Let´s not forget mercenaries which have not been paid, or soldiers which suddenly got unemployed when a long war ended. Those may also turn to banditry.
@@adamantineshining MANY of the Golden Age pirates were actually privateers during the War of Spanish Succession who became unemployed. Many of them were just like... well lets keep doing what we were already doing but now with an even wider target list.
And are usually the far more dangerous ones. Already armed, experienced and blooded, often in an area away from home and without exterior obligations like farms or families.
I really can't properly express just how much of a breath of fresh air your channel is. None of my friends understand why I (a fellow medievalist!) find low fantasy to be so much more compelling than the rest, and thus I write and game with it alone. You're covering a lot of topics that I feel are both important and strongly underserved, and for that I thank you!
That makes me really happy to know that the videos are having a positive effect. Really happy you are enjoying it and a hearty salute to a fellow medievalist!
@@shenpai1566 I think a lot of the reason why people hate low fantasy is people use it to mean worlds with absolutely no form of magic. I don’t know why or when this happened but it not uncommon. The low fantasy topic as described here is what I have always considered it but as TTRPGs reach more people you have tales of worse GMs who don’t want to deal with magic at all. It has not so much gotten a bad reputation as it has been slowly bled of meaning. It’s a shame because I don’t like to run low fantasy but they are very fun worlds with people who actually know what they are trying to accomplish.
One thing I feel is important to note about bandits, especially those who were former military vets, is that they can be expected to be competent at what they do. It's not just the martial training that transitions well into banditry but their tactics too. A lot of medieval warfare was essentially state-sanctioned banditry, take the chevauchees of the Hundred Years war for example. Lightning fast but devastating raids where they looted everything they can carry and burned everything they couldn't.
Great video. One bandit group I did as a DM was an exiled Knight and his retainers. So one dude in full plate and very well trained along with a dozen or so well equipped and trained men at arms that isn’t an easy foe for low level PCs to face in a low magic setting.
That's a stellar bandit group and some of my favorite tropes in games are the bandit groups that were moral upstanding members of society and got forced into something else.
I think one important example of banditry you missed is exemplified by Peter Niers a 16th century bandit operating in the HRE. His gang was a loose affiliation of people disguised as shepherds. Bandits could use mobility of the jobs to move about the countryside without drawing supposition and move to other locals to fence stolen goods or escape if the heat grew too great in their current location. The low social standing of the jobs would allow recruitment of collaborators, who worked in those professions outside the gang, to various involvement levels either through the promise of more wealth or violence. There are also stories that the bandits would use black magic to disguise themselves which can add more flavor for the DM to use to make them a larger threat.
@@DesksAndDorks I don't have any I can fully attest to. I mostly encountered them in brief mentions as representative of violence present in society around the time of the 30 years war or as pre-industrialization serial killers; basically examples for other subjects. Peter Niers's Wikipedia entry looks to contain a few good sources in German as well as an English source you could use as a jumping off point. Sorry I don't have anything more concrete.
You mentioned black powder weapons: its worth considering that, in the English Civil War, even "real" armies often went into battle perilously low on powder and shot (especially the Royalists). There were government-owned powder mills, and port-cities could bring in powder and shot from overseas, but a combination of limited supply, poor supply-lines and bad roads meant that armies would often struggle to get the powder and shot they needed, especially if they were fighting deep in the countryside. These issues would be doubly the case in a bandit group: it might be tactically interesting to pit the players against bandits who have black powder weapons, but only enough powder and shot for maybe three or four shots each.
One of my favorite games actually features black powder arms and to simulate how rarely you would shoot them those guns have some sort of other gameplay mechanic (pistol being able to let you intimidate for example).
I really appreciate the slower pace, using a few slides to present or visualize what youre talking about instead of barraging me with images. Makes it easier to actually listen, I dont feel like I'll miss anything if I look away.
I like your comment that there are no good bandits. There may be groups called or mistaken for bandits, but if they actually have goals beyond opportunity and cowardice they are probably going to fight differently and be classified differently from bandits. Insurgents and guerillas are a very different enemy.
@@DesksAndDorks Yeah, I definitely agree. Like, being called a bandit & actually being a bandit is very different. An insurgent or Guerilla almost ALWAYS has a genuine motive compared to just wanting to survive alone or wealth.
@@DesksAndDorks I would love to see stuff on peasent rebellions, why they fail, what genuine historical reasons they had, outcomes where they succeeded & how one might have players get involved in helping one succeed. I feel low fantasy is usually at its best when it's anti-monarchist and looks at the people who were actually like us.
For those interested, in the "good" bandit archetype the Bonnot gang is a good study. They were illegalist anarchists who believed that participation in systems that oppressed them was fundamentally immoral, and thus that living outside the system and outside the law was the only moral choice. They weren't heroes and still did evil things, but the ideology is still a fun idea for fantasy,
I believe I made the distinction in the QA but groups like the Bonnot (or guerrilla movements in general) feel like a distinctly different beast. They may resort to some form of illegal activity but the reasons they do so are different from common bandits. Still that's a great group to bring up
A very effective trap can be made from cordage and a "young" tree. One can bend a tree, attach a cordage to it, secure a loop made a the other and of cordage to the ground of the trail and mask it with fallen leaves (or needles in a coniferous forest). That's my 2 copper pieces to add to this video.
11:08 It should be noted that illegal substances does not need to mean drugs. It could be a certain type of fabric or trade good outlawed from sale due to political or even religious reasons, or any number of smuggling or avoidance of taxes, tariffs or fees.
Some further inspirations from more modern themed bandit groups: Irish Republican Army & Sons of Anarchy/Mayans outlaw motorcycle clubs from the SoA/Mayans show. Mixing an ideology with greed is a great cocktail for a compelling and believable outlaw/bandit group.
I love how you present your ideas, the mix of historical backdrop with real world examples and fictional ones before putting it all together with these example bandits works really well.
11:47 my sources say “Robin Hood” was a common name used by outlaws to protect their family name as a family would often share reputation and reprisals and feud could be enacted upon members of a family that were not part of any initial event, and who may not even know of the conflict.
I also like to spice up bandits by making different types. For example in my setting the largely human kingdom had a form of slavery, so some were manhunters looking for species that were legally able to be forced into 'indentured servitude'.
One of the things I wish more fantasy and historical fiction would give some kind of attention to is river piracy. There's a level of cloak and dagger intrigue with inland pirates that make them complex and compelling. Highwaymen, road agents, and bush rangers are all cool. But there's something about cutthroat ferrymen, and tavern spies who betray flatboats and barge crews to a pirate gang who operate out of a cave off a waterway or an old abondoned millhouse that just gives a more sinister vibe than regular desperados and priates. Mechanically too, it's got more elements than a strictly road or sea based combat. Because the defending party is stuck on floating platforms while the attacking party might be more dynamic, using a mix of watercraft and skirmishers on land. Unless an escort is hired to follow alongside the merchant/passanger craft from the river bank. But even then there's the element of the river bank being interrupted by tributaries, leaving the river boats cut iff from their escorts while they try to find a crossing. And of course a lof the time the river boats will need to be towed up a tributary by horses, oxen, or laborers towards the end of thei journey. Putting them in a much more vulnerable state, and potentially creating a situation where mid-ambush one of the barges loses too many oxes and starts to flow back down stream while the escorts and boat crews are occupied with combat. Potentially creating a dilemma where the mounted escorts have to choose between falling back and using their mounts to tow the barge somewhere it can at least be moored, or potentially sacrificing the crew and cargo of the runaway barge.
River piracy is really intriguing as a concept. The vikings did it but so did the Chinese (arguably the most examples of this are during imperial china) and even in some.cases the Egyptians. It's a cool concept for sure.
@@DesksAndDorks I'll look into that. Most of the historical examples I've read of were Eastern European and pre-industrial American. It's alluded to with what we know of bronze age Western Europe. But it's an under explored concept in fiction. Even Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer didn't reference Lincoln's encounter with river piracy.
@@flyboymike111357not quite a river, but England had a canal system going back quite a way (even if China’s was much older). So depending what they’re hauling, they might make a rather vulnerable target.
Despite this video primarily using medieval inspired bandits, this applies to any setting, whether westerns, post-apoc, futuristic, cyberpunk! Unstable times, financial hard ships, armies without a war to fight - these can be used in all of your games! 🤠 Great video as always!
Very insightful video. So many of the TTRPG channels on UA-cam come from writing or game design backgrounds. It's nice to have a new voice with a history of, well, history.
12:35 charismatic cult-like leader makes me think of famous pirates. I’m blanking on her name but the Chinese pirate queen comes to mind. I would assume that the more charismatic leaders would just be leaders that managed to keep the group going a little longer after the hard times, or whose group got a little larger. Perhaps they manage to move from bandit leaders to warband chiefs or “respectable businessmen” based on the connections and wealth they made.
@ are they though? Wouldn’t outlawry cause bandits to have to avoid society the way pirates couldn’t return home? And those that only prey on outsiders and don’t find themselves outcast in their own society are basically privateers… I’m not saying they are the same, but I would suggest some similarities. Pirates have a reputation for cruel tyranical leaders but a lot of the time they were democracies setup in response to tyranical merchant captains. So would there not be bandits that form as a way to escape the tyranny of military officers, a desire for freedom, etc?
Similar, yes. But different enough in their formation, tactics, and unique culture to be worthy of a full deep dive. Particularly when we get into the differences between pirates of various cultures, the distinction between privateer versus pirate, and the impact pirates had on political systems. Again, there is a lot of bleed over but enough that is historically distinct and significant enough to warrant their own section.
