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Gamerlord
2010-01-16, 11:38 AM
Sorry for starting another alignment thread.
To be more specific,two of my players have decided upon something , one of them, a warforged ranger will be a slave to another, a LN human cleric that worships a god of justice. Technically, he isn't really a slave, per se, as much as having been punished by said god of justice for a horrific misdeed, so now he is a slave to the human cleric as punishment, so, can one be lawful neutral and have a slave because of divine punishment to the slave?

Pharaoh's Fist
2010-01-16, 11:40 AM
Yes you can.

ex cathedra
2010-01-16, 11:41 AM
Is having a slave against the law? :smallconfused:

Regardless, I'm inclined to say yes.

bosssmiley
2010-01-16, 11:44 AM
Yes, provided that the institution of slavery is legal in the culture in question.

Evard
2010-01-16, 11:46 AM
Depends on what country you are in and what religion you belong to. If the laws say slavery is legal then there you go get you a slave if your character wants one (or needs one). Of course you could be a Schindler (watch Schindler's list..Liam Neeson kicks major booteh) type of person who takes in people as slaves to give them a better life, if that is the case then any good aligned person could own a slave.

Gamerlord
2010-01-16, 11:46 AM
Yes, provided that the institution of slavery is legal in the culture in question.

Yes, the LN god permits it, but only with criminals.

Skaven
2010-01-16, 11:49 AM
If you are in a society where it is lawful, such as ancient Rome, and have been raised there to believe in it, then yes.

Mongoose87
2010-01-16, 11:53 AM
It doesn't even need to be legal - if it's within your LN character's "code," then it's fine.

DueceEsMachine
2010-01-16, 11:53 AM
Yes, the LN god permits it, but only with criminals.

Okay, so the warforged has been accused and convicted of a crime - anything from petty theft to hunting in a part of the forest that was for nobility only. Doesn't matter if he actually did it, maybe he only mouthed off when he shouldn't have, but it was to the wrong person.

Bottom line, the character is a "criminal" in the eyes of their society, and must be reformed. Kind of a rough example, I know, but it was just the first thing that came to me.

Radar
2010-01-16, 11:54 AM
Why not?
If it isn't against the law, then it's ok. Besides it's not slavery, but a form of punishment and if LN characters hold on to something, it's that all actions have to have consequences. He just shouldn't mistreat the so called slave, yet he can order him to do menial and unpleasent duties as part of the punishment.

Blas_de_Lezo
2010-01-16, 12:11 PM
Yes of course, if he's into a context of a economic system based in slavery.

ocdscale
2010-01-16, 12:27 PM
Seeing as he is a cleric to the god that meted out the punishment, it's fine. He's following his god's judgment as a lawful cleric would be expected to do.

Don't think the law of the area matters nearly as much. Even in an area that expressly prohibited slavery, I'd expect a lawful cleric to place his god's law first.

Sebastian
2010-01-16, 12:33 PM
I can't see why not. Heck ,in the right context even LG characters could have slaves.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-16, 12:44 PM
Emphatic yes, only CG characters should see a problem inherent in slavery by default, everyone else sees it as fine/abhorrent based on their culture.

Side-note: why does this idea that Lawful alignment has something to do with the local legal system continue to exist after all these years. Lawful alignment means orderly, possibly systemized behavioral patterns, that's all. If you behave in an orderly fashion most of the time, that is you think things through rather than improvise, you're lawful. I sometimes really, really wish that the original designers of the alignment system had gone with the wording Order/Chaos rather than Law/Chaos.

Gametime
2010-01-16, 12:54 PM
Emphatic yes, only CG characters should see a problem inherent in slavery by default, everyone else sees it as fine/abhorrent based on their culture.

Side-note: why does this idea that Lawful alignment has something to do with the local legal system continue to exist after all these years. Lawful alignment means orderly, possibly systemized behavioral patterns, that's all. If you behave in an orderly fashion most of the time, that is you think things through rather than improvise, you're lawful. I sometimes really, really wish that the original designers of the alignment system had gone with the wording Order/Chaos rather than Law/Chaos.

Probably because the Player's Handbook says that lawful alignments result in respect for authority, so at the very least you're unlikely to willfully break the law.

Further, the description for Lawful Neutral specifies that your code can be personal, or it can be based on the laws of the region or respect for an institution. Just because Lawful characters don't HAVE to take their cues from the local government doesn't mean they NEVER do.


A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-16, 02:46 PM
Probably because the Player's Handbook says that lawful alignments result in respect for authority, so at the very least you're unlikely to willfully break the law.

Further, the description for Lawful Neutral specifies that your code can be personal, or it can be based on the laws of the region or respect for an institution. Just because Lawful characters don't HAVE to take their cues from the local government doesn't mean they NEVER do.

I wasn't saying that Lawful characters never take their cues from the local authorities, it's actually quite common, but many players seem to take lawful as meaning "has to obey the law wherever they are" when even Lawful Outsiders don't have to do that. I dare you to tell a kolyarut in the midst of a contract enforcement mission that he's not allowed to...... well...... do pretty much anything he pleases to get his job done just because the local authority says so. Disclaimer: I may have the wrong inevitable but I think my point still comes across.

Quirinus_Obsidian
2010-01-16, 02:48 PM
The answer is yes. It's called a cohort (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/featsAll.html#leadership). :smallamused:

Kiren
2010-01-16, 02:48 PM
Maybe the word slave is to powerful for this situation. Think of it more as Belkar having to stay close to Roy and work for him.

taltamir
2010-01-16, 02:50 PM
You seem to be a bit confused about what it means to be a slave...
Being punished by your god for a crime by temporary indentured servitude to a priest is very far from it. I mean, you can't even sell him...

just call it his penance.

Tanuki Tales
2010-01-16, 02:55 PM
I wasn't saying that Lawful characters never take their cues from the local authorities, it's actually quite common, but many players seem to take lawful as meaning "has to obey the law wherever they are" when even Lawful Outsiders don't have to do that. I dare you to tell a kolyarut in the midst of a contract enforcement mission that he's not allowed to...... well...... do pretty much anything he pleases to get his job done just because the local authority says so. Disclaimer: I may have the wrong inevitable but I think my point still comes across.

You got the right one.

Just look at Elder Evils for a good example of Lawful Neutral. The Kolyarut known as Obligatum VII is trying to release an entity that is not only a CR 20ish encounter when but a single sliver of its mind is released and not only has a massive sphere of annihilation as a body, but said creature also plans to wipe out all gods and probably all life on the material plane when it is finally released and rejoined.

And guess what? Obligatum VII is listed as Lawful Neutral. Pandorym was imprisoned against the contract it was summoned to fulfill and since all the contract breakers are dead as dust, the Inevitable is trying to unleash it to rectify the oath.

Being Lawful Neutral means you can ignore any kingdom's or society's laws as long as you vehemently follow your own code of conduct to the letter.

Ormur
2010-01-16, 03:12 PM
You seem to be a bit confused about what it means to be a slave...
Being punished by your god for a crime by temporary indentured servitude to a priest is very far from it. I mean, you can't even sell him...

just call it his penance.

Yeah this doesn't seem like chattel slavery as in Rome or The American south.

What the OP described could very well fit within a LN mindset, even LG. Proper slavery where people can be bought and sold and end up as slaves for little or no cause is however explicitly described as an evil institution but even then a LN person could probably get away with if it's the norm. Having a slave where freeing him might be problematic (like if he's of a subjugated species/race/people) and treating him well wouldn't have to make you evil even if the institution itself is evil.

hamishspence
2010-01-16, 03:19 PM
Cityscape (and BoED) are the most emphatic about the institution being evil.

Forgotten Realms suggests that its seen as evil in the Heartlands, but not in some other places (Mulhorand in particular)

Then of course there is "indentured servitude"- not quite the same thing, but often coming pretty close.

It can depend on the setting and the institution- if "rights of the slave" are considered important, as in Mulhorand- you can even have paladins as members of the slavery-tolerating society.

