{"id":38235,"date":"2017-04-26T00:42:16","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T04:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=38235"},"modified":"2017-04-26T00:45:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T04:45:50","slug":"nan-o-war-ch9-fifteen-men-on-a-big-ol-chest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=38235","title":{"rendered":"Nan o’ War CH9: Fifteen Men on a Big Ol’ Chest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having just killed a bunch of thugs to protect a man I’d just beaten up to scare him into paying me to kill a bunch of other thugs who were probably paid to beat him up to scare him into paying me to protect him, I think I’ve proven that my capacity for vicious, backbiting, syntactically ambiguous crime is bottomless. Really, I have no moral standards whatsoever. But you know what I do have?<\/p>\n

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Regular standards. Screw this Mickey Mouse mine mission that keeps popping up. Actually, you know what, screw this whole territory. I think I’ve had enough of rum-dandy colonial life. Time to really commit to this romantic aesthetic and cruise up the island chain to à\u017ee Olde Pyrate Faction.<\/p>\n

Note the differences between a pirate town and a regular town. For one thing, there's a pirate flag. For another, when I set foot on shore, all Spaniards worldwide wrinkle their noses in unison and make a note to hate that granny they've never met.<\/div>
Note the differences between a pirate town and a regular town. For one thing, there's a pirate flag. For another, when I set foot on shore, all Spaniards worldwide wrinkle their noses in unison and make a note to hate that granny they've never met.<\/div><\/p>\n

Behold the Caicos Islands! I can’t wait for these to be settled, uh, ten years from now.<\/p>\n

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For the half-dozen gamers who care (and those who pretend to care to rack up their list of comic grievances), this game’s a stew of modest anachronisms. Which makes sense, in a very complicated and arguably necessary way.<\/p>\n

So to be a proper sandbox game in the Mount and Blade <\/em>style, players must always have a choice between legitimate, honorable military action and self-interested opportunism. In genre terms, this pretty clearly means Blood and Gold <\/em>needs to give equal prominence to both piracy and privateering.<\/p>\n

For those not clear on the distinction, piracy is a criminal enterprise where self-starting go-getters put together a crew and go rob merchants on the high seas. Privateering is a legal military action wherein an authorized captain robs enemy merchants to the enrichment of investors. They’re both associated with swashbuckling fiction, and from a sandbox design perspective, it’s pretty much a no-brainer to give players a choice between the two paradigms of naval mugging.<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem: the choice is basically bogus. I don’t mean that there’s no difference between being a pirate or a privateer, I mean that being a privateer is clearly, obviously better. As the famous historical sea shanty goes:<\/p>\n

Yo, ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re basically fucked and we live on the run<\/em><\/p>\n

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho<\/em><\/p>\n

We sell our hauls cheap to whomever will come<\/em><\/p>\n

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho<\/em><\/p>\n

My leg’s rotting off and we don’t have a doc<\/em><\/p>\n

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re all gonna hang so we run out the clock<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh god, it’s Woodes Rogers, go<\/em><\/p>\n

And as the famous privateering tune goes:<\/p>\n

We are so goddamned rich and we got away with it<\/em><\/p>\n

Suck our dicks, me hearties, yo ho<\/em><\/p>\n

(Freestyle crotch-chopping)<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a growth industry. At least, it is when there’s belligerent powers to rob. So when you get right down to it, there’s just one key distinction between “pirate” and “privateer”:<\/p>\n

Is there a war on?<\/p>\n

As a general rule, privateers are born when a period of sustained naval conflict begins. Pirates are born when a period of sustained naval conflict ends, <\/em>often because a bunch of sailors (whether privateers or press-ganged seamen) find themselves abruptly unemployed and clutching resumes short on software languages and long on cannon murder.<\/p>\n

If you want a game with lots of opportunities to serve as privateer, it’s reasonable to set your game in the late 17th century when everyone with a navy is fucking with each other. If you want a game full of pirate hideouts and lawless renegades and famous faces, you really ought to set the game after the War of the Spanish Succession ends in the early 18th century, which is when pirates like Blackbeard get their careers started. This game decides it wants both privateering and<\/em> famous pirates, and as a result, cops a world map and list of NPCs that makes no real historical sense. And the main problem with this is, uh.<\/p>\n

Actually, it’s fine. It’s a good design choice.<\/p>\n

So…hey, look, some bosoms!<\/p>\n

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I haven’t done any in-depth economical analyses or anything, but the chief difference between pirate towns and regular towns seems to be the jaunty skull-and-bones flags hung from the rafters and the dishabille women dancing on tables whom you can tip thousands of piastres to disrobe.And they really do. This is, as best as I can tell, the game’s “adult content.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Which is very historically inaccurate. The flags and rafters, I mean. The outrageously overpriced strippers are basically spot-on for a Caribbean(!) pirate haven. There’s creditable historical accounts that when pirates showed up at an island, drunk and richer than they’ve ever been and vaguely stunned that they haven’t been hanged yet, extremely stupid amounts of money changed hands for very basic erotic gestures. I’m serious; this is practically documentary fanservice.<\/p>\n

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“Yyeaagh! I’m so fuckin’ pumped! I love pirating almost as much as I love Quatre Loco energy rum!”<\/p>\n

“Hey, layday, that quasi-Mesoamerican fetish costume would look even more pointlessly elaborate on my bedroom floor!<\/em>“<\/p>\n

“Wait hold the fuck up tell me this granny’s not gonna get naked”<\/p>\n

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So you think these costumes are supplied by management? Or are the women independent buskers? Honestly, I’m not sure this kind of permanent tavern structure is cost-effective. You’d have less hassle and overhead running a kind of permanent farmer’s market. “There’s foodstuff cargo, there’s precious cargo, and here’s the alley for boobs and booze. That’ll be one fistful of various national currencies. Thank you.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Then again, I guess you’ve got to invest in a four-walled tavern or two if you want to attract shady-corner-based businesses, such as:<\/p>\n

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Shooting people!<\/p>\n

Apparently, there is no community in the Caribbean(!) too impermanent and disorganized to support full-time murder-based industries. So who’s the target?<\/p>\n

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A rich guy who rides his horse around town with his bodyguards! You know, the local color of pirate occupied squatter towns. Okay, let’s rent a room from one of the charming hoteliers and get ready to snipe his morning commute. Then, while his mounted bodyguards search all dozen windows for the one with a huge plume of 17th century gunsmoke rolling out of it, I’ll escape on foot. I’m not getting paid until afterwards? You don’t say.<\/em><\/p>\n

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After like sixty full seconds of staring at an empty window, my target laboriously trundles up. I shoot him. He dies, and I instantly win.<\/p>\n

So that was fast and easy, but at least it was boring and slow. Now what?<\/p>\n

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Oh son of a<\/p>\n

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Okay HOW is he paying ten FUCKING<\/p>\n

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AGAIN?<\/p>\n

Yeah. That’s enough Suspicious Man for now.<\/p>\n

NEXT WEEK: HEY DO YOU GUYS WANT TO BE PIRATES?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having just killed a bunch of thugs to protect a man I’d just beaten up to scare him into paying me to kill a bunch of other thugs who were probably paid to beat him up to scare him into paying me to protect him, I think I’ve proven that my capacity for vicious, backbiting, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}