Under the Black Flag GB - The Rules

[scooter]

As to bounty hunters, that depends on era, modern bounty hunters - the boring reality
of bail-jumpers etc., rather than the dramatized crapola of Dog The Bounty Hunter isn't
realistically a former of privateering, piracy or smuggling.

However if you go back to bounty hunting in the US in the 19th Century it's an entirely different
ballgame and unregulated. Hunting "malefactors" for a reward without formal sanction is not the
same as being licensed, regulated etc., it was wide open and sometimes resulted in people being
taken, even killed, as a result of mistaken identity.

Then their is the thorny issue of slave-catchers who while authorized in the Southern states did
not have recognized authority in many Northern states and they sometimes grabbed free blacks
living in the North who were not runaways and took them South to be sold. This included people
who had lived in the North as fee people for generations.

IMHO The 19th Century "Old West" version wouldn't be out of place in a post-Apocalyptic dystopian
"Mad Max" type scenario.

Just my thoughts, but I will go with whatever my fellow cutthroat Captains declare. 

As someone who bounty hunts in Red Dead Online, I concur with the thoughts of my fellow disreputable Captain from the PNW.

[nighthunter]

So, here's my two cents, as a Moderator. In Star Wars, for example, bounty hunters are freelance and work for criminal organizations as well as "lawful" institutions. So, I think they should count, and Pirate hunters by the same token, should also be allowed. As some were previously privateers, then Pirates, then took the pardon and became pirate hunters with and without commissions, as some hunters took pirate vessels as a prize and then made money off the vessel and contraband, anyway.

[kerick]

Boba Fett started out a bounty hunter and is now working on building a crime syndicate. So he started out semi lawful and now is going whole hog criminal. There is that nice Bandai kit.......



*Corrected the spelling of "Boba" from "Bobba" - nighthunter* 

[NARSES2]

Very quick one, but can we remember that the title of this GB is "Under The Black Flag, Pirates, Buccaneers and Smugglers" so any discussion on whether or not the later two are covered is irrelevant.

[sandiego89]

Very quick one, but can we remember that the title of this GB is "Under The Black Flag, Pirates, Buccaneers and Smugglers" so any discussion on whether or not the later two are covered is irrelevant.

Amen!  I do think folks like to banter about stuff (maybe just to agitate the mods?   ) to push the limits, but have no intention of building/drawing what they are pushing hypotheticals about.  If someone REALLY wants to build something on the boundary line, like a bounty hunter or kidnappers here, just ask the mods, but I think we waste a lot of time on hypotheticals.  I usually prefer tighter rules and tend to vote for entries that are well done and really meet the flavor of the GB theme.  I feel there is plenty of wiggle room in the Black Flag, pirates, Buccaneers and smugglers title, and if someone can't find something in that, they should rethink it or sit out the GB.       

[PR19_Kit]

So anything Cornish would do?   

[scooter]

So anything Cornish would do?   

Of course...including game hens

[tigercat]

So Moonshinin as a class of smuggling

Someone could do the DUKW's of Hazzard

[sandiego89]

........Someone could do the DUKW's of Hazzard

good one! 

[scooter]

So Moonshinin as a class of smuggling

Yes, as defined here:

Rum-Running/Bootlegging (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum-running):
Rum-running or bootlegging is the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. Smuggling usually takes place to circumvent taxation or prohibition laws within a particular jurisdiction. The term rum-running is more commonly applied to smuggling over water; bootlegging is applied to smuggling over land.


So, yes, the DUKWs of Hazzard, Smokey and the Bandit (the first one), etc.

[jcf]

Cigarette smuggling is still big business:
https://www.mackinac.org/governments-light-up-cigarette-smuggling

[jcf]

When getting your hands on a luxury car in China required smuggling:
http://www.hisutton.com/Armored%20Stealth%20Boat.html

It was in 2003, things have changed a bit since. 

[Weaver]

Very quick one, but can we remember that the title of this GB is "Under The Black Flag, Pirates, Buccaneers and Smugglers" so any discussion on whether or not the later two are covered is irrelevant.

Amen!  I do think folks like to banter about stuff (maybe just to agitate the mods?   ) to push the limits, but have no intention of building/drawing what they are pushing hypotheticals about.  If someone REALLY wants to build something on the boundary line, like a bounty hunter or kidnappers here, just ask the mods, but I think we waste a lot of time on hypotheticals.  I usually prefer tighter rules and tend to vote for entries that are well done and really meet the flavor of the GB theme.  I feel there is plenty of wiggle room in the Black Flag, pirates, Buccaneers and smugglers title, and if someone can't find something in that, they should rethink it or sit out the GB.     

But on the other hand, people may have several possible projects to consider and the discussion about what's in or out helps them narrow the selection. I'd have thought that running every borderline project individually past the mods would make a good deal more work for them than keeping an eye on a free-form discussion and taking it into consideration when writing the final rules.

[NARSES2]

I'd have thought that running every borderline project individually past the mods would make a good deal more work for them than keeping an eye on a free-form discussion and taking it into consideration when writing the final rules.

You'd probably be surprised at how little actually needs to be run past the Mod's, especially when a GB is up and running. Yes some ideas don't fit into the overall concept of a GB, but not many. I like GB's to be fairly broad in subject and really in my eyes they act as a spur for someone to try out that idea they've had in the back of their head for ages or perhaps try something different.

Now perhaps surprisingly I don't regard them as contests, but simply as an encouragement and then as a platform on which you can show your latest build/drawing, perhaps that's why I'm happy with fairly loose rules when it comes to what's eligible and what isn't. Other's see them differently I know but that's fine by me 

Having said the above I do accept that some GB's in the past have by the very nature of their title been fairly restrictive in what would and what wouldn't fit into the GB. However they have been fairly rare.

I'm now working out in my own mind who's working out what they could possibly have been or could be in future, especially with the nominations for 2022/2023 due soon 

[Weaver]

I'd have thought that running every borderline project individually past the mods would make a good deal more work for them than keeping an eye on a free-form discussion and taking it into consideration when writing the final rules.

You'd probably be surprised at how little actually needs to be run past the Mod's, especially when a GB is up and running. Yes some ideas don't fit into the overall concept of a GB, but not many. I like GB's to be fairly broad in subject and really in my eyes they act as a spur for someone to try out that idea they've had in the back of their head for ages or perhaps try something different.

Now perhaps surprisingly I don't regard them as contests, but simply as an encouragement and then as a platform on which you can show your latest build/drawing, perhaps that's why I'm happy with fairly loose rules when it comes to what's eligible and what isn't. Other's see them differently I know but that's fine by me 

Having said the above I do accept that some GB's in the past have by the very nature of their title been fairly restrictive in what would and what wouldn't fit into the GB. However they have been fairly rare.

I'm now working out in my own mind who's working out what they could possibly have been or could be in future, especially with the nominations for 2022/2023 due soon 

Yes I've modded GBs before and you're right about there being relatively few specific requests, but that's the precise point I'm making: most people 'get it' by reading the debate about the rules first, and so don't need to run their idea by the mods, because they get a better understand of what's in and out from the debate than they do from the bare bones of the rules themselves. The open debate, which seems to irritate some people, actually saves the mods work. If you shut down the debate by saying "oh just come up with your specific idea and then run it by the mods" then you're making MORE work for them.