I just stumbled on a large trove of my old campaign documents and I saw some notes about the local Lord who was using goblins as slave labor to build a wall around the settlement he owned. My question is this. From a D&D perspective only and not considering real world politics, morality, etc., if I assume that the 'default' alignment of the society is LN and slavery in one or more forms is legal in that society, should a Lawful Neutral character be allowed to own slaves without affecting his alignment? I am also making the assumption that he is not beating, raping or otherwise treating his slaves in some other unusual manner.

Depends on the moral and cosmological assumptions of the setting.

In a a black-and-white, "Good Against Evil" high fantasy world slavery should be considered inherently Evil and neither Neutral characters nor PCs should be involved in it (unless it's a "Lord of the Rings but we are the bad guys" campaign, in which case the PCs probably shouldn't be Neutral).

In a shades-of-grey Sword & Sorcery setting, where Good and Evil are not defined by objective cosmological forces and where slavery might well be accepted and practiced in various nations, it should be okay. It should be noted, though, that taking a slave, i.e. a person forcefully deprived of basic freedoms and kept in bondage, into a perilous dungeon with you might not be the smartest of ideas. Image you get cornered by monsters, or you trigger a trap and find yourself hanging from the edge of a bottomless pit with one hand, and the only person who can save you in time is your slave. Why SHOULD he save you? Why wouldn't he just leave you to your fate and run away to regain his freedom?

Yes. Neutral is not necessarily nice, nor is it "not-evil". Slavery is evil, but neutral aligned people can do some evil stuff and some good stuff. Since slavery is legal in his society it does not conflict with his lawful nature either. This character may be someone like Thomas Jefferson, who philosophically opposes slavery but still participates in the practice because of economic concerns, or it could be someone who doesn't care about the morality of it, just the law. He's as you say unlikely to be cruel for the sake of cruelty (although in my opinion slavery is cruel by nature).

In the immortal words of Ian Malcolm, just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should.

That being said, a lawful neutral PC would be perfectly amenable to granting manumission (freeing his slaves) in exchange for X years of work or Y amount of funds earned by said slave. There's historical precedent for that sort of thing.

IIRC, in Salvatore's The Crystal Shard Bruenor kept Wulfgar as a slave for several years. Granted, Wulfgar had been part of a barbarian raid and had been captured by Bruenor personally, so it may have been less slavery and more restitution.

I'm going to go with "depends on the setting" with a side of "the nature of the slavery matters."

There were some cultures where slaves had more freedoms than some medieval serfs and held positions of some... "prestige" isn't quite the right word... let's say "respect" (ex. many Greek tutors were slaves). Some in ancient Greece were said to prefer slavery to a wealthy family because it ensured they'd be fed and housed whereas they were likely to starve in bad times if they were free. Some societies allowed slaves to keep money, marry and could buy their freedom (and conversely sell themselves into slavery). In some germanic tribes slaves could even pay fines to avoid corporal punishment for their wrongdoing.

If the particular institutions make it more akin to a social class which has some level of protection under the law then Lawful Neutral probably fits. By contrast, societies where slaves are basically livestock to be bred, worked and disposed of when no longer able to work... that's Lawful Evil at best (Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil also being possible depending on whether there are any regulations or if slaves are just anyone a group of marauders has captured and hasn't gotten around to killing yet.

Similarly, the manner in which someone becomes a slave has moral implications. As mentioned above, if the primary means of becoming a slave is to sell yourself into it (such as to pay off debts or avoid crushing poverty because the law requires masters to feed, clothe and house all their slaves) and it's possible to buy your way out then it's arguable that even a Lawful Good character could have slaves (such a character would have slaves primarily because it is primary social safety net in their culture with a disproportionate number of their slaves being those too elderly or feeble to provide for themselves as free men), but they'd probably be the exception in such a society rather than the rule.

In the specific example of the lord enslaving goblins for his construction project, a lot depends on how the goblins came to be enslaved and what their fate is to be once the lord's wall is built.

