Vikings and pirates are awesome adventurers but bandits are crossing the line? What kind of fuking logic is that? They all do the same shit - attack unarmed people for personal gain yet somehow bandits are the scum. Is it because they don't have boats?
>>47691552
It is because straigh-up bandits rarely get some romanticised bullshit, unlike pirates or vikings.
All are the same scum
>>47691561
Highwaymen are pretty romanticized. Robin Hood as well I guess
As well as the Betyars of Hungary.
Sailing to new and unknown lands to pillage is romantic and adventurous
Pillaging the village next door is just being a shithead
>>47691552
Vikings and pirates had unique subcultures that made them stand out. Bandits are just chucklefucks who rob other people. They don't worship Odin or say "yarr shiver me timbers matey".
>it's a grognard with aspergers asking why people find interesting things interesting and uninteresting things uninteresting episode
>>47691690
>Sailing to new and unknown lands to pillage is romantic and adventurous
But they did not pillaged unknown lands.
They pillaged ports and fisher villages. We are talking about Pirates, not Conquistadores
>>47691757
Pirates did not talked with "yar". That is a hollywood invention.
Related:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w347Mv4vN3w
>>47691757
>bandits have no subculture
The Mafia has no subculture, yes, truefax.
>>47691552
Depends on the Bandit.
>>47691592
>>47691552
It's in sense of style, and bandits have none.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajduk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bandit
>>47691832
>mfw this motherfucker starts talking shit
>>47691872
Robin Hood is no mere bandit.
>>47691887
Doesn't have to be a "mere" bandit. He's proof that you can make bandits fun and exciting.
WHAT
ARE
HIGHWAYMEN?
>>47691552
It's about having a goal and an ethos. You can be bandits, you just can't be chuckle fucks robbing people just to get by.
You gotta be muscling out other bandit groups, paying off corrupt towns to let you enter to sell your loot or to ignore your predation on merchants.
You have to be selling protection to caravans in your territory, confiscating the good stuff but leaving enough for them to make it worth more trips.
You have to fight off private forces hired to take you out and track down their employers, or fortify your territory so that they can't threaten you.
You have to avoid causing enough trouble to have the kingdom send in the military since they can just overwhelm you. Possibly even being useful by keeping down monsters or fighting off orcs.
You have to deal with internal power struggles. Possible spies or saboteurs sneaking in as recruits or camp followers. Heck, eventually you have to deal with your men bringing in women and having children.
Eventually, you have to achieve some form of legitimacy and now you're no longer bandits. You're your own entity, a local mercenary force and de facto law enforcement although your laws might not be just or fair. You're collecting taxes not tolls or bribes, you're organized and consulting with other leaders about treaties and obligations.
So yeah. You can start as bandits, but you can't remain bandits or else you'll eventually get crushed once you become a big enough problem.
>>47691552
Everyone knows Vikings and pirates are assholes, you do know that right? All of them are scum.
Pirates are considered enemies of all mankind for gods sake and Vikings are well known to have been violent marauders.
>>47691953
guys that ride up on contemporary conveyance, rob you from atop or next to their conveyance, often armed, and stereotypical wearing those eyes only masks or bandanas.
examples; Dick Turpin, Australian Bushrangers, Train robbers & ghetto nigs.
>>47691813
Well, the Mafia would be more like a thieves guild, while bandits are basically just common muggers, as they're much less organised.
Two words :
Robin Hood.
>>47691552
Why is this a thing now? Did someone diss bandits and now everyone has to post about them?
>>47691552
seafaring raiders take other people's stuff
bandits are just the asshole locals that fuck with the others because they're worthless losers
>>47691552
Victorian-era romanticism. In reality all were scum for the same reasons, but we never depicted bandits as wearing horned helmets and cool capes or whatever.