@@DesksAndDorks Oh, absolutely worth making a separate video. No doubt on that. I meant more along the lines of it being worth using what we know about pirates as influence for our bandits. For those who happen to know about pirates at least.
Good video, especially regarding the point that bandits are in it for the money and aren’t looking for a fair fight. This can make a challenging psychological test for the players if they find themselves confronted with a bandit force strong enough to wipe out the characters, but who will nonetheless break and flee rather than pay the price it would take to kill all the adventurers. While I agree that bandit leaders were not “cult-like” in the sense of commanding self-sacrificing loyalty and obedience from followers who have forsaken all other ties, I think there are plenty of examples of bandit leaders who kept on top mainly by force of personality in Robin Hood style, including that very Bartholomew Roberts you mentioned, who held undisputed command of several hundred pirates from 1719 to 1722, and likewise Blackbeard, Jesse James, Bertrand du Guesclin, etc. Also, while it’s true that there were no “good” bandits by any reasonable definition of “good,” it really isn’t true to say they just did whatever they wanted. There is at least one universal rule that all gangsters seem to agree on, and will go to considerable effort and risk to enforce: don’t rat. Frank Gusenberg, mortally wounded in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, refused to name his killers to his last breath. Pirate crews often had quite detailed rules of behavior, enforced by an elected quartermaster. Moral they were not, but many of these people did live by their own code.
Have been binging your videos. This is so helpful for my shadowdark campaign as a new GM. The passion, generally interesting topics, and context of useful GM tips really tie these videos into a nice little package. Also big shout out to safety tools; glad you take the time to bring them up. If my buddy hadnt told us about the earthquake in japan years back, one could have come up in the game we're players in. It was a tornado instead, no big deal and everyones having fun.
or maybe they take a particular liking to a certain group or individual. Sure they'll jump pretty much anyone they think they can get away with, but little timmy? Noooooo...Little timmy is our friend, and he gives everyone a false sense of security.
WFRP handles this pretty well. You alluded to this, but the local criminal gang is a very important set if figures. Also don’t count out irregulars. Some bandits such as the Assyrians, Scythians, and even Landsknechts were employed as unofficial adjunts to cause political pressure. For an interesting look at this, read Cook’s Black Company. Irregulars can look like and are criminals. But they’re essentially state actors. Which is both a good story hook. And what makes them awful.
@ The reason I bring up the Landsknechts specifically is because of the horror show that was the state subsidized murderfest of the 100 years and 30 years wars.
Another pop culture example of realistic conflict-borne bandits in my view is Jet and his "Freedom Fighters" from Avatar the Last Airbender. Since the show is from the point of view of a bunch of tweens, when you first meet them, it seems like they have a real Robin Hood thing going on. Then learning more about them reveals that for all their posturing about being on the right side of the war that orphaned them, they're still willing to do some horrible things to survive. Really like the video, thank you for making this content system-agnostic as well so that no one has to reverse-engineer 5e specific ideas!
One of the reasons I left freedom fighters and guerrilla units out of this discussion is precisely for that reason. A lot of colonized or indigenous fighting groups were demonized as bandits when their motives were very different.
While most history geeks specialized on wars, the arts, or a specific nation/region. I gravitated towards roads and sea routes so banditry has always piqued my interest.
Some clue about historical bandits from France with a little "Robin hood" legend from XVIII century: - Cartouche who operated in Paris. - Mandrin was more of a smugler in south east of France. Some facts about them were quite amazing, but no doubt they really were bandits nonetheless.
I'm kind of surprised you didn't bring up the fuzzy distinction between bandits and mercenary bands found during the Italian Wars, a la the White Company travelling around acting like bandits in between being hired by one city-state or another.
@@DesksAndDorks The Free Companies during the Hundred Years War acted very similarly. You could argue Chevauchee was just banditry as an official military tactic.
I really thank you for your "themes that will and won't be in the story checklist" 3:21. Me and my group of friends enjoy Dark Fantasy with a lot of the items in the red included. However I only enjoy it, if the character is actually able to overcome said themes. I have gotten to old to just read torture porn... . where good loses and evil always prevails. lol
While i know that D&D is very much on the down trend right now as people are starting to view other RPGs, which I don't blame anyone for... There are many wonderful opportunities out there, i love videos like this that go into the "hows" and "whys" of the events in history. Empires rising and falling, bandits plying the roads, how a thing like magic would drastically reshape society. No matter whether you are playing a high magic or low magic setting, high fantasy or low fantasy, understanding why things like bandits occurred and how they operated can make a world feel like it is moving and living even without direct player input. The homebrew world that i worked on with my friends typically has a low amount of bandits in areas that are prosperous primarily due to the rather common task of adventuring into ruins and looking for ancient treasures.
Once more I love your content - thoroughly researched and well delivered, and informative to boot! But no modern “cult of personality” bandit groups? Please look up the Ned Kelly Gang, a bushranger gang of highwaymen from down here in Australia, a criminal family led by their own ironclad leader, Ned, back in the 1800s. It’s probably one of the most interesting pieces of history we actually have, so give it a look for some bandit fuel ;)
You're doing a mighty job here. Good shout out to Black Bart in the Q&A. Piracy (Golden Age of piracy in the Caribbean) is banditry with boats and historical piracy was surprisingly well-structured with clear lines of command. That said, I totally agree that banditry was out of desperation more often than opportunity. Again, great work. I look forward to the next.
@@DesksAndDorks 😎 Overall fantastic vid, and also mad respect for doing the honest work and not giving in to the AI slop phenomenom. My only comment (having also just watched to low fantasy vid) is never downplay the 4th S tier bandit weapon: Bonk Stick! (mace, hammer, yada yada)
@Calebgoblin ahhh the classic bonk stick. And yes it is really difficult to avoid ai art (it is everywhere online and I detest it). I'm trying to find good art where the artist has their name but it's getting tough man.
Been listening to this video while writing my own ttrpg system, I like how researched your videos always are (Right now I'm writing combat rules, since it's gonna be a game in which players start as adventurers but eventually achieve positions of importance and it slowly transfers into kingdom management, there's gonna be a separate combat system for personal combat involving up to 10 people/creatures, skirmishes of between 10 and 100, and battles involving hundreds of troops. It's also to avoid the problem D&D has, of combat with many enemies dragging on and on for hours).
Bandits becoming guards happened a LOT in the West. Even lauded lawmen like Wyatt Earp were often outlaws and rustlers before becoming sheriffs and marshals
That's a great question and probably a topic deserving of its own video. I will say as a short term solution I'd treat it as pragmatically as possible. We have a lot of accounts of Muslim and Arab kingdoms trading with pretty much anyone so you could lean into that. If you want to lean into racial tensions and conflict in the fantasy sense I would lean in on the safety tools and talk to your players first before you jump into that topic.
My rule of thumb is the lower fantasy, the more materialism. I like my low fantasy race relations to be very Star Trek. People are acting just like humans except they got funny-looking faces. So Hobgoblins might be used as an allegory for Prussian militarism. Orcs can serve to create 30 Years War conditions to explore what that was like (It's not very good and it only gets worse when the Finns or Croats show up) Elves/Fae are Ferngully, etc. I find it's a good way to get players to engage with pre-modern and modern concepts of the 'other.' I will always seek to give groups realistic motivations and causes, instead of the high fantasy motivations like rewriting the past or ascending to godhood. For me what motivates races in a low fantasy situation in going to be all the same things that have motivated humans (and to realistically create a situation as terrible as to create or need adventurers, there is probably going to be multiple reasons, as always Rule of 3). Ecological disaster, displacement, access to minerals, religious conflict, power politics, personal animosity between leaders, infringement of national sovereignty, independence movements, covert operations, trade routes, water access, etc. etc. In high fantasy you stop orcish invasions by battling an avatar of their god in honorable combat. In low fantasy the invasions end when they receive the right territorial concession.
Damn. I did know I like my darkness grim, but to see the basis of the drama/scenes and themes in my games in a red colum after 4 minutes brings things in perspective. I will retire to my dungoen and meditate about this.
This is great! I haven’t watched it all yet, but I’m loving your more thoughtful approach. I have just included a bandit gang encounter in my solo TTRPG play. I used the Monsters know… blog to help with how they would engage in combat, but you give so much depth and understanding about who bandits are. When I started creating my bandits, my question was well who are these people and why are they doing this. Just saying because they are bad people seems so lazy and boring. So my bandit group were people forced to leave a city with an oppressive government. So when I saw your statement Bandits are the result of hard times, that completely resonated with what I had done in my story. You got a sub and I’m looking forward to checking out the rest of your channel.
Great stuff! Would love if you could provide some kind of source doc, where you found some of the art you used and some of the people you talked about. Obviously I get that some stuff is just hanging around in your brain somewhere, but a general pointer would be nice!
For the art pieces there should be artists names in most of them! ( I try to find art that has names on it) I'll try to make a more central doc for next time!
