Pirates can come in many different styles and ways, with acts such as plundering, murdering, stealing, piracy, or breaking a large amount of laws, usually for financial purposes. Some Pirates can be leaders of a "crew" of other people that see that same ways as they do, but may ultimately get betrayed, or "mutinied" by there plunder buddies.

Since piracy, as it was practiced in classical times, is often romanticized in fiction, many works feature "good" pirates as well as evil ones.