Alignment Question (Yay)

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys. So, long story short, my party is a bounty hunter party, we captured a guy, and after a series of events, did not get payed. We planned to sell him into slavery and I was wondering if this would bring our alignments south of neutral. (We already are neutral) On one hand, it's a "making money" thing. Although on the other hand, greed and ruthlessness tend to be evil. (In combination) What do you guys think? And as always, go nuts.

[Genth]

For me, Slavery=Evil

Unless it's a highly philosophical LG slavery where criminals and naturally evil creatures are enslaved but treated well in order to control and channel their abilities and tendencies into good for the community. :p

[Tengu_temp]

Selling a captive into slavery is evil, so is killing him. But a single evil act of this magnitude is not enough to bring a neutral character down to evil.

[Slipperychicken]

Sounds like a step down the road to evil. Keep it in mind when considering your characters alignments and the depths to which they'll sink to make a buck.


Also, have you considered releasing the captive to safety? That would probably be better for your reputation, earn you some goodwill with the captive, and also spite your renegade client (it's not about money, it's about sending a message).

[Leviting]

Slavery=very evil. As in, selling someone into slavery is a line that once crossed, can't really be un-crossed. The only LN (as opposed to LE) slaveries I can think of are the beginning of Les Miserables and TES 3 Morrowind's "break rocks for the empire" jail.

[Dorian Gray]

Selling a captive into slavery is evil, so is killing him. But a single evil act of this magnitude is not enough to bring a neutral character down to evil.

I think I would actually disagree with you on this point. Slavery and rape are the two things which are always, always evil in my games, and if I were the DM, either of them would instantly send a player into evil territory.
Basically, Good is "I want to improve things for myself, and will do so while helping others", Neutral is "I will make things better for myself, and won't be an ass", and Evil is "I will make things better for myself, and don't care for the lives of others while doing so". Selling someone into slavery is an act so far into the third territory that I would rule that it shapes your character.

[BWR]

Slavery is not always evil in my games. Certain countries in certain settings are slave-based economies and not evil. It's never a good thing, but how is selling him into slavery morally different than putting him behind bars for hard labor the rest of his life (most people I've come across don't think prison systems are evil)? Or just offing him? Depending on the country and the slave system, it could function more like incarceration with the chance of being able to buy himself free eventually.
Unless your party knowingly sold this guy to a living hell of a life for monetary gain, I probably wouldn't rule it as evil. Maybe enough to tip you over if you were already on the edge but not in itself. You would certainly lose 'good' points, however.

[theNater]

It's important to remember that concern for the dignity of sentient beings is one of the parts of Goodness explicitly listed in its definition. Treating a person like property is as antithetical to that as murder is to the respect for life; and just as Evil. In general, one act doesn't change alignment, but if your party is going to make this standard procedure(selling any person you capture but can't get paid for into slavery), then that would probably push you over the line.

It's never a good thing, but how is selling him into slavery morally different than putting him behind bars for hard labor the rest of his life (most people I've come across don't think prison systems are evil)?

Prisons usually recognize certain basic human rights that slavery systems don't. In particular, a slave owner is often free to harm their own slaves for no reason, while prison administrators are generally not free to do so to prisoners. It does, of course, vary from system to system; there are Neutral "slavery" systems out there and Evil prisons.

[Mastikator]

What's to stop your party from just capturing people and selling them into slavery? I mean if it makes money and you don't care that slavery is evil, what's stopping you?

[BWR]

It does, of course, vary from system to system; there are Neutral "slavery" systems out there and Evil prisons.

