I have a character that wants to effectively start a gang that he will train and equip until it is basically a paramilitary force. He wants to acquire a location in the barrens that he will turn into a safe house that the gang will protect.

So logistically, how should I approach this?

He's got a contact who is a wanna be gang leader and the contact has 4 people that hang out with him and want to be gang members.

I figure it'll take some time to acquire the equipment the player wants (assault rifles, good armor, goggles with smart link, thermo, etc) and then another batch of time to do the actual training, all the while doing recruitment drives to try to get more members.

And then there's the matter of getting the Safe House and keeping enemies at bay long enough to train the gang members until they're able to protect the safe house...

Also, this seems like it could really tip the game balance. I could see the player simply sending his personal army into situations to clear them out for him...

Anyone else done anything like this? Have any tips or advice?

First, all this takes money, because people are not likely to wish to join and staythis kind of setup if they don't get something out of it. Heck, why not grab the goodies and run away to sell them ? Or do so as soon as the pay is late...

I think a safer bet would be to form a neighborhood association, helping, training and supporting the local peoples so they like and trust you and protect their stuff and yours as a bonus rather than a main motivation. Think "Magnificient 7" here. You do not create a safehouse, but a safe area.

And by helping I mean more than combat training. Things like food production, water and energy supply or Matrix access may not look glamorous and appeal much to the average street sam, but they will earn you a lot of support in the Barrens. The peoples that don't fight still haves eyes and ears and can let you know when something happens.

You can have a whole string of scenarios running this development. Dealing with local problems, containing/negociating with gangs in the area, doing "normal" runs to pay for it...

Also this way you have real peoples arounds, with a personnality and motivations but also restrictions that will prevent the player using them as a personnal army.

Gang related knowledge skills, criminal related knowledge skills, security related knowledge skills, tactical knowledge skills, local area knowledge skills, management knowledge skills.

In all probability, the area is probably already claimed by some gang.

In SR3 Companion, there were rules for alternate story campaigns, one of which was to play the leader/s of a gang. You might want to start there. In an old SR3 campaign, I had a street gang/otaku tribe. The otakus did Matrix crimes that got the gang/tribe nuyen while the gangers provided physical security.

Watch Ganglands. It'll teach you how to recruit amonst other gangster like activities.

But seriously, this isn't something a PC typically does, this is something that an NPC does. It takes way too much time to set something like this up and robs other players game time. If it was a campaign focus then it's cool but otherwise the guy is going to need to drop this character and play another.

If you want to go along with this then he could set up a training camp in the Redmond Barrens pretty easy but I doubt that it'll last. People are wary about other folks raising troops on their turf. All of us who have been playing SR for a while know how easy it is to take out a small facility.

I say fastforward through it. Roll some dice, set him up, and move on. It'll take a lot of time to do the legwork and so on. You can do 'vignette runs' where specific gang members are recruited in fun, short missions. Characterful, essentially harmless, but fun.

He can also contract the rest of the team out of his own money to clean up a building for him.

If he just wants Henchmen then he should have a fairly high Leadership skill. They're not drones after all. He can't send them off to do this dirty work all the time either.

The first rule of Fight Club...

If you're worried about the game balance, talk about it with your player. Honest communication works much better than trying to keep balance with rules.

* Maybe the other players don't mind
* Maybe the player isn't planning on using them on party-bussiness things

Even better might be if the other players want to join in. Creating the safe neighbourhood can be an interesting campaign, where everyone brings different skills to the table.

It does sort of highjack your campaign, but it does give opportunities such as...
* Good basis for NPC-PC contact that isn't purely mercenary; the people might warn them if a corporate samurai is asking questions because they like the PCs
* Not every run has to be profitable; defending your turf might not earn you a lot of money
* PCs can be Robin Hood-esque heroes. Some players like being more hero, less anti-hero
* Runs that normally they wouldn't take, because nobody's paying and it wouldn't be their responsibility; low-grade paranormal infestations and such


Of course, maybe your player just wants a gang, criminal and all.
* Has he got the skills? Charisma, Leadership and Instruction all come to mind (the latter for training)
* What is his Street Cred/Notoriety? That would influence what kind of gang you attract
* What do other gangs and mobs think of it? Would the Yakuza approve? Does he pay them tribute?
* How does he keep his gangers loyal? What kind of people does he recruit?

The dillemma is this: if they're not as powerful as him, he can't use them for everything, and he may have to protect them. If they're as powerful, why are they working for him? What are they getting out of it?

Subcontracting runs is tacky - it should cost you most of the money, and the success chance might drop.
OTOH, they can be auxiliaries; who provide distractions or reinforcements. It's not unbelievable for someone to have his pet gang that occasionally helps out, but also needs help from time to time.



