What is it about mercenaries that just makes fa/tg/uys fall all over themselves in love and adoration?

>maximum number of choices relevant to the plotline
Mercs can serve good kings, mercs can serve evil overlords, mercs can serve guilds, mercs can serve anyone. Mercs can even switch sides. You can engineer a situation like this where the party is loyal to itself above all else. Also, mercs are paid killers. We could have a party that is in the army and you'd run into things with knights having other duties, holy men attached to a temple having other duties, peasant soldiers have to go home and farm when it's over. A mercenary PC can just be a killer, and some players just want to avoid nonsense and be violent individuals who want loot rather than having deep back stories.
Each to his own.

Yes, war criminals

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Mercenary_Convention

>United Nations
ba-dum tssh

Countries with large militaries that have not ratified the convention include China, France, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[2]
Kek

>United Nations

Zero moral legitimacy outside the UMC baizuo bubble. Compare famous mercs like Executive Outcomes to UN peacekeepers, who virtually always set up rape rings on every deployment.

>The UN ruled that real life mercenaries are illegal
>This means that all fantasy mercs MUST be war criminals

>United Nations

>war crimes

They're literally murderhobos.

You can't get much more Veeky Forums than travelling to foreign lands to kill people for gold.

>it's only ok to kill for vague notions of honor, dury and morality
>wanting to get paid for a horrid task such as murdering is somehow horrid

The man that kills for free is the true criminal.

>en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Mercenary_Convention
>no signatures from the US, UK, France, China, or Russia
>relevant

Yeah, nah.

>vague notions of honor, duty and morality
I don't know, I've found those notions to be pretty substantial to most people who aren't operating on t least one level of moral relativism.

>it's only ok to kill for vague notions of honor, dury and morality

Well yeah

You're going to get paid for it regardless, that's kind of how society works

Doing it SOLELY to get paid means you're some kind of atavistic monster

>kill this man for being foreign vs kill this man for payment that will feed you and your family

Nationalism is just a cheap excuse for the governments to conscript the populace. Things were better when a soldier could expect loot and slaves for his job.

It's also war crime to use non-lethal tear gas and armor piercing bullets, so if you're only complaint about something is a technical war crime and not any actual evil, it's probably not even bad.

Nationalism is a complex idea that emerged from Enlightenment ideas about ideal nation-states impacting with the strong sense of identity and ownership that the peoples of Europe held about their local culture groups. It has very little to do with government control, because it's a ridiculously independent political idea which can consume it's host nation if not very carefully controlled.

I know it's hard to believe, but some people have found that there are things more valuable than their own lives.

>It has very little to do with government control, because it's a ridiculously independent political idea which can consume it's host nation if not very carefully controlled.

Vive la France

Also for a long time nationalism was at odds with existing government structures, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

Nation-states that serve the government as handy tools to control the populace.

>for a long time

Majority of recent history, as a matter of fact. Nationalism is just a bad idea and not a very useful tool, unless you're able to tie yourself to the nation intrinsically.

Yes the French Revolution was bad in every way, shape, and form.

Louis XVI did nothing wrong.

But the idea of the racial/cultural nation state is generally separate from the current government. See: Austria-Hungary, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Catalonia, Finland, and various third-world revolutions.
Nationalism is generally a very dangerous tool for leaders to play with.

People that volunteer to catch bullets have questionable judgement at best.

Paris was a mistake.

*deebly goncerns intensivies*

Same thing as nazis; they're usually snappy dressers.

Mercenaries make little sense to me.

I mean, they all have to be retarded, right? Why risk your life for money? You can't spend money when you're dead.

...

>United Nations

No, the normal PC is an adventurer, not a mercenary.

Unlike mercenaries, who fight for profit, adventurers do it for the joy of the experience. Loot and payment is nice, but not ultimately the reason.

Tell your average adventure he'll get nothing out of the task you'll send them off other than the "joy of the experience"

See how quickly they find a new employer.

>commit kobold genocide for profit
>commit kobold genocide because you enjoy it
So what you're saying is that adventurers are worse than mercenaries?

>to follow primordial human urges to strike out with a tribal band into dangerous territory, prove your worth, survive and prosper is retarded

It's a male thing. Autistic transgenders wouldn't understand.

If you're good at your job, you won't die.