AshDesert
2010-01-16, 03:25 PM
I don't think this is a slave so much as a prisoner, and that would be fine for a LN Cleric, especially when being ordered to do so by his god. As long as he's willing to release the prisoner when his god says that his penance is over, he can easily stay LN.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-16, 03:25 PM
Yeah, sorry about that tiny pseudo derailment there. Like I said before only the CG types should have any problem with slavery based on their alignment since CG is supposed to be that whole freedom shtick. The other 8 alignments would look at slavery based on a combination of their morals, ethics, and societal mores.

hamishspence
2010-01-16, 03:33 PM
Some LGs have that "freedom" thing as well, or at least "tyrants are the enemy"

Two of the BoED elite archons (Domiel and Raziel) are decicated foes of tyranny and oppression in general.

Combined with Cityscape, it should be unusual, at least, for a LG culture to be fond of any be the most "toned down" forms of slavery (Mulhorand being the most notable example of such a culture)

A LN culture on the other hand, might have much less of a problem with it.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-16, 03:39 PM
I don't think a NG would like it, as slavery means treating fellow people as property, with all the potential abuses inherent. No NG would like a system where whipping or worse is perfectly legal for any reason deemed fit by the owner.
The LG would likely strive by a different code then the law of the nation with legalized slavery. The interaction of Law and Good can mean you only follow just laws.
LN would vary. If they held a personal code rigidly above all, and that included, 'no slavery', no they wouldn't go for it. If they were more 'when in Rome. . .', then they would quite possibly be fine with it. CN would just work to make sure they don't become slaves. NN would possibly either be above it all with 'In every season, blah, blah blah.' or maybe an uncomfortable ditherer, trying to rationalize it, thinking maybe they somehow deserved it.

mostlyharmful
2010-01-16, 03:45 PM
It completely depends on what form of Chaotic/Good/Lawful/Evil you're playing with and what fits where and how they interact and why it's a slave and whether it's voluntary and about a bajillion other things, I'd avise going and reading some of Frank and Ks stuff on alignment given how abyssamlly bad a job WotC did on writing up the most sublimely complex topic of human consideration into a nine box grid..... can you tell what the focus of my degree was?

Solaris
2010-01-16, 03:49 PM
Yeah this doesn't seem like chattel slavery as in Rome or The American south.

What the OP described could very well fit within a LN mindset, even LG. Proper slavery where people can be bought and sold and end up as slaves for little or no cause is however explicitly described as an evil institution but even then a LN person could probably get away with if it's the norm. Having a slave where freeing him might be problematic (like if he's of a subjugated species/race/people) and treating him well wouldn't have to make you evil even if the institution itself is evil.

The non-chattel variety was more commonly known as a 'servant'.

mostlyharmful
2010-01-16, 03:50 PM
The non-chattel variety was more commonly known as a 'servant'.

actually 'serf' is the prefered term, servant is a contractual, willing arraignment but serf is an indetured heriditary position.

taltamir
2010-01-16, 03:53 PM
actually 'serf' is the prefered term, servant is a contractual, willing arraignment but serf is an indetured heriditary position.

serfs were practically chattel... they were born serfs, could never become more, could be conscripted or killed if refused.
only difference is that if you wanted to sell a serf you couldn't do so directly, you had to sell the land he resides on and the land come with the serfs.

a requirement of indentured servitude is that your children are not born into the same status.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-16, 03:55 PM
It completely depends on what form of Chaotic/Good/Lawful/Evil you're playing with and what fits where and how they interact and why it's a slave and whether it's voluntary and about a bajillion other things, I'd avise going and reading some of Frank and Ks stuff on alignment given how abyssamlly bad a job WotC did on writing up the most sublimely complex topic of human consideration into a nine box grid..... can you tell what the focus of my degree was?
I think it's an fairly good system for what it is trying to represent. That is, as long as one remembers that each one can be interpreted in different ways, even as ideals, and everyone follows their ideals in different ways and measure. It's not nine boxes, it's an array of the intersection of law chaos and good and evil. The boxes are just for the mechanical effects.
One could indeed question the wisdom of having actual effects in game based on morality and ethics, rather then power been power and what you do with it, but that's a separate discussion altogether.
Regardless, this issue is older then older then 3.0, so WotC doesn't shoulder the blame here.

Ryuuk
2010-01-16, 03:55 PM
I don't see much of a problem with it when you take into account the fact that the slave in question is a warforged. Even in a society that bans slavery, would there be much objection to having a man made construction (even if it is a sentient one) be a servant to a human? Unless the setting is more advanced socially then Asimov's stories, I don't think anyone would frown at this.

Ravens_cry
2010-01-16, 03:59 PM
I don't see much of a problem with it when you take into account the fact that the slave in question is a warforged. Even in a society that bans slavery, would there be much objection to having a man made construction (even if it is a sentient one) be a servant to a human? Unless the setting is more advanced socially then Asimov's stories, I don't think anyone would frown at this.
Hooo, boy. Thanks, that's another can of worms, or should I say, can of gears. In my mind, if a brother or sister has a mind, meat or metal, artificial or grown, then they deserve the same considerations of all mind, the same rights and responsibilities, and a society that thought otherwise needs to grow up and is certainly not good.
But that's my thought.

Johel
2010-01-16, 04:00 PM
Lawful means you respect a set of agreed rules, usually written or at least well-known and based on a hierarchy.

Neutral here is for a neutral moral attitude : you aren't cruel, hearthless or selfish "beyond necessary" (I know, it's subjective, but so is morality...).

So, as long as your priest doesn't enforce slavery through the use of extreme violence, as long as the slave is treated humanely, I don't see the problem.

If we want to use only logic, most employees are technically the willing slaves of their employers, as they exchange their time and sweat for just enough to live and maybe afford a few luxuries, while the employer reap most of the additional value created. It isn't strict slavery, as an employee can legally quit without being an outlaw, though.

And that's the key, here : outLAW. By having a slave, is your priest respecting the "law" he sweared to respect, the code by whom he lives ? If yes, then slavery is Lawful.
As for "Evil or Neutral", it depends of how the slave is treated.


serfs were practically chattel... they were born serfs, could never become more, could be conscripted or killed if refused.
only difference is that if you wanted to sell a serf you couldn't do so directly, you had to sell the land he resides on and the land come with the serfs.

a requirement of indentured servitude is that your children are not born into the same status.

Serfs could be freed ("affranchi") by their lord if he so wanted. Needless to say that very few did. And those who did seldom did it for free.

Russian serfs could be sold without the land.

taltamir
2010-01-16, 04:14 PM
Serfs could be freed ("affranchi") by their lord if he so wanted. Needless to say that very few did. And those who did seldom did it for free.

Russian serfs could be sold without the land.

Chattel slaves could be freed too.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-01-16, 05:14 PM
Some text

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

. . .

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.
So yes, Lawful entities can own "slaves" (by which I mean human chattel). Chances are that they would only be comfortable having slaves if their traditions allowed for slavery - or if the individual bound himself to be your slave due to a tradition of his own culture.

The tricky part is Neutral, of course

Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
The issue is making sure that your treatment of the slave does not "debase or destroy innocent life" or otherwise "oppress" the individual. So the LN owner would need to treat the individual as having dignity without necessarily treating them as an equal. Since slavery is an inherently dehumanizing condition, this can be difficult - but by no means impossible.

Johel
2010-01-16, 05:45 PM
Chattel slaves could be freed too.

My point was about you saying a serf couldn't become more than a serf.
He could, in theory. A freed serf could own land or even start a business, this without breaking the law.

I also remember a rule stating that a run-away serf who wasn't caught in the 2 years following his capture was considered a free man. But this was from a historical roman ("Perles et les ménestrels" by Dorothy Van Woerkom). The book sounded very accurate in its description of middle-age peasant life but I read it more than a decade ago and I'm not sure about the exact phrasing of the rule.

Anyway, that's off topic.

Lawful Neutral can own slaves and remain LN.
As long as they aren't cruel or needlessly violent with said slaves, they'll remain Neutral.
As long as they aren't breaking the laws or any personal code or oath, they'll remain Lawful.

Ormur
2010-01-16, 06:19 PM
Serfs that escaped to a city, at least in medieval Germany, and managed to live there without problems for a year and a day became free men. The extent of the duties and privileges of serfs differed but I'm not sure they could be considered personal property and without rights to the same extent as slaves, although their position also differed.

