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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Afrodyte" data-source="post: 1915710" data-attributes="member: 8713">American slavery was called the peculiar institution for several reasons, and all of them are more or less in line with what D&D describes as evil.  Being denied liberty can be good (imprisonment for dangerous criminals), evil (kidnapping and selling people), or neutral (indentured servitude) depending upon the circumstances, so that part won't be considered at the moment.  However, treating human beings as livestock, as American slavery did, is certainly not amongst the things associated with good.  Besides this, the status of slaves in the Americas status perpetual and hereditary; death was more likely than freedom, and slaves couldn't expect their children to fare better than themselves.  There was no moral rationale or matter of domestic security that justified it; bigotry and greed are the roots of the practice, and Africans were simply convenient victims because they could not blend in like Europeans or run away as successfully as Native Americans.This is completely different from other systems of slavery where the condition was as a result of being captured in war, committing a crime, or needing to settle debts.  Even then, for the most part slaves were treated humanely.  Some were even given wages for their labor, which could be used to buy their freedom.  No one really assumed ownership of a slave's family members unless they too were captured or were part of a financial agreement.  I'm not saying "hey diddley-dee, a slave's life is for me," but I do believe that American slavery is particularly unique when it comes to understanding the moral quality of slavery.  The evil of slavery, even in D&D terms, was not in that people were mistreated (although that certainly was true), but that it was a machine was based upon and operated by the continual dehumanization of a people.  This is the root of what evil is as far as D&D is concerned.</blockquote>

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