Something interesting I learned about soldiers and their equipment in England(this is from Matt Easton of Scholagladitoria's video a few months ago about how soldiers were equipped and recruited), is that during the War of the Roses they actually had a fairly organized system for getting gear for their people, but the gear itself wasn't really super regulated. Essentially each soldier who needed equipment would get assigned a person in the community that they had to go to and borrow, buy or rent whatever equipment was on hand. This could be a retired soldier of a past conflict, a blacksmith, a merchant or whatever. The quality of the stuff these soldiers were getting from these people wasn't really consistent at all, and it was the soldier's sole responsibility to take care of that gear and make sure it gets back to the person if it was loaned to them. The point of this that I just find neat is that even organized fighting forces with wealth and resources would have a massive amount of variety and disparity in how they were equipped, which would also translate to how ramshackle and disorganized bandit groups might seem. If even some professional soldiers are relying on loaners and hand me downs that might not even fit them and might not even be the correct style for the time and culture they are a part of, the groups that get separated from those forces as deserters or whatever and are cut off from those resources would be even scragglier. Also another interesting point is they made a huge effort to ensure that equipment that is borrowed is returned after conflict, and they would issue heavy punishments for people whose stuff went accounted for for two reasons. If a ton of troops lose or destroy their equipment in service, the smith or whatever the army is relying on isn't going to be as keen about helping them in the future. And also because soldiers had a tendency to wander off after the fighting is over and go on a power trip pillaging and raiding, because they were better armed than the general populace and no one could really stop them.
Amazing video. I run a fantasy GURPS group set in Yrth. it has been going on for 16 years now. We`ve set up actual historic lore with the previous groups of players and now I can confidently setup better banditry thanks to your ideas.
Some literature recommendations for bandit stories, which you surely don't know because they are German classics but hardly translated: "Der Schinderhannes" - theater play by Carl Zuckmayer, also a 70ies movie same name, about the career of napoleonic era German Robin Hood Johannes Bückler "Michael Kohlhaas" - early 19th century novel by Heinrich von Kleist, also several movies / filmed theater plays, the latest from 2013 starring Mads Mikkelsen (maybe more rebel than bandit but the line is blurred anyway) "Das Wirtshaus im Spessart" - 19th century novel by Wilhelm Hauff, (the same name movie from 1958 has not much to do with it and is a parody) about an unpayed 30years war mercenary band turning rogue (happened quite often) "Bill Bo und seine Bande" - puppet play from Augsburger Puppenkiste, about an unpayed 30years war mercenary band turning rogue (toldya). Made for children and not exactly serious, but still fun to watch and can give ideas for dungeon masters Good luck looking for translations!
In Mortal Online, I was a bandit. If there's anything I learned about being permanently 'red' it's that you were not common and your skills in fighting, especially other players, were above average. This is especially true in full loot games. I can only imagine how much more true that would be in reality. Bandits would likely be skilled in their respective skills.
I think that's an interesting parallel to real life, but I'll add a few caveats. In games (most games anyway I haven't played mortal online), you have the advantage of being able to come back or at least make new characters so you are able to gain those skills. In real life, as a bandit, you make one wrong move, and that's it. This does vary, though, based on a bandits background. Rogue knights, bad mercenaries, and well equipped army deserters would all have been a threat. For example, we have a first-hand account of a 15 year old squire fending off about 6 bandits by himself, so the bar for quality varies greatly.
@DesksAndDorks absolutely agree. I always build for survivability and flexibility first whenever character design is allowed. In fact, my main toon on ESO resembles my playstyle most. He's armored, flexible, and fast enough to bail out when things go north or south. That being said, the skill levels between the guilds in Mortal did vary widely. It really is subject to where your path takes you and where your heart is. People who pursue really set themselves apart and do find themselves in circumstances that lead to real progress. I found a lot of personal growth IRL and in that game, just by meeting new people, trials, and failures. What do you mean by bad mercenaries? Is this morally bad or incompetent bad? Historically, I've seen that mercenaries are usually the cream of the crop. Constant training, warfare, and personal investment led to many battles resembling the Battle of Visby.
By bad, I mean mercenaries who just decided to go raiding rather than return to their initial post. It happens with relatively frequency. I definitely should have used a better word then bad. Brain no work this morning.
@DesksAndDorks no worries, I just liked and I will subscribe to your channel. I like that you go by the evidence, get into the weeds of the accounts and information, and engage with your audience. I've been developing a low-fantasy world of my own. So, a lot of the information I go off of is historical. There will be spiritual elements as well. So I really appreciate you and your work. There are others who I also enjoy listening to, but some of them have changed in their content, going from deep constructive dives into weapons testing and look at where I've gone for vacation.
As the brutal person that I am, I have had a ton of fun by basically setting base morality absurdly low. Horrible things are often just part of life and as you don't think people are farm equipment you are now a criminal for preventing that. Go take someone's people so you can start a bandit compound where you do not remove the personhood of people. This is really fun because you get to play the "evil" side as heroes. People who want to abolish slavery in this world tend to be bandits, very fun and you get to make sweeping changes to a custom world after you free people even an entire town who decided that being free is perhaps a good thing that we all like, wow it turns out that having people as property is bad and upsetting to many, fun to have that as the view if criminals.
@ agreed. I am just kind of approaching this from the opposite perspective. I have always thought that if we are not on earth we are not being influenced by any culture on earth. It’s literally to this world a new idea where nobody is property. How these people have a major chance of winning is they easily double in their effective population because all the people are free and allowed to defend their cities. Mass uprisings occur simply because a free city exists as their neighbor and the lower class is now in open revolt with their neighbor invading the more traditional cities. It’s a great setting because just playing with expectation, you can have people always be wrong in what to do expect.
Also, in Warhammer 40K, you have the Carcharodons (aka possibly Space Sharks). Essentially bandits occasionally when they need resources but have a general moral compass to kill enemies of mankind. Their battle tactics are very hit n run then collect loot. Not true bandits but a rogue army who doesn't listen to the Empires higherups but still loosely respected by the main army because of their respect to (mostly) protect mankind's empire.
Did a D&D game once where the local "bandits" were a guerilla band working for a royal bastard seeking to claim the throne from him legit half-brother. Point being that bandits can be politically motivated, at least in theory, rationalizing their nefarious actions as part of some "cause." There was also a second group who were just straight up terrorists, as the story's backstory had about 25% of all the orcs having decided to stop fighting humans and moved into the cities to join them, and this led their wilderness brethren basically declaring a jihad on this new faction of civilized orcs. Point being this meant that their actions had little to do wealth and everything to do with targeting their former kin.
So this is something I brought up in the QA section, but guerrillas like the ones you're referring to, I treat as separate entities. I think their is bleed over between a bandit and guerrilla in terms of action but their intent and organization is pretty different and may be getting it's own video at some point. Max Boot's invisible armies is a pretty good read on the subject if you're interested!
i feel storys of "good bandits" tend to be wrapped up in mythmaking and identity that is to say that these people are seen as resistance figures against empires look for example at the bandits in the Balkans in the medieval period or the likes of Panch Vila and Emilio Zapata in Mexico
Though that kind of fact could I feel better used for more interesting story telling. bandits using existing hatreds against those in power as a means of protection l, those in power over reacting by saying burning villages and the players caught in the middle of the chaos
I realize I had not replied to this, but I actually left freedom fighters out of the video since they had drastically different motives but very similar techniques.
@@DesksAndDorks I'm aware but I'm thinking more about how some bandit groups may well have used freedom fighters as a cover for there banditry. I feel that playing on that underlying stress can be an interesting narrative thread. Rather then just bandits are they rebels with legitimate grievance, are they criminals using conflict as cover or are they a bit of both?
I think you missed one this time, unless you maybe intend to cover it in a specific video on mercenaries or pirates/privateers. The Routiers. The mercenary whose band is hired explicitly to perform banditry on an enemy populace.
That's awesome! If you want me to credit you in the description let me know! I try to find art that has its credits but I'd love to throw some positive attention your way!
@@DesksAndDorks Thanks, I'd like that. Btw If you happen to want illustrations for your videos, I am more than happy to make some (free of charge), it would be good practice for me. Have a nice one!
Oh man, this is a video / topic I've been looking for forEVER. I've known something of the historical basis of banditry for years, and once read an especially compelling / sympathetic portrayel of bandits (as desperate people with limited options)... but have I had any luck finding discussion about this vis-a-vis fantasy stories or RPGs? Not until now!
You could hold off on the pirate video until summer to see if a second Kraken Week happens to try to hit the algorithm. I found a couple people through it this year
Honesty Viking or Hunnic style raiders are criminally underused in media. Real Vikings didn't have much of a sympathetic motivation beyond taking something they wanted but were still human enough for a party to deal with diplomatically.
Vikings, I think, may be overused (and I say this as someone who actually chose to make that their focus for historical study). I think what gets underused is their desire to trade over fighting. They were far more willing to broker a trade agreement then squabble for it if trading was expedient. The huns though need so so so much more media. Same with the Mongols and Timurids.
@DesksAndDorks I agree with Vikings being poorly used in most fiction. They were just the force that came to mind there are no shortage of barbaric raiders to take inspiration from. Those sorts of forces were so instrumental in forming the Medivel world and culture that it feels criminal to not fully utilize them.
17:38 good idea to mention that medieval armies would often not be issued weapons, and would be expected to bring their own gear, often with laws based on societal class and position. Thats probably one reason why the english civil war led to so many weapons. That would be around the time period (I think) that lower ranked soldiers would be issued weapons, and with firearms, many of the issued weapons would be relatively valuable compared to what a person of that social class would be able to afford on their own. Theory needs evidence, anyone have more knowledge of this?
