For those who are confused
Pirate: bad guy who murders and robs civvies.
Privateer: good guy who murders and robs civvies.

clarification:
Privateers are.. kinda like mercenaries of sorts hired by one nation to raid and sink ships of an enemy Nation.

Basically, a privateer is virtually the same as a pirate, except it has the backing of a nation: they aren't pursued as criminals, as long as they agree not to prey on their countrymen. It's a fine line, considering some historical (and notorious) pirate captain have switched between piracy and privateering, sometimes more than once.

Even better, a privateer is mostly considered so only by the nation that employs them. To the foreign autorities, it mattered little if their ships were boarded and raided by outlaws, or by outlaws with an arrangement with their own kingdom.

Anyone got any stories where you were granted a favor/boon and used it for something really bizarre?

For those ignorant of the actual plot, Luffy was originally given his bounty by Nezumi in an act of petty vengeance.

God damn it. Why can I picture the original Luffy saying the exact same thing...? This comic was too good that I can't help but face palm my head into orbit.

You can picture that because when Luffy found out he had a bounty he was really happy about it.

In the world of One Piece, pirates consider a high bounty a mark of honor, because the bigger the bounty, the tougher the pirate. This comes up humorously and awesomely later when Luffy fights Bellamy, and when Chopper gets his bounty.

You know, part of me wants to say you've got humorous and awesome backwards, but then I remember that in a real fight, Bellamy went down faster than Buggy, and the entire logic behind Chopper's bounty is "These pirates are so dangerous that we will pay cash just to rid ourselves of their pet."

Yeah, but if I have my scaling right, his bounty is roughly 50 cents.

When I saw the offer of them being privateers, I was actually kind of hoping they'd take it. I could actually see the plot going much the same way with Luffy being an agent of Garp and/or Sengoku that they send around tearing down the worst aspects of the World Government, since the 'tearing down' part is basically what they end up doing anyway.
Heck, maybe they could still do it, with the bounty being part of a cover story.

But if they become privateers, Smoker won't have any reason to chase after them.

Meh, they could theoretically make it work.
*Smoker is actually a pirate pretending to be a government agent, or he is a real government agent who really hates Luffy because he hates privateers, or Luffy gets framed, or Smoker works for a different World Government, or he is just pretending to fight Luffy

Half the fun of these D&D style do-overs is seeing just how much you can muck things up.

Well, Smoker does hate the 7 warlords of the sea, so it would be plausible for him to hate privateers as well.

Well, i can see the straw-hat being less directly adverse of the World government and the marine in this setting (at least before Impel Down), but on the other hand, i think it would have been out of character for Luke (as a player) to decide to play a privateer.

Cory is like "yeah, undying loyalty flaw" , he is forced to let luke choose.

That's the most luffy's thing Luke have ever said.