Imagine this.
You are an 18 year old dirt farmer. The king says "We're going to war" and as the youngest son of the family you are deemed to be expendable enough to throw out there as a part of the village levy. You go fighting and get decent at it. Don't make a ton of money from looting because the serjeants get the best of it, but you have enough to get by on campaign. You make a lot of friends and years later you come back home with armor you picked off of a corpse and some weapons you stole from captives. Your family died of plague while you were gone, or maybe your village got burned down. Anyway, the king doesn't need you and you have no job, no family, and no craftsman skills. But wait, you do have a family! There are three dozen other people around your age who also don't have families or jobs. And guess what, you all have similar work experience, why not make your company and keep doing what you've been doing for the last six years: killing people and taking their stuff, or just being a bully and taking their stuff, that's a lot easier.

Most mercenaries and bandits don't really like fighting, they just don't have other skills and they want to have bread to eat. Of course, there are much better mercenaries from specific regions and time periods who are elite professionals like the Swiss, Jomsvikings, Landsknechts, Condottieri, Cretians, and Rhodians, but most are just soldiers whos campaign has ended.

I'd like to have you known that I'm no mercenary, but a private miliary contractor!

Yes.
A mercenary will keep things professional with those who hire them, they're there for gold, nothing else.
An adventurer makes things personal and thus is in a greater danger of making things spiral out of control.

First of all, plenty of people today risk their life for money. There are loads of very dangerous professions around. secondly, combat wasn't as deadly as you think it was.
Mercenaries were untrustworthy and could leave if things seemed too dicey. A lot of people, especially younger sons had no inheritance to look forward to, and no place on the farm either. If they didn't manage to become an apprentice, things were looking grim since there was no social safety net at all. Mercenary work seems more and more enticing the hungrier you are. All in all, it was a high risk high reward profession.

>critiques Nationalism as Ideology
>still operates with conception of Freedom and Criminal
Up your game, new translation of stirner's out. He kind of fucks up too fwiw imo.

I'm less concerned about your hard-on for the U.N. than I am about you being a filthy mobileposter.

Mercenary =/= War criminal

Go fuck yourself

See, my problem with pegging adventurers as simple mercenaries is that most of the stuff they do isn't classified as conventional merc work. Partaking in the armed conflict of two nations is one thing, but excavation of catacombs, killing grand monsters, and treasure hunting seem very outisde typical government wars and conflicts that they employ mercenaries for.

...

Mercenaries can be employed by companies/private groups to do shit like that. Sure its not exactly conventional but if you're fighting for money its a merc by any other name.

I'm mostly excited the new translation does a bunch of shit that undermines the use of Spook, Property and Ego in the ways dipshit shallow readings tend to. But the wiseguy himself does some funny repositioning of the soul as the unique freedom of each moment in a similar ideological move that he criticiques others for doing elsewhere.

He fun to meme about tho.

>Killing people because of their thoughts

>united nations
>en.m.wikipedia

If we would never allow our enemies to have weapons, why would we allow them to have ideas?

Well, as long as you apply that equally to all you're okay I guess. But I doubt you do.

Every religion ever has done it a lot of the time. if it were up to the religious right and the SJW everyone would be thought criminals.

If they had thoughts of their own they wouldn't be communusts.

communists aren't people

Both are somewhat free from social norms and are in charge of their own life. Both are great material for adventurers.

It's because of their actions, really. Nobody stops you from thinking commie, just don't act commie.

Ditto for thinking / not acting pagan.
I mean you will be eventually punished for the prior too, but that's on the Lord himself, not on His mortal envoys.

More Planes & Mercs when?

Most morons think mercenaries are some kind of EBIL pseudo-nazi band of wankers. Most morons don't even bother reading books on the history of mercenaries, or why they got faded out for national armies and other such details.
Most morons could just stop making these shit threads, but they won't.

Most morons could just stop making these shit posts like yours, but they won't

I don't have to punish you for your stupid thoughts. You're already going to spend your one and only lifetime punishing yourself for things that aren't your fault. Putting up with your faggotry is minor compared to what you do to yourself.

>Better planes

Phantom is fucking perfect, how dare you

>Countries with large militaries that have not ratified the convention include [...] France
Probably because the French Foreign Legion is the most famous mercenary force on the planet.

>Louis XVI did nothing wrong.
Except actively attending mass at non-juring churches (ie. churches that didn't distance themselves from the Revolution, that inherrently wanted to keep the king in place and just abolish the nobility), or vetoing the Assemblée's proposal to tax the worldly estates of the church, or vetoing the Assemblée's proposal to create a national guard to support the army [both of the aforementioned in the context of the Duke of Brunswick declaring war with the intention of reversing the storming of the Bastille], or actively cooperating with foreign powers against the Assemblée (armoire de fer), and let's not forget attempting to flee to Austria to put his foreign conspiracies into motion (flight to Varennes).