Im posting this at the start of the video (so apologises if its referenced), but lowkey hoping to hear about a 14th century bandit gang was WILD. It was les by a landed (and prosperous) knight and a priest. Numerous records of them committing terrible violence and theft, but the priest kept taking sanctuary in his own church while the knight would get pardoned by the king because he conscripted his gang (and others) into the King's army. The knight after a while seems to have gotten fed up of being on the run half the time and accepted a final pardoned and returned to his estate. The priest however hid in his church from a sheriff/constable who had been trying to capture him for years, got just burnt down the church with the priest and gang inside. He was criticised for burning the church but nothing more than that. So interesting how gangs were often well connected members of society and how they used their position to break the law, but also how constantly doing so also can backfire for the criminals (a sheriff wouldn't dare have burnt the church otherwise). Side note what the romans sometimes called bandits may have been more akin to what we would call insurgents which is always an interesting thing to think about with bandits.
God I remember reading a story on r/rpg horror stories about a DM having bandits betray the party because the party didnt question why the shady looking people on the side of the road didnt just "attack them on sight" and thught the DM was trying to tpk the party.
Bandit leaders who were cult of personality-ish: - Any famous pirate captain, pirates were simply sea-bandits - Hannikel - Schinderhannes - Bavarian Hiasl - Hans Kohlhase - Grettir the Strong - Redmond O'Hanlon - Robert ‘Rob Roy’ MacGregor - John Nevison - Thomas_Blood - Adam the Leper - John Clavell - Twm Siôn Cati - Juraj Jánošík - Louis Dominique Bourguignon - Eppelein von Gailingen - Song Jiang - Zhang Xianzhong - Ishikawa Goemon - Liu Yongfu - Ustym Karmaliuk - Giuseppe Musolino - Fra Diavolo - Han Xian - Bello Turji Kachalla - Jesse James - Billy the Kid - Butch Cassidy - Pancho Villa - Salvatore Giuliano - Ned Kelly - Claude Du Val - Dick Turpin - Jiang Yulang - Sándor Rózsa
Mounted combat is so tough in games because a lot of times they just pile mechanics onto mechanics. My recommendation would be to look at a skirmish game like x wing and maybe change the rules a little bit. X wing had a lot of mechanics like momentum and turning speeds thay were simple and could be ported over to another tabletop system. Hope that helps!
Blackbeard. Henry Morgan. And Black Bart Roberts! All pirates! I really wanted to put pirates in here but they are (at least in my mind) distinct from Bandits (otherwise I would have changed a lot.)
Claude Duval is a historical example of the sort of charismatic bandit who inspired the Highwayman type of bandit you described. I personally wouldn't include political press gangs in the same category of "Bandit", and instead would have gone with Pirates, the Bandits of the sea! The press gangs seem more like actual gangsters (Hence the name Gangs of New York, and not Bandits of New York), and fit in with other organized crime organizations alongside your Bootleggers and not the lawless areas where Banditry occurs. I would argue that if you needed a third corner besides the Highwayman and Pirate, the Nomadic Raider also closer feels closer to a "Bandit" type. Mexican Bandito's or former Confederates turned bandit in the wild west come to mind, raiding towns and settler caravans alike just like Steppe raiders of old attacking a spice merchants and cities alike. Although problematic, traditionally "Indians" aka Native Americans who were being displaced were also a stand in for this archetype in Westerns. All three (Highwayman, Pirate, Nomad) have been romanticized, but historically are exactly as you described, deserters from armed forces, opportunistic criminals, or desperate peoples who do very bad things. For gameplay purposes, I would argue they function identically as Bandit of the Forest, Bandit of the Sea, and Bandit of the Steppe in games.
@@DesksAndDorks The setting for HarnMaster. I highly recommend giving it a look, actually, based on the game recommendations you gave in one of the Q&As. It's right up your alley, I think.
Nope, you're not crazy at all. UA-cam has a feature where if I upload multiple thumbnails, it will run all 3 at once for different test audiences and then eventually will land on the one that gets the most clicks per view. So yeah 3 dudes on a white background was one of the options and eventually it landed on the one you're seeing now!
Eh. A lot of inaccuracies here. Bandits have existed in conjunction with states and not just periods of unrest. Read the historian Hobsbawm's book on bandits for a better understanding of the historical basis for banditry.
Howsbams' book specifically focuses on bandits turned revolutionaries. While his work on Pancho Villa is interesting, it doesn't really have the kind of analogs we're looking for here. Again, good work, but I think he blurs the line between bandit and revolutionary too much.
How is religion a no go topic for your checklist? It seems to me that religion is a really important part of most fantasy role playing games. It is necessary for Clerics and Paladins and, in 5th edition, Religion itself is a core skill. Is there something I'm missing here?
That's a really good question. 1. The checklist here was an example one and I usually do have religion in my games. 2. Religious trauma is (unfortunately) a real thing. I know a fair number of folks who were physically or mentally abused in religious organizations and for those people organized religious institutions can be difficult to have in their games.
Also an addendum. Usually to make clerics and paladins work you just give them their power through divine means and leave the human organizations out of it. Usually that works.
Later, he was betrayed by his gang when it was expedient to do so. I considered putting him as an example but his downfall (and that of people like Billy the Kid) prove that it's never about the charisma it's about how long you can provide your people with a paycheck.
Let´s not forget mercenaries which have not been paid, or soldiers which suddenly got unemployed when a long war ended. Those may also turn to banditry.
MHM, make sure you learn the lessons of history: *Always. Pay. Your mercenaries!!*
Mercenaries all ways get paid.. if you like it or not@@AegixDrakan
Which also is some of what can lead to a rise in piracy! Suddenly unpaid or unemployed sailors, especially from military fleets. Sea banditry, really.
@@adamantineshining MANY of the Golden Age pirates were actually privateers during the War of Spanish Succession who became unemployed. Many of them were just like... well lets keep doing what we were already doing but now with an even wider target list.
And are usually the far more dangerous ones. Already armed, experienced and blooded, often in an area away from home and without exterior obligations like farms or families.
I really can't properly express just how much of a breath of fresh air your channel is. None of my friends understand why I (a fellow medievalist!) find low fantasy to be so much more compelling than the rest, and thus I write and game with it alone. You're covering a lot of topics that I feel are both important and strongly underserved, and for that I thank you!
That makes me really happy to know that the videos are having a positive effect. Really happy you are enjoying it and a hearty salute to a fellow medievalist!
@@shenpai1566 I think a lot of the reason why people hate low fantasy is people use it to mean worlds with absolutely no form of magic. I don’t know why or when this happened but it not uncommon.
The low fantasy topic as described here is what I have always considered it but as TTRPGs reach more people you have tales of worse GMs who don’t want to deal with magic at all.
It has not so much gotten a bad reputation as it has been slowly bled of meaning. It’s a shame because I don’t like to run low fantasy but they are very fun worlds with people who actually know what they are trying to accomplish.
I understand your liking for low fantasy and hope you have fun with it.
That said, I have too much fun with high fantasy worlds to change, I think!
One thing I feel is important to note about bandits, especially those who were former military vets, is that they can be expected to be competent at what they do. It's not just the martial training that transitions well into banditry but their tactics too. A lot of medieval warfare was essentially state-sanctioned banditry, take the chevauchees of the Hundred Years war for example. Lightning fast but devastating raids where they looted everything they can carry and burned everything they couldn't.
100 percent this^
Great video. One bandit group I did as a DM was an exiled Knight and his retainers. So one dude in full plate and very well trained along with a dozen or so well equipped and trained men at arms that isn’t an easy foe for low level PCs to face in a low magic setting.
That's a stellar bandit group and some of my favorite tropes in games are the bandit groups that were moral upstanding members of society and got forced into something else.
I think even with magic, that’s a pretty good challenge for low levels
I think one important example of banditry you missed is exemplified by Peter Niers a 16th century bandit operating in the HRE. His gang was a loose affiliation of people disguised as shepherds. Bandits could use mobility of the jobs to move about the countryside without drawing supposition and move to other locals to fence stolen goods or escape if the heat grew too great in their current location. The low social standing of the jobs would allow recruitment of collaborators, who worked in those professions outside the gang, to various involvement levels either through the promise of more wealth or violence. There are also stories that the bandits would use black magic to disguise themselves which can add more flavor for the DM to use to make them a larger threat.
Do you happen to have any primary or secondary sources on them? I'd love to do some reading
@@DesksAndDorks I don't have any I can fully attest to. I mostly encountered them in brief mentions as representative of violence present in society around the time of the 30 years war or as pre-industrialization serial killers; basically examples for other subjects. Peter Niers's Wikipedia entry looks to contain a few good sources in German as well as an English source you could use as a jumping off point. Sorry I don't have anything more concrete.
Always remember, someone's mercenaries are more than often another's bandits.
This
You mentioned black powder weapons: its worth considering that, in the English Civil War, even "real" armies often went into battle perilously low on powder and shot (especially the Royalists). There were government-owned powder mills, and port-cities could bring in powder and shot from overseas, but a combination of limited supply, poor supply-lines and bad roads meant that armies would often struggle to get the powder and shot they needed, especially if they were fighting deep in the countryside.
These issues would be doubly the case in a bandit group: it might be tactically interesting to pit the players against bandits who have black powder weapons, but only enough powder and shot for maybe three or four shots each.
One of my favorite games actually features black powder arms and to simulate how rarely you would shoot them those guns have some sort of other gameplay mechanic (pistol being able to let you intimidate for example).
@@DesksAndDorks What's the name?
