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<blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9295935" data-attributes="member: 6799660"><p>For me, oftentimes, the thieving is a backstory. We don't spend much time thinking about exactly what Han Solo smuggled*, because it all took place before he did the things we really care about him doing. Likewise, character X in my game Y will often have developed their skills used in acts of derring-do through an unseemly backstory, but that's usually (mostly) in their past -- be that because they've turned a new leaf, or simply because now they are doing bigger and more important things.</p><p><em><span style="font-size: 10px">*And even Conan -- who is often a hero mostly in the pre-modern sense -- still does most of his piracy, banditry, and marauding safely off-page.</span></em></p><p></p><p>When we do play thieves who actually thieve, or pirates who actually pirate, it is with a conveniently deserving victim. The big bad enemy nation, the robber baron merchant house, 'the Mob,' or the like. The modern Robin Hood depiction is popular because we can see a crook as a plucky underdog if the person they are committing their crimes against is sufficiently odious (or, to jump genres, in <em>John Wick</em> we can get behind an <u>assassin</u> if the people they are up against kill a beagle).</p><p></p><p>Or it is a crapsack world like Doskvol where it's implied that everyone still alive is willing to be dishonest to survive and both any realistic character in that setting and anyone they take from are all somewhat morally compromised (and even there, you'll probably run into a situation where you're stealing food money from an orphanage, and realizing it's '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist" target="_blank">Fagin</a>'s School for Boys' isn't going to make that sit well). </p><p></p><p></p><p>This is a whole IRL tangled knot. Exactly what you can do and still be 'decent people' has a lot of nuance; and I absolutely care about property crime and not just that that leaves people directly starving, but that which destabilizes basic avenues of commerce upon which any number of innocent people rely on to live their lives. We could have an entire forum, or even a life's work, dedicated to the nuances of 'just crime,' just as one can to 'just war.' However, that's often the kind of hard reality I'm deliberately trying to escape when I roleplay. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>At the end of the day, IRL piracy is theft through the threat of violence. There isn't a lot of ways to make that somehow 'decent.' However, there were significant times and places in history where non-bloodthirsty pirates would intercept ships with crews with no interest in dying for someone else's goods and said <em>'you know the drill, hand it over'</em> and everyone went on their way unscathed. That's a nice window for relatively non-awful pirating to happen in a game. Likewise there is the wartime sanctioned piracy as part of war. That's certainly not worse than, y'know, just warring against/killing the other side. And there are plenty of games where we do that (or similar). </p><p></p><p><strong>Regardless,</strong> I don't think the justifications matter all that much. We (my groups, to be clear) don't do a lot of actual piracy in our games because no one actually wants to do much of it. People <em>want</em> to be <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything" target="_blank">the pirates who don't do anything</a> -- it is an aesthetic, a motif, a set of genre elements that work well to facilitate an group of adventurers with violence and adventuring skills, mobility, and the relative freedom to go seek the lost treasure of X or defeat the curse monster of island Y or whatnot.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Willie the Duck, post: 9295935, member: 6799660"] For me, oftentimes, the thieving is a backstory. We don't spend much time thinking about exactly what Han Solo smuggled*, because it all took place before he did the things we really care about him doing. Likewise, character X in my game Y will often have developed their skills used in acts of derring-do through an unseemly backstory, but that's usually (mostly) in their past -- be that because they've turned a new leaf, or simply because now they are doing bigger and more important things. [I][SIZE=2]*And even Conan -- who is often a hero mostly in the pre-modern sense -- still does most of his piracy, banditry, and marauding safely off-page.[/SIZE][/I] When we do play thieves who actually thieve, or pirates who actually pirate, it is with a conveniently deserving victim. The big bad enemy nation, the robber baron merchant house, 'the Mob,' or the like. The modern Robin Hood depiction is popular because we can see a crook as a plucky underdog if the person they are committing their crimes against is sufficiently odious (or, to jump genres, in [I]John Wick[/I] we can get behind an [U]assassin[/U] if the people they are up against kill a beagle). Or it is a crapsack world like Doskvol where it's implied that everyone still alive is willing to be dishonest to survive and both any realistic character in that setting and anyone they take from are all somewhat morally compromised (and even there, you'll probably run into a situation where you're stealing food money from an orphanage, and realizing it's '[URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist']Fagin[/URL]'s School for Boys' isn't going to make that sit well). This is a whole IRL tangled knot. Exactly what you can do and still be 'decent people' has a lot of nuance; and I absolutely care about property crime and not just that that leaves people directly starving, but that which destabilizes basic avenues of commerce upon which any number of innocent people rely on to live their lives. We could have an entire forum, or even a life's work, dedicated to the nuances of 'just crime,' just as one can to 'just war.' However, that's often the kind of hard reality I'm deliberately trying to escape when I roleplay. At the end of the day, IRL piracy is theft through the threat of violence. There isn't a lot of ways to make that somehow 'decent.' However, there were significant times and places in history where non-bloodthirsty pirates would intercept ships with crews with no interest in dying for someone else's goods and said [I]'you know the drill, hand it over'[/I] and everyone went on their way unscathed. That's a nice window for relatively non-awful pirating to happen in a game. Likewise there is the wartime sanctioned piracy as part of war. That's certainly not worse than, y'know, just warring against/killing the other side. And there are plenty of games where we do that (or similar). [B]Regardless,[/B] I don't think the justifications matter all that much. We (my groups, to be clear) don't do a lot of actual piracy in our games because no one actually wants to do much of it. People [I]want[/I] to be [URL='https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything']the pirates who don't do anything[/URL] -- it is an aesthetic, a motif, a set of genre elements that work well to facilitate an group of adventurers with violence and adventuring skills, mobility, and the relative freedom to go seek the lost treasure of X or defeat the curse monster of island Y or whatnot. [/QUOTE]
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