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The morality of Summon Familiar

D&D takes place in the middle ages.

In those days slavery was common.

Good people could keep slaves and do things which by our standards would be evil.

Women and their situation is one example.

Women were essentially "machines for producing children" as Napoleon once said so it shouldn't come as a surprise that people would keep servants unwillingly if necessary.

Aristotle kept slaves and he was still considered a good man in his society.

People in D&D have a tendency to impose modern standards on the middle ages.
 

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D&D takes place in the middle ages.

In those days slavery was common.

Good people could keep slaves and do things which by our standards would be evil.

Women and their situation is one example.

Women were essentially "machines for producing children" as Napoleon once said so it shouldn't come as a surprise that people would keep servants unwillingly if necessary.

Aristotle kept slaves and he was still considered a good man in his society.

This takes the thread into an alignment discussion which, based on my past experience at EnWorld, is unlikely to be productive. It's not that I don't agree with you per se, but people's real life moral positions are likely to make this a hot button topic.

First of all, you seem at first blush to be taking a stance of 'all morality is relative or subjective'. That might not be your intention, but from what you wrote I can't really tell that you aren't going that way. While that's one way to interpret the data, it's not the only possible way to interpret it. And, it's an interpretation that's likely to cause a real life alignment argument as the moral absolutists (lawful?) square off against the moral relativists (chaotic?), each with the feeling that if the other is not down right evil, then at least that they are certainly ignorant.

For example, it could be that Aristotle was good by the standards of his society, and this made him actually good. Or it could be that he merely lived up to the moral norms of a society which was objectively Lawful Evil (or some such), and so other Lawful Evil persons judged him to be 'a good man' in as much as he lived up to the tenents of Lawful Evil and most people in the society felt Lawful Evil was the morally correct choice.

Or, it could be that things such a feminism and slavery aren't actually in and of themselves things that have moral value (as we in our current society suppose), and that whether a society is slave holding or patriarchial is not sufficient to judge its moral character because those things in themselves don't hold moral weight. It could be then that some societies that held slaves were in fact Good, because they held beliefs such as a master had certain obligations to his servant, that it is was wrong for a master to be cruel to his servant and a man who did so was not fit for polite company and otherwise subject to social or legal penalties, that being a slave did not confer on a person a judgement of their moral worth as slavery was a condition anyone might unfortunately find themselves in and that being a good slave was a path to perhaps even high honor. Or the society might hold that slavery was a condition that one could only rightly hold a slave in for a certain period of time, or under a certain contract, and that after that time the slave (and all his offspring) were owed their freedom (if they desired it) and perhaps even certain wages. In this case it might be that a society holding those beliefs might have tamed the morally dangerous instution of slavery in such a way that the slave-holding society was good. Or it could be, that modern mainstream thought on the subject is correct and that simply holding slaves condemns a society to be judged Evil.

In the later case, you might view society as being overwhelmingly Evil over the course of its history, but that over time man has become more and more enlightened until at last truly Good societies have begun to spring up. Or conversely, if you don't hold this later view, you probably think that for all of modern's societies pretences of being good, whatever it has learned of goodness has been completely offset by what it has forgotten of goodness. Or you might even think that society is continually morally deteriorating.

The problem you are likely to run into is that EnWorld is almost certainly populated with people who hold each of these various politically charged positions, and it is by no means our place here to argue them out of it. Hense beyond stating the complexities involved, we are left with little to say.

Which is why I completely sidestepped the question by trying to show that even within the terms of the myth, it doesn't fit in to the moral framework of 'slavery' that a modern person unfamiliar with the details might suppose.
 
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I am a moral absolutist Celebrim, but we have to remember that man has evolved from the monkeys; he has not descended from the angels.

Civilization is a very gradual process whereby man gains an understanding of what is objectively good or evil; and based on the time that D&D is taking place in, it seems like such things as keeping a slave would not be looked down upon but simply accepted as the way things are.
 

D&D takes place in the middle ages.
It really doesn't. It takes place in a fantasy world which only utilizes a lot of visual trappings of Medieval Europe. We have kings, knights, castles, swords and armor, but beyond that it is only with a great deal of work which still has to be coupled with a lot of suspension of disbelief that it can be said to be set in the middle ages. It has none of, and suggests almost none of the social and cultural influences of middle ages Europe. On top of which if not the rules themselves then the individual DM's borrow with reckless abandon from other areas of the world, other eras, as well as fiction from books, TV, film, and even non-fantasy genres of those works of fiction.