When I went to Genoa a tour guide mentioned that they beat the living shit out of an army of pirates off the coast of Genoa in like the 9th century. It took me a while of him talking to realize that he was talking about Vikings, they just hadn't bothered to draw a distinction. The punishment for the captives was even the same, they cut their hands off and then whipped them over the border into Germany, where all blonde people go.
>>47691830
underrated post
>>47691813
You know that's not what he's talking about you contrarian chucklefuck.
>>47691552
It's not like they have an entire CLASS devoted to them or anything...
>>47691552
>vikings weren't just northern-european pirates
>piracy isn't just maritime banditry
This is what laypeople actually believe.
>>47691784
No, it's actually from treasure island
Pirates would still have a sub-culture though, like all sailors used to
what about Gentleman Highwaymen?
>>47692868
Gentlemen don't rob people
>>47691552
Vikings and Pirates have ships, and ships are awesome.
>>47691784
Most pirates didn't yar; the stereotypical pirate voice is actually a corrupted Cornish accent.
>>47691552
Robber bands ARE romanticized though, in more then one culture at that.
You either are employing really weak hyperbole or you just don't know nearly as much about the subject as you think you do.
>>47692605
The horns were to make the guy look more evil in a Victorian era play.
>>47692012
So be FARC?
>>47692907
Fun fact: The Planar Cant from Planescape is actually piratical jargon from the 15-17th century pacific pirates.
>>47693108
As I recall there may have been some confusion with some of the the ancient Gauls (Rome's old enemies) tribes of which worshiped Cernunnous.
Lots of the former roman empire pulled in the imagery of the 'horned pelted invaders from the dark-cold lands' as your generic barbarian.
>>47691552
What would be a good system for a M&B-like game?
>>47691552
>attack unarmed people
Vikings and Pirates both attacked heavily fortified fortresses.
Chinese have some cool romanticized bandits tho.
>>47694046
Chronicles
>>47692835
OP made the point that they are basically the same thing, and asks why bandits don't get the same love that pirates and vikings do.
Insert snarky comment about people not reading properly here
>>47694334
I was trying to agree with OP, but it didn't work out so well
>Every national border in Europe marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other anymore and signed a treaty. Patriotism is the delusion that one of these gangs of bandits is better than all the others
>>47691552
>Is it because they don't have boats?
Indeed seafaing adds a romantic connotation and an adventure vibe that sitting in a highway cannot give.
This is why the bandits that are portrayed as awesome are normally also rebels against an injust power. That has romantic vibes too.
>>47691887
Blackbeard was no mere pirate. It's no mere X that make the X interesting by association.
>>47691552
That's a nice head you have on your shoulders.
I've always wanted to run a game where the player are members of a border reaver clan.
I usually write such a region into my homebrews. Something very romantic about a no man's land between two perennially warring kingdoms where strongmen carve out a fief and play both sides against the middle.
>>47691813
Alot of "mafia culture" is shit they adopted from Hollywood, plus the usual group defense measures common to all organized crime.
Now MS13 reviving aztec rituals of human sacrifice? There's some culture for you.
>>47694469
A lot of people don't know that neither Coppola or Puzo knew or bothered to research the actual mafia subculture, they just did what seemed best for the story
The movies grew so iconic the actual mafia started imitating the characters
>>47691552
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hk41aq2Klk
You know, you bring up a good point and it's something I've never thought about until basically right now.
It does seem contradictory. How can a bandit game seem so unappetizing when we all love folk characters like Robin Hood or Jesse James? I don't think it has anything to do with the idea "land pirates" is less romantic.
I think it has more to do with changing connotations on the term bandit. Nowadays, what do most people think of when they hear that word? Petty thugs who kill people for their stuff. Those fuckwits you murder by the hundreds in Skyrim. Guys your GM throws at you so you're not just walking down a road all the time. "Bandit" as it stands now is basically just a slot on a random encounter chart in the minds of most GMs and players. They're XP-bags who might have some decent treasure on them, and they have no more thematic gravitas than hobgoblins or skeletons.
If you're interested in running a banditry game, then just sell it as an "Outlaw Game".
