rock at the end of it. And maybe a hut. The quality of life for an elf has improved tremendously in the eyes of most. Clean water, guaranteed food, guaranteed roof. Some elves may even see humans as gods who came to give them a better life.

Outside of Syl'anar the elf thing isn't spoken about much other than in political or moral debates. They know of elves, but not much about them other than how they look, which isn't incredibly special to the average citizen. The slavery aspect is more shocking to the average person as slavery has never been done to other humans in the culture Syl'anar originates from.
But slavery has lead to so much wealth both in Syl'anar and to it's allies that most just accept it and move on.

This is one of the main reasons I love this game so much, you know, ignoring the fact that you cater to many of my favorite kinks.... The lore! I have said it before, I will likely say it again, the world building here is just phenomenal. It is a level of detail I expect (and so rarely receive) from a AAA game company, not an indy porn dev.

With how poorly the AAA landscape is doing now days, this is the future of good gaming.

In general, while I take a lot of issue (and I mean a LOT of issue) with the politics of the game, I don't wanna be too nitpicky, and I am letting most political messages slide under the implicit "it's fiction." response. But economics of slavery is one thing I just can't allow to slide. It is important to me that people understand that slavery just doesn't work, that people view slavery in the same way as they view bloodletting - a horrifying practice that doesn't even work. That they not only oppose it on the basis that it's horrible (since some sociopaths might not care about that), but that it's also stupid and just doesn't work.

Maybe not everything is 'perfect', but not everything needs to be, you need to take some things with a grain of salt to allow for the story. It's like the X-men, those kinds of mutations would never happen in real life, especially not the way they are portrayed, but you accept it because it's a fun story. Not everything needs to be a perfect analogy for our world.

But again, this just goes to show the quality of the game, where we have once again, started talking about these heavy topics, because of porn.

 

[Deleted member 2107272]

have a look at the London mansions (built on slavery) of those poor slave plantation owners from the West Indies

Have a look at the Swedish or Swiss mansions. Built completely slavery-free. Not an argument. An argument would be showing how the former masters are better off than a comparable population of people who never experienced any form of slavery to begin with. Which, well, I'm all ears for the data. I'm ready to be wrong. I've shown my data in my first post on the topic.

you need to take some things with a grain of salt to allow for the story.

Well, that's my idea with the "it's fiction." argument. Pretty much everything else I either have to let slide, or haven't accumulated enough evidence that this is what the author is showing to make such a post yet. We have however been repeatedly told straight up that Syl'anar depends on slavery. Runey is definitely saying that slavery benefits the humans of Syl'anar. But that is just not how it works. Slavery hurts everyone. Not just the slaves, everyone is worse off.

 

[ElukiaTV]

I dont get why we are getting physological and historical talks about slavery and stuff..
Its a fictional world
If Runey says slavery is profitable in his world... then it is.

Fiction!

 

[Deleted member 2107272]

I dont get why we are getting physological and historical talks about slavery and stuff..
Its a fictional world
If Runey says slavery is profitable in his world... then it is.

Fiction!

If I made a perfectly functional, utopian fictional world with Nazi imagery and a distinctive lack of Jews explicitly demonstrated, you'd probably complain that I'm a Nazi. Now, I'm not accusing Runey of being a slaver, nowhere near that, I am just saying that he bought into a frequent misconception of thinking that slavery works, even if it is evil. It doesn't. Not only is it evil, it doesn't even work.

It's kinda similar to the

You must be registered to see the links

argument. It's also a philosophical and economic misconception debunked ages and ages ago, that many people still believe.

 

[ElukiaTV]

If I made a perfectly functional, utopian fictional world with Nazi imagery and a distinctive lack of Jews explicitly demonstrated, you'd probably complain that I'm a Nazi. Now, I'm not accusing Runey of being a slaver, nowhere near that, I am just saying that he bought into a frequent misconception of thinking that slavery works, even if it is evil. It doesn't. Not only is it evil, it doesn't even work.

It's kinda similar to the

You must be registered to see the links

argument. It's also a philosophical misconception debunked ages and ages ago, that many people still believe.

Yeah.. utopian being the key in your example.. of course it would be a happy nazi world if you set it has an utopia... Runey's world clearly isnt... just because things are "working" right now doesnt mean there arent people triying to fight it like Lin and others. World is fucked, and right now they are in the middle of a "Status Quo" that will sooner or later explode on their faces.
I dont even know anymore where you were triying to go bringing historical data into a fictional world... but im not gonna keep derailing the thread.

 

[TheDevian]

Have a look at the Swedish or Swiss mansions. Built completely slavery-free. Not an argument. An argument would be showing how the former masters are better off than a comparable population of people who never experienced any form of slavery to begin with.

Well, that's my idea with the "it's fiction." argument. Pretty much everything else I either have to let slide, or haven't accumulated enough evidence that this is what the author is showing to make such a post yet. We have however been repeatedly told straight up that Syl'anar depends on slavery. Runey is definitely saying that slavery benefits the humans of Syl'anar. But that is just not how it works. Slavery hurts everyone. Not just the slaves, everyone is worse off.

Generally, that is true, to some degree, and it is shown in the game by the insane wealth inequality and other factors, but many nations in history were built on slavery (though not Egypt, unlike what some myths might claim). Part of why the south didn't do as well was not due to the slavery itself, though that was a factor, but more that they didn't want to change, and still don't. Unlike other places, which were willing to continue to grow. While slavery is bad (in most cases), it is far from the only factor in what you are saying here.

