Good Slaves?

[Thunderfoot]

....tongue in cheek friends....

Good slaves? Realistically? .. how about breeding a group of people (mainly men with superb technical skills and a knack for understanding history and other esoteric subjects) that will spend copious amounts of money each month on rulebooks of diminishing quality and/or power-creeping feats/skill tricks/what-have-ye?

Another good slave would be someone who takes the time to weigh individual boxes of 'War of the Dragon Queen' in the vain hopes of getting his (less likely her) dreamed of Huge mini.

And let's not forget the upcoming master: 4th edition.


C.I.D.

Bad Cyronax! *whaps nose with rolled up newspaper* Bad Cyronax! *whap whap* Get back in your corner! *whap whap whap*

 

[Cyronax]

Bad Cyronax! *whaps nose with rolled up newspaper* Bad Cyronax! *whap whap* Get back in your corner! *whap whap whap*

Well I at least got my Eldritch Giant mini through that incredibly scientific method. Slavery has its benefits.


BTW...I don't read the newspaper.

C.I.D.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Orcs are impressively strong, and their penalty to Wisdom (and thus Will saves) would be handy. However, they are bloodthirsty and lazy, so they would need constant supervision.

"Where there's a whip (crash) there's a way!"

 

[TarionzCousin]

It is no Axe-ident many dwarven weapons are also tools.

Tip your waitresses...I'm here all week.

Hey, what happened to the clean-cut Frank the DM? This icon has fangs and long hair: scary!

Feel free to add interplanar races. I'll be using Khaasta slavers in a Planescape campaign.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Warforged.

But only the kind that have a single, wide yet narrow eye that is red in color and the red bit glides back and forth with a hum. Nothing bad ever happened to enslaving those.

As for good slaves. Only evil people think slavery is "good" with in context of morality as it is defined in the worlds of D&D. That aside, the needs of the task at hand will determine the best slaves. Orcs would be better used for mining or something than as house slave keeping the linens clean.

 

[Sejs]

As for good slaves. Only evil people think slavery is "good" with in context of morality as it is defined in the worlds of D&D.

That's not explicitly true, even if it is the norm. It's entirely possible to have a society in which being a slave is actually a pretty sweet deal - but it all hinges on how the system is set up.

There are examples of societies in which being a slave didn't mean you were owned by an individual - it meant you were owned by the church (or the government, or in some cases both as they were one and the same). It meant you were guarenteed to be cared for, as you were church property, educated when many were not, and largely free from abuse - people wouldn't mistreat you because you were a direct representative of a higher authority, and messing with their stuff had reprocussions. It boils down to: there are examples where being a slave didn't mean chattel, it meant being a permanant employee. One whose loyalty was above reproach, because everything you had hinged on you being with your owner. Toss that away and you're hosed.

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Law implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. You could be Lawful Good, be from a slave-owning society, and own slaves so long as you treated your slaves as human beings and valued servants instead of as sub-human tools to be used and thrown away on whim.

 

[frankthedm]

Hey, what happened to the clean-cut Frank the DM? This icon has fangs and long hair: scary!

The clean cut image was a little out of date when i started to use it. The half orc tusks fit my posting style IMHO, the hair is dead on and the stubble is because I only have 1/2 the fatbeard look. {gut grew faster than beard]

 

[Ry]

The value of a slave is essentially how much can you get out of it, and what quality of work, before it dies. Also, slaves have to be convinced that they're slaves, regardless of the basic race (dwarf, halfling, gnome - none are slaves if they're still trying to kill you or constantly escape).

So Elves make the best slaves.

 

[TarionzCousin]

The value of a slave is essentially how much can you get out of it, and what quality of work, before it dies. Also, slaves have to be convinced that they're slaves, regardless of the basic race (dwarf, halfling, gnome - none are slaves if they're still trying to kill you or constantly escape).

So Elves make the best slaves.

Wait, what? Why would elves make the best slaves?

\now weighing DDM boxes for potential future profit. Thanks Cyronax!

 

[Sejs]

Wait, what? Why would elves make the best slaves?

\now weighing DDM boxes for potential future profit. Thanks Cyronax!

The argument he's making is based off .. let's call it 'extractable utility'. You can get X amount of work out of a slave before it is too old to be able to work anymore. So, by that reasoning, elves make good slaves because they live for a long time - they have a great extractable utility ratio.


The counter-argument is that A) elves breed slowly, so it's a pain in the butt to expand your slave workforce, B) the con penalty hurts in any labour-intensive uses, C) they have a natural chaotic bent and are resistant to mind control, and D) there are definitely instances in which having a slave race that's longer lived than their masters is a very bad thing.

With shorter-lived races you basically get a cultural memory reset every so often. You're slaves, your parents were slaves, their parents were slaves, and so on. You know that you wern't always salves, but nobody you know's ever met anyone from the homelands, let alone been there themselves. Obediance is bred right in. Not so with elves. You've got an elven slave that's been in your family for six generations ... that elf still remembers when he himself was free. That's dangerous.