"We're not making content for DnD"
Thank you for that. It's such a breath of fresh air.
You're welcome man! No shade to Dnd it's how I started but there are so many other games worth exploring!
I really appreciate the slower pace, using a few slides to present or visualize what youre talking about instead of barraging me with images. Makes it easier to actually listen, I dont feel like I'll miss anything if I look away.
That's what we try for! Glad the pace was good for this one!
I like your comment that there are no good bandits. There may be groups called or mistaken for bandits, but if they actually have goals beyond opportunity and cowardice they are probably going to fight differently and be classified differently from bandits. Insurgents and guerillas are a very different enemy.
100 percent. It is a very different beast depending on who and how you interact with.
@@DesksAndDorks Yeah, I definitely agree. Like, being called a bandit & actually being a bandit is very different. An insurgent or Guerilla almost ALWAYS has a genuine motive compared to just wanting to survive alone or wealth.
@AbstractTraitorHero I actually almost did a section entirely on that group as well
@@DesksAndDorks I would love to see stuff on peasent rebellions, why they fail, what genuine historical reasons they had, outcomes where they succeeded & how one might have players get involved in helping one succeed.
I feel low fantasy is usually at its best when it's anti-monarchist and looks at the people who were actually like us.
@AbstractTraitorHero that is a lovely idea. When the next poll goes live please comment that.
For those interested, in the "good" bandit archetype the Bonnot gang is a good study. They were illegalist anarchists who believed that participation in systems that oppressed them was fundamentally immoral, and thus that living outside the system and outside the law was the only moral choice. They weren't heroes and still did evil things, but the ideology is still a fun idea for fantasy,
I believe I made the distinction in the QA but groups like the Bonnot (or guerrilla movements in general) feel like a distinctly different beast. They may resort to some form of illegal activity but the reasons they do so are different from common bandits.
Still that's a great group to bring up
A very effective trap can be made from cordage and a "young" tree. One can bend a tree, attach a cordage to it, secure a loop made a the other and of cordage to the ground of the trail and mask it with fallen leaves (or needles in a coniferous forest).
That's my 2 copper pieces to add to this video.
It is an excellent addition
11:08 It should be noted that illegal substances does not need to mean drugs. It could be a certain type of fabric or trade good outlawed from sale due to political or even religious reasons, or any number of smuggling or avoidance of taxes, tariffs or fees.
An excellent addendum. Even counterfeit dyes would have been a big deal at varying points in human history.
Some further inspirations from more modern themed bandit groups: Irish Republican Army & Sons of Anarchy/Mayans outlaw motorcycle clubs from the SoA/Mayans show. Mixing an ideology with greed is a great cocktail for a compelling and believable outlaw/bandit group.
Sons is a great example.
I love how you present your ideas, the mix of historical backdrop with real world examples and fictional ones before putting it all together with these example bandits works really well.
Thanks man! Thay was the goal buy I'm glad it worked well!
11:47 my sources say “Robin Hood” was a common name used by outlaws to protect their family name as a family would often share reputation and reprisals and feud could be enacted upon members of a family that were not part of any initial event, and who may not even know of the conflict.
I also like to spice up bandits by making different types.
For example in my setting the largely human kingdom had a form of slavery, so some were manhunters looking for species that were legally able to be forced into 'indentured servitude'.
One of the things I wish more fantasy and historical fiction would give some kind of attention to is river piracy. There's a level of cloak and dagger intrigue with inland pirates that make them complex and compelling. Highwaymen, road agents, and bush rangers are all cool. But there's something about cutthroat ferrymen, and tavern spies who betray flatboats and barge crews to a pirate gang who operate out of a cave off a waterway or an old abondoned millhouse that just gives a more sinister vibe than regular desperados and priates. Mechanically too, it's got more elements than a strictly road or sea based combat. Because the defending party is stuck on floating platforms while the attacking party might be more dynamic, using a mix of watercraft and skirmishers on land. Unless an escort is hired to follow alongside the merchant/passanger craft from the river bank. But even then there's the element of the river bank being interrupted by tributaries, leaving the river boats cut iff from their escorts while they try to find a crossing. And of course a lof the time the river boats will need to be towed up a tributary by horses, oxen, or laborers towards the end of thei journey. Putting them in a much more vulnerable state, and potentially creating a situation where mid-ambush one of the barges loses too many oxes and starts to flow back down stream while the escorts and boat crews are occupied with combat. Potentially creating a dilemma where the mounted escorts have to choose between falling back and using their mounts to tow the barge somewhere it can at least be moored, or potentially sacrificing the crew and cargo of the runaway barge.
River piracy is really intriguing as a concept. The vikings did it but so did the Chinese (arguably the most examples of this are during imperial china) and even in some.cases the Egyptians. It's a cool concept for sure.
@@DesksAndDorks I'll look into that. Most of the historical examples I've read of were Eastern European and pre-industrial American. It's alluded to with what we know of bronze age Western Europe. But it's an under explored concept in fiction. Even Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer didn't reference Lincoln's encounter with river piracy.
@flyboymike111357 river raiding bandits during imperial China were a scourge. It's definitely an intriguing read
@@flyboymike111357not quite a river, but England had a canal system going back quite a way (even if China’s was much older). So depending what they’re hauling, they might make a rather vulnerable target.
@@highlorddarkstar That's a good point. A long canal, or canal zone with low security areas would be soft targets.
Despite this video primarily using medieval inspired bandits, this applies to any setting, whether westerns, post-apoc, futuristic, cyberpunk!
Unstable times, financial hard ships, armies without a war to fight - these can be used in all of your games! 🤠 Great video as always!
Much appreciated my friend! Tried to bring in as much as I could!
@@DesksAndDorks Absolutely, buddy! A world grounded in history is one that reads so much truer!
Very insightful video. So many of the TTRPG channels on UA-cam come from writing or game design backgrounds. It's nice to have a new voice with a history of, well, history.
I am glad you enjoyed it and I appreciate the support.
I love finding smaller channels like yours, feels like a hidden gem on youtube.
We appreciate the support though!
The main problem with Skyrim bandits is that they are 90% of the world population 🤣
You'd think its 40% bandits, 40% Draugr, 20% actual civilization
I wonder what real estate prices in Skyrim look like honestly.
They try to explain this by saying the war dove many to the bandit life but the bandit problem don't get better when it ends so...
12:35 charismatic cult-like leader makes me think of famous pirates. I’m blanking on her name but the Chinese pirate queen comes to mind.
I would assume that the more charismatic leaders would just be leaders that managed to keep the group going a little longer after the hard times, or whose group got a little larger.
Perhaps they manage to move from bandit leaders to warband chiefs or “respectable businessmen” based on the connections and wealth they made.
Zhang yi Sao. And pirates are a very different breed for sure!
@ are they though?
Wouldn’t outlawry cause bandits to have to avoid society the way pirates couldn’t return home?
And those that only prey on outsiders and don’t find themselves outcast in their own society are basically privateers…
I’m not saying they are the same, but I would suggest some similarities. Pirates have a reputation for cruel tyranical leaders but a lot of the time they were democracies setup in response to tyranical merchant captains. So would there not be bandits that form as a way to escape the tyranny of military officers, a desire for freedom, etc?
Similar, yes. But different enough in their formation, tactics, and unique culture to be worthy of a full deep dive. Particularly when we get into the differences between pirates of various cultures, the distinction between privateer versus pirate, and the impact pirates had on political systems. Again, there is a lot of bleed over but enough that is historically distinct and significant enough to warrant their own section.
But Dutch had a plan!
@@DesksAndDorks
Oh, absolutely worth making a separate video. No doubt on that. I meant more along the lines of it being worth using what we know about pirates as influence for our bandits. For those who happen to know about pirates at least.
Good video, especially regarding the point that bandits are in it for the money and aren’t looking for a fair fight. This can make a challenging psychological test for the players if they find themselves confronted with a bandit force strong enough to wipe out the characters, but who will nonetheless break and flee rather than pay the price it would take to kill all the adventurers.
While I agree that bandit leaders were not “cult-like” in the sense of commanding self-sacrificing loyalty and obedience from followers who have forsaken all other ties, I think there are plenty of examples of bandit leaders who kept on top mainly by force of personality in Robin Hood style, including that very Bartholomew Roberts you mentioned, who held undisputed command of several hundred pirates from 1719 to 1722, and likewise Blackbeard, Jesse James, Bertrand du Guesclin, etc.
Also, while it’s true that there were no “good” bandits by any reasonable definition of “good,” it really isn’t
true to say they just did whatever they wanted. There is at least one universal rule that all gangsters seem to agree on, and will go to considerable effort and risk to enforce: don’t rat. Frank Gusenberg, mortally wounded in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, refused to name his killers to his last breath. Pirate crews often had quite detailed rules of behavior, enforced by an elected quartermaster. Moral they were not, but many of these people did live by their own code.
Have been binging your videos. This is so helpful for my shadowdark campaign as a new GM. The passion, generally interesting topics, and context of useful GM tips really tie these videos into a nice little package.
Also big shout out to safety tools; glad you take the time to bring them up. If my buddy hadnt told us about the earthquake in japan years back, one could have come up in the game we're players in. It was a tornado instead, no big deal and everyones having fun.
Glad you're finding things of use. If I can help a fellow GM that's the highest compliment I can get!
Vinland Saga shows a good idea of a group of skilled warriors who bandit and mercenary or do both at the same time.
Finland saga does pretty much everything right at all times. It is PEAK.