>>47692605
>all were scum
You better not fucking shittalk me landlubber.
>>47694210
Vikings never attacked any fortresses you idiot in fact the fortified towns built by Alfred the Great proved successful in dealing with viking raids.
>>47692879
In Spain they did, specially after the Gov fucked them (rape of the loved ones, rescinding family lands etc), and then they took guns and big knifes and robbed the taxing people and that stuff. We even have novels, comics,movies, tv series and cartoons about them. But then Spain has been guerrilla country since ever so is normal.
>>47691552
If it helps, I think both pirates and vikings are scum too.
I'm even Norwegian, and the romanticisation of Vikings annoy the hell out of me.
>>47694910
I see, so he meant a noble title, not a description of how a person conducts himself?
Several reasons.
First, it is the cultural sactionment within the source population itself. Norse raided each other and theirs non-Norse neighbours since forever, in their memory. It was totally natural and ok for them. If you go behind the sea and instead of stealing your neighbour's goats you go and take actual RICHES on HIGH ADVENTURE beyond the seas, even better. Within their own culture, they were totally justified, it was state-sanctioned, even kings of major northern kingdoms took part in it. Bandits don't have this thing, they were always considered scum even by their own folk, because, well, they prey mostly on their own.
And there comes another thing, that is, dehumanization of the alien. Until recent, more enlightened ages, the "foreigner" was never worth any compassion. The farmer beyond the sea was "alien". Not your equal human being like your neighbour. And if he additionaly believes in different god(s)? Oh boy. This is the same reason for which other groups were romanticized, despite being basically atrocious agressors. Romans on their conqueran spree, Crusaders, conquistadors (well, those two suffer a backslash in recent times, mostly because their victims were exclusively non-white which is a very BAD thing in modern world), or basically any group of conquerors in history. Because they only attacked the "other". How is taking someones land and freedom by force better than taking his material goods?
Third is the "legal" part. Pirates and bandits are obviously criminals, but vikings? Those were acts of international warfare, and "international law" didn't exist back then. And by the laws of the Norse themselves, that was totally OK.
Fourth, vikings had entire culture behind them. Nation, lands, religion. While pirates and bandids were outcasts and outlaws despised by their own kin.
Few od this makes sense on rational ground, but feeling of sympathy is rarely governed by rationality.
>>47695111
That would make sense if their own sagas didn't mention blood feuds and duels weren't banned because of assholes abusing the system. They really weren't above killing the guy next door beause he insulted him.
>>47694738
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Paris_(845)
Plz l2history
>>47696851
Whole one incident are you fucking retarded? Explain why bridges built in Frankia were enough to deal with them and why they didn't sack burhs
>>47694210
I'm sure the guys who avoided England for 40 years after being defeated near Jarrow and France after losing Battle of Leuven and who also made sure the villages they sack are undefended would storm ''heavily fortified fortresses''
too bad there are no records of it
I bet you also believe in le ebin berserkers
>>47691830
>You will never be THE MONITOR
Just fuck my strewth up cunt
>>47696851
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cynwit
such fortress takers
>>47697169
Didn't they conquer a whole swathe of northern Iran, including several large cities?
>>47697687
For your sake I hope you meant Ireland not Iran.
>>47697709
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_expeditions_of_the_Rus%27
Technically Vikings who had been living in Russia and Ukraine.
>>47697742
Because few guys of the ruling class (who intermarried anyway) were Scandinavians that makes Rus as a whole vikings?
So by that logic Americans are niggers because of Obama.
>>47697766
I had thought most of their warrior elite were Scandinavian, and those would've been the ones sailing and conquering.
>>47697813
You could just you know...read about the Rus on the very site you linked me.
>>47691830
My mate.
>>47697269
>>47697058
>"It never happened"
>evidence to the contrary
>"omg u so retart m8"
Not saying they were apt fortress takers. Quite the contrary. But it did happen.
