Brigands and bandits and corsairs, oh my

Differentiate your criminal malefactors!

You may not know it, but terms like 'bandits', 'outlaws', 'pillagers', 'highwaymen', and so on all mean different things. If your party is going up against violent robbers and criminals in your game, make sure you know the difference, because a freebooter isn't a pirate if they're from your kingdom, and a footpad shouldn't necessarily be treated as if they were an outlaw.

All kinds of criminal malefactors are more likely to be found where there is weak state administration, rough terrain, and recent or nearby war.

BRIGANDS

Brigands are highway robbers - people who steal from travellers on roads, usually by force and/or intimidation. They usually operate as a gang and are commonly deserted soldiers.

Footpads are brigands on foot.

Highwayman are brigands who are usually mounted and - being able to roam widely to find targets and escape consequences - less likely to be part of a gang. Carjackers are modern highwaymen who steal cars.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off brigands in self-defence; round up and capture or kill brigands if approved by the authorities or in weakly governed/lawless areas; otherwise drag them to justice

PIRATES

Pirates are brigands of the seas - people with ships who steal from other people with ships, almost always by force and/or intimidation. Using a ship they can make off with substantially more cargo than a land brigand.

River pirates use, and target, boats rather than ships.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off pirates in self-defence; hunt down and capture or kill pirates if approved by the authorities or on the open seas (depending on setting); otherwise drag them to justice

FREEBOOTERS

Freebooters or 'privateers' are people who pillage, plunder, raid, or capture the ships of other states, using their own ship - often a warship. Freebooters mostly attack merchant ships.

They are not technically pirates - they have been given license to act by their own state, either by blanket order, or by issuing something like a personal 'letter of marque' - an official commission authorising their actions. But another state's freebooters may be considered pirates and/or outlaws.

Corsairs are historically French freebooters.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off freebooters in self-defence, and take their stuff; capturing them and dragging them to justice may be preferred in some settings

OUTLAWS

Outlaws are, literally, people who are officially outside the law. Outlawry is conferred as a criminal sentence or decree. An outlaw does not enjoy any of the legal protections of the law, including against killing. This opens outlaws up to mob justice, extrajudicial killing with impunity, and so on.

An outlaw might turn to brigandry, piracy, or marauding (if they weren't already).

In some contexts it might be not merely lawful but praiseworthy to kill an outlaw.

Outlawry is a form of unpersoning; in some contexts to give an outlaw any kind of support is illegal, akin to 'aiding and abetting'.

A desperado is a particularly bold or dangerous outlaw.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: unlike with brigands or pirates, dealing with outlaws does not require - and usually cannot involve - any legal mechanisms. The unambiguously worst legal status has already been inflicted on them. The authorities are fine with a group of PCs doing anything to outlaws except tying them up and dumping them on the courthouse steps for 'justice'. There is no more justice to be done. This is something that can be hard for us modern people to understand: The law has no more official business with them.

BANDITS

The word 'bandit' is a little ambiguous, usually referring to a brigand but sometimes to an outlaw or a marauder.

MARAUDERS

A marauder is someone, usually an ex-soldier, who roves the countryside looting, plundering, pillaging, and sacking (related words which mean to unlawfully seize and/or destroy property). This is usually accomplished with or accompanied by violence, sometimes extreme forms like torture or terrorism. Marauders usually work in groups to accomplish this.

A marauder might also be called a plunderer or pillager.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: kill or drive off marauders in self-defence; round up and capture or kill marauders if approved by the authorities or in weakly governed/lawless areas; otherwise drag them to justice

RAIDERS

Raiders are those from a culture/society/state in which raiding other cultures/societies/states is permissible, who do so. 'Raiding' here means travelling to a population centre to loot/plunder/pillage/sack as a marauder does. Raiding sometimes also has connotations of enslaving people.

Expected TTRPG PC intervention: raiders from other states usually don't enjoy legal protections; typically the expected thing is to kill them (reactively or proactively) in defence of the state and its people

THE MORE YOU KNOW

What does a lawful good paladin do with a brigand or pirate? Capture them to be tried. What does a lawful good paladin do with a raider? Dispense swift death. What does a lawful good paladin do with an outlaw? Well, now they have to decide what's 'good'.

A puzzle from the 1978 AD&D 1st Edition Monster Manual

This is about creature intelligence in original AD&D. Others have noted these foibles before, but I wanted to note down my take.

The game's intelligence system itself isn't implausible.

"Non-intelligent" creatures have Int 0. Fish, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, and plants.

"Animal intelligence" is Int 1. This is most mammals and birds.

A few select mammals are "semi-intelligent", having Int 2-4. Badgers, bears, boars, buffalo, cattle, giant goats, dogs, big cats, mules, and so on.

"Low intelligence" is Int 5-7. Creatures with low intelligence include apes, baboons, owlbears, shambling mounds, almost all the 'evil humanoid' types, and whales.

"Average (human) intelligence" is Int 8-10. Beasts with average intelligence include blink dogs, giant eagles, pegasi, and winter wolves.

And so on.

The first problem of course is that you can easily roll a player character with low intelligence who is outsmarted by most apes and cetaceans.

The second problem is the discrepancies in the book.

I have no idea why wild boar, cattle, and mules are in a higher intelligence category than warthogs, giraffes, and horses.

Giant lynxes and ice toads are as smart as people and have their own language (or in the case of ice toads, "their own weird language").

Dolphins have an intelligence of "Very" (Int 11-12, above baseline human) and are lawful good. I suspect this is a direct outcome of a '70s zeitgeist that envisioned dolphins as supernaturally wise (from before it was widely known what b*st*rds they can be).

The third problem is an ethical one, and is exemplified by the giant beaver and giant owl, both of whose alignment is neutral.

Giant beavers have Low to Average intelligence - likely to be smarter than some of the PCs. They are definitely sapient: they may be willing to trade for "coins or other valuables", and can sometimes be hired to build dam-like structures (e.g. bridges). The final lines of their entry: "Their hides are worth from 500 to 2,000 gold pieces each. Giant beaver kits of under 8 hit points can be subdued, captured, and sold in the market for from 100 to 200 gold pieces per hit point."

Giant owls are Very Intelligent - likely to be smarter than many of the PCs. They too are definitely sapient: they speak their own language, "are intelligent and will sometimes befriend other creatures". The game notes how many eggs and hatchlings will be found in their nests. Their eggs are worth 1000 gp and their young 2000 gp "on the open market".

Hmm.

Well... a lot of the assumed tone in early D&D is that of picaresque rogues sword-and-sorcerering their way through the world in search of coin. So...

Is this acceptable? Frankly, no. Unless your morals are preposterously anthropocentric, this is encouragement of murder, kidnapping, organ trafficking, and slavery.

There are a few obvious ways to fix this.

Most simply, you could reduce giant beaver/owl intelligence to that of an ape, and remove their sapient capabilities.

Equally, have them charmingly sapient but remove the gross stuff, in the same way that you don't attach a price to, say, leprechaun skins.

You could keep it but replace references to selling on the "open market" with sale "to evil beings", although that does raise some further questions.

One twist would be to have it so that only a few certain individuals are naturally uplifted (you would want this to happen from birth, and make them easily visually distinguishable, and probably make it widely known). Those individuals would likely still object to the exploitation of their non-sapient brethren and sistren, but at least it becomes a political or cultural problem rather than an ethical one.

Final thoughts

My tone here has been negative, but the AD&D Monster Manual was a formative read for me decades ago and I still have a soft spot for it. I think the big implicit ethical question is actually the worst problem with the book, and once fixed, the remainder of the text is highly usable for gameplay or inspiration.