Bandit gangs
This article is about using Bandit Gangs as a general gameplay mechanic. For specific bandit gangs, see for a list of known gangs.
Whether at character creation or as a result of later decisions, it can be possible to become a member of a Bandit Gang, replacing your Folk affiliation as your primary social affiliation, or treating it as your character's background at creation time. While the motives (and heinousness) of these gangs vary depending on who is leading them and making up the backbone of their culture, as a general rule, they tend to have some things in common: a disdain for the laws of the Federation, a desire for personal freedom, and a willingness to live entirely outside the bounds and protection of the law.
Lifestyles and Culture
Cultural Values
Individual gangs have their own unique culture and values. Some are desperado gangs held together by little more than a charismatic figurehead and the mutually-assured destruction caused by any of their members turning a witness, where others are unified by grand causes, enclaves of societies whose only rite of citizenship is their mutual benefit. When you're in, you know you're in, and everyone else is out.
In Group
In order to truly be part of the gang, you need the trust of your peers and the fealty of your lessers. While most gangs that intend on surviving the lifestyle long don't exactly go around town parading their allegiances, they for damn know for sure who is in, and who is on the outs. In this respect, they are not altogether unlike Packfolk packs, and indeed such groups are often the nucleus around which a gang eventually forms. Being born into a gang is rare, but it can happen. Otherwise, joining a gang is usually fraught with hardships - some deliberately-constructed rites of passage to prime the "low man" for a life of criminality and invest them in the same risk as the rest of the gang, others imposed by the realities of living on the move, hunted, and outside the law. Leaving a gang is often even harder - it's a dangerous game to get out of, once you're in.
Kicking In
Whether the packfolk-like lifestyle comes naturally to the members of a gang or not, there is a packfolk maxim that is undeniably essential for the continued existence of a Bandit Gang - the idea of kicking in. In a gang, money rarely flows downhill. Yes, individuals who scare up their own scores keep a cut (in the most successful gangs, often a rather large cut), but to one degree or another, everyone "pays their dues". The rules that govern this sort of thing vary, of course, from gang to gang, but in general, everyone gives their cut. Usually, the majority of this money winds up enriching the lives of the gang, however indirectly - keeping a hideout or camp well-furnished, providing bail funds, or covering costs. In the more noble gangs, this cut sometimes goes toward the good of the communities they deem worthy of charity, or to the families of fallen members of the gang. In the worst, this enriches the lives of the leader most strongly.
Watch Your Back
Regardless of the stated motives of a gang, and running contrary to the necessary web of trust to hold it together, the ideal that best separates a Bandit Gang from a similar structure (like a Packfolk Pack) is the underlying current of distrust felt between its members. Even when the leaders of a gang are solid, and the nature at camp is brotherly, there will be elements of the gang that just cannot be trusted. In "good" gangs, more unsavoury elements will be seeking their own profit, and in "bad" gangs, everyone is transparently playing the game for themselves. As a result, the life is a life of continual mistrust. At best, you'll be hoping everyone's good nature stays genuine, while keeping a knife up your sleeve. At worst, you know damn well everyone around you would sell you and their own mothers for a chance to sit on top.
Renegades
Most Bandit Gangs don't form, in the first place, around the idea of flipping the bird to the law, and running riot across the basin, murdering and thieving. This category is full of work gangs who were cheated and took matters into their own hands, groups driven off their land and trying to keep a slice of the life they knew before, anti-industrialists fighting against the destruction of the environment in the name of "progress", or outright rebellions against local or regional tyranny. Such Renegades occupy a place in the social zeitgeist that is a mixed bag - dangerous, but sometimes even seen as heroic. Gangs - or individual outlaws - who can maintain this kind of reputation sometimes benefit from a blind eye when dealing with Townies... as long as their crimes stay well away from those communities.
Villains
Whether the gang nucleated around the wrong people, or was driven into extremis by the nature of outlaw life, many gangs completely devolve into outright villainy. These gangs lead mean, violent, and usually brutally short lives, but those who are absorbed into them in totality are usually the toughest, most dangerous sons of bitches in their respective counties. Unable to live among society by grace, when forced to interact with civil societies, they usually fall back on intimidation, violence, or, at best, reputation for both.
Gangs in the Cities
One way or the other, gangs and their members *must* interact with society in two ways: the first, by victimizing it with their crimes, and the second, by appearing in populated areas to "come up for air": obtaining supplies, socializing, and so on. Depending on the degree to which the gang is organized and competent, this could be anything from the whole posse of outlaws dropping into town to paint it red, versus a few at a time keeping a low profile. Some gangs are known to keep members who don't participate directly in the criminal life, but who can come and go between camp (or hideout) and town with impunity, being of low reputation but not really criminal. Other gangs are careful to range wide and commit their crimes far from where they call home, ensuring they always have a town or two to return to where they have no poor reputation at all.
