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Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jun 15 2012, 04:52 AM

So, lately, I've been thinking about nihilistic one-man wars against the mob. It's kind of a steady trope of fantasy entertainment. It's in graphic novels, stories, and video games. There's always going to be potential to make a cathartic, awesome, bone-crunching solo adventure in that vein..."never before have you seen more killed by one man!"

I'm trying to think of the strengths and weaknesses of that type of story in order to be able to come up with a satisfying and ultra-violent idea for some kind of campaign or solo adventure.

I guess it works really well because mafia guys are known for living in nice houses and urban environments, as opposed to, say, bunkers. The federal government had to roll in with CS gas and armor to basically slaughter the Davidians, because they were holed up a bunker. Compare that to a fat wealth-seeking sociopath who likes to eat at the Russian Tea Room and everyone knows he likes to go there. What would you need to take him out? Very little in comparison.

It sort of makes you wonder about the whole phenomenon of extorting protection money, especially before the gun control movements of recent decades. If a mafia guy burned down someone's store and killed his dad, what was stopping him from taking a bus out to Arizona, buying a military pattern rifle, some war paint, and a few thousand rounds of ammunition, and http://youtu.be/fiDuOLTy_5w?

Consider that back in their day, Bonnie and Clyde acquired BARs by stealing them from a National Guard armory. Truth is stranger than fiction. In a historical setting a determined man with nothing to lose could probably likewise take a trip to a National Guard armory and get a BAR or two and a whole bunch of magazines and rounds. In a modern setting he wouldn't even need to do something like that because he could simply go to a gun show or Google http://www.jgsales.com and buy an AK 47 or AR 15, and a few high capacity magazines like beta mags, and maybe some ballistic armor, and then go to town. I mean, in the modern era, he'd still have to pass the background check, but as long as he hadn't committed any crimes *yet* he'd still pass. Not to mention how in the modern era with the internet, the vengeful protagonist would be able to research and study long-range riflery techniques, explosives and demolitions, or pretty much any other subject he wanted to.

As I try and think of reasons why someone wouldn't be able to simply take out the whole mob in a suicide mission, the main thing that comes to mind is knowledge of the mob, in terms of its structure, organization, and personnel. Basically, if someone isn't involved with the mob, he won't know who to hit. He won't know if he got everyone, or if someone is part of the mob or an innocent bystander. He won't necessarily know if he got someone important or some random footsoldier.

In order to establish and prove the roles and connections of various mob figures, FBI agents spent lots of time spying on various individuals and following them for a very long time, in order to figure that sort of stuff out. So that would probably be beyond the scope of a nihilistic rifleman.

I guess it's kind of similar to if someone decided he wanted to take out a particular established urban gang. He could certainly go and kill a bunch of young adults, but he wouldn't necessarily be able to tell whether or not any given person had gang affiliation or not, or if the people he were getting were important to the gang or not.

So maybe the structure of a good anti-mafia campaign would have to be as follows.

1.) The mafia has slain your family! Liquidate your remaining assets (roll starting cash), take a Grayhound bus to J&G Sales in Arizona, and buy armaments.
2.) The guy who always came to extort money was known to hang out with a bunch of tough guys at a particular bar. Hit the bar and get those guys! As soon as you engage the police start to respond, so you have a time limit.
3.) In order to continue the campagin at this point, you must exfiltrate before the police arrive with a prisoner so you can torture interrogate him in an alley a safe distance away AND your interrogation must be successful. If it is, it reveals an additional target.
4.) As you continue to hit targets, repeat the process, but your public profile rises and the police as well as the mob actively seek you out. In order to "win" the campaign, you must destroy all the hidden mafia targets before you're taken out. The only way to truly "lose" the campaign is to be captured by either the mob or the police, as opposed to going out in a blaze of nihilism. Maybe you need to make a composure test or something to shoot yourself after recieving a crippling injury, or something.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 15 2012, 06:49 AM

Consider the infamous "North Hollywood Shootout" bank robbery in California. Cops with 9mm Pistols against AK-Weilding fellows in MilSpec Body Armour.

The movie "Death Sentence" also has a good example of this, including a guy that has no idea how to handle firearms training himself to do so from the manuals.

Finally, I think you just described "http://marvel.com/universe/Punisher_%28Frank_Castle%29".