The reality about the revolution was far from the image of an innocent king being dragged to the guillotine by a hungry and bloodthirsty mass of unwashed peasants seeking to blame someone for a bad harvest or two. It was an educated middle class giving the king a trial (which his cause being defended by a prominent defense lawyer) over high treason in which he was guilty and given a proportional and reasonable punishment: death through the least painful means available at the time. On top of that, due to the intervention in America's independence war Louis XVI was highly popular, and his popularity actually peaked after the storming of the Bastille. All he had to do was not totally shit the bed and he'd probably go down as the most beloved king in French history, surging past the likes of Louis XIV, Philippe Auguste and even Saint Louis. Especially if you're anti-revolutionary, you have all the reason in the world to hate him.

Phantom has no variable sweep wings, and is therefore not perfect

perfect

Where the fuck are you pulling that greentext from?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsknecht
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoese_crossbowmen
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallowglass

other than having really cool precedent?
there is also the sense of freedom, you are your own boss, you choose your clients and your job, instead of being bossed around

as for war crimes, mercenaries are only human
that being said, a reputation for being blood thirsty and dishonest would quickly turn away prospective buyers, until you end up doing dreg work for unsavory people

PCs would prefer offering personalized service for specific people, instead of chartered work for a nation-state, because most PCs want to dungeon dive, go to distant lands, and rescue maidens instead of being caught up in some power struggle between two cities

technically, even plundering tombs still counts as mercenary work, but is far removed from the typical view of one, the same way private contractor means mercenary, but makes it look like you lay drywall instead of fighting

>hurr durr Wikipedia

What's your definition of Mercenary?

What? It's literally accurate.

For me it's always been a way for me to immerse the players into the world. Plopping them into the world as just "adventurers" feels very forced. Like they're inserted into the world artificially to kill random things and collect loot. In a pseudo-medieval setting most countries lack standing armies, so mercenaries are in high demand. So it's a way for them to feel like they're part of the fabric of the world while satisfying murder-hobo urges. It's a job, just like a brewer, fletcher, smith, etc.

...

It's because a mercenary is more likely to whore themselves to you than a noble.

>war criminal
Gotta' pay the bills man. Just takes more killing than most professions.

> that pic
> I'm gonna drink it, but I'm not gonna like it

mercenary makes you sound like you should be standing guard somewhere or fighting conventional battles, and numbering in the dozens and fighting as a unit

it would seem reasonable for a someone to want to rebrand himself an "adventurer" if they like to do special work like scout distant lands, take down evil sorcerers, retrieve rare plants, rescue princesses, or kill rats in the basement

you could call them mercenraries, but they hardly match the mental image of Landsknechts

There are no crimes behind enemy lines.

I hope it hurt, Grif

Historical adventurers were mostly groups of amateur volunteer soldiers who joined an offensive campaign in the hope of getting a share of the land or spoils. The Ottoman Empire made extensive use of adventurers in its various campaigns in Europe and elsewhere, and the early United States had trouble with random bands of adventurers using the U.S. as a staging ground from which to periodically invade Latin American countries. Ambitious individuals would literally round up a bunch of drunk Southerners, rent some boats, and head off to some unsuspecting Central American nation and attack it.

So they weren't mercenaries exactly. They were closer to pirates and were treated as such under Spanish law.

That's how I started the campaign actually. My players all were all backwater yokels whose fields had been salted by some Lord during a previous war. So they joined up cause they needed to make a living somehow. So I made them real soldiers. They drilled, they patrolled, they did guard duty, and they got stuck into dirty front line fighting with all the other soldiers. They weren't special and I made them realize that pretty early on. But I would throw them a bone every now and again by via them looting bodies and having their way with farmers daughters (it's war after all) eventually the survivors (3 of the original 5) put their wages together and formed their own company, fought in more wars, and went on to become landed knights.

Say what you want about the direction of the campaign, but they felt immersed in the world and we all had fun with it.

we like murderhoboing, obviously

You could say it's the national pastime

A good documentary on modern mercs:
youtube.com/watch?v=9yCONEdFgWo

Because mercs are like the definition of adventurers!
They go to faraway strange lands to fight, get money and aquire bitches!

...

...

>and the United States

Eh, such as it is, war crime is to the US what money laundering is to Switzerland.

...

test

aw man, pike warfare is the worst.
It's bad enough to do linegrinding with lots of spears when they CANT aim at your head I do reenactment but going pike vs pike...
there's a reason they called that "the bad war" I suppose. Must have been terrifying.

...

>no shield
>nothing to parry or deflect with
>no room to move
>at least ten guys with spears that want you dead are in range
>you must advance
Welcome to the Shank Zone.