Exactly. And not just 'slavery' but slavery. My go-to example is the empire of Thyatis in Mystara. It's basically Rome if you give them more Greek-sounding names. Slave-based economy, and slaves are a significant portion of the population, and are continually taken and sold and whatnot but they are guarenteed certain basic rights like food, clothing, shelter, lack of abuse from masters, right to own personal property (of modest amounts, but still), right to earn and keep money of their own and right to buy their freedom when they have enough money. Considering the emperor of Thyatis started life as a gladiator slave, these laws are rather strictly enforced. This isn't to say slaves have a jolly life or don't mind being slaves, but it's certainly little or no worse than being a nominally free serf many other places. Being sold into slavery in Thyatis wouldn't be a pleasant experience, but one which you have a real chance of getting out of, especially if you're rather competant to begin with.

There are examples of places where being a slave is less pleasant and selling someone into slavery there would most definitely be an evil act (the neighboring and rival empire of Alphatia is an example).

- - - Updated - - -

What's to stop your party from just capturing people and selling them into slavery? I mean if it makes money and you don't care that slavery is evil, what's stopping you?

Good adventurers?
Taking slaves is a very common event in raiding/expansionistic cultures. Rome did it. The vikings took slaves. Heck, you can probably point to tons or RL examples of practical slavery, even if you didn't call it that. If you want to make a campaign based on PCs being slavers, fine. Once you make a career of it, especially if you are indiscriminate in your choice of victims, I'd say you definitely tip over into evil.

[Mastikator]

Can we be sure that there are relevant good adventuring parties?

My question was mostly rhetorical, it was to point out that if your conscience doesn't stop you from selling people into slavery then you are most certainly evil. Even if you only do it once, because it proves you are evil enough to actually condemn a man into slavery.

The neutral answer is, if you can't get the bounty for a guy you captured, you release the guy. You don't just murder him in cold blood or sell him into slavery. Even if you're an assassin and you're paid to kill someone, if the payment stops then you don't kill the guy because you at the very least don't work for free and you don't murder for your own pleasure.
OR you're evil.

[BWR]

Or the local laws and rules mandate slavery as the punishment for certain crimes and is a perfectly acceptable solution to the problem of "what to do with this guy we don't want to murder but can't let go free".

[Mastikator]

You don't know that is the case, you're speculating wildly with no basis.

All we know is:
they're bounty hunters
they're neutral
they captured a guy
they didn't get paid
they want to sell him for profit
they're worried it might make them evil

[BWR]

I never said this was the case. I am presenting situations in which slavery is not evil in a game world. You don't know any more about the situation than I and I disagree with your conclusions about what is neutral and evil.

[Mastikator]

The law does not define morality. If X is evil, and the law says X is permitted (or compelled) then the law is evil. And the evil is not excused.

[Frozen_Feet]

How is selling him into slavery morally different than putting him behind bars for hard labor the rest of his life?

Depends slightly on the exact judiciary system and laws in place, but coming from a historical perspective, the difference is simple:

A prisoner used to be free, then did something wrong, and lost their freedom as result. Loss of freedom is a punishment for them.

A slave was never free. Lack of freedom is not a punishment, it's their default state.

A prisoner needs to earn his sentence, while a slave needs to earn his freedom.

In practice, however, the fate of criminals and prisoners is often just as bad or worse than that of slaves. In modern day, we make a big deal of how slaves were abused. Maybe so, but they were also assets, part of the workforce, and hence their masters had vested interest in keeping them in shape.

Meanwhile, historically, prisoners were often treated worse than animals, being left to rot in dark cells or subject to arbitraty violence from their wardens.

Of course, there's a great deal of overlap between these groups. The most prominent (and most abused) groups of slaves often doubled as prisoners of war. Namely, those prisoners who were not valuable to anyone and couldn't be held for ransom, so they were used for manual labor.

[BWR]

Depends slightly on the exact judiciary system and laws in place, but coming from a historical perspective, the difference is simple:

A prisoner used to be free, then did something wrong, and lost their freedom as result. Loss of freedom is a punishment for them.

A slave was never free. Lack of freedom is not a punishment, it's their default state.

A prisoner needs to earn his sentence, while a slave needs to earn his freedom.

.