If you want to have “good” bandits, I suggest giving them a political alignment and having them just be a little friendlier towards one faction.
or maybe they take a particular liking to a certain group or individual. Sure they'll jump pretty much anyone they think they can get away with, but little timmy? Noooooo...Little timmy is our friend, and he gives everyone a false sense of security.
WFRP handles this pretty well. You alluded to this, but the local criminal gang is a very important set if figures.
Also don’t count out irregulars. Some bandits such as the Assyrians, Scythians, and even Landsknechts were employed as unofficial adjunts to cause political pressure.
For an interesting look at this, read Cook’s Black Company. Irregulars can look like and are criminals. But they’re essentially state actors. Which is both a good story hook. And what makes them awful.
Oh for sure the Assyrian hill tribes were a huge deal and although I referenced specifically the Swiss pikemen I also loved the Landsknechts.
@ The reason I bring up the Landsknechts specifically is because of the horror show that was the state subsidized murderfest of the 100 years and 30 years wars.
Another pop culture example of realistic conflict-borne bandits in my view is Jet and his "Freedom Fighters" from Avatar the Last Airbender. Since the show is from the point of view of a bunch of tweens, when you first meet them, it seems like they have a real Robin Hood thing going on. Then learning more about them reveals that for all their posturing about being on the right side of the war that orphaned them, they're still willing to do some horrible things to survive. Really like the video, thank you for making this content system-agnostic as well so that no one has to reverse-engineer 5e specific ideas!
This is a perfect example!!!!
Honestly I hate the way colonized people were vilified by the narrative for fighting back against their oppressors.
One of the reasons I left freedom fighters and guerrilla units out of this discussion is precisely for that reason. A lot of colonized or indigenous fighting groups were demonized as bandits when their motives were very different.
While most history geeks specialized on wars, the arts, or a specific nation/region. I gravitated towards roads and sea routes so banditry has always piqued my interest.
"DnD, The skyrim bandits are actually not that bad*"
"The entire following of the skyrim community, Hersey! Heeersey!!"
I'm just saying historically it makes sense man!
UA-cam was adamant that I watch these videos and now I know why. Good stuff.
Do revolutions and or coups. Also, I would love historical character highlights for us to steal in our own TTRPGs. Thanks and great job!
Ohhhhhh that's a good call!
Some clue about historical bandits from France with a little "Robin hood" legend from XVIII century:
- Cartouche who operated in Paris.
- Mandrin was more of a smugler in south east of France.
Some facts about them were quite amazing, but no doubt they really were bandits nonetheless.
Al Capone ran the Chicago outfit not New York.
You're correct that's a pretty big error on my part.
I'm kind of surprised you didn't bring up the fuzzy distinction between bandits and mercenary bands found during the Italian Wars, a la the White Company travelling around acting like bandits in between being hired by one city-state or another.
Ahh the Condottieri. I thought about including them as well but because they are technically mercenaries they occupy such a nebulous.
@@DesksAndDorks The Free Companies during the Hundred Years War acted very similarly. You could argue Chevauchee was just banditry as an official military tactic.
@thomastrinkle2294 is very true, but I try to make these a little more general for the viewing audience if I can.
Great video! I run a low fantasy ttrpg which I’m building a system for. This vid has given a lot of inspiration for my game.
I am happy to hear that! More low fantasy is always good!
I really thank you for your "themes that will and won't be in the story checklist" 3:21. Me and my group of friends enjoy Dark Fantasy with a lot of the items in the red included. However I only enjoy it, if the character is actually able to overcome said themes. I have gotten to old to just read torture porn... . where good loses and evil always prevails. lol
I also like my themes dark but I work rrally.hard to make sure everyone feels comfortable at the table.
While i know that D&D is very much on the down trend right now as people are starting to view other RPGs, which I don't blame anyone for... There are many wonderful opportunities out there, i love videos like this that go into the "hows" and "whys" of the events in history. Empires rising and falling, bandits plying the roads, how a thing like magic would drastically reshape society. No matter whether you are playing a high magic or low magic setting, high fantasy or low fantasy, understanding why things like bandits occurred and how they operated can make a world feel like it is moving and living even without direct player input.
The homebrew world that i worked on with my friends typically has a low amount of bandits in areas that are prosperous primarily due to the rather common task of adventuring into ruins and looking for ancient treasures.
I'm glad that it offered a lot of cool ideas for you, man! Hopefully, this helps your games!
Once more I love your content - thoroughly researched and well delivered, and informative to boot! But no modern “cult of personality” bandit groups? Please look up the Ned Kelly Gang, a bushranger gang of highwaymen from down here in Australia, a criminal family led by their own ironclad leader, Ned, back in the 1800s. It’s probably one of the most interesting pieces of history we actually have, so give it a look for some bandit fuel ;)
Very cool content. I really appreciate the dedication!
Glad you're enjoying it!
Can’t wait to build a factions generation table with those categories. Great stuff as always!
Much appreciated man!
You're doing a mighty job here. Good shout out to Black Bart in the Q&A. Piracy (Golden Age of piracy in the Caribbean) is banditry with boats and historical piracy was surprisingly well-structured with clear lines of command. That said, I totally agree that banditry was out of desperation more often than opportunity.
Again, great work. I look forward to the next.
Much appreciated my friend glad you enjoyed it! And glad for the feedback!
Your take on the best Robin Hood is dead ass correct
Knew you were a man of culture
@@DesksAndDorks 😎
Overall fantastic vid, and also mad respect for doing the honest work and not giving in to the AI slop phenomenom.
My only comment (having also just watched to low fantasy vid) is never downplay the 4th S tier bandit weapon: Bonk Stick! (mace, hammer, yada yada)
@Calebgoblin ahhh the classic bonk stick. And yes it is really difficult to avoid ai art (it is everywhere online and I detest it).
I'm trying to find good art where the artist has their name but it's getting tough man.
@@DesksAndDorks fighting the good fight brother 💪
It's human art or nothing, brother!
Been listening to this video while writing my own ttrpg system, I like how researched your videos always are (Right now I'm writing combat rules, since it's gonna be a game in which players start as adventurers but eventually achieve positions of importance and it slowly transfers into kingdom management, there's gonna be a separate combat system for personal combat involving up to 10 people/creatures, skirmishes of between 10 and 100, and battles involving hundreds of troops. It's also to avoid the problem D&D has, of combat with many enemies dragging on and on for hours).
We had a house rule for that but if you're using some sort of initiative tracking device in your game I would use unit initiative
Wonderfull video.
(Now i'll watch it)
I appreciate the classic pre-like.
Bandits becoming guards happened a LOT in the West. Even lauded lawmen like Wyatt Earp were often outlaws and rustlers before becoming sheriffs and marshals
One of my favorite phenomenon of that time period
I love your low fantasy series
But I have a question how would you tackle different fantasy races in a low fantasy world?
That's a great question and probably a topic deserving of its own video. I will say as a short term solution I'd treat it as pragmatically as possible. We have a lot of accounts of Muslim and Arab kingdoms trading with pretty much anyone so you could lean into that.
If you want to lean into racial tensions and conflict in the fantasy sense I would lean in on the safety tools and talk to your players first before you jump into that topic.
Thanks I need to look more into the Muslim part of the Middle Ages, between the Commercial and cultural parts, it’s sounds very interesting
They have one of the most fascinating cross-cultural trading hubs in history
My rule of thumb is the lower fantasy, the more materialism. I like my low fantasy race relations to be very Star Trek. People are acting just like humans except they got funny-looking faces. So Hobgoblins might be used as an allegory for Prussian militarism. Orcs can serve to create 30 Years War conditions to explore what that was like (It's not very good and it only gets worse when the Finns or Croats show up) Elves/Fae are Ferngully, etc. I find it's a good way to get players to engage with pre-modern and modern concepts of the 'other.'
I will always seek to give groups realistic motivations and causes, instead of the high fantasy motivations like rewriting the past or ascending to godhood. For me what motivates races in a low fantasy situation in going to be all the same things that have motivated humans (and to realistically create a situation as terrible as to create or need adventurers, there is probably going to be multiple reasons, as always Rule of 3). Ecological disaster, displacement, access to minerals, religious conflict, power politics, personal animosity between leaders, infringement of national sovereignty, independence movements, covert operations, trade routes, water access, etc. etc. In high fantasy you stop orcish invasions by battling an avatar of their god in honorable combat. In low fantasy the invasions end when they receive the right territorial concession.
Damn. I did know I like my darkness grim, but to see the basis of the drama/scenes and themes in my games in a red colum after 4 minutes brings things in perspective. I will retire to my dungoen and meditate about this.
This is great! I haven’t watched it all yet, but I’m loving your more thoughtful approach. I have just included a bandit gang encounter in my solo TTRPG play. I used the Monsters know… blog to help with how they would engage in combat, but you give so much depth and understanding about who bandits are. When I started creating my bandits, my question was well who are these people and why are they doing this. Just saying because they are bad people seems so lazy and boring. So my bandit group were people forced to leave a city with an oppressive government. So when I saw your statement Bandits are the result of hard times, that completely resonated with what I had done in my story. You got a sub and I’m looking forward to checking out the rest of your channel.
Thanks! Glad I could be of some help and really looking forward to seeing how you like the rest of the content!
Excellent content
Much appreciated!
Much appreciated!
Great stuff! Would love if you could provide some kind of source doc, where you found some of the art you used and some of the people you talked about. Obviously I get that some stuff is just hanging around in your brain somewhere, but a general pointer would be nice!