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 15 2012, 07:14 AM

Yah, Frank'n'Castle.
Divine Punisher of the Mob.
If you have some time, read some of the Comics.

Posted by: Blade Jun 15 2012, 09:05 AM

This is indeed the format of the usual "man with nothing to lose against the mob" stories.
I guess you should add a mechanic where the PC can invoke flashbacks of his former happy life, that will give him bonuses to ignore injuries or survive deadly wounds.

Most of the time, such a campaign should end with, some, all or a combination of the following elements:
- The cops (or at least one of the police chief) are actually protecting the mob
- The mob has ties with the government or a big corporation
- The mob boss is actually a well-loved background character of the campaign
- The reason the PC lost everything is tied to a master plan from the mob (or corporation or government) boss
- There is a link with a seemingly uninteresting elements that was seen in the flashback which explains a lot.
- This was a plan from someone else (who can be "the only person the PC could trust") to get the PC to kill a mob boss, so that this person could take his place or something like this.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jun 15 2012, 01:33 PM

Oh, hell yeah! That is extremely bad-ass.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 15 2012, 05:12 PM

Actually, this works in some ways with my "Accountant From Hell" character...

Posted by: KarmaInferno Jun 16 2012, 02:24 AM

This is pretty much the backstory of my Old Man Jones character in Missions, except replace "mafia" with "Humanis Politiclub".

Only he lives to be a bitter old man, since all that bloody vengeance did nothing to ease the emptiness.

I picked the avatar to the left for a reason.



-k

Posted by: CanRay Jun 16 2012, 05:55 AM

I loved old!Bruce as "Mission Command" in Batman Beyond.

EDIT: And putting on the old Grey Ghost costume in the second episode was just epic! A nice touchback to the Adam West episode!

Posted by: Tiralee Jun 16 2012, 10:34 AM

"Hobo with a Shotgun", anyone?

No?

-Tir:)

And Ronin, seriously, you've never heard of the Punisher? Basically Marvel's most self-destructive character?
Hell, if you want real depressing, go read "Punisher - The End" with how Frank Castle knowingly dooms the world and wanders, on fire, to the radioactive ruins of Central Park to save his family...
Boatmurdered is a happier read.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 16 2012, 04:22 PM

Yes. It's got almost everything Canadian in it!

http://youtu.be/usFFKNRB2z8

...

Yes, this makes it depressingly short on items going, "Hey, wow, they included THAT?" in it.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 16 2012, 05:14 PM

Why is it always my job to bring a bucket full of cold water. I'll start with the following question.

Why wouldn't be the mob be as well armed, if not much better so then what your average citizen could acquire legally. I mean that's the core concept, they are criminals, presumably that means they are hard work adverse but not risk adverse and they certainly don't care about gun control laws.

Don't get me wrong, i'm a huge fan of the Punisher, but he's always been laid out as a special case, a marine recon (actual unit changes) fighter with solid combat experience who is pushed into high functioning sociopath territory by his families death. Then his skills and techniques got sharper as he progressed and he often seized the assets of his targets to make his war on crime work. Now i'm not saying that there arn't other ex-military people out there, or even suitably motivated civilians. What i'm saying is the Punisher is pretty much a super hero sans cape and mask. Rather then a radioactive spiders bite or cosmic waves or anything else that should have killed him his origin is about bringing war home to people that think their suited for it. That's what to me truely makes his story often aped but never quite matched.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jun 16 2012, 06:14 PM

Well, I mean, I think we can all agree that Epic Cultural Landmark Vietnam War In The Popular Imagination > weak ass spider bite.


As far as mob armaments, these are my bullet (harr) points/thoughts.

*Perhaps there's nothing stopping mobsters from owning military pattern rifles, but they normally wouldn't carry them around for day to day business. If randomly ambushed at any given point in time, chances are they wouldn't have said rifles on them and ready to go. Of course, if a mobster likes to sleep next to his M16 with 6 magazines ready to go in a set of ALICE suspenders that he's just going to put on over his PJs, maybe he'd be able to bring that resource into play given half a minute of warning. I think that the real issue is that the mobsters, who presumably have to go out and take care of their business, are generally going to inherently be on the defensive versus a lone maniac who has nothing to do all day but attack and lie in wait.