>>47691561
>It is because straigh-up bandits rarely get some romanticised bullshit
Robin Hood
>>47691830
What's that?
>>47698052
Once. And you conviniently ignore the second siege when they were defeated.
>>47698291
Once is more than never. In fact, the original post claimed they never attacked fortresses, never mind successfully taking them. Which is blatantly untrue. They attacked fortresses a lot. They just sucked at it.
>>47698359
>a lot
source would be nice I even read about every battle from this list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Battles_involving_the_Vikings
to check out if they actually attacked them often
seems like they did not
>>47691592
>Highwaymen are pretty romanticized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFkcAH-m9W0
The simple answer OP is that bandits do get awesome adventures and get romanticised like pirates and vikings. Examples:
Robin Hood
Dick Turpin
Jesse James
Billy the Kidd
Ned Kelly
Ronnie Biggs
>>47697828
>No less than twenty-six Ingvar runestones - twenty-four of them in the Lake Mälaren region of Uppland in Sweden - refer to Swedish warriors who went out with Ingvar on his expedition to the Saracen lands, an expedition which probably aimed to reopen old trade-routes after the Volga Bulgars and the Khazars no longer proved obstacles. A stone to Ingvar’s brother indicates that he went east for gold but died in Saracen land.
>As for the Rus, they live on an island ... that takes three days to walk round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests; it is most unhealthy. ... They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them; they carry them off as slaves and…sell them. They have no fields but simply live on what they get from the Slav's lands.
>I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil. I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy
>Another source comes from Liutprand of Cremona, a 10th-century Lombard bishop who in a report from Constantinople to Holy Roman Emperor Otto I wrote that he had met "the Rus whom we know by the other name of Norsemen.
>>47696693
But those had to be organized and done for a reason.
You could attack the guy next door if he insulted you. But you needed to be insulted and kill him openly.
Vikings even had pretty strict rules against raping Viking women. And that included wives brought back from conquest.
If you just want to kill someone, take there stuff and rape their women you do that over there.
>>47691552
Vikings have pointy hats
Pirates have bandanas, eye-patches and wide-brimmed, plummed shit
What sort of head gear do bandits have?
>>47691759
>but they didnt pillage unknown lands
Do you not know what a fucking viking is?
>vikings didn't attack fortresses
They sacked Constantinople.
>>47702255
No, they didn't
>>47691592
While it's true that Robin Hood was a highwayman, the story goes that he was best friends with the king and while the king was away at war, the corrupt sheriff was abusing his power and oppressing the people. So Robin Hood was a vigilante, which is another kind of criminal that get's romanticized a shit load.
>>47694949
>cucking his ancestors
you sound more like a swede to me
>>47698104
One of the only cool things Australia has ever produced.
>>47702255
no, they were hired by the byzantine emperor as mercenaries
>>47701437
What pointy hats?
>>47706596
His ancestors were propably peaceful farmers anyway where did this retarded
>le all norsemen were vikings
meme come from?
>>47706795
Viking raiders were farmers who took piracy as a side job most of the time.
>>47706819
I know who vikings fucking were but still not every average Bjorn even bothered with raids.
>>47706858
The vikings were somalis before the somalis.
Villages and wealthy farmers organized expeditions for profit, sail off, do a bit of trading, loot the fuck out of some easy targets if they present themselves, return home with a nice tan, rowing muscles and some silks for the Gunnhilds.
So no, not every norseman did the viking thing, but the ones who did were pretty normal.
>>47692045
>Butthurt
Oh come off it. It's not like vikings were particularly bad compared to a lot of people they plundered.
Everyone were assholes, so there's no need to single out a specific group to be extra cranky about.
>>47707170
Vikings proved themselves to be oathbreakers so they were scum by the standards of their own culture.
>>47707201
Oaths made to those not of your clan were never binding.
Even Jews knew that.
Honor was for fellow warriors and friends, not for strangers.
>>47707227
Oh so they were not only cowards but also liars? Good to know.