For the art pieces there should be artists names in most of them! ( I try to find art that has names on it) I'll try to make a more central doc for next time!
Something interesting I learned about soldiers and their equipment in England(this is from Matt Easton of Scholagladitoria's video a few months ago about how soldiers were equipped and recruited), is that during the War of the Roses they actually had a fairly organized system for getting gear for their people, but the gear itself wasn't really super regulated. Essentially each soldier who needed equipment would get assigned a person in the community that they had to go to and borrow, buy or rent whatever equipment was on hand. This could be a retired soldier of a past conflict, a blacksmith, a merchant or whatever. The quality of the stuff these soldiers were getting from these people wasn't really consistent at all, and it was the soldier's sole responsibility to take care of that gear and make sure it gets back to the person if it was loaned to them.
The point of this that I just find neat is that even organized fighting forces with wealth and resources would have a massive amount of variety and disparity in how they were equipped, which would also translate to how ramshackle and disorganized bandit groups might seem. If even some professional soldiers are relying on loaners and hand me downs that might not even fit them and might not even be the correct style for the time and culture they are a part of, the groups that get separated from those forces as deserters or whatever and are cut off from those resources would be even scragglier.
Also another interesting point is they made a huge effort to ensure that equipment that is borrowed is returned after conflict, and they would issue heavy punishments for people whose stuff went accounted for for two reasons. If a ton of troops lose or destroy their equipment in service, the smith or whatever the army is relying on isn't going to be as keen about helping them in the future. And also because soldiers had a tendency to wander off after the fighting is over and go on a power trip pillaging and raiding, because they were better armed than the general populace and no one could really stop them.
Amazing video. I run a fantasy GURPS group set in Yrth. it has been going on for 16 years now. We`ve set up actual historic lore with the previous groups of players and now I can confidently setup better banditry thanks to your ideas.
Yay! Then I've done my job!
Just discovered this channel. . .it's my favorite.
Much appreciated!
Really digging the new content style. The other content is great too, don't get me wrong, I'm just voicing my appreciation for the new style.
I really appreciate that 🙏. It's been a lot of work so it means a lot.
Will note: Al Capone was a kingpin in Chicago, not NY
Yeah I made a massive goof there!
The algorithm will be weighted toward this video now
*bows. Thank you for your service
Some literature recommendations for bandit stories, which you surely don't know because they are German classics but hardly translated:
"Der Schinderhannes" - theater play by Carl Zuckmayer, also a 70ies movie same name, about the career of napoleonic era German Robin Hood Johannes Bückler
"Michael Kohlhaas" - early 19th century novel by Heinrich von Kleist, also several movies / filmed theater plays, the latest from 2013 starring Mads Mikkelsen (maybe more rebel than bandit but the line is blurred anyway)
"Das Wirtshaus im Spessart" - 19th century novel by Wilhelm Hauff, (the same name movie from 1958 has not much to do with it and is a parody) about an unpayed 30years war mercenary band turning rogue (happened quite often)
"Bill Bo und seine Bande" - puppet play from Augsburger Puppenkiste, about an unpayed 30years war mercenary band turning rogue (toldya). Made for children and not exactly serious, but still fun to watch and can give ideas for dungeon masters
Good luck looking for translations!
I thank you but also curse you for giving me a list of potentially incredible works that I may not be able to read.
Top tier dnd content, maybe my new favorite creator? Gonna binge so hard.
Thanks man! I hope you enjoy the content binge!
Good stuff! Very helpful and fascinating. Expands on how I already view things.
I really appreciate it man thank you!
@DesksAndDorks Thank you! Subbed right away and will be checking out the other videos.
In Mortal Online, I was a bandit. If there's anything I learned about being permanently 'red' it's that you were not common and your skills in fighting, especially other players, were above average. This is especially true in full loot games.
I can only imagine how much more true that would be in reality. Bandits would likely be skilled in their respective skills.
I think that's an interesting parallel to real life, but I'll add a few caveats.
In games (most games anyway I haven't played mortal online), you have the advantage of being able to come back or at least make new characters so you are able to gain those skills. In real life, as a bandit, you make one wrong move, and that's it.
This does vary, though, based on a bandits background. Rogue knights, bad mercenaries, and well equipped army deserters would all have been a threat.
For example, we have a first-hand account of a 15 year old squire fending off about 6 bandits by himself, so the bar for quality varies greatly.
@DesksAndDorks absolutely agree. I always build for survivability and flexibility first whenever character design is allowed. In fact, my main toon on ESO resembles my playstyle most. He's armored, flexible, and fast enough to bail out when things go north or south.
That being said, the skill levels between the guilds in Mortal did vary widely. It really is subject to where your path takes you and where your heart is. People who pursue really set themselves apart and do find themselves in circumstances that lead to real progress. I found a lot of personal growth IRL and in that game, just by meeting new people, trials, and failures.
What do you mean by bad mercenaries? Is this morally bad or incompetent bad? Historically, I've seen that mercenaries are usually the cream of the crop. Constant training, warfare, and personal investment led to many battles resembling the Battle of Visby.
By bad, I mean mercenaries who just decided to go raiding rather than return to their initial post. It happens with relatively frequency. I definitely should have used a better word then bad. Brain no work this morning.
@DesksAndDorks no worries, I just liked and I will subscribe to your channel. I like that you go by the evidence, get into the weeds of the accounts and information, and engage with your audience.
I've been developing a low-fantasy world of my own. So, a lot of the information I go off of is historical. There will be spiritual elements as well. So I really appreciate you and your work. There are others who I also enjoy listening to, but some of them have changed in their content, going from deep constructive dives into weapons testing and look at where I've gone for vacation.
@LT742 ill try my best not to become a travel vlog! But I'm glad you appreciate the work!
As the brutal person that I am, I have had a ton of fun by basically setting base morality absurdly low. Horrible things are often just part of life and as you don't think people are farm equipment you are now a criminal for preventing that. Go take someone's people so you can start a bandit compound where you do not remove the personhood of people.
This is really fun because you get to play the "evil" side as heroes. People who want to abolish slavery in this world tend to be bandits, very fun and you get to make sweeping changes to a custom world after you free people even an entire town who decided that being free is perhaps a good thing that we all like, wow it turns out that having people as property is bad and upsetting to many, fun to have that as the view if criminals.
I do like this but as always I ere on the side of caution. Both because of my players and if it's completely hopeless it's not as fun.
@ agreed. I am just kind of approaching this from the opposite perspective. I have always thought that if we are not on earth we are not being influenced by any culture on earth.
It’s literally to this world a new idea where nobody is property. How these people have a major chance of winning is they easily double in their effective population because all the people are free and allowed to defend their cities.
Mass uprisings occur simply because a free city exists as their neighbor and the lower class is now in open revolt with their neighbor invading the more traditional cities.
It’s a great setting because just playing with expectation, you can have people always be wrong in what to do expect.
Also, in Warhammer 40K, you have the Carcharodons (aka possibly Space Sharks). Essentially bandits occasionally when they need resources but have a general moral compass to kill enemies of mankind. Their battle tactics are very hit n run then collect loot. Not true bandits but a rogue army who doesn't listen to the Empires higherups but still loosely respected by the main army because of their respect to (mostly) protect mankind's empire.
Did a D&D game once where the local "bandits" were a guerilla band working for a royal bastard seeking to claim the throne from him legit half-brother. Point being that bandits can be politically motivated, at least in theory, rationalizing their nefarious actions as part of some "cause." There was also a second group who were just straight up terrorists, as the story's backstory had about 25% of all the orcs having decided to stop fighting humans and moved into the cities to join them, and this led their wilderness brethren basically declaring a jihad on this new faction of civilized orcs. Point being this meant that their actions had little to do wealth and everything to do with targeting their former kin.
So this is something I brought up in the QA section, but guerrillas like the ones you're referring to, I treat as separate entities. I think their is bleed over between a bandit and guerrilla in terms of action but their intent and organization is pretty different and may be getting it's own video at some point.
Max Boot's invisible armies is a pretty good read on the subject if you're interested!
i feel storys of "good bandits" tend to be wrapped up in mythmaking and identity that is to say that these people are seen as resistance figures against empires look for example at the bandits in the Balkans in the medieval period or the likes of Panch Vila and Emilio Zapata in Mexico
Though that kind of fact could I feel better used for more interesting story telling. bandits using existing hatreds against those in power as a means of protection l, those in power over reacting by saying burning villages and the players caught in the middle of the chaos
I realize I had not replied to this, but I actually left freedom fighters out of the video since they had drastically different motives but very similar techniques.
@@DesksAndDorks I'm aware but I'm thinking more about how some bandit groups may well have used freedom fighters as a cover for there banditry. I feel that playing on that underlying stress can be an interesting narrative thread. Rather then just bandits are they rebels with legitimate grievance, are they criminals using conflict as cover or are they a bit of both?
You thanked us for 3000 subscribers and now you're almost at 6000!
Dude I know I know it is wild!!!!
And massively appreciated!
I think you missed one this time, unless you maybe intend to cover it in a specific video on mercenaries or pirates/privateers.
The Routiers. The mercenary whose band is hired explicitly to perform banditry on an enemy populace.
Yeah I covered pirates in the QA section they would need their own video in order to be thorough!
Really good video for understanding banditry as a whole!
Really appreciated man!
Was watching, really into the video and then at 4:25 I see a familiar sight.... a drawing I made! It felt good.