Slavery is known throughout the world from biblical times and still through to the world today - but D&D has NOTHING to say about it except in rare supplemental/third party materials. It has almost as little to say about the role of women in a society. It's anecdotal, but the most backward, sexist D&D games I've ever played STILL featured prominent female PC's and NPC's who were barely affected in any adverse way (if at all).

People in D&D have a tendency to impose modern standards on the middle ages.
They do indeed - but only thus prove that D&D is NOT set in the middle ages because there isn't even any fluff much less rules crunch to tell them they should not impose modern standards on game settings. D&D only LOOKS like a Hollywoodized version of the Middle Ages, and there the comparison largely ends.
 

D&D takes place in whatever time period you want

technically all you need is a 'dungeon' and a 'dragon' for it to be D&D

A dungeon could be a cave with the dragon A T-REX!

or the dungeon could be an abandoned space station and the dragon A T-REX FROM SPACE (more likely a large alien or robotic thingy)


the setting I DM in (a homebrew) has the time period sort of Renascence-ish

black powder has JUST been discovered and technology is making this interesting, cities are more than just 'we has walls to keep you safe' now its all 'we have walls...and jobs in our urban scrawl, come here to live'

think lord of the rings meets Oliver Twist (lol, Oliver is the ring barer!)

it works, and its tons of fun
 

After some consideration, I have revised my previous opinion that D&D takes place in the middle ages.

In D&D man, in the form of magic, has vastly more control over his environment than existed in the middle ages.

As far as slavery and the situation of women in D&D, since angels and demons exist in D&D who certainly have a far greater understanding of good and evil than man it is possible to assume that at one time unenlightened and primitive man was enlightened by these angels and taught to discern good and evil, i.e. individual rights.

As a side note, this is unlike real life where man has gradually gained knowledge of good and evil and has had to gain this knowledge through his own efforts.
 

After some consideration, I have revised my previous opinion that D&D takes place in the middle ages.

In D&D man, in the form of magic, has vastly more control over his environment than existed in the middle ages.

This is one of several possibilities, but I happen to agree with you at least in as much as that's how my campaign works (at least in some regards). However, it's worth noting that a world in which magic is real, could just as equally be a world without fixed natural law and with capricious supernatural powers in charge of everything, and so D&D man might well have vastly less control over his environment compared to the real middle ages. Either could be a valid interpretation depending on how the DM handled magic.

As far as slavery and the situation of women in D&D, since angels and demons exist in D&D who certainly have a far greater understanding of good and evil than man it is possible to assume that at one time unenlightened and primitive man was enlightened by these angels and taught to discern good and evil, i.e. individual rights.

You seem to be equating Good with 'individual rights'. Once again, you are throwing out a political observation as if it was fact. The best we can manage is to try to make some statement about the game world.

In its most common interpretation, the 'Chaotic' alignments are the one which recognizes individual rights and its not clear from your statement whether you are advocating 'Chaotic Good' or 'Chaotic Neutral', and in any event we'd probably find at least one poster who will disagree with whatever bucket I threw that one in.

However, what is certainly true is that 'Lawful Good' is not particularly concerned with individual rights and sees them largely as an excuse people use to partake in evil and avoid ones honorable duty. And for that matter, only Chaotic Neutral asserts individual right as having absolute primacy (again, not clear if you are asserting that), that is, that you have the right to do something free from interferance as well as the right to choose to not do something free from interferance. Whether or not Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good or any other alignment is the one which is morally correct and right for the game world or the real one is however something we can only assert as an opinion.

As a side note, this is unlike real life where man has gradually gained knowledge of good and evil and has had to gain this knowledge through his own efforts.

And again, we can probably find posters who will argue for and against that particular assertion. For example, we could probably find posters who would argue that since this world contains angels and demons, and since this world is one in which knowledge of good and evil has been bestowed on man by revelation from an external source, that we should not on those accounts expect the fantasy world to be notably different from this one. However, the debate over whether or not this world actually does or doesn't have supernatural elements is not one we can really pursue here.
 



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