*How much of a difference is there, tactically speaking, between a random civilian who can bring a semi-auto military pattern rifle to the table (assuming no class 3 license, etc.) versus a mobster who hypothetically could have a full auto version of the same? Being curious about this question myself, I've pursued this question in the past on the internet on bullshido.net's The Armory subforum, where many of the posters have military or police backgrounds. I recall that the responses I got indicated that the full auto functionality is only going to make a real difference for a team that is going to use suppressing fire and the infantry tactics that stem from the use of suppressing fire. In other words, an individual, or individuals who aren't operating at a unit, wouldn't really have a huge advantage due to having full auto fire versus an individual or individuals who only have semi-auto capability. Indeed, using semi-atuo fire is usually the correct choice. So, based on my (armchair, internet) research, full auto fire capability may not really make a major difference in this sort of scenario. Incidentally, that means you should all write your elected officials and tell them to repeal the legal restrictions of full auto fire, so that we can all enjoy it with minimal hassle, and practice suppression fire and manuvers on the weekends with our friends.

*The next question in my mind becomes, "so if we discount full auto fire capability, what if mobsters have access to so-called 'destructive devices', such as hand grenades, chlorine gas, claymore mines, AT4s, etc." The way I see it, of course having these devices available would result in a tactical advantage, but the ability to bring these things into play might be limited if, as I brought up in point 1, the person with these devices is being ambushed. For example, if I have chlorine gas devices and I'm attacking some place, I could put on a mask, use my devices, and make entry. But even if I have all this stuff in my house, if someone makes entry and storms the house in the middle of the night when I'm asleep, I might not have time to put my mask on and use said devices.

So, I guess it all depends on the lone maniac keeping up the momentum and staying on the offensive. If the mobsters ever figured out where this guy was staying, they could just load up, stack up outside, deploy whatever resources they have, and take him out.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 16 2012, 07:11 PM

Frank Castle is Batman without inhibitions.
If Batman started using Guns, he'd end up like Frank.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 16 2012, 07:38 PM

Same reason Shadowrunners can't run around with LMGs and Panther Assault Cannons, they don't want to get arrested.

Nihilistic "Ain't Got Not Future" Warriors can walk into the IRA-Surplus Store like you see in The Boondock Saints, and pick up the heavy firepower.

Of course, that's figuring they know where it is to begin with.

Which are items you've already mentioned... Sorry, I shouldn't post when I'm tired and...

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 16 2012, 11:43 PM

The problem is the same reason the theoretical mob doesn't carry openly would be the same hurdles your nihlistic lone gunmen is going to. They can't pull out the heavy ordinance until they are about to pull the trigger. The alternative is death or jail time with the cops. But i'm going to presume at the very least they will be armed, even if that armament is a pistol on their person and a rifle in the trunk of their car. People get pulled over with these all the time. One little splash or returned fire ends your crusade for vengance. Remember your a lone gunman with a gunshot wound, you can't check yourself into a hospital, too many questions. I mean i'll presume that if you tailed your targets, picked your targets and set up an ambush sure you'd get a couple, but even if you did you'd have to contend witht he simple problem. Murder is murder, and murder with automatic weapons gets police attention very quickly so now you got two sets of people looking for you.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 17 2012, 03:04 AM

Do a couple tours, and save the lives of a lot of Army Medics and Navy Corpsmen.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 17 2012, 03:07 AM

Works great if they settle in a few hours of you, lots of my ex-military friends are scattered over hell to breakfast.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 17 2012, 03:56 AM

Which can be handy if you have to travel to get your targets...

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 17 2012, 05:44 PM

Frank basically works off of (hopefully) good Armor and a good stock in Rambo First Aid Kits.
Well, Frank'n'Castle not so much, and neither the Divine Punisher . . But the usual, Mortal Man Frank does.
By the way, how far have you gotten?

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 17 2012, 07:08 PM

The best thing about Divine punisher was they more or less hand waved it away. Franken-castle is similarly rediculous. Punisher Max is the one true punisher, Amen-ammo!

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 17 2012, 07:38 PM

i only read one issue of the divine punisher, but Frank'n'Castle was a nice change from the usual in my eyes . .
ok, so the usual has stuff like this which makes it worth it anyway ^^
[img]http://chzheroes.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/superheroes-batman-superman-why-does-wolverine-have-no-face.jpg[/img]