I have a feeling that the slavery D&D calls evil is of the Roman and American type. You know, domestic slaves and plantation workers that were taken in war or sold in slavery.

Devils_Advocate
2010-01-16, 07:09 PM
There is absolutely nothing inherently non-Lawful about slavery and there isn't anything all that especially inherently non-Good about it either. Yeah, Evil characters hurt, oppress, and kill others; but Good characters can also do that stuff to the guilty to protect the innocent. Good-aligned adventurers slay villains all the time; it's, like, a major part of their job. Enslaving someone as punishment for a crime isn't any more at odds with Good alignment than killing and imprisonment are. Punishing wrongdoers is, at least generally speaking, morally different from just abusing random people on the street. That's just common sense.

Fulfilling the duties of one's position, potentially including punishing offenders, is Lawful in general. In this particular case, you've got a Lawful cleric enforcing the just edict of the cleric's Lawful deity. That's Lawful behavior. With Lawful tendencies. Of Law.


why does this idea that Lawful alignment has something to do with the local legal system continue to exist after all these years.
The PHB informs us that "Lawful characters respect authority" and "'Law' implies obedience to authority". And, while it doesn't say anything about locality, the whole paradigm of Westphalian sovereignty is presently so prominent that a lot of players will tend to take for granted the notion that the local government is the authority in whatever civilized territory their characters happen to be in, such that respecting and obeying authority means respecting and obeying the local government.

But even if this were the case, blindly respecting the government of every place you pass through for any reason is something so particular that it really should not be part of any alignment. (Same goes for always telling the truth to everyone in all circumstances, really.) So clearly the relevant trait should be consistent respect for some authority, not all authority. But they didn't make this explicit, so it's not necessarily immediately clear.


Lawful alignment means orderly, possibly systemized behavioral patterns, that's all. If you behave in an orderly fashion most of the time, that is you think things through rather than improvise, you're lawful. I sometimes really, really wish that the original designers of the alignment system had gone with the wording Order/Chaos rather than Law/Chaos.
I'm not entirely sure what "orderly behavior" is supposed to mean, but anyway, no. Law is not Order and Chaos is not Disorder. Those are not even moral nor ethical qualities, so they hardly belong in alignment. A Lawful character attempts to consistently adhere to the standards of behavior that some other individual or group wants him to follow, be it his family, clan, society, culture, government, church, leader, superior, god, ancestors, or whatever. Rules, traditions, conventions, duties, honor, responsibility; pick whatever words you want to describe trying to live up to others' expectations, be they explicitly stated formal requirements or unspoken, unwritten understandings. The point is that Law allows itself to be directed by others as opposed to the self-directed Chaos.

The idea that "following a personal code" of your own devising makes you Lawful is ridiculous. Any character's personality can be stated in imperative form. (Failing to give your character a personality is pretty much just bad roleplaying, and certainly shouldn't be considered a particular alignment.) Following the "code" of "Decide for yourself what to do without regard for what anyone else thinks" is Chaotic, not Lawful. And just being methodical will not alone make you Lawful. Nor is planning ahead somehow Law-aligned. Certainly neither organizing nor disorganizing things is inherently Lawful nor Chaotic.


I don't think a NG would like it, as slavery means treating fellow people as property, with all the potential abuses inherent.
Power naturally includes the potential for abuse, and a Good character will dislike that potential, but he may also like other things about the power enough that he'll pretty much just deal with it. A cleric of Pelor doesn't like the fact that his mace could be used to bash in the heads of innocent people, and if he's the introspective sort he may even reflect that this illustrates a deep flaw in the universe, but that won't compel him to destroy it.

Children are basically treated as chattel. This gives their keepers a lot of potential to do unpleasant things to them, and some of them do. But many people who don't like that still support the current system anyway under the theory that the benefits outweigh the costs for the vast majority of people involved.


In my mind, if a brother or sister has a mind, meat or metal, artificial or grown, then they deserve the same considerations of all mind, the same rights and responsibilities, and a society that thought otherwise needs to grow up and is certainly not good.
Sure, but different beings have different needs and wants. If your artificial servant likes doing what you tell it to do -- and if its designer had sufficient control over its psychology, this should be precisely the case -- then bossing it around is pretty much doing it a favor. Making a mind that will reliably happily cooperate with already-present sentient beings actually seems a lot more moral than natural reproduction.

Of course, if your creation has a basically human mind with basically human needs and wants, because copypastaing in stuff from humans was way more easy than creating a mind entirely from scratch, then enslaving it is morally akin to enslaving your own children, which actually gets into a bunch of complicated stuff about why who has what freedom and what makes a life worth living and so forth.

But ideally, you don't need to force or even entice an artificial mind into doing what you want, and indeed this is one of the major potential advantages of artificial minds.

Superglucose
2010-01-16, 07:46 PM
Slavery is not inherently evil. In fact, slavery can be good (look at apprenticeships or indentured servitude, forms of slavery which were at the direct benefit of the "slaves")

However it is the antethesis of Chaotic which is about personal freedoms.

That being said slavery CAN be evil. You can't be LN and beat the **** out of your slave.

absolmorph
2010-01-16, 07:51 PM
Emphatic yes, only CG characters should see a problem inherent in slavery by default, everyone else sees it as fine/abhorrent based on their culture.

Side-note: why does this idea that Lawful alignment has something to do with the local legal system continue to exist after all these years. Lawful alignment means orderly, possibly systemized behavioral patterns, that's all. If you behave in an orderly fashion most of the time, that is you think things through rather than improvise, you're lawful. I sometimes really, really wish that the original designers of the alignment system had gone with the wording Order/Chaos rather than Law/Chaos.
I was going to say this.
Apparently I got beaten to it. Thank you for saving me the effort and putting it better than I would have.

jmbrown
2010-01-16, 07:52 PM
I was about to say something but Devil's Advocate took the words out of my mouth. Law and chaos are in regards to society, good and evil are in regards to morality. Being lawful means you respect legitimate authority. Just because someone follows the exact same routine every day doesn't make them lawful if they consistently go against society's laws. Saying otherwise would be like saying you can't be honest and chaotic.

DragonBaneDM
2010-01-17, 02:20 AM
I just have one question. Does the cleric worship St. Cuthbert?

Ormur
2010-01-17, 02:47 AM
Children are basically treated as chattel. This gives their keepers a lot of potential to do unpleasant things to them, and some of them do. But many people who don't like that still support the current system anyway under the theory that the benefits outweigh the costs for the vast majority of people involved.

I think the people that treat their children properly (IE in a manner befitting a good aligned parent) recognize that their children are in fact not their chattel, but independent persons with their own rights that have to be looked after. The distinction may be mostly philosophical but I think a good aligned person would never view another person as their chattel, merely as someone trusted to their care for their own good or society's. That would include an indentured criminal.

RebelRogue
2010-01-17, 03:00 AM
Slavery is not inherently evil.
At least 90% of the time, it will be so in practice, though! I'm willing to buy a LN character having a slave if it's kept under non-cruel conditions, but a LG slave-owner? That seems pretty farfetched!

Aedilred
2010-01-17, 03:32 AM
Serfs that escaped to a city, at least in medieval Germany, and managed to live there without problems for a year and a day became free men.
The same applied in England and Aragon. I'm not sure about anywhere else, but it seems likely that it was the same across the majority of western Europe.

Of course, being free didn't necessarily mean you were any better off. Your quality of life might well decline, in fact...

Superglucose
2010-01-17, 05:03 AM
At least 90% of the time, it will be so in practice, though! I'm willing to buy a LN character having a slave if it's kept under non-cruel conditions, but a LG slave-owner? That seems pretty farfetched!
I disagree. A LG slave owner isn't that far fetched at all.

We think of slavery in the way that our society has taught us about slavery: the forced labor of someone against their own will with brutality and opression. But that's us projecting.

Consider instead: a slave is fed, clothed, and housed by its master, albiet to varying degrees. So let's say that I, Superglucose, am in huge debt that I can't pay, and there exists Debtor's Prison. I can either go into Debtor's Prison, or alternatively sell myself to you, RebelRogue for a nominal fee... say the value of my debt? In exchange, I'm yours, for you to do what you will.

If you were evil, you would leave me in rags, give me a small hut, and toss a water-baloon of gruel at me every day, probably whipping me for fun.