For example, if they were captured while they were raiding the lord's lands and will be turned loose once the building project is complete, I could see an argument even for lawful good where they are less slaves and more inmates serving a sentence.

Conversely, if the lord raided a goblin village, dragged them off into slavery and intends to exterminate them once the work on the building project is complete... they're lawful or even chaotic evil.

Well, it really depends on how the society views slavery at that time. It might seem a perfectly respectable thing to do. In fact, you could even be seen as laudable and doing the heathens somewhat of a favor. Also, if they are not viewed as equals or even human, that gives the owner's even more of an excuse to be nasty and try to keep them as livestock, disposable assets.

Of course, we are talking about fictional D&D here, and not anything to do with real world where slavery which is abhorrent.

I think my views pretty much mirror what others have posted.

Certain campaigns from RPGs or literature, such as Norman's Counter-earth (Gor) series, clearly make slavery the norm in their society. Conan spends time as a slave in Howard's stories. Many older cultures in our world had slavery and they might not be viewed as evil because that's just the rules of those particular nations. Looking at Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign book from 1977 it's clear that old Blackmoor games had slaves as part of their society as well. I think that one would conclude that the early gamers had a "game world society doesn't need to mirror ours" philosophy. Clearly, slavery forms a big part of many fantasy literature sources as well as RPG campaigns.

Viewed from that lens, I can see characters of any alignment owning slaves because that's just what folks did in those cultures. On the other hand, I can see that a character of good or neutral alignment could say, "I don't care what our society says, slavery is wrong" and that could form a major plot arc in a campaign where the character might be trying to liberate the downtrodden slaves.

So long as it is the law of the land then yes.

Yes; I'm going to go out on a limb and say that ANY Lawful character COULD own slaves.  This presumes a pre-industrial, manpower/animalpower IS your only truly reliable mechanical power.

Lawful Good - IIRC Wulfgar was Bruenors slave in the novels?  Wouldn't it be better to take an invading barbarian and have him rebuild/replace the damage his people has done, as long as there is a path to freedom - treat them decent, free them when 'they are ready' and treat it as punishment with a path of redemption.  They would also be leading the charge for abolition when the time is right, or when it becomes necessary.  Arguably many (most?) would choose to have NOTHING to do with the institution.  Your campaign/culture will dictate.

Lawful Neutral - Presumably there would be laws in place for the protection of, and the rights of, the slaves.  Hell, Aristotle wrote:

Quotethose who are as different [from other men] as the soul from the body or man from beast--and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them--are slaves by nature. For them it is better to be ruled in accordance with this sort of rule, if such is the case for the other things mentioned.

Lawful Neutral doesn't mean completely dispassionate - but I'm sure they are fair and decent bosses, so I can't imagine they'd be abusive slave owners.

Lawful Evil - Obvious.  LE cultures are often built on slavery, even if they don't call it that, there's definitely a pyramid of power.

In a prior campaign I had a dwarven culture that was terribly isolated, and dying out.  They would take warbrides and bondslaves from the invading orcs and hobgoblins; they wouldn't -mate- with the females (individuals might have, no offspring) but make them cook/clean/etc. They're LN, with members on the entire alignment spectrum.

Quote from: Premier;1146361It should be noted, though, that taking a slave, i.e. a person forcefully deprived of basic freedoms and kept in bondage, into a perilous dungeon with you might not be the smartest of ideas. Image you get cornered by monsters, or you trigger a trap and find yourself hanging from the edge of a bottomless pit with one hand, and the only person who can save you in time is your slave. Why SHOULD he save you? Why wouldn't he just leave you to your fate and run away to regain his freedom?

A remarkable number of people seem to have been comfortable being slaves, and slavery as an institution is far more nuanced than you suggest. The reaction of a particular slave depends on how they were enslaved (born to it, voluntarily agreement, punishment for a crime, prisoners of war, etc.), how they're treated, what benefits they might accrue (freedom in a few years, freedom for their children, building up a nest egg, etc.), what their other options are, the social context and expectations regarding slavery, and many other factors. Treating slavery as something everyone knows is universally evil and presuming that all slaves as constantly chafing against the yoke and will take any chance to murder their masters, is modern cinematic morality and far divorced from how it actually worked in history.

