My party and I came across a goblin outpost that was selling slaves, our wizard said that we HAVE to fight the goblins to free the slaves and I just said we’ll buy them and set them free. He said I could not do that because slave trade is an evil act and I’m not an evil character. Thoughts? Currently I’m a chaotic neutral character and I don’t see how freeing slaves is an evil act 

Removing the free will of an individual is an evil act.  The purchase of the salves will allow the goblins to make a profit and go out to get more slaves for sale.  This reinforces evil.  While you are chaotic neutral and can claim it was for lazy lolz, this would be a more chaotic evil act.

I don't think a DM should be telling a player what their character can or can not do, especially as that is a grey area.  But just suck it up and slay the goblins, even if it is apparently racist now.

This doesn't sound evil to me.

Evil would be, buy them and keep the slaves for yourself. Or kill the goblins and keep the slaves as your own slaves.

Good would be freeing the slaves and stopping the goblins from being able to take more slaves.

Buying the slaves and freeing them sounds more like a Neutral act to me.

Firstly, alignment does not dictate actions, actions dictate your alignment. Not a single person is a good person before they do the good deed. Not a single person is evil before they do the evil deed. Once you have done that good or evil thing, then you would be regarded by others and/or yourself as the respective alignment. 

Secondly, good or evil in the case of alignment is purely contextual. Granting a slave freedom? Good. Providing profits for slavers? Bad. So what is more important to you as an individual? You might regard it as an act of kindness and mercy to buy a slave in order to grant them a chance at a new, free life and this means a great deal to you as once upon a time you were a slave just like them and freeing someone from undesired bonds is the most important thing for anyone in your opinion. Contextually that is a sign of a good deed. On the other side, you buy a slave in order to get closer to the business operation and form a good connection to the slavers. You free the slave not out of kindness but because you don't want to be their owner and take care of them. They are set free but with no food, money or supplies. No shackles, but nothing to survive on either. You just bought this person's death in an attempt at gaining something for yourself. Contextually that is a sign of a bad deed.

This kind of situation makes you think what constitutes an evil act. Buying the slaves and then leaving certainly gives the goblins incentive and likely the means to go capture more slaves. I'm kind of with the wizard on that one.

What I don't understand is why a neutral person would give up a bunch of their money to free slaves. Neutral is generally supposed to be "I'll mind my own business and you mind yours," not "good act (not killing goblins) + bad act (funding slavery) = neutral act." Intervening at all is deviating from neutral. And from there you could also argue that when faced with an objectively evil situation such as slavery, there is no neutral option. As the saying goes, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (or neutral) men to do nothing.

The trade is inherently evil, therefore participating in the trade is evil.  

Also, it’s not another player’s job to tell you that you CAN’T do such and such because of your alignment.

Also, the rigidly hierarchical nature of the institution of slavery would be anathema to a CN character.  Think hard about your plan and the wizard’s plan.  What’s going to cause more chaos?  Buying something at a gas station and then throwing it out the window five miles down the road?  Or robbing the gas station, stealing the owners’ car and watching the whole thing explode in the rear view mirror as you drive away doing stolen scratchers on the steering wheel?

Quote from Seasoning >>

Firstly, alignment does not dictate actions, actions dictate your alignment. Not a single person is a good person before they do the good deed. Not a single person is evil before they do the evil deed. Once you have done that good or evil thing, then you would be regarded by others and/or yourself as the respective alignment. 

 

 This.

Also, good / neutral / evil are not very well defined, and you could argue that your character finds this act appropriate based on his / her understanding of right and wrong. For example, you could have a good character who is not very insightful who does acts with evil consequences because he /she does not realize what the consequences would be.   

It might be shortsighted (with the whole profit from slavery thing) but not intentionally Evil. I know of a character that's decidedly not Evil by any means - very likely Good but unconfirmed, and despite a total lack of Evil intent - Good intent in fact, ended up with 15 crushed orphans.

(EDIT: I should clarify that the character got control of a skeleton crew [literal skeletons] and told them to rebuild the orphanage. The intent was good, but really. What is one expecting to happen when the person finds 60 skeletons in a crypt? A stupid idea but good intent and evil result.)

I go with "intent". If the intention is good but the outcome is bad due to poor oversight, the intent counts for me. (It's also funnier when the player realizes the great idea was a rather poor decision.)

Quote from Skaterfoever >>

My party and I came across a goblin outpost that was selling slaves, our wizard said that we HAVE to fight the goblins to free the slaves and I just said we’ll buy them and set them free. He said I could not do that because slave trade is an evil act and I’m not an evil character. Thoughts? Currently I’m a chaotic neutral character and I don’t see how freeing slaves is an evil act 

 I think most people would agree that freeing the slaves would be considered a good act but, the morality of fighting and or killing the goblins to free the slaves is more perspective based. We all know what lengths individuals go to when trying to justify their actions for the benefit of the greater good.