That's awesome! If you want me to credit you in the description let me know! I try to find art that has its credits but I'd love to throw some positive attention your way!
@@DesksAndDorks Thanks, I'd like that. Btw If you happen to want illustrations for your videos, I am more than happy to make some (free of charge), it would be good practice for me. Have a nice one!
I would love that. If you want to hop on the discord and shoot me your email it would be greatly appreciated
discord.gg/W5PP77f5
Or you could hit the business email. Desksanddorks@gmail.com
I do agree aggressively about the Robin Hood cartoon
ITS DA BEST
My new favourite channel related to ttrpgs for sure!
Very much appreciated !
Great video. The algorithm got this one right. Pinching some ide- er, using this as 'research' for my Exalted game.
Heck yeah friend go for it! That's what the stuff is there for!
I liked your stuff when I saw it once or twice before but now I find out you're a fellow Pennsylvanian. Epic win.
There are dozens of us! Dozens!!!!
@DesksAndDorks absolutely amazing
Ti's a great state
@@DesksAndDorks Tis truly, and beautiful as well
Prettiest place in the world around fall.
Oh man, this is a video / topic I've been looking for forEVER. I've known something of the historical basis of banditry for years, and once read an especially compelling / sympathetic portrayel of bandits (as desperate people with limited options)... but have I had any luck finding discussion about this vis-a-vis fantasy stories or RPGs? Not until now!
I hope it holds up to your appraisal!
You could hold off on the pirate video until summer to see if a second Kraken Week happens to try to hit the algorithm. I found a couple people through it this year
I did not even know that was a thing? That's a thing?! That sounds awesome.
i enjoyed this video man good stuff
Much appreciated, goblin man!
Another great video!
I just discovered your channel. I like your content.
Thanks man it is much appreciated!
Dude, you fucking rock. This helps so much with my writing.
Hey glad I could help!
Honesty Viking or Hunnic style raiders are criminally underused in media. Real Vikings didn't have much of a sympathetic motivation beyond taking something they wanted but were still human enough for a party to deal with diplomatically.
Vikings, I think, may be overused (and I say this as someone who actually chose to make that their focus for historical study). I think what gets underused is their desire to trade over fighting. They were far more willing to broker a trade agreement then squabble for it if trading was expedient.
The huns though need so so so much more media. Same with the Mongols and Timurids.
@DesksAndDorks I agree with Vikings being poorly used in most fiction. They were just the force that came to mind there are no shortage of barbaric raiders to take inspiration from. Those sorts of forces were so instrumental in forming the Medivel world and culture that it feels criminal to not fully utilize them.
Commenting to help.
Appreciate it!
17:38 good idea to mention that medieval armies would often not be issued weapons, and would be expected to bring their own gear, often with laws based on societal class and position.
Thats probably one reason why the english civil war led to so many weapons. That would be around the time period (I think) that lower ranked soldiers would be issued weapons, and with firearms, many of the issued weapons would be relatively valuable compared to what a person of that social class would be able to afford on their own.
Theory needs evidence, anyone have more knowledge of this?
Im posting this at the start of the video (so apologises if its referenced), but lowkey hoping to hear about a 14th century bandit gang was WILD. It was les by a landed (and prosperous) knight and a priest. Numerous records of them committing terrible violence and theft, but the priest kept taking sanctuary in his own church while the knight would get pardoned by the king because he conscripted his gang (and others) into the King's army. The knight after a while seems to have gotten fed up of being on the run half the time and accepted a final pardoned and returned to his estate. The priest however hid in his church from a sheriff/constable who had been trying to capture him for years, got just burnt down the church with the priest and gang inside. He was criticised for burning the church but nothing more than that. So interesting how gangs were often well connected members of society and how they used their position to break the law, but also how constantly doing so also can backfire for the criminals (a sheriff wouldn't dare have burnt the church otherwise). Side note what the romans sometimes called bandits may have been more akin to what we would call insurgents which is always an interesting thing to think about with bandits.
"Oh, me merry men! Ah, ha ha ha!"
God I remember reading a story on r/rpg horror stories about a DM having bandits betray the party because the party didnt question why the shady looking people on the side of the road didnt just "attack them on sight" and thught the DM was trying to tpk the party.
I mean that does sound very very bandity. But also that sounds rough if the party wasn't prepared or briefed.
@DesksAndDorks the DM gave every hint and the party decided they can't be evil or bandits as "they didnt attack them on sight like skyrim
nice work. subbed
Much appreciated!
Bandit leaders who were cult of personality-ish:
- Any famous pirate captain, pirates were simply sea-bandits
- Hannikel
- Schinderhannes
- Bavarian Hiasl
- Hans Kohlhase
- Grettir the Strong
- Redmond O'Hanlon
- Robert ‘Rob Roy’ MacGregor
- John Nevison
- Thomas_Blood
- Adam the Leper
- John Clavell
- Twm Siôn Cati
- Juraj Jánošík
- Louis Dominique Bourguignon
- Eppelein von Gailingen
- Song Jiang
- Zhang Xianzhong
- Ishikawa Goemon
- Liu Yongfu
- Ustym Karmaliuk
- Giuseppe Musolino
- Fra Diavolo
- Han Xian
- Bello Turji Kachalla
- Jesse James
- Billy the Kid
- Butch Cassidy
- Pancho Villa
- Salvatore Giuliano
- Ned Kelly
- Claude Du Val
- Dick Turpin
- Jiang Yulang
- Sándor Rózsa
Im looking for a great mounted combat system. Any ideas?
Mounted combat is so tough in games because a lot of times they just pile mechanics onto mechanics. My recommendation would be to look at a skirmish game like x wing and maybe change the rules a little bit. X wing had a lot of mechanics like momentum and turning speeds thay were simple and could be ported over to another tabletop system. Hope that helps!
Thanks for the video.👍
Thank you man
You still get bandits today if you look at paramilitaries and mercenaries like wagner group
Religion being in the red while torture is yellow is WILD
12:30 maybeeee Blackbeard ? That’s the only one who comes to mind
Blackbeard. Henry Morgan. And Black Bart Roberts! All pirates! I really wanted to put pirates in here but they are (at least in my mind) distinct from Bandits (otherwise I would have changed a lot.)
@ I would totally watch a pirates video if you made one😎
@jacksavere6988 it's going on the next poll for sure. I took an entire class on pirate history and it's fascinating
Claude Duval is a historical example of the sort of charismatic bandit who inspired the Highwayman type of bandit you described.
I personally wouldn't include political press gangs in the same category of "Bandit", and instead would have gone with Pirates, the Bandits of the sea!
The press gangs seem more like actual gangsters (Hence the name Gangs of New York, and not Bandits of New York), and fit in with other organized crime organizations alongside your Bootleggers and not the lawless areas where Banditry occurs.
I would argue that if you needed a third corner besides the Highwayman and Pirate, the Nomadic Raider also closer feels closer to a "Bandit" type. Mexican Bandito's or former Confederates turned bandit in the wild west come to mind, raiding towns and settler caravans alike just like Steppe raiders of old attacking a spice merchants and cities alike. Although problematic, traditionally "Indians" aka Native Americans who were being displaced were also a stand in for this archetype in Westerns.
All three (Highwayman, Pirate, Nomad) have been romanticized, but historically are exactly as you described, deserters from armed forces, opportunistic criminals, or desperate peoples who do very bad things. For gameplay purposes, I would argue they function identically as Bandit of the Forest, Bandit of the Sea, and Bandit of the Steppe in games.
Hate to be the "well ackshually" guy, but Capone was based out of Chicago, Luciano was in charge of New York
Yeah I flubbed that up in my excitement
Works well for Harn.
What is harn?
@@DesksAndDorks The setting for HarnMaster. I highly recommend giving it a look, actually, based on the game recommendations you gave in one of the Q&As. It's right up your alley, I think.
Am I going crazy or did the thumbnail on this video go from three bandits on a white background to the current one?
Nope, you're not crazy at all. UA-cam has a feature where if I upload multiple thumbnails, it will run all 3 at once for different test audiences and then eventually will land on the one that gets the most clicks per view.
So yeah 3 dudes on a white background was one of the options and eventually it landed on the one you're seeing now!
Eh. A lot of inaccuracies here. Bandits have existed in conjunction with states and not just periods of unrest. Read the historian Hobsbawm's book on bandits for a better understanding of the historical basis for banditry.
Howsbams' book specifically focuses on bandits turned revolutionaries. While his work on Pancho Villa is interesting, it doesn't really have the kind of analogs we're looking for here. Again, good work, but I think he blurs the line between bandit and revolutionary too much.
How is religion a no go topic for your checklist? It seems to me that religion is a really important part of most fantasy role playing games. It is necessary for Clerics and Paladins and, in 5th edition, Religion itself is a core skill. Is there something I'm missing here?
That's a really good question. 1. The checklist here was an example one and I usually do have religion in my games.
2. Religious trauma is (unfortunately) a real thing. I know a fair number of folks who were physically or mentally abused in religious organizations and for those people organized religious institutions can be difficult to have in their games.
Also an addendum. Usually to make clerics and paladins work you just give them their power through divine means and leave the human organizations out of it. Usually that works.
12:30 Ned Kelly
Later, he was betrayed by his gang when it was expedient to do so.
I considered putting him as an example but his downfall (and that of people like Billy the Kid) prove that it's never about the charisma it's about how long you can provide your people with a paycheck.