Slavery is one of those sticky subjects that most people find impossible to view except through the modern lens of chattel slaves being shipped in chains from Africa to live under their master's whip for the rest of their lives (assuming that they even survived the trip and weren't just thrown into the Atlantic if they got sick halfway through). Meanwhile in reality civilization wouldn't even exist if not for slavery, since pretty much all but the most primitive hunter-gatherer societies relied on slaves for large scale projects and taking prisoners from invading armies was common throughout history.

As many have already pointed out there used to be many kinds of slavery and people even used to sell themselves into slavery to pay off debts. It's only once we get to the miracles of industrialized society (freeing us from the need of slaves) immediately following the horrors of the mass chattel slavery practiced throughout the conquest of the Americas that slavery becomes an obviously evil institution that nobody wants to even talk about. But that depends on the cultural context and what specific types of slavery are being practiced.

If the lord in the OP's example is simply using goblin raiders as slaves in lieu of executing them to pay for the damage they've done and people they killed while invading his lands I wouldn't say that he's evil, but actually rather lenient. If he's farming the nearby caverns for goblins workers to keep as chattel slaves, though, that might be a bit more nefarious.

If slavery is legal, a Lawful Neutral character could own slaves. And if they could afford to, they almost certainly would own slaves.

Yes, and I think a very good example of this would be Gordianus the Finder from Steven Saylor's Sub Roma series. He has an Egyptian slave that eventually becomes his wife.

If you use alignment as a guide to behavior, then it would come down to treatment of slaves by the individual.

Should a lawful neutral PC be able to own slaves?

Yes, absolutely. The same for torture and human sacrifice if done for pragmatic reasons.

In particular, lawful neutral is disinterested in the consideration of good and evil, only what benefits the group.

It must be remembered that in the real world there is no such thing as "neutral", the difference between the game terms neutral and evil being one of culpability. A good example is the distinction between second degree murder and first degree murder; you can't walk into a court of law and say, "I'm not guilty of murder because I'm neutral." A perusal of the Catholic Catechism will reveal that what the game consistently calls neutral, Christianity consistently calls evil, although moral relativism has intentionally blurred the distinction.

In Dragon magazine, Gygax further clarifies the game term evil by saying that evil characters will commit the foulest act possible in a given situation -- very clearly what would be called premeditated and willful murder, as opposed to killing someone in a bar fight or a domestic dispute, which would be second degree murder.

Neutrality is a game construct. The closest parallel would be polytheism/paganism, wherein the culture has not yet come to a consensus on good/evil and the different deities represent different ideals, and moral relativism (which subsumes such neopagan religions as Wicca) which intentionally constructs a moral narrative which is orthogonal to the established good/evil norms of Christianity ("we don't believe in the Devil [predatory psychopathy], that's a Christian invention").

Further, one must consider that in the Ancient world, slavery was an economic necessity. In any society there are large numbers of people who contribute nothing, whether due to low IQ or sloth, and yet consume the society's resources; this is potentially catastrophic in a society that lives hand to mouth and is threatened by starvation. Pressing layabouts, prisoners of war, criminals, etc. into service is very pragmatic.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson....I am also making the assumption that he is not beating, raping or otherwise treating his slaves in some other unusual manner.

He will do so eventually, at least occasionally -- it is human nature.

If given a choice between eating broccoli and having a chocolate sundae, most people would prefer the sundae even though broccoli is better for you. That is called having "disordered desires" or having a "fallen nature". Of course you can use your will to force yourself to eat broccoli, but every once in a while you will slip and fall off the wagon and splurge on a sundae. It's human nature, or to say it in Christian terms, humans are addicted to sin.

Thus slavery is like letting an alcoholic operate a bar.

I would argue even good characters could own slaves. Especially the debt slavery kind.
Chattel slavery not so much. But you might wind up with a chattel slave even if you disagreed with the law. (Slay this person or make them your slave...) And they'd probably free them or let them buy themselves out of it.