Good Slaves?

[RedFox]

Living constructs and intelligent undead, depending on how much you can stand the smell.

After that, any race with A: long life, B: a more lawful bent, C: low Wis or naturally low Will saves, D: High stats other than Wis, depending on the purpose of the slaves (basic laborers need high Str and Con, artisans need high Dex, while courtesans need Cha, etc.) and E: no natural resistance to authority (see: B.) or mind control.

Specialized extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities are a big bonus, of course.

 

[Nifft]

Chaotic slaves would be unruly and hard to keep in line. Very fighty.

Lawful slaves wouldn't have discipline problems -- but they'd all rise up at once, being well organized and all.

- - -

So I'm down with the skeleton and golem camp.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Jack of Shadows]

Well,

My Mindbender was very partial to Trolls. Very low maintenance.

Jack

 

[Alzrius]

Female elves, preferably drow, look great when chained to the bed in scanty clothing.

...

Or did you mean slaves for the purpose of manual labor?

 

[Felix]

Female elves, preferably drow, look great when chained to the bed in scanty clothing.

...

Or did you mean slaves for the purpose of manual labor?

Funny, reading the first sentence brought "manual labor" to mind.

 

[Wraith Form]

What races would make good slaves in D&D and why?

Children?

 

[Kurotowa]

Female elves, preferably drow, look great when chained to the bed in scanty clothing.

...

Or did you mean slaves for the purpose of manual labor?

See, that's the sort of clear headed thinking we need. When I'm an immortal god-emperor and the entire world cowers at my feet, I don't want to have to be breaking in new servants all the time. An elven concubine doesn't need to be replaced every decade, an elven secretary has centuries to learn how to appease my moods. Also, a magically gifted slave race is so much more useful than a brutish manual labor force. True, brutish force is useful in my legions of terror that keep the slave races in line, but I wouldn't want to try and have them carving the statues in my honor.

I think my point is that you need a healthy mix of attributes. Putting all your eggs in one basket just makes them more easily broken. Also, racial solidarity makes for easier uprisings. If I play my elven house servants against my hobgoblin legions against my dwarven laborers, they'll all be so busy competing against each other for my favor that they'll never unite against me. Mwa Ha Ha Ha!

 

[prosfilaes]

I have a hard time imagining long life being a useful thing in slaves.

Highly trained labor is probably easier and more reliable to hire than to train in slaves. Do you really want your secretary being a slave, and reading all your mail about slave revolts and the problem of slaves escaping to Goodlandia?

There's not a whole lot of problem training short lived races to do menial labor, and once you've got a decent supply of orcs, it's self-replenishing and even profitable. (And if you don't care to buy and sell, you can always use them as shock-troops and barbarians to harass whatever neighbors may be annoying you. Even if they do run off, they'll probably do more damage to your enemy than to you.) Whereas you may have a spare elf to sell every hundred years, and they get forever to plan their escape. You can't afford to use elves as troops against the orcs your neighbor is sending at you, because if they die they're hard to replace. Sure, everyone has one or two around, if just to annoy the local goody-two-shoes contingent, but they don't make great slaves.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

High physical scores, low mental scores. Lawful alignment preferred (that should take care of the low mental scores, too ).

Break their spirit, and do it thoroughly. Kill off all their heroes, make them do the most debasing work imaginable, breed something really lowly into their race. Kill of everyone who shows the least bit of spirit. Feed them stuff that will fry their brains even further. Always have a way handy to eliminate them all and start from scratch, in case they do manage to revolt.

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

No, but you will feel it

 

[evildmguy]

The best slave race is the one that doesn't know it is a slave race.

Barring that, having competitions among the slave groups, and giving the winners more benefits and "freedoms" than the other might help them forget their lot in life. Then, they focus more on the next competition than trying to get free.

edg