>>47707239
Welcome to survival in the frozen fucking north.
>>47707248
>Frozen fucking north
wow you clearly take your historical knowledge from Skyrim
pic related the harsh, unforgiving north
So in many post apoc settings bandits and raiders are often rather large and surprisingly semi-organized groups that roam the wasteland atop vehicular steeds mad max style, looting and pillaging and raping at will, while survivors and small governments try just to fight them as best they can. Whenever the survivor governments do form a decent and coherent military the bandits tend to avoid direct confrontation and resort to hit and run tactics.
Is it acceptable for this to be replicated in a fantasy setting? Massive raider and bandit groups that near dominate the countryside, with survivors huddling in fortified townships and castles just trying to survive. Maybe rogue mercenaries, maybe mongol inspired, or what have you.
>>47707170
>butthurt
>extra cranky
Why do you go around assuming completely fictional things from other peoples posts?
It is obvious to anybody with reading comprehension that I was just correcting OP for asking a dumb question. Everyone knows the Vikings were assholes which is the point, no need to jump to their defence.
>>47707170
>compared too a lot of people they plundered
Ah yes those devilish monks and farmers, truly the scum of the earth
>>47707299
Historically speaking the closest to that thing would be either pissed off mercs who weren't paid on time or mercs who were and now are terrorizing enemy villages but since it's fantasy you might just have a bandit leader who found some magical artiffact that made him powerful enough to unite other gangs into little army be it either some mind controling shit or a magic weapon no one wants to fuck with.
So basically Chaos.
>>47707349
Vikingboos legit think villages had squads of soldiers defending them and vikings were going 1v10 in heroic berserker rage.
>>47707299
>>47707353
Post-apocalyptic raiders and "bandits" function more like fantasy barbarians really.
You basically just described barbarians.
Hell, they tend make the raiders even LOOK like barbarians.
>>47707297
>modern picture
Uh huh.
You do now why hats were popular in the middle ages, right? It wasn't because of fashion.
>>47701437
Yours.
>>47707364
Because both barbarians and bandits tend to raid shit.
>>47707367
You think viking age Scandinavia was looking like this or something?
>>47707361
Reading de bellum gallica helped destroy any romanticization I might have developed about the noble celts, what with all their oathbreaking, surrendering and betrayings
I doubt there ever was a truly noble people as depicted in most fantasy, even in Japan samurai were plotting and attacking each other by surprise all the time
>>47707248
It gets stupidly cold during winter and the far north is barely habitable (in no way a frozen wasteland), but Scandinavia is not Antarctica. Most of it is comfortably temperate except in winter, even then most people live in the south where winter is about as bad as the rest of northern Europe.
>>47707414
Because there were no noble people like dwarves in LOTR there were noble individuals just like right now and a ton of cunts. Like in Game of Thrones.
>>47707386
The difference seems to be that Barbarians/Raiders tend to be more "large and organized" like was said, sometimes having their own culture and identity and even territory. Alone or in groups they can gather enough force to fight organized societies and civilizations.
Bit like how hard it was for Rome to constantly fight off the Gauls, Germans, and Brit tribes despite being an actual empire.
Bandits seem to just by highwaymen and small robbers
>>47707367
Which part of the Middle Ages?
The part called the Medieval Warm Period when it was unseasonably hot for around 300-400 years? Coincidentally coinciding with the height of the "Viking Age" when Scandinavia was reaching a peak in development.
Or the Little Ice Age that principally took place in the very end of the Late Middle Ages to the end of the Early Modern Period, at three primary intervals interspersed with short periods of unseasonable hotness over the course of 200 years?
Just accept that Scandinavia was not a fucking ice rink.
>>47707431
>modern day references to weather and temperature
What you're describing doesn't require people to go out of their way to raid other people for survival. Risking their lives on a regular basis seems kind of stupid if things are temperate and easy to grow food in most of the year.
I wonder if the weather might have been different a few hundred years ago or something to drive them to do that.