If you were neutral, you'd give me rules to follow, work to do, and an appropriate set of clothes and/or tools.

If you were good, you'd welcome me in your home, provide me with clothes and essentially elevate me to the status of a servant. You'd feed me with good food and give me a good bed to sleep in, and tend to my needs just as you would if I were your employee.

The problem is that there has been a lot of screeching over how terrible slavery is because in most cases, slaves were treated fairly poorly, and even treated as "sub human." But what people completely seem to forget is that this isn't only true of slaves in history, but factory workers, women, and children at various points of history.

Sure, there were the Jean Valjean's of factory owners, but most of them were The Foreman.

Gamerlord
2010-01-17, 07:27 AM
I just have one question. Does the cleric worship St. Cuthbert?

Nope, he serves a homebrewed up deity.

Quincunx
2010-01-17, 08:14 AM
Labors of Hercules? Sounds fine for Lawful Neutral.

Runestar
2010-01-17, 08:51 AM
toss a water-baloon of gruel at me every day

That made me smile.

I am betting the slave-owners of yesteryear are rolling in their graves for not thinking of that before. :smallbiggrin:

RebelRogue
2010-01-17, 02:24 PM
If you were good, you'd welcome me in your home, provide me with clothes and essentially elevate me to the status of a servant. You'd feed me with good food and give me a good bed to sleep in, and tend to my needs just as you would if I were your employee.
Yes, I could envision that scenario, but as you point out that's called "employment" not "slavery". It's an agreement between free men that you work off your debt.

Drakevarg
2010-01-17, 02:37 PM
i.e. "Indentured Servitude," which I believe has boatloads of historical precedent.

tyckspoon
2010-01-17, 02:42 PM
I disagree. A LG slave owner isn't that far fetched at all.


Three meals a day, at least one with meat, room and clothing to be provided by master, one week's Being Allowed To Run Away a year.. :smallwink:

Yeah. A Good society that didn't outlaw slavery would likely end up instituting laws and traditions regarding the welfare of slaves instead; it wouldn't be at all surprising if such laws lead to being enslaved being preferred to being free and destitute.

awa
2010-01-17, 09:15 PM
While not true of all slave owning societies in many slaves were better treated then the poorer members of society because while the wealthy members of society could care less if a free (unskilled) employee died he could just be replaced but the slave was an investment and if he allowed his slave to die soon after acquiring him then he has lost money and the longer he keeps the slave alive the better his profit will be.

And god help you if your unemployed and unable to find work in some societies because no one else will.

Gamerlord
2010-01-17, 09:22 PM
Just thought I might add something that might be important:
The majority of warforged ARE slaves, slaves to an evil civilization ruled by wizards, only a few hundred aren't suffering from mind-control and are free, this empire has a nasty habit of attacking and destroying anything nearby that doesn't serve them, so warforged have a bad reputation wherever they go.

Soniku
2010-01-17, 09:51 PM
Three meals a day, at least one with meat, room and clothing to be provided by master, one week's Being Allowed To Run Away a year.. :smallwink:

Yeah. A Good society that didn't outlaw slavery would likely end up instituting laws and traditions regarding the welfare of slaves instead; it wouldn't be at all surprising if such laws lead to being enslaved being preferred to being free and destitute.


Actually, you know what? This has come up in history. I can't remember the civilization, it may well have been Roman or Greek, but the avarage free person could scrape a meager existance for him and his family with no real prospects of advancement in the world. On the other hand slaves were taken in by wealthier families to serve (very likely an easier job than the farming or such they would have been doing otherwise), be fed and housed in usually decent conditions (don't want an unhelathy or sleep-deprived slave) and the slaves children, due to the environment they are brought up in, had a much greater chance to gain education and becoming one of the families wealthy enough to own slaves themselves.

This is one of the reasons I dislike the alignment system myself. It's easy to say "LG hates this, CG hates that" but in practice even in the same alignment everyone has different views on freedom, morals and such. One CG could see the above conditions and think the slavery was good for the slaves and it's a shame so many people had to make a painful existance farming from dawn till dusk every day of the year so that their children might survive the winter, while another CG might see it as an abhorrent violation of human rights to take away his freedom without him being given any say, and it should be stopped regardless of the possible increse in quality of life for the slave and his family.

jmbrown
2010-01-17, 10:02 PM
Actually, you know what? This has come up in history. I can't remember the civilization, it may well have been Roman or Greek, but the avarage free person could scrape a meager existance for him and his family with no real prospects of advancement in the world. On the other hand slaves were taken in by wealthier families to serve (very likely an easier job than the farming or such they would have been doing otherwise), be fed and housed in usually decent conditions (don't want an unhelathy or sleep-deprived slave) and the slaves children, due to the environment they are brought up in, had a much greater chance to gain education and becoming one of the families wealthy enough to own slaves themselves.

This is one of the reasons I dislike the alignment system myself. It's easy to say "LG hates this, CG hates that" but in practice even in the same alignment everyone has different views on freedom, morals and such. One CG could see the above conditions and think the slavery was good for the slaves and it's a shame so many people had to make a painful existance farming from dawn till dusk every day of the year so that their children might survive the winter, while another CG might see it as an abhorrent violation of human rights to take away his freedom without him being given any say, and it should be stopped regardless of the possible increse in quality of life for the slave and his family.

This is how it was during the Sassanid dynasty of ancient Persia. There was even a document written designed to give slaves rights. You couldn't beat slaves in public (beating a female slave at all was a crime), you had to give them at least 3 days out of the month to rest, they could keep gifts including money, they had to be treated humanely, and a slave converted to the state religion could pay his way out of service.

I was somewhat shocked to find that Hong Kong still has a form of indetured servitude. People from the Philipines and other poor island countries come to Hong Kong and sell themselves as personal servants. Businessmen will use their "live-in servant" or hire several more to sit in banks, watching the stock exchange, and call them when the prices fluctuate.

I don't know the legality of this, but all the tour guides I talked to said nobody says anything. They're still bound by the state's law so you obviously can't abuse them or punish them. Still, I thought it was kind of fascinating. I'm sure every country has people who take in others as servants but it's apparently widespread in that country.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-17, 10:45 PM
I'm not entirely sure what "orderly behavior" is supposed to mean, but anyway, no. Law is not Order and Chaos is not Disorder. Those are not even moral nor ethical qualities, so they hardly belong in alignment. A Lawful character attempts to consistently adhere to the standards of behavior that some other individual or group wants him to follow, be it his family, clan, society, culture, government, church, leader, superior, god, ancestors, or whatever. Rules, traditions, conventions, duties, honor, responsibility; pick whatever words you want to describe trying to live up to others' expectations, be they explicitly stated formal requirements or unspoken, unwritten understandings. The point is that Law allows itself to be directed by others as opposed to the self-directed Chaos.

The idea that "following a personal code" of your own devising makes you Lawful is ridiculous. Any character's personality can be stated in imperative form. (Failing to give your character a personality is pretty much just bad roleplaying, and certainly shouldn't be considered a particular alignment.) Following the "code" of "Decide for yourself what to do without regard for what anyone else thinks" is Chaotic, not Lawful. And just being methodical will not alone make you Lawful. Nor is planning ahead somehow Law-aligned. Certainly neither organizing nor disorganizing things is inherently Lawful nor Chaotic.




Okay, try this on for size. I'm a person who grew up on a poor farm 2 days ride from any humanoid creatures outside of my immediate family. All my life my parent (who's TN) has taught me what's good and what's not, and told me old stories about adventurers of old that his parent told him, and his parent told him before. I grow up, to the age of about 15 or so, having never interacted with another humanoid creature outside of my immediate family, and have no clue what nation I belong to or what its laws are. I barely know what a nation is. I decide that farm life is not enough for me, and so become an adventurer. I take the short-sword my dad's been using as a machete for the last decade and depart and never look back (a chaotic action I think.) I go around doing good as best I can, but I always follow my code; never lie, never steal, protect the innocent, treat people with respect; because I must maintain my honor. I only know what honor and innocent mean because my parent taught me. When I say I always follow my code, I mean always I always speak politely to anyone I don't know, even if they insult me. I always insist on working for anything anyone gives me, if it's worth more than a copper. I've never told a lie since I was eight years old and my parent taught me how important the truth was. I've run into a burning houses to save a children because I was the first person to realize they were still inside. Over the first couple of years I practically forget I even have a family, and never think about going back, or even what they might be doing now.