In my mind, the best good act scenario would be to sneak the slaves out and bring them some where safe, like a town. 

Conversations like this remind me why I am glad the games I play in don't care about alignment.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Conversations like this remind me why I am glad the games I play in don't care about alignment.

 So, in the games you play, no character ever mentions that it isn't necessary to slaughter every sentient creature you have a conflict with? No surrender, no retreat, no parley?  Sounds like a game lacking in options.

Quote from Wtfdndad >>

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Conversations like this remind me why I am glad the games I play in don't care about alignment.

 So, in the games you play, no character ever mentions that it isn't necessary to slaughter every sentient creature you have a conflict with? No surrender, no retreat, no parley?  Sounds like a game lacking in options.

 I never use alignment either. In my games, my players constantly talk about and debate what you mentioned. It has nothing to do with alignment. They don't have that conversation because it's the right or wrong thing to do. They have that conversation because sometimes a "slaughter first" approach is going to get them killed. Sometimes the 10,000 gold payment they'll receive is only if the sentient creature is brought in alive. In both of those cases, it's mentioned, talked over, and argued about and in both cases, alignment has nothing to do with it.

It's not necessary for options.

It's not necessary for YOUR options. Fixed.

Quote from Wtfdndad >>

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Conversations like this remind me why I am glad the games I play in don't care about alignment.

 So, in the games you play, no character ever mentions that it isn't necessary to slaughter every sentient creature you have a conflict with? No surrender, no retreat, no parley?  Sounds like a game lacking in options.

 
Characters have morality, but not alignment, and surrendering/retreating/parleying has little to do with either. Perhaps I should have been clearer. We don't use "the D&D mechanic called alignment". We don't think of our characters as set into these poorly defined categories of morality. We don't ever stop to go "oh, my character is XYZ alignment, would they do this?" like in the conversations appearing here. We instead think more about what the character is thinking or feeling at the time and what the current situation means to them and their personal views.

People aren't consistent in morality - every situation can call a different reaction. Morality is also subjective and few things exist that are ultimately always good or always evil. The character that doesn't care about people in the slightest and could kill them indiscriminately, would not think twice about sacrificing themselves to save a kitten.

While players and their characters are free to discuss and think about it, we don't play with the alignment box filled in. It's left blank, players will roleplay their characters the way it feels right, they get into their heads and do their best to think realistically as that character. A character might do something which one player might consider "good", another might consider "neutral" - but since we don't define characters this way, neither are right or wrong because these labels are ignored.

We don't play our characters as being within an alignment. We play them with morality - something far more complicated yet natural than a few labels.

That's a great and informative post Cyb3rM1nd!

Sorry for misunderstanding your stance on alignments based on: "Conversations like this remind me why I am glad the games I play in don't care about alignment".

The alignments are tropes, just basic bracket concepts, most people should know not to try to follow them to the letter.

An example: A Lawful Good character would probably object to the idea of beating the information out of a peasant.

A Neutral character might allow the idea of beating the information out of a peasant(bluffing) but, object to actually beating the information out of a peasant.

A Chaotic Evil character is going to talk bad about the peasant's mother, beat the information out of the peasant and probably gleefully kill them at the end.

It’s a totally Good idea to buy slaves and then free them. Just not very violent or flashy. Still helps the slaves.

Very self-sacrificing, actually, assuming your character’s not super rich.

Quote from Wtfdndad >>

It's not necessary for YOUR options. Fixed.

 I thought that was a given. The amount of times I said "I" in my post should have provided a clue. To each their own. Of course D&D is meant to be played in whatever manner each person/group chooses.

..even if they're playing it wrong :P

There's a stream where we only know the recorded alignment of one of the characters. (The audience assumed she was Good and an animal-friend and violence-avoider, but she kept deliberately doing things that would definitely not be considered Good - revenge and being vindictive as two examples. She let on that she's true Neutral.)

I think alignment should be considered when it's absolutely necessary such as Plane effects (I think are optional rules but still listed in the DMG) and strict deity requirements (of which I don't know any, but my brain says there might be) and such, but rather than just blurting it out (or revealing it in any way to anyone other than the DM and only after a few sessions to fit into the character), let the playstyle dictate it.

In the aforementioned stream, one can likely guess the alignments by the 5th episode when the players settled into their characters. (Two characters pretty much flipped within the first 2 episodes - starting one way and essentially switched between them.)

EDIT: There's a 3.5e comic where the Ranger was obviously "not Good" and while some Cone of Evil spell had stunned the remaining party members, it didn't work on the Ranger. The Ranger killed the spellcaster rather easily. The Bard was wondering why the spell didn't work on the Ranger, and the party leader decided it was best to not ask.

Leaving alignment up to the story seems more entertaining to me.