Except many new slaves were gained taking them from previously free people. They used to be free, now they work for and are property of someone else, doing hard labor until they die. Sure, you have those that are born into slavery, but you have the other kind too.

[Jay R]

Ask your DM. People do not now and never will agree about alignment. Only the DM's opinion is relevant.

[Frozen_Feet]

There's a semantical difference in how you use the word 'free' versus how it's used by slave-taking peoples. Understanding that difference is crucial if you want to understand why slavery is often considered evil.

Historically, the concept of a free person or a "freeman" was much narrower than how we think of them today. It was usually restricted to a small demographic of specific ethic or religious origin. Only these minorities had the rights to rule themselves and others.

Other peoples, even if isolated from the "freemen" demographic or living in a separate community, had no such rights. Just because they had no apparent owner, didn't mean they were "free". Rather, their freedom was alike to a rock lying on the ground: Finders keepers. Their default state was not "free", it was "unowned", which subsequently meant the first "freeman" with will and strenght to do so could own them.

As you can see, this outlook systematically denies agency and rights of living beings, which is why D&D alignment would peg it as evil - "exploiting other beings for fun and profit".

This outlook is also why your statement is both right and wrong. You're correct that many people were not born into slavery, they were collected from conquered peoples (etc.). But just because they were not born in a slaver's custody, doesn't mean the society that enslaved them ever considered them free. In fact, it is precisly this distinction between the free and the non-free that justifies and allows for slavery. In many societies that practiced slavery, enslaving a "freeman" was a heinous crime, because it violated rights and privileges of that "freeman". Only if proven guilty of a crime could a "freeman" be stripped of his position; and usually, this sentence could only be passed by other freemen. Enslaving the non-free was acceptable, because they had no such rights from the get-go.

This is also something the original poster should keep in mind. Since a bounty was apparently posted on this guy's head, it's likely he's been outlawed, which means you can do whatever you want to. But do check before you act. It is entirely possible that without a trial, the guy you've captured is still considered a lawful citizen or a freeman. This quite likely means selling him to slavery is a severe crime, and might get you in serious trouble if you ever come to light.

Also, remember: a foe who's alive and has a grudge is a foe who could come back for revenge. So before you choose where to sell him and to who, consider how likely he is to escape and do just that.

I'm not advocating killing him. Rather, if you do sell him to slavery, be sure to make it clear it's the best option for him. This is easier if his crime was severe enough to get him executed or targeted by other bounty-hunters, and if terms of his enslavement are reasonable.

[theNater]

What's to stop your party from just capturing people and selling them into slavery? I mean if it makes money and you don't care that slavery is evil, what's stopping you?

Good adventurers?

If the only thing keeping someone from doing Evil is that they might be punished for it, that person is Evil.

Or the local laws and rules mandate slavery as the punishment for certain crimes and is a perfectly acceptable solution to the problem of "what to do with this guy we don't want to murder but can't let go free".

Letting him go free is always an option. Plus, if he's nasty enough that a Good person would think twice about it, threatening to let him go free is a good way to encourage the people who placed the bounty to settle up.

Except many new slaves were gained taking them from previously free people. They used to be free, now they work for and are property of someone else, doing hard labor until they die.

If someone's only crime is being on the losing side of a war, then enslaving or imprisoning them is Evil.

[Teapot Salty]

Sounds like a step down the road to evil. Keep it in mind when considering your characters alignments and the depths to which they'll sink to make a buck.


Also, have you considered releasing the captive to safety? That would probably be better for your reputation, earn you some goodwill with the captive, and also spite your renegade client (it's not about money, it's about sending a message).

He's already dead. Don't ask me the details, I wasn't there for the game. But here is the basic plot: King gives us target, (to be delivered alive) we retrieve target. Get back to town. King has been killed! Go to knew king, he stiffes us, we kill him.

[Mastikator]

He's already dead. Don't ask me the details, I wasn't there for the game. But here is the basic plot: King gives us target, (to be delivered alive) we retrieve target. Get back to town. King has been killed! Go to knew king, he stiffes us, we kill him.

