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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron Sheep" data-source="post: 1918071" data-attributes="member: 4965">And this gets back to the sort of extreme case that I was getting at in my original post.  I could envision a strictly Lawful Neutral society which had slavery but in which it was only applied to criminals fairly convicted of the most heinous crimes (just being a prisoner of war wouldn't be sufficient: you shouldn't become a slave just because you were trying to defend your home, for example), with careful safeguards in place to prevent cruel treatment of slaves and strong legal protection of slaves, and probably with the threat of force coming only from duly appointed representatives of the justice system.  In such a system slaves would be very rare, and the society would certainly not be dominated by the institution.And even this blurs the line on slavery: if these "slaves" are brought and sold, but there are strong societal restrictions on their treatment, what exactly does "ownership" entail?  It's certainly far less than typical property rights for inanimate objects.And, perhaps, in such a society, a (D&D) Good person could be a slave owner if they do so with the intent to redeem the criminal; but I personally can't see a (D&D) Good person owning a slave in this society just so they can profit from the slave's labour.I very much doubt that any historical society comes close to this standard; and such a society would be a long way from traditional fantasy tropes.  Doesn't mean that it wouldn't be an interesting twist to throw into a game.As for the Mamluk example, I don't know enough of the history of the situation, but my understanding is that they were enslaved against their will as children.  Even if they ended up leading lives of luxury, there is an inherent injustice in the process.  The ends do not justify the means.I understand.  I'm trying myself to argue strictly from the D&D alignment system viewpoint, which is what your original question asked.  I think many revered historical figures are probably (D&D) Evil people who did some notable (D&D) Good things.Corran</blockquote>

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