Which of those nine boxes would you check for my alignment? By what I've quoted I can't be lawful good because I don't even know who or what the local authority is, and the things my parent taught me were never codified. and I certainly can't be a paladin. Or is it your contention that even though it's a personal code that no-one holds me to, it's a standard of behavior that my country bumpkin family would want me to adhere to?

soir8
2010-01-17, 10:49 PM
Anyone else read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett? Takes a good look at the possible plus sides of slavery.

"Why don't you run away?"

"Oh, done that. Ran away to Tsort once, didn't like it much. Came back. Run away for a fortnight in Djelibeybi every winter though."

Doug Lampert
2010-01-17, 10:59 PM
The same applied in England and Aragon. I'm not sure about anywhere else, but it seems likely that it was the same across the majority of western Europe.

Of course, being free didn't necessarily mean you were any better off. Your quality of life might well decline, in fact...

The phrase "City Air is Free Air" probably originated in France, serfs were also freed for managing to live in a city in northern Italy.

I think it was fairly general. Serf's status changed by time and place. Russian serfs were nearly free at one time, and then the nobility cracked down and got some laws changed. IIRC some of the Scandinavian countries had an even worse drop in the status of their "free" peasents over time.

But serfs at almost all times and places had at least limited property rights and in most cases, at least in theory, there were limits on what the owner could demand, which puts them one step above most actual chattel slaves.

The Torah (first five books of the Christian bible) includes rather substantial portions dedicated to the treatment of slaves; and expected slaves to be freed after seven years at most. It also includes provisions for what to do if a slave didn't WANT to be freed, which was appearantly not seen as at all implausible by people familiar with the system.

Riffington
2010-01-17, 10:59 PM
The real issue isn't believing in slavery (a mere belief doesn't affect alignment), or even in having one per se. Plenty of very Good people have had slaves. They treated them well, and the slaves stuck around.
The real issue is what happens when trouble comes up. For instance, suppose the slave tries to run away. It is going to be very difficult for a Good character to properly stop said runaway and punish him "properly". That's more the Evil shtick.

jmbrown
2010-01-17, 11:01 PM
Okay, try this on for size. I'm a person who grew up on a poor farm 2 days ride from any humanoid creatures outside of my immediate family. All my life my parent (who's TN) has taught me what's good and what's not, and told me old stories about adventurers of old that his parent told him, and his parent told him before. I grow up, to the age of about 15 or so, having never interacted with another humanoid creature outside of my immediate family, and have no clue what nation I belong to or what its laws are. I barely know what a nation is. I decide that farm life is not enough for me, and so become an adventurer. I take the short-sword my dad's been using as a machete for the last decade and depart and never look back (a chaotic action I think.) I go around doing good as best I can, but I always follow my code; never lie, never steal, protect the innocent, treat people with respect; because I must maintain my honor. I only know what honor and innocent mean because my parent taught me. When I say I always follow my code, I mean always I always speak politely to anyone I don't know, even if they insult me. I always insist on working for anything anyone gives me, if it's worth more than a copper. I've never told a lie since I was eight years old and my parent taught me how important the truth was. I've run into a burning houses to save a children because I was the first person to realize they were still inside. Over the first couple of years I practically forget I even have a family, and never think about going back, or even what they might be doing now.

Which of those nine boxes would you check for my alignment? By what I've quoted I can't be lawful good because I don't even know who or what the local authority is, and the things my parent taught me were never codified. and I certainly can't be a paladin. Or is it your contention that even though it's a personal code that no-one holds me to, it's a standard of behavior that my country bumpkin family would want me to adhere to?

Bold for emphasis. You might not have grown up in a civilized area but you follow the traditions your parents set before you against what might be practical. Eventually you would realize that not everyone can be trusted but the tales you were raised on say otherwise and override what one would call your "common sense." You actively seek to do good when the opportunity presents itself (even if you aren't aware of your action being good, the result is all that's important) so you're likely good. Even though your traditions aren't codified, they're synergistic with society's laws so that's an added bonus. I would call your character Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral with good tendencies.

Now if your parents taught you to see the world through your own eyes and make decisions based on what was practical, you'd be neutral. Even if you followed the rules of your parents household, your opinion of society is that no one has an obligation to do what an authority figure dictates all the time.

Baidas Kebante
2010-01-17, 11:14 PM
I was somewhat shocked to find that Hong Kong still has a form of indetured servitude. People from the Philipines and other poor island countries come to Hong Kong and sell themselves as personal servants. Businessmen will use their "live-in servant" or hire several more to sit in banks, watching the stock exchange, and call them when the prices fluctuate.

I don't know the legality of this, but all the tour guides I talked to said nobody says anything. They're still bound by the state's law so you obviously can't abuse them or punish them. Still, I thought it was kind of fascinating. I'm sure every country has people who take in others as servants but it's apparently widespread in that country.

Wow, there's so much wrong in these two paragraphs that although I don't want to steer away from the topic I feel the need to clear up some things.

1. There are no servants in Hong Kong.

2. There are nannies in some of the more well-off families to help take of the children or the elderly. They do exactly the same kind of duties that nannies do in other countries, such as in the US. There have been cases where such nannies were abused, just like there have been in the US, but the law works hard to protect them.

3. Nannies are contract employees and are only allowed to work for a set amount of years before moving on to other employment. Nannies are also required to have one day off during the week (almost always Sundays). Most nannies are live-in, but are not required to do so. Families with live-in nannies have a long set of regulations that I won't bother to list here.

4. There are maid services for some families who are responsible for only cleaning a flat. The rules and regulations about this are pretty much the exact same as anywhere else in the world, such as the US. People hired for maid services are not allowed to live in the household and are not considered nannies.

5. The part that people in Hong Kong "keep quiet" about is that the line between nannies and maids can sometimes be blurred. Some families will hire a nanny whose job also includes some cleaning duties. In these cases, the nannies are always paid a great deal more and most actually prefer such jobs. Technically, hiring a nanny who also cleans is allowed in Hong Kong but there is additional paperwork and regulations about it. As such, families who hire a nanny who also cleans tend to only file for the nanny duty and everyone "keeps quiet" about the cleaning duties.

6. The idea of "servants" who also help out with certain business duties is an exaggeration. There's only been one case that was reported and it's illegal. The reason why it's remembered and talked about is because it was so shocking and deplorable. I'll bet there are others doing the same right now, but cases are far and few in between.

Back on topic, I feel that the situation is nothing like slavery and perfectly acceptable for the cleric. I find it no different from a character being under a geas where the cleric simply acts as a parole officer of sorts who has the authority decide the parameters of the sentence being carried out.

Devils_Advocate
2010-01-18, 01:14 AM
Yes, I could envision that scenario, but as you point out that's called "employment" not "slavery". It's an agreement between free men that you work off your debt.
If you agree to become the other party's property as collateral, you stop being free, though. And if your agreed-upon period of employment is however long you live instead of some fixed term, then you're not really even an indentured servant; you're just a slave.

Which might not be too unreasonable, all things considered.


Just thought I might add something that might be important:
The majority of warforged ARE slaves, slaves to an evil civilization ruled by wizards, only a few hundred aren't suffering from mind-control and are free, this empire has a nasty habit of attacking and destroying anything nearby that doesn't serve them, so warforged have a bad reputation wherever they go.
Well, sucks to be him, then.

But while that does sound important to the game, I don't think that it really has any alignment implications here.


One CG could see the above conditions and think the slavery was good for the slaves and it's a shame so many people had to make a painful existance farming from dawn till dusk every day of the year so that their children might survive the winter, while another CG might see it as an abhorrent violation of human rights to take away his freedom without him being given any say, and it should be stopped regardless of the possible increse in quality of life for the slave and his family.
And the third Chaotic Good character asks the slaves how they feel about it, thereby providing the moral of what I'm guessing is a fairly formulaic elven parable.


