Marauders

[kato13]

DeaconR 11-04-2005, 09:00 AM I've sort of come up with a list of ideas about marauders and how to classify them in a game. As is often the case it was player actions and questions that made me realize that it might be a good thing to do. In this particular case my players offered amnesty to a marauder who had been a member of the 43rd MP Brigade. And I realized I was not really certain of the npc's motives, and while there is a random means the game provides for determining this I thought it would be interesting to categorize marauders.


The ones most often depicted in the modules are military deserters who are either simply taking what they want from those who cannot effectively resist them or setting themselves up as warlords. One thing I don't like about the game description is that it implies that all deserters have become marauders. I think in the case of some of them that they might simply try to go home.


However I would say that there is a difference between for instance soldiers who are looting in what they see as enemy territory or who just feel they have no responsibility to the civilian populace and those military marauders who do not follow any chain of command any longer save for their immediate leaders. I wonder if anyone has (as I have) depicted soldiers from one's own side acting as marauders?


Then there are gangs, such as outlaw biker gangs or street gangs. In "Armies of the Night" they are what defines the title of the module, and they are probably the more urban variety of marauder.


In "A Rock in Troubled Waters" some marauders are apparently simply hungry and angry people who grabbed weapons and robbed those who had what they didn't have. I think this could potentially be a very nasty brand of marauder, because in some fashion they will have convinced themselves to drop pretenses of civilization.


A last kind that I thought of was locals who see all outsiders as fair game. Whether they are some indigenous tribal folk or simply people who have been attacked enough by outsiders that they see all 'foreigners' as probably enemies they would perhaps be a very vicious brand of marauders too.



I also believe that marauders should have a different MO given who leads them and who makes up the main body of them. For instance, some might use extortion as their means of robbery, and leave people alone once they have what they want. Others might be truly vicious, either drunk, on drugs or else just plain sociopathic. Others still might actually feel they are doing some form of 'justice' by robbing and tormenting those they consider to be their enemies.


Finally, the purpose, if any, of the marauder group should be defined: whether they are part of some military force, a group of human locusts just focused on survival and gratification, hungry citizens resorting to desperate measures, a gang trying to control territory in a city in anarchy, or a group of deserters seeking to return to wherever they came from.

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pmulcahy 11-04-2005, 09:33 AM Perhaps I should be more liberal depending on their circumstances, but I generally play NPC Maurauders as scum-of-the-earth types -- regardless of what they once were. Some may seem more refined, some may still have some military bearing, some may have been educated, etc. -- but as far as I am concerned , they are scum.

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DeaconR 11-04-2005, 01:01 PM Yes, but you see that makes me think of a Far Side cartoon I saw, where a group of scientists are looking at a bunch of weirdos in an observation room and the senior scientist is saying, "Yes, gentlemen, they are idiots...but the question is what KIND of idiots are they?"

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ChalkLine 11-04-2005, 03:03 PM Nothing loses a player's interest like drab, D&D orc-style cardboard enemies. If it doesn't, they probably the wrong sort of player in broad terms.


The definition of a Marauder is a quasi military group that uses violence and fear to victimise civilians, I usually try and think of the mechanism that the marauders use to dehumanise their victims and so allow them to focus their brutality;


1 - Ethnicity.

2 - Religion.

3 - Civilian vs Military.

4 - Social Class.

5 - Political Ideaology.

6 - Regional Identity.


Some examples here are Serbian Ethnic Cleansers (1,2,5,6), Indonesian Timorese Militias (1,2,5,6), , 'Clubmen' from the Wars of the Roses (3), Street Gangs (4), Vigilantes (1 or 2 or 5), and so on.


Now you have their targets, you should decide if they're illegal or quasi-legal.

Illegal entities are the classic marauders, they're an evil who appear out of no where and visit murder, rapine and theft on unsuspecting peoples.

Quasi-legal entities are those that have a tacit support from a government, although they may be far from it. These are far more dangerous although possibly more predictable, and have access to resupply and heavier weapons, as well as a large organisation that allows them to regain numbers and rest in relative safety. The Death Squads of South America are a good example.