Coming Up in the Gang
Many gangs (or at least their hideouts and camps) are co-educational, and romances bloom. Members of outlaw groups having children is a phenomenon as old as outlaw groups, and not all of them wind up on the steps of churches or wealthy households. Camp and hideout is no place for a child, and yet, some of the most famous outlaws of them all were born into this life. Still others wind up in gangs from their youth, from circumstance or misadventure. Any character whose backstory prior to the start of play has them in the gang life for longer than one year can use the Bandit Gang background regardless of what folk they might otherwise belong to.
Joining a Gang
In order to truly be part of the gang, you need the trust of your peers and the fealty of your lessers. While most gangs that intend on surviving the lifestyle long don't exactly go around town parading their allegiances, they for damn know for sure who is in, and who is on the outs. In this respect, they are not altogether unlike Packfolk packs, and indeed such groups are often the nucleus around which a gang eventually forms. Being born into a gang is rare, but it can happen. Otherwise, joining a gang is usually fraught with hardships - some deliberately-constructed rites of passage to prime the "low man" for a life of criminality and invest them in the same risk as the rest of the gang, others imposed by the realities of living on the move, hunted, and outside the law. Leaving a gang is often even harder - it's a dangerous game to get out of, once you're in.
Shunned by the Gang
When you're in, you're in, and when you're out, you're really out. Sufficiently wronging the gang of your origin will turn that gang hostile against you. You can no longer succeed at connection rolls against that gang. At best, gang members will refuse to help or otherwise associate with you. At worst, you may be hounded by violence from their territory or even pursued all across the Basin as a reprisal against your treachery or out of fear you will bear witness against them.
Gameplay Rules
In the Howl Basin campaign setting, folks serve two roles. If your character was raised within the cultural context of the a Folk, they take that folk as their Background. On the other hand, circumstances occasionally lead to a character becoming a member of a folk retroactively. This happens at their discretion as long as they have and maintain a Connections score above 60% with that folk. At the player's discretion, such a character becomes an "adoptee" member of that Folk. Facilitators are encouraged to roleplay out this adoption as much as fits the taste of the party. Each folk's "lifestyles and culture" section includes a section on any additional requirements to join that faction permanently.
As A Background
When taking Bandit Gang as your starting background, you develop your starting skillpoints and acquire a character trait as a result of your upbringing. For the purposes of determining your starting skillpoints, there are three subtypes of this background: Born Outlaw, Outlaw Renegade, and Villain. You must pick from one of the three types when creating your Bandit character, but please note you may still have had a mixed history, having lived the lives of any or all of the three subtypes prior to becoming an adventuring character.
Starting Skill Points
All Bandit Gang characters start the game with Analysis * 1 + Intuition * 4 skill points which they may distribute among any skills they so choose. These represent the skills you acquired during your career with your gang of origin.
In addition, such characters add the following skills as Occupation Skills depending on their subtype:
- Born Outlaw: Survival, Firearm Use (Any One Specialty), Ride
- Renegade Outlaw: Dealmaking, Firearm Use (Any One Specialty), Ride
- Villain Outlaw: Intimidation, Firearm Use (Any One Specialty), Disguise
If one of these bonus Occupation Skills is already a feature of your chosen occupation, the Facilitator should work with you to come up with a substitute skill. If no substitute skill can be found, take 5 extra Occupation Skill Points in lieu of the substitute.
Bandit Trait: When You're In, You're In
Regardless of subtype, Bandit characters start with the Background Trait When You're In, You're In. This is a Passive Effect. Whenever a character with the When You're In, You're In trait is making a connections check with any Bandit Gang (including other than their own), they may use their own Bandit Gang's connection score in place of their score with the relevant faction. When making connection checks in this way (using the native score as a substitute), the score that would have been more relevant (such as the personal or organization-specific connection score) is the one that gets marked for Advancement if such a reward is given. In other words, your bond with your own gang is never advanced as a result of this trait. You lose this ability if you become a Bandit Gang Exile.
Starting Connections
All landfolk characters begin with the following connections at a score of (Hardiness + Intuition + Wisdom):
- Bandit Gang (Their Gang)
- The Character's Family
As a Connection
Adoptees who meet the faction alignment requirement and exemplify the traits of the Bandit Gang to the point of becoming cultural adoptees to the faction retain their original backgrounds and do not retrain skills, for obvious reasons: the past is fundamentally immutable and moving your house doesn't change your capabilities. That being said, they do acquire a new trait.
Bandit Adoptee Trait: You're Among Friends
This is an Active Effect. Whenever a character with this trait is making a social check (excluding connections checks), the character's player may choose to reduce their Connections: (This Gang) score by X points. If they do so, they may lower the result of their social check roll by X points. This decision may be made after the roll. Points spend in this way are lost, but may be made up for with the normal ebb and flow of Connections points. If the player has fewer than 50 point in their connection to their own gang left, they may not use this effect (doing so would represent overstepping the hospitality of their adoptive folk).
If a character gains an Advancement tick on a social skill from a check in which they used the You're Among Friends ability, their connection score with their adoptive gang gains as many points as the skill itself does at advancement.