You also need less guards when the slaves are not trying to escape, and after hundreds of years of growing to accept 'their place', I would imagine not as many are willing to try any more. It has been shown that elves are complacent, they don't really strive to better themselves, even before they were slaves. Their long lives lead them to not try to grow, where the short lives of the humans cause them to try to better theirs.

 

[Runey]

The Industrial Revolution happened in other countries too, that did not have slavery to start with, like Sweden or Switzerland. And those countries were richer than the Southern US states back then, and even are richer than them today - both the poorest are richer AND the richest are richer. The places in the US that benefited from the Industrial Revolution most were industrializing even before the Civil War.

Slavery is an expensive thing to operate. You need infrastructure to buy and sell slaves, guards to make them do absolutely anything and ensure they aren't running away (and even in HH, they seem to be quite willing to run away, Nia appears to be quite prolific in her slave-breakout operations), and you can only get them to do so much. Also, a lot of what slaves do can be automated - that, too, is also happening even in HH, where slaves seem relegated to being servants and sex toys, and even there Kali's gonna automate them out of even that job.



Terminology of "wage slavery" and mechanics of how it arises aside, that doesn't make a powerful economy. China is actually developing out of that stage, picking up more advanced manufacturing, and their workers are actually starting to run out and be paid decently well. The image of "chinese wage slave working for peanuts" is from the 1980s, not 2020. That stage in economic development is now relegated to places like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, or Vietnam - hardly the most economically powerful nations. Because any form of slavery just doesn't make for a powerful economy.



Heyo, Spartacus called, asked me to tell you that an army of warrior slaves makes a massive rebellion. You never ever ever arm your slaves. Most you ever do is use them as barely armed cannon fodder. Unwilling soldiers are soldiers that are likely to defect to the enemy just to spite you. In fact, oppressed population are extremely willing to take up arms and fight their oppressors just out of spite, even if not given weapons by their oppressors (which like, happened so rarely if ever that I literally can't think of a single moment in history where someone took unwilling slaves, gave them weapons, and forced them to fight) - also happened in the US civil war.

Whenever slave armies happened, or even such things as the draft happened, there was some actual incentive to fight. They don't fight under threat, they fight to become free (Mamluks) or to get access to important government offices (Janissaries) or similar. If you threaten your soldier they're likely to just turn their weapons on you



Considering that you need a guard for about 7 slaves, you wouldn't become as wealthy as you'd become having 10 miners with dynamite, drills, and excavation machinery. Not even as wealthy as you'd be if you took that money that you give to the (quite expensive) guards, and the money you spend on slaves, and just gave that to 1000 free workers.



In general, while I take a lot of issue (and I mean a LOT of issue) with the politics of the game, I don't wanna be too nitpicky, and I am letting most political messages slide under the implicit "it's fiction." response. But economics of slavery is one thing I just can't allow to slide. It is important to me that people understand that slavery just doesn't work, that people view slavery in the same way as they view bloodletting - a horrifying practice that doesn't even work. That they not only oppose it on the basis that it's horrible (since some sociopaths might not care about that), but that it's also stupid and just doesn't work.

Egh... I'm not really sure what you're doing... I don't want to keep debunking everything you're saying. People do gain power when they control the labor of others, and it obviously makes them rich. A plantation more than pays for a few guards and the shed the slaves sleep in.

Just look at companies in the US, a CEO gains a lot of power and wealth from the labor of others. While not slavery, there are comparisons to be made. Now imagine paying them nothing and owning them, telling them what to do. It's even more profitable, and you're able to do it to so many others.

I'll just debunk your first thing, slavery did exist in europe way before the industrial revolution. A simple google search about slavery in switzerland debunks it. I should also mention the US was a developing nation that used slave labor to jump start it, as I said in my first response. Europe was already developed at this time, slave labor made America catch up faster than equality would.

Also, like... why did China use slaves to build the great wall of china? Haha, why didn't they just pay workers to do it professionally silly?

It's also a bit funny how the South's entire argument about not abolishing slavery is how their entire economy would collapse

 

[Havik79]

Porn with plot my dude... and there's a whole lot of both.

Yes that is part of why I am a patron for this game, but there is porn with plot, and then over thinking plot lines.

 

[Runey]

I dont get why we are getting physological and historical talks about slavery and stuff..
Its a fictional world
If Runey says slavery is profitable in his world... then it is.

Fiction!

Saying this devalues the world, though. Anytime someone diverges the conversation with "It's not real life, so why should we care?" completely devalues a story. Sure it's fictional, and anyone can just say "X = Y" but it's not valuable unless it's believable and enjoyable.

Slavery is just profitable. The less people pay workers, the more those people get. It's all about the money, and people will do whatever gets them the most.
In the US, the minimum wage is about $7.50 something. Most companies can afford more but don't pay more because it's less profitable. If they could get away with paying you nothing, and it was legal, they would. And did in the past. Now it's widely accepted to be wrong though.

 

[TheDevian]

Yes that is part of why I am a patron for this game, but there is porn with plot, and then over thinking plot lines.

Maybe, but some of us enjoy that stuff.

 

[Deleted member 929426]

Maybe, but some of us enjoy that stuff.

I'm just in it for the headpats.

Personally, I'm hoping we're coming to an end to this debate before this thread is derailed too much.

 

[ankhtar]

If all else fails to bring the debate to an end, we can all come together (giggity) in an unprecedented discussion of epic proportions about what the PC's face actually looks like.

 

[somebodynobody]

If all else fails to bring the debate to an end, we can all come together (giggity) in an unprecedented discussion of epic proportions about what the PC's face actually looks like.

That isn't really a debate, it is Honey Select, male characters look terrible in Honey Select. So the answer is "not good".