In Europe I use ZOMO troops controlled by the Polish Interior Ministry out of Lublin. ZOMO were originally semi-military riot police and political police. The good men have transfered out to the regular Polish army and have been replaced by the type of scum that made up the Gestapo and SS murder squads. These are a good match for players, they rarely have heavy assets and are morally valid targets. Constant atrocities in their wake get the sort of Player enthusiasm for combat that might be lacking otherwise if the PCs start to identify with the grunts on the other side. In my game, even the Polish troops hate the ZOMO and in one situation refused a unit support when the PCs were attacking them.

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DeaconR 11-05-2005, 08:07 AM That's a good system idea, Chalkline. I also like the examples you use. The idea of ZOMO being a sort of collection of scum death squad type of deal works for me too, and adds some complexity to the situation.


In my game my players have to deal with several larger groups of marauders depending on where they are. At present since they are operating near Long Island they are dealing with a group of pirates who have access to a ferry and several smaller vessels which they use as an amphibious assault force. However, the stage at which the players find them is one in which they have been doing a sort of protection racket on the fishing and other local communities of Long Island. The players ran into the results of their handiwork, a small group of salvagers who refused to pay a 'toll' to a group of these pirates and as a result had the men killed and the women raped, goods taken and the survivors to be taken into slavery. The pirates pretended it was their caravan but the players were a bit suspicious of them and the talk ended up in a firefight which the players won. They then found out the truth from the women, who had been tied and gagged in the back of the wagons.


These pirates make no pretense of legitimate authority; they simply have better access to weapons and mobility and make use of them to get what they prefer to have others work for. Part of their extortion is to make sure that their 'protection' subjects never have the resources to make weapons to fight them, and to make sure local commerce is kept to a minimum. Probably a stupid idea in the long run of course.


I had wondered who made up these pirates, and decided that they are largely made up of thugs and gang members of various sorts who had banded together under some strong leaders during the anarchy following the evacuation of Milgov from New York. They include some deserters of a nastier bent, and their leader is a deserter from the Coast Guard, who had been corrupt long before from bribes during joint DEA operations.


One of the players (the MI6 agent) when speaking to the townspeople after they had brought the victims and their goods back spoke of the Danegeld in Saxon England; how all that paying it did was convince the Danes that they could get more. Of course the players' actions have now made them somewhat responsible for the fate of the locals, since not only did the pirates' patrol not report back but a local informer slipped away during the players' arrival to inform them of what had happened. But just as with your game, the encounter has given them more of a vested interest in helping people out against local marauders.

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abaumgartg 11-05-2005, 09:12 AM I tend to agree with Chalkline. It is not that marauders can't be crazed scum bags, but not always. In the years since I have been able to run a game, I thought it would be interesting to put the PC's into the middle of an ethnic/religious battle. This is not something you would want to do frequently, but now and again may really mess with the PC's mind


The PC's would get in good with one group and end up helping them fight off the local marauders. As the PC's agree to help out (easy enough to figure out incentive), they realize that neither side is right, so much as it is a "Hatfield vs. McCoy" type situation (long standing feud where both sides are fighting because they were born into the fight).


Alternatively you could have the PC's be convinced to help out a local population rid the area of a small marauder group. Our heroes then discover they know the marauders. Ideally the party has had a positive experience with one or more of the NPC marauder group. Turns out they are just desperate and tired GIs (or what ever nationality is predominate in the PC party) who have become confused as to what is right and wrong in the complex and challenging t2k world.


The point is to keep the world complicated and bring home to the PC's that they are one step away from being marauders themselves. There are no real sides anymore. One has to constantly evaluate what is right and wrong. Occasionally the party will do wrong things for the right reason. The above scenarios can help make keep the t2k world complex. The "shades of grey" of t2k are why I find the setting so damn interesting and why, no matter how "out dated" and out of fashion the game may be, I keep trying to get fellow gaming geeks interested in the game.

Just my rambling 2cents...

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pmulcahy 11-05-2005, 11:18 AM Let me clarify myself a little. I did not mean to imply that all maurauders in my games are one-dimensional scum. Some are, but most are more like "two-dimensional" or "three-dimensional" scum. But they are scum. Some will be more educated, some will be more cold, some will be more calculating, some will have more experience of various sorts, they will be more or less evil or just plain mean, etc. I just play them as various sorts of scum.