Or is it your contention that even though it's a personal code that no-one holds me to, it's a standard of behavior that my country bumpkin family would want me to adhere to?
Of course. You have embraced the ethics that your authority figures impressed upon you, making them your own. Is this not the very essence of Law?


The real issue is what happens when trouble comes up. For instance, suppose the slave tries to run away. It is going to be very difficult for a Good character to properly stop said runaway and punish him "properly". That's more the Evil shtick.
I dunno about that. If the slave justly lost his freedom, then he's rightfully yours, and his running away is basically an act of theft. A non-Evil character can believe that harsh punishments for crimes are necessary, especially for repeat offenders. And this person must have been pretty irresponsible at best for slavery to constitute a just punishment in the first place.

It's tricky, though. The whole "What is this 'mercy' you speak of?'" deal is pretty much the reason why St. Cuthbert basically operates a toll booth right on the border between Lawful Neutral and Lawful Good instead of just being straight-up LG. There's probably a tipping point where you start to see bad things happening to the guilty as acceptable, not because of any good that this accomplishes, but because "They brought this on themselves" and "They don't deserve any better".

2xMachina
2010-01-18, 07:24 AM
Okay, try this on for size. I'm a person who grew up on a poor farm 2 days ride from any humanoid creatures outside of my immediate family. All my life my parent (who's TN) has taught me what's good and what's not, and told me old stories about adventurers of old that his parent told him, and his parent told him before. I grow up, to the age of about 15 or so, having never interacted with another humanoid creature outside of my immediate family, and have no clue what nation I belong to or what its laws are. I barely know what a nation is. I decide that farm life is not enough for me, and so become an adventurer. I take the short-sword my dad's been using as a machete for the last decade and depart and never look back (a chaotic action I think.) I go around doing good as best I can, but I always follow my code; never lie, never steal, protect the innocent, treat people with respect; because I must maintain my honor. I only know what honor and innocent mean because my parent taught me. When I say I always follow my code, I mean always I always speak politely to anyone I don't know, even if they insult me. I always insist on working for anything anyone gives me, if it's worth more than a copper. I've never told a lie since I was eight years old and my parent taught me how important the truth was. I've run into a burning houses to save a children because I was the first person to realize they were still inside. Over the first couple of years I practically forget I even have a family, and never think about going back, or even what they might be doing now.

Which of those nine boxes would you check for my alignment? By what I've quoted I can't be lawful good because I don't even know who or what the local authority is, and the things my parent taught me were never codified. and I certainly can't be a paladin. Or is it your contention that even though it's a personal code that no-one holds me to, it's a standard of behavior that my country bumpkin family would want me to adhere to?

LG.

I look at alignment a bit different. L in LG, LN and LE means the same thing to me. That is to follow a code/law more often than not. I also see each alignment as having a degree.

You're also G, because you do good, even at the risk of your own life.

Dr.Epic
2010-01-18, 07:29 AM
I believe the formain (did I spell that right, the crazy ant centaur monsters) are LN and in they monster description it says they are most interested in conquering so I'd say yeah.

Riffington
2010-01-18, 10:00 AM
I dunno about that. If the slave justly lost his freedom, then he's rightfully yours, and his running away is basically an act of theft.
True. But, a Good character, seeing suffering and a strong desire to leave, will relent. Good requires mercy. [obviously everything's different if the guy is likely to do something horrible once freed. totally different situation not discussed here] Likewise, a Neutral character, seeing a sufficient degree of suffering and a sufficiently strong desire to leave will have to relent. That threshold will be much higher for the merely Neutral character.




A non-Evil character can believe that harsh punishments for crimes are necessary, especially for repeat offenders.
Absolutely. You can be Good and intellectually believe that. But then in that actual moment when you are faced with the choice of causing this man torment or letting him free - unless you believe he'll do something horrible while free, a Good person will let him leave. Mere belief is different than real willingness to cause that kind of suffering and demonstrate that kind of lack of respect for human dignity.



It's tricky, though. The whole "What is this 'mercy' you speak of?'" deal is pretty much the reason why St. Cuthbert

St. Cuthbert does not entirely lack mercy. He has less than an LG deity.

hamishspence
2010-01-18, 10:05 AM
yes- the dragon magazine article on him emphasizes that while punishments should not be waived entirely, they can be reduced for mitigating factors.

The example given was theft- under normal circumstances stealing is seen by him as meriting imprisonment or execution, but "stealing to feed starving children" merits a much less severe punishment.

But then, it also suggests that the common conception of him being LN with LG tendencies, is in error, and he is in fact LG with LN tendencies.

jmbrown
2010-01-18, 10:09 AM
Wow, there's so much wrong in these two paragraphs that although I don't want to steer away from the topic I feel the need to clear up some things.

1. There are no servants in Hong Kong.

2. There are nannies in some of the more well-off families to help take of the children or the elderly. They do exactly the same kind of duties that nannies do in other countries, such as in the US. There have been cases where such nannies were abused, just like there have been in the US, but the law works hard to protect them.

3. Nannies are contract employees and are only allowed to work for a set amount of years before moving on to other employment. Nannies are also required to have one day off during the week (almost always Sundays). Most nannies are live-in, but are not required to do so. Families with live-in nannies have a long set of regulations that I won't bother to list here.

4. There are maid services for some families who are responsible for only cleaning a flat. The rules and regulations about this are pretty much the exact same as anywhere else in the world, such as the US. People hired for maid services are not allowed to live in the household and are not considered nannies.

5. The part that people in Hong Kong "keep quiet" about is that the line between nannies and maids can sometimes be blurred. Some families will hire a nanny whose job also includes some cleaning duties. In these cases, the nannies are always paid a great deal more and most actually prefer such jobs. Technically, hiring a nanny who also cleans is allowed in Hong Kong but there is additional paperwork and regulations about it. As such, families who hire a nanny who also cleans tend to only file for the nanny duty and everyone "keeps quiet" about the cleaning duties.

6. The idea of "servants" who also help out with certain business duties is an exaggeration. There's only been one case that was reported and it's illegal. The reason why it's remembered and talked about is because it was so shocking and deplorable. I'll bet there are others doing the same right now, but cases are far and few in between.


Everything I said was pretty much 99% word-for-word from the mouth of the tour guide who boasted being a resident for "30+ years and counting" as she lovingly put it. I don't know what's more wrong: the fact that she just "educated" and colored the opinion of "ignorant Americans" or the fact that her views were as extreme as they were. A Hong Kong colomnist was slammed last year for calling the Fillipines a "nation of servants" so surely the tour guide wasn't the only resident who thought like that.

And to move it away from real-life issues, this extends into the topic at hand as well. Slavery/servitude is colored by the society that allows it. Personally I think it would make for great political tension to have two nations, both of them "good" nations, but one abolished forced servitude while the other embraces it. The one that allows it has a binding document stating what you can and cannot do, but people who sell themselves into slavery are someone elses property until they pay it off.


True. But, a Good character, seeing suffering and a strong desire to leave, will relent. Good requires mercy. [obviously everything's different if the guy is likely to do something horrible once freed. totally different situation not discussed here] Likewise, a Neutral character, seeing a sufficient degree of suffering and a sufficiently strong desire to leave will have to relent. That threshold will be much higher for the merely Neutral character.

I don't see why a neutral character has to relent at all. The slave is his, owned by him, and he has the right to do as he pleases. The fact that he's neutral merely blurs the line between what is socially acceptable and what isn't. A chaotic neutral person, even though he values personal freedom, isn't any more likely to let go of owned property as a lawful evil person. I can see a chaotic neutral person being especially cruel like freeing a slave only to hunt him down and capture him alive as a sport.

hamishspence
2010-01-18, 10:11 AM
I can see a chaotic neutral person being especially cruel like freeing a slave only to hunt him down and capture him alive as a sport.

Cruelty for sport is, if not a guarantee of an Evil alignment, at least a hint that the being is heading that way.

Baidas Kebante
2010-01-18, 10:16 AM
True. But, a Good character, seeing suffering and a strong desire to leave, will relent. Good requires mercy. [obviously everything's different if the guy is likely to do something horrible once freed. totally different situation not discussed here] Likewise, a Neutral character, seeing a sufficient degree of suffering and a sufficiently strong desire to leave will have to relent. That threshold will be much higher for the merely Neutral character.