>>47699185
Where's that poem about a Highwayman that was in all our English textbooks in high school but we never got to read in class
>>47707508
Actually the medieval war period was slightly after the glory days of the Vikings.
>>47707515
Most vikings were sons of relatively well off farmers. After they stole random shit from southerners mostly went back to being farmers. They were technically only vikings while they were on a longship, otherwise they were just regular Norsemen. They didn't raid for survival, they raided to get rich and potentially sell the things they sold either to someone on the Baltic/Western European coast, or as far away as the Mediterranean.
People will risk their lives to get rich and famous.
Use your logic brain for a second. What did the vikings steal? Things made of precious metals, luxury goods, trade goods, scented oils, fabric, sometimes mundane metals. They really fucking liked wine, the Franks were fucking pissed about vikings getting into their vineyards. Basically shit they couldn't make themselves, or shit that was unfavorably for them to simply exchange their own goods for.
Scandinavia was not a barren wasteland, it had a functioning economy, which meant people had basic necessities covered, which meant that there was presumably surplus for building ships for trade and raiding.
Also, you can't fit enough food to feed a village sustainably in a longship. They aren't that fucking huge. Keyword: sustainably, the Norse frequently traded grain by boat over relatively short distances.
>>47707515
>risking their lives
>in a raid
why the fuck people keep thinking raids involved any battles? Were monks really such fierce fighters?
>>47707515
HOW DID THE VIKINGS HAVE THE TIME AND SURPLUS OF FOOD REQUIRED TO BUILD BOATS AND CONDUCT VOYAGES IF THEY HAD NO FUCKING FOOD, DIPSHIT?
>Snorri, how's that prow coming along?
>Not at all Olaf Goat-Fucker, I haven't eaten in a week.
>Oh yeah, agriculture is the foundation of an economy. Without a surplus of food and a reasonably reliable method of food production it is impossible for specialization of labor to take place. Ergo, we cannot construct this longship as the boatwright and sailors of this vessel must be fed in order to work, but if they are building a longship they are not occupied by farming. Perhaps a period of agricultural intensification is in order before we set our sights on bathtubs of olive oil and one of those Christian guys with the weird haircuts that I'm going to get to do all my taxes for me.
>Oh yeah, I was also thinking that.
>I think we did this the wrong way around.
>>47691552
>bandits are not romanticized
>>47706659
In the process of protecting the Emperor, you need to sack things every now and then. Especially when he's assassinated.
>>47708882
I saw that and thought it was a Che picture.
>>47707414
>the noble celts
>>47698104
The sickest cunt
>>47707349
Exactly. They went out of their way to attack "soft targets" like monasteries and nunneries incapable of defending themselves.
One of the major reasons I stopped watching The Vikings, was because they went out of their way to avoid showing you how shit vikings were as a people.
>>47709123
I loved how that one chickenshit village happened to have soldiers nearby but to be fair at least the show didn't avoid to mention slavery and attacking monasteries as usual in viking related media where they are le honorable savages.
>>47698104
>>47709184
Yeah, but the scene where the one female on the viking excursion, kills a fellow viking to stop him raping a random villager, sort of broke my immersion to the point I had a hard time getting back into it.
>>47709273
Female viking was immersion breaking enough considering women were forbidden from raiding and owning weapons.
>>47691592
>Highwaymen are pretty romanticized.
I'm the Highway man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkNV-0O1ya8
>>47692012
That is not being a bandit, that is nation building.
>>47709391
Okay.
Good to know.
>>47694949
Why be ashamed of your heritage?
People killed to take what they either wanted or needed.
Sometimes they would rape and burn and brutalize if the fancy took them, or if they considered their victims beneath mercy or even decency.
There's nothing romantic about it, never has been, never will be.
>>47713054
Did he even fucking say he's ashamed of his heritage? There is more to Scandinavia than vikings.
>>47713054
That's like saying a brit must be self-hating if they don't like privateers
