Bandits

Along with goblins and kobolds, bandits are one of the easiest foes to throw into an RPG. Their motives and methods are easy to understand. They hang out in the wilderness and harass travellers.

But this is a shallow treatment. I think bandits and settings with lots of bandits in them can be more interesting than that.

What are bandits?

Armed men, who gather in bands, camp out in the wilderness, and stop anyone who approaches the territory they claim as theirs. I was describing an army, but it applies to bandits just as well.

If a baron sets himself up in a keep, with men under his command, and exacts tolls and taxes that go beyond custom then the people may call him a robber baron. As a letter of marque can separate a pirate from a privateer, and so can a patent of nobility or an imperial writ separate a bandit from a baron.

If a state is something that has a monopoly on violence, bandits threaten that monopoly. It may be more seemly to crack down on rebels, radicals, and renegades if the sheriff calls them ‘bandits’.

What do bandits mean?

A war has ended - but not for all. There are some who cannot give it up. Perhaps they have nothing to go back to, perhaps they have resolved to fight to the bitter end, or perhaps the state will give no quarter. All the same, they’ve ’turned to banditry'.

A law has changed - a new claim by the state revokes a territory, right, or privilege. Those who held it resist the encroachment and become bandits.

The state is weak - unrecognized social and militant groups compete with it for control and legitimacy.

There is little hope - people have given up on building things for themselves. Experience has taught them that what they have will be taken. So they have resolved to become the takers.

The next time the party has an encounter with a big group of bandits just outside town, take a thought about what that means.