But the problem here is that we should assume that with a LN deity, the punishment must have fit the crime (but only in this case, because they are still in the process of constructing the backstory). Even the original post mentions that this was a horrific deed. If the crime was bad enough for servitude to be the punishment, then escaping it should be synonymous with escaping from jail. It doesn't matter if it was a merciful punishment (a few months in a minimum security prison) or a harsh one - escaping the terms of the punishment is still wrong.

While a LG character may seek to understand the reasons why behind the escape and attempt to adjust the terms of the punishment to suit these reasons, I think a LN character may simply extend the length of the sentence regardless of the person's reasons and then send word to the higher ups to see what they feel about the situation.


Everything I said was pretty much 99% word-for-word from the mouth of the tour guide who boasted being a resident for "30+ years and counting" as she lovingly put it. I don't know what's more wrong: the fact that she just "educated" and colored the opinion of "ignorant Americans" or the fact that her views were as extreme as they were. A Hong Kong colomnist was slammed last year for calling the Fillipines a "nation of servants" so surely the tour guide wasn't the only resident who thought like that.

As an aside, I believe what you say. Sorry if I reacted to strongly - though I think you can understand why I did so. I'm sure the tour guide did tell you these things, I'm only correcting them because of the information. People like the tour guide and the columnist do exist here, but they're in the minority. The columnist got slammed big time over here as well.

hamishspence
2010-01-18, 10:22 AM
While "horrific misdeed" might not be the best term, it comes fairly close, in the case of Wulfgar in The Crystal Shard. Bruenor (who is LG according to the sourcebook Silver Marches chooses to enslave him (that term is used in the book) for a limited term- five years- as punishment for being part of the army attacking Ten Towns.

So the concept has precedent in D&D.

jmbrown
2010-01-18, 10:22 AM
Cruelty for sport is, if not a guarantee of an Evil alignment, at least a hint that the being is heading that way.

More or less the danger of the chaotic neutral alignment. Does slaadi ring a bell?

You know a demon wants to make you suffer until the final breath is squeezed from your lungs. A slaad? One minute they're minding their business, the next they're storming the prime on raids to fuel their lust for battle.

hamishspence
2010-01-18, 10:24 AM
This is probably why Slaadi alignment became CE, rather than Unaligned, in 4th ed.

Whether Chaotic or Lawful- cruelty is associated with Evil tendencies in D&D.

Baidas Kebante
2010-01-18, 10:39 AM
While "horrific misdeed" might not be the best term, it comes fairly close, in the case of Wulfgar in The Crystal Shard. Bruenor (who is LG according to the sourcebook Silver Marches chooses to enslave him (that term is used in the book) for a limited term- five years- as punishment for being part of the army attacking Ten Towns.

So the concept has precedent in D&D.

I'd like to further this concept by introducing a believable culture that would incorporate servitude (yes, I'm deliberately avoiding the word "slavery" because as the OP describes it, it doesn't really sound very much like it).

So imagine a culture whose chief LG deity believes that humility and charity are two important virtues to get into LG heaven. Since dedicated service should be voluntary and therefore left to the clergy, this culture has instigated a mandatory service period for youths growing up. When a child reaches a certain age, rich or poor, they are required to leave their homes and perform acts of servitude, such as feeding the poor or aiding the sick, for a lengthy period of time. People in this culture believe that doing so will teach young the value of humility and charity and help them become good people.

In the teachings of this culture, it is also believed that those who commit crimes are people who do not have a strong sense of humility and charity. Crimes are caused by pride and greed, the clergy teaches, and so those who do wrong are in need of mandatory service. Therefore, depending on the nature of the crime, the guilty party is sentenced to a period of time where he or she must serve another. Light sentences may resemble the acts that youths partake in, while heavier sentences may require guards present and the person must do it for years. Unique crimes will require the presence of a clergyman to constantly monitor the guilty one and determine when the guilty party has truly been rehabilitated.

In such a culture, seeking to escape servitude again shows a sign that the guilty person has too much pride and therefore needs more lessons from a clergyman as well as more service. There is no need to show more mercy, because the punishment itself is already merciful.

Lamech
2010-01-18, 10:42 AM
I think that the cleric would probably consider the cleric would consider the warforged a prisioner even if the warforged was techically a "slave". And the cleric I would assume would not be overly happy about supporting the situation. Treating a person as property is pretty much strongly on the evil catagory. Yes, one can find exceptions, (Schinlder), but in those cases the people wouldn't be treated as property, and the label would be trickery on the part of good.

Also if I was playing in a campaign with slavery, the supporters of it would be treated to a great many nightmare spells.

hamishspence
2010-01-18, 10:45 AM
Plausible for a LN to LG society.

Though societies like the LE efreeti have a similar approach to crime- they just extend sentences for even minor infractions- like speaking impolitely to the owner/supervisor. Same approach of "limited term servitude for crimes" though.

I could see servitude being common to Lawful cultures in general, with Good ones having a lot of factors to prevent abuse, and Evil ones having factors like:

"if you don't complete the term, your descendants must- and they cannot leave you until you are freed"

And charging for room and board of your descendants- hence, blurring the line between indentured servitude and hereditary slavery.

A possible sign that the institution is becoming, or has become, corrupt- when the "terms of servitude" are being auctioned off to private citizens.

"This person has been sentenced to 1 year servitude to the State or its citizens- the State offers its citizens a chance to bid for the services of the prisoner"

LibraryOgre
2010-01-18, 11:52 AM
At least 90% of the time, it will be so in practice, though! I'm willing to buy a LN character having a slave if it's kept under non-cruel conditions, but a LG slave-owner? That seems pretty farfetched!

That's because you're likely stuck on American chattel slavery as it existed into the 19th century. There are other models for slave-owning... the Roman version, for example, included the ability of a slave to buy his freedom (using money he's earned, either as a wage or tips, or through gifts), and it was not uncommon for scholars to sell themselves into slavery so they'd have a place to teach and someone to take care of them.

hamishspence
2010-01-18, 01:01 PM
The Roman version varied a lot. Some people didn't get that kind of opportunity to buy self free- miners, for example. Life expectancy was extremely low in that occupation.

Even if it doesn't fit "chattel slavery" exactly, for many, the net result was the same. That and the children of slaves being considered slaves by default under the law, makes the Roman model seem very little different.

Riffington
2010-01-18, 06:00 PM
The key law related to Good people and Slavery:
If a slave really wishes to escape, you must help provision him.

--

So, it is true that Good people can participate in punishment for a crime committed. *But*, a system of punishment must have certain limitations. If you are a prison guard, that's ok - you aren't the one deciding how long a prisoner must stay. You trust that the system (including judge/etc) is coming up with a good decision on that. If the prisoner becomes your personal slave... now, you are the only one making that decision. If you make that decision based on "well, this is actually rehabilitating him", that's one thing. If you make that decision based on "well, this is how it's been going, and it seems to be going well", that's fine too. If the prisoner isn't being improved by the servitude, and it's totally your call, and the tossup is "he'd benefit from freedom and wants it" vs "I like having a slave", choosing your own benefit reflects a lack of mercy and a lack of respect for human dignity. Depending how extreme the slave's distress is, it may be the kind of Evil that a Neutral man may do, or it may not be.

Devils_Advocate
2010-01-19, 05:56 PM
True. But, a Good character, seeing suffering and a strong desire to leave, will relent.
I think that you might be presuming too much about the slave's feelings, as well as the master's understanding of them.


Likewise, a Neutral character, seeing a sufficient degree of suffering and a sufficiently strong desire to leave will have to relent.
Neutral people can be selectively Evil. Even Good people can be selectively Evil.

And what if I need my slave to do work that's important to me, and maybe to others as well? Why should his preference take precedence, assuming that he lost his freedom fairly? Invoking the notion of an irrevocable right to self-ownership seems like begging the question.


St. Cuthbert does not entirely lack mercy. He has less than an LG deity.
yes- the dragon magazine article on him emphasizes that while punishments should not be waived entirely, they can be reduced for mitigating factors.
I guess that I got the wrong impression of him, then. My mistake.


