Henlo, so we have to kidnap “poor helpless” people, put them in a wheel and make them work for us to properly and efficiently build and craft etc.
My suggestion to ease that up a bit would be to give your own character a profession.
For example I could be a carpenter, since I am a player I would be a “lvl 5 thrall” so the benefits of me working the carpenters bench would be even more significant than a lvl 4 thrall working on it.
This would be enhanced a lot more with multiple players with different professions, blacksmith, cook maybe even entertainers 
So a city or village of players would contribute to their community greatly and each of them would be a valuable asset.
Never mind this enchancing the roleplay aspect of the game even further.