As far as people who turn to marauding just to survive, well, they are sort of leeches on society. They are different from looters, who steal because they can but probably wouldn't attack other people to do it, and people who are scrounging.

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DeaconR 11-06-2005, 01:35 AM Fair enough, Paul, and I generally agree with you. However I was hoping my ideas posted here would be helpful to those who might have been in the same boat I was a few years ago, trying to figure out how to make the standard marauder encounter a bit more interesting.

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Targan 11-06-2005, 11:12 PM After reading the posts in this thread, I think most of you would consider the entire PC party in my campaign to be maurauders. I laugh and laugh (and maybe cry a little, too).

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DeaconR 11-07-2005, 01:49 AM What do you mean, Targan? It seems more to me that your party (from what you've described so far) are local warlords rather than simple marauders. Ugly though that can be it is certainly an option in the game.

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Targan 11-07-2005, 02:50 AM The party + their massively reinforced NPC numbers are warlords, but as soon as their NYC mission is over they will lose most of their NPC numbers, and return to being what they were all through the European part of the campaign, maurauders. Bear in mind the NYC part of the campaign has been occurring for about 18 months real time. The campaign as a whole has been going for more than half a decade. I dunno, the term maurauders does not really mean anything fixed to me. Bandits, maurauders, renegade forces, whatever. All much the same.

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DeaconR 11-07-2005, 02:53 AM Are you saying your players for instance will rob a local population for their resources? That they have no real sense of mission with regard to the civilians in the area they're in?

BTW, kudos to you for having a long running campaign. It is always an exercise in effort and patience on the part of the gm.

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Targan 11-07-2005, 02:57 AM Not just rob a local population for their resources, but because of The Blanket, sometimes the local population are considered by Po AS resources! See the sicko death cult overtones?

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DeaconR 11-07-2005, 10:15 AM Yes I see what you mean. He is acting basically like his vampire opponents in that regard.


Also that brings up an interesting other group of marauders: cults and separatist fanatics. They might have the same attitude as regionalist marauders, that anyone not them is fair game.


Another reason for why I make this distinction is that some marauders are just simply out and out criminals. But throughout history marauder like activity has not barred certain groups from being used in local military operations. A good example of this are Scottish border raiders in the English and Scottish wars, often playing both sides. Another is the use of Bedouins or Tuaregs in North Africa. Neither of those peoples would really consider themselves to be on the side of those they were serving, but would be thinking of their own advantage. Furthermore, regardless of that, some marauders among themselves are lawful while regarding most people not themselves to be worthy of raiding. The vikings come to mind for this last idea.

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firewalker 11-07-2005, 09:04 PM i would think most character party's would count as marauder's by virtue of being separated from a higher authority, or at best only being tangibly affiliated with one (lot's of independence on the part of characters).


warlords as marauders that have to one extent of another settled down. functuly it's not really different from a cantmount. a armed force that provides protection (possibly just from them selves) maybe a few other services as well to the population, in return for support services.


if you look at it as if civilization has moved back a few hundred years then all armed bands are to a certain extent similar. one day a group is raiding a farm yard for cow's the next it is approached by a large town ship (or the towns reigning war lord, or a powerful mercent or the closets local officer in the NATO or PACT forces or so on and so forth) and hired for a mission. now there caravan guards or there conduction a punitive raid against another group or maybe there just joined (or rejoined) the other force. the day after that thy find themselves the most heavily armed people in some village and decide to stick around and try the knight's and lords gig (the village might even ask them to).


some bands might even be typical marauders, they came they saw, thy shot the place up loaded every thing not on fire into the truck grabbed some of the good looking girls and moved on. but to the people back in there home town there heroes, going out into the wild and dangerous world to braing back the bacon as it were.


i like the viking analogy deaconr. you sail on down to Ireland bust up a few monasteries steal all the sheep you can carry and your a canny bisness man providing work for the young men. you sail back home and ride over to the next valley over and do the same thing your a bandit and the kings going to hang you.


Sorry for the rambal I need to think about this some more.

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