But then, it also suggests that the common conception of him being LN with LG tendencies, is in error, and he is in fact LG with LN tendencies.
It seems that they shifted his alignment for a while at the beginning of 3rd Edition but then they retconned it back. He was LN (LG) in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer but later LG (LN) in the official list of Living Greyhawk deities.

He certainly seems closer to Lawful Good than his rival Pholtus, anyhow.


I believe the formain (did I spell that right, the crazy ant centaur monsters) are LN and in they monster description it says they are most interested in conquering so I'd say yeah.
Formians aren't so much a good example of non-Evil slavers. They're described as attacking and enslaving whoever they need to -- nay, whoever they can -- in order to advance their goal of completely taking over everything everywhere. It's not even some morally ambiguous thing where they make other creatures want to work for them and thereby try to create a happy, peaceful, all-encompassing society through brainwashing. Because the formian taskmasters don't even charm creatures, they just dominate them. This freaky ant-thing wiggles its antenna at you, and suddenly your will is no longer your own. Control over not just your body but your very mind is stripped from you, replaced by an irresistible compulsion to follow your new master's commands. That seems like it would be pretty horrible.

We're told that they do this because they regard spreading their hive everywhere as "a desirable end for all rational creatures", but do they regard any non-formian as "rational" if that's the case?


More or less the danger of the chaotic neutral alignment.
There's nothing about the Chaotic Neutral alignment that compels anyone to act... well, Chaotic Evil. The Chaotic Evil alignment would be the one that does that. Granted, CN may be more likely to spontaneously decide to be Evil than LN, but it's also more likely to spontaneously decide to be Good. Spontaneity is the common factor here, not inclination to hurt or to help others, which would be Evil and Good respectively.


You know a demon wants to make you suffer until the final breath is squeezed from your lungs. A slaad? One minute they're minding their business, the next they're storming the prime on raids to fuel their lust for battle.
As I once said with regard to Two-Face, killing people only half of the time does not make you Neutral. It just makes you half as Evil as killing them all of the time. Which is still plenty Evil. If you alternate between taking lives and saving lives, that's one thing, but merely alternating between taking lives and not taking lives is only half of that. The Evil half.

A demon may kill as frequently and as painfully as possible. Running outsiders with alignment subtypes as acting as strongly Lawful, Good, Chaotic, and/or Evil (whichever apply) as possible 100% of the time is not unreasonable, since they're living embodiments of their alignments. But normal creatures of those alignments will be much less extreme. A typical CE guy will not devote his life to his alignment and "Be Chaotic Evil" is probably not even on his personal list of goals.

There's a double standard in the books on this, though. The PHB tells us that only some Evil creatures do Evil for Evil's sake, while others merely lack any compassion and kill because it's convenient. This is in contrast to Neutral people, who have compunctions against killing the innocent.

But then the Monster Manual introduces "Neutral" creatures like blue slaadi and formians who attack and enslave everyone they can in order to add to their own power. Meanwhile, many Evil-aligned creatures are described as being not just cruel but outright hateful. The overall implication is that Evil is indeed about hurting others for the sake of hurting them, and ruthless exploitation of sentient beings to achieve other ends is not in itself Evil.

These two conflicting standards quite simply cannot exist alongside each other in a setting in which Evil objectively has a single meaning. In order to be consistent, you have to pick one or the other and then adjust races' behavior and/or alignment as needed. For example, as the MM describes them, the slaadi and formians are vicious enough to have their planes of origin retconned to Acheron and Pandemonium, where they'd fit in just fine.


A chaotic neutral person, even though he values personal freedom, isn't any more likely to let go of owned property as a lawful evil person.
That depends on the individual and on the circumstances, but I'd expect the average CN person to be a lot more likely than the average LE person to give something up simply as a favor.


I can see a chaotic neutral person being especially cruel like freeing a slave only to hunt him down and capture him alive as a sport.
Cruelty pretty much equals Evil per the PHB. Deliberately being especially cruel indicates Evil alignment. Even by the narrowest cruelty-for-the-sake-of-cruelty standard, that's Evil. It really is entirely unambiguous.


So imagine a culture whose chief LG deity believes that humility and charity are two important virtues to get into LG heaven. Since dedicated service should be voluntary and therefore left to the clergy, this culture has instigated a mandatory service period for youths growing up. When a child reaches a certain age, rich or poor, they are required to leave their homes and perform acts of servitude, such as feeding the poor or aiding the sick, for a lengthy period of time. People in this culture believe that doing so will teach young the value of humility and charity and help them become good people.
That sounds a lot like compulsory education: mandatory activity allegedly beneficial for those forced into it.

Chaotic characters will tend to be skeptical of such coercion of innocents, on the grounds that if something is so great you should be able to get people to do it voluntarily.

Then you've got stuff like a military draft, where it actually sucks for the particular individuals it happens to, but for the average citizen a small chance of being called up for duty is still better than being invaded by orcs.


Treating a person as property is pretty much strongly on the evil catagory.
I don't think that controlling a person necessarily entails cruel exploitation.


And charging for room and board of your descendants- hence, blurring the line between indentured servitude and hereditary slavery.
Call it "hereditary indentured servitude". Though the more control the master is given over how slowly the debt is paid off, the closer it moves to de facto slavery.


A possible sign that the institution is becoming, or has become, corrupt- when the "terms of servitude" are being auctioned off to private citizens.

"This person has been sentenced to 1 year servitude to the State or its citizens- the State offers its citizens a chance to bid for the services of the prisoner"
This comes up Planescape: Torment. A woman being auctioned off begs the Nameless One to help clear her name, professing that she inexplicably lost the paperwork proving that her late husband had paid off a debt. She's fearful that years of living in the polluted Lower Ward will be the death of her. (I doubt that she'd die during her term of service, but it probably would reduce her life expectancy.)

The institution doesn't come off as corrupt, from what I saw. The auctionees seem to prefer their fate to the prospect of spending their terms in one of Sigil's prisons, so it's pretty much better than that for everyone involved (the criminals, the government, and the buyers).

But there's potential for corruption there, sure. Not every city can be run by three factions all ideologically dedicated to ensuring that the law is actually being followed, after all.


If you are a prison guard, that's ok - you aren't the one deciding how long a prisoner must stay. You trust that the system (including judge/etc) is coming up with a good decision on that. If the prisoner becomes your personal slave... now, you are the only one making that decision.
Obviously, if someone is your personal slave in the sense that it's entirely your choice what to do with him, that changes things. But what if a higher authority tasks you to keep someone as a slave? Is doing so then any worse than keeping someone imprisoned on behalf of a higher authority?

And "I was only following orders" only seems like a valid justification for one's actions when one has reason to genuinely trust in one's superiors. That one is carrying out another party's decisions hardly seems sufficient, by itself, to eliminate personal responsibility. "If I didn't do this job, somebody else would" seems like a better excuse at that point, which is saying something.

Riffington
2010-01-19, 08:07 PM
I think that you might be presuming too much about the slave's feelings, as well as the master's understanding of them.
Right. This only applies to the extent that the master [notices/should reasonably notice] that further imprisonment has become quite cruel.



Neutral people can be selectively Evil. Even Good people can be selectively Evil.
Oh, yes, absolutely. But there are limits. Habitual cruel treatment of a slave (and, depending on the slave, continued enslavement may count as cruel treatment) may be one of those limits.



Invoking the notion of an irrevocable right to self-ownership seems like begging the question.
It is contrary to the "dignity of sentient beings".


If you alternate between taking lives and saving lives, that's one thing
An evil thing, in fact :p


For example, as the MM describes them, the slaadi and formians are vicious enough to have their planes of origin retconned to Acheron and Pandemonium, where they'd fit in just fine.
Agreed.


Obviously, if someone is your personal slave in the sense that it's entirely your choice what to do with him, that changes things. But what if a higher authority tasks you to keep someone as a slave? Is doing so then any worse than keeping someone imprisoned on behalf of a higher authority?
Far more subject to abuse/corruption, anyway. Not worse in every plausible circumstance though.
I'm not sure what it means to be tasked with keeping someone as a slave? You mean "he's my slave, but I can't free him?" Or do you mean "I am a slavedriver; the slave is my employer's". In the former case, you can get quite close to freedom. In the latter case, you choose your employment. If you're a slavedriver, you'd better have some extraordinarily good reason to believe in your employer's decisions.