Power balance is still an issue if he gets anywhere. What are the other players doing?
* Mages in a magical group also have powerful allies, maybe Ally Spirits etc.
* Deckers may gather support in shadow datahavens
* Faces.. well, they already have contacts, or they're not a very good Face.

My experience in Vampire is that not everyone likes downtime work on acquiring social power. If everyone does it, it's fine. If just a few do it and lord it over the rest - not so good. Give everyone the opportunity, but also tell the player to keep it fun for the other guys? Communication is essential.

The thing is, in the Barrens, everyone is in a gang. If you live in the Barrens and you don't have good relations with your local gang, you're going to get eaten alive. Everyone is armed. Everyone is hard. If four guys tried to just muscle out another gang, they'd get firebombed and shot to death.

If you were looking to set up a gang, you'd be way better off just working out a deal to start a local chapter for an already existing gang, offer to represent their interests in a certain area. You'd also need to dump a lot of time and resources in managing all the rackets and fighting off your local competition. Then you also have to worry about internal friction, ego and a mess of other things. After a few years of operation, if you've gotten big enough, maybe you could make a play for yourself, but going to nothing to crimelord is a ridiculous proposition.

Here's a pretty awesome idea though. Are you familiar with the Zetas Cartel in Mexico? They're a bunch of spec ops trained military (graduates of the School of the Americas) who were originally tasked to stop drug traffickers, and, once they realized they could make ten times as much money just working for the traffickers, they switched sides. After a few years of working as muscle, the cartel leader who hired them got pinched, and they decided to go into business for themselves. Now they're the most brutal gang in Mexico.

So, all the Lone Star operatives in Seattle just lost their jobs to Knight Errant. These guys are significantly skilled and very knowledgeable. Also, they've many shades of crooked ones out there (besides we all know the Police are just the biggest and best uniformed gang on the streets. ) It might be worth it to try and gather together some of the "sort of crooked" ones to form a Civilian Defense force, (since the corrupt ones are already spoken for.) Then you get to corrupt them more and more as it becomes apparent that the only way to compete with criminals is to act like them. That's a reward beyond karma

I think I'm gonna steal that one
I must say, I'm really looking forward to Seattle 2072.

One of the last games I groups I GM'd wanted to do exactly this. It was a lot of extra work because I basically had to make a whole seperate set of runs for him that he might or might not include the other PCs on.

I ended up making him get taken on by a local sub-chapter of gang in the barrens with only 3 or 4 other guys, and have him try to work up the ladder. Since this was basically a side job for him, he had to be twice as effective when he was there in order to be appreciated. After he did a couple jobs guys higher up in the organization gave him a small crew of his own and he almost immediately had to defend his turf against another gang who was trying to horn in on his territory. In the end, he got in trouble with his higher ups because his gang wasn't really the focus of his attention and he came across as arrogant to his bosses. They tried to make an example of him, and he ended up wiping out most of the neighborhood and all his former gang-mates.

So are there parts of the Barrens that DON'T have gangs?

For instance, are there areas that are so remote that you're only going to be dealing with...i dunno...ghouls, paranormal critters...some squatters...that sort of thing?

If there are people, you can expect gangs or similar (it can be neighborhood watch rather than go-gang for exemple) either to protect themselves from predation or to prey on them.

If you are ready to grab a hole in the middle of nowhere, yes, you can have it gang-free. But it is also likely to be not only electricity, sanitation, water, matrix and road-free, but also building-free, meaning you need to do nearly everything from scratch... and not easy to upgrade enough to base a group of armed and combat-trained guys who are likely to expect decent accomodations, some entertainment and the possibility to spend their "off" time doing something more lively than bird-watching, rat-sniping and simsense.

Let's assume the PC has wads of cash, is in contact with the local gang who is already established, and has the management skills necessary to teach them.

1) He's going to be competing with their other interests and egos. These aren't a volunteer militia. They're the MEAT HOOKS, and they are already hard core. They're happy for the new toys, but they aren't going to spend a few days practicing small group tactics breaking into empty houses with cardboard cut-outs (they'll run in and blow everything up with their cool, new toys instead). They have no loyalty to this guy. If he tries to run a boot camp, they'll do what they need to do to get the booze, guns and ladies, and nothing else. They aren't gangers so they can work hard, they're gangers so they can get drugs and chicks. Also note, they probably are generally hopped up on drugs, which makes them less than ideal.

2) If they're smart enough to shape up and become a real fighting force, they're going to start to use that. Either they'll expand their gang turf and pass on what they learned, demand a salary, or pursue a better job (like bodyguarding). There is no reason for them to continue to be loyal to the PC unless they're getting a regular paycheck - and even then, if the work is too hard or too