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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron Sheep" data-source="post: 1918882" data-attributes="member: 4965">Based on further discussion earlier in the thread, the difference is whether or not the compulsion is just.  Levying reasonable taxes is probably just; oppressive levels of taxation would be unjust and therefore (D&D) Evil.  An employer refusing to pay for work which has not been done is fair.  An employer refusing to pay for work which has not been done is unfair.Denying an innocent basic freedoms is unjust and oppressive.Thomas Jefferson owned 187 slaves.  That is 187 people who were held against their will and forced to work for the enrichment of Thomas Jefferson.  This was not a short-term situation, but a continuous pattern of behaviour over large portions of his slave's lives.  That he was morally conflicted over his actions does not change the nature of his actions.So no, Thomas Jefferson is no Pol Pot, but his actions with regard to his slaves surely meet the citerion for Evil in the D&D sense.Because in enslaving someone who has done no wrong, a wrong is being done to the slave.  The fact that there may be legal limits on the amount of abuse than can be meted out on them, but that doesn't make it Neutral.To simplify greatly, but illustrate the distinction you are trying to draw: this is a bit like saying that if someone is kidnapped and not murdered, then it's a Neutral act because they could have been murdered.So compounding the (D&D) Evil of slaughtering all the Trojan men by enslaving the women and children makes the enslavement Neutral?But you do have the right to change your job to one you find more appealing or where you are better treated.I read this as saying basically that the Neutral in D&D can distinguish between Good and Evil, but are not prepared to make personal sacrifices to do Good things.  But neither will they perform overt Evil acts.  They will act when something happens to themselves or those they care about. The only point of raising this example was to show that serfdom does not fit the mould of D&D Good.For me it boils down to the part of the SRD where it states that Evil people oppress others.  Even in the mildest sense of slavery, keeping innocents as slaves oppresses them.  Therefore anyone who does that is committing an Evil act (and a fairly serious one at that) on an ongoing basis.  A slave owner had better be doing some amazingly Good acts to counteract that level of Evil.Corran</blockquote>

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