Well, at least it's not your character's soul that is heading south. The whole "we kill him" seems unnecessary, which makes it Evil.

[theNater]

He's already dead. Don't ask me the details, I wasn't there for the game. But here is the basic plot: King gives us target, (to be delivered alive) we retrieve target. Get back to town. King has been killed! Go to knew king, he stiffes us, we kill him.

Barring further details, your party is already Evil, regardless of what you do with the prisoner. If your party intends to be Neutral, selling the prisoner into slavery isn't going to help. If your party is happy being Evil, selling the prisoner into slavery isn't going to hurt.

[Teapot Salty]

Well, at least it's not your character's soul that is heading south. The whole "we kill him" seems unnecessary, which makes it Evil.

I'm pretty sure killing him was half "where's my money" and half self defense. If thats even possible.

[theNater]

I'm pretty sure killing him was half "where's my money" and half self defense. If thats even possible.

I can't confirm whether or not it's possible, but without the details, it's absolutely not plausible.

[Slipperychicken]

He's already dead. Don't ask me the details, I wasn't there for the game. But here is the basic plot: King gives us target, (to be delivered alive) we retrieve target. Get back to town. King has been killed! Go to knew king, he stiffes us, we kill him.

Well, at least it's not your character's soul that is heading south. The whole "we kill him" seems unnecessary, which makes it Evil.

I'm pretty sure killing him was half "where's my money" and half self defense. If thats even possible.

I'd give them a break for that. Even Hercules murdered his questgivers when they withheld payment (see Hercules' fifth labor).

Also, as those kings' fates can testify, regime change is no excuse for defaulting on payment obligations.

[theNater]

I'd give them a break for that. Even Hercules murdered his questgivers when they withheld payment (see Hercules' fifth labor).

No, Augeas withheld payment at the time of the fifth labor and Herc killed him after all twelve labors were over and done with. Near as I can piece together with 20 minutes of Google, Augeas was killed while they were on opposite sides of a war being fought for other reasons(though given their history, Herc probably wasn't going out of his way to find a peaceful solution).

[Nerd-o-rama]

I would suggest, just because this thread hasn't spiraled off into the fire bomb-strewn mess that all alignment threads do yet, that there are Evil and non-Evil institutions of slavery.

I can't cite specific examples due to board policy, but suffice to say that most people in the modern world hear slavery and think of chattel slavery, wherein slaves are considered property or livestock, to be bought, sold, bred, used, and disposed of at will by their owners, and where one is automatically a slave if born to slaves. This is Evil. Incredibly Evil, really, and any D&D kingdom in which it's even a legal option probably counts as Evil on a governmental scale.

However, there have been other historical variants of slavery, such as debt-bondage. You may remember the term "indentured servitude" from history class, in which people in the ages before credit cards would pay for expenditures beyond their means by obligating themselves to work at a lender's whim for a certain amount of time, after which their contract had been fulfilled and they were freed. When regulated and unabused, this is a harsh but probably not Evil system - it's more or less a privatized version of forced prison labor. Instead of paying a debt to society, you're paying a debt to Joe Fishmonger for a new house for your family on a different continent or something.

It depends largely on how slavery is instituted in the setting and the conditions that the unfortunate mark in question would suffer under should he join it, really.

[theNater]

I would suggest, just because this thread hasn't spiraled off into the fire bomb-strewn mess that all alignment threads do yet, that there are Evil and non-Evil institutions of slavery.

That's reasonable enough, though I think we can safely rule that any slavery system into which someone can be sold with no questions asked and without their consent is gonna be an Evil one. It's certainly not a well-regulated and unabused debt-bondage system, for example.

[Mastikator]

I'm pretty sure killing him was half "where's my money" and half self defense. If thats even possible.

Hey you don't need to make excuses, they did that without you present, your character's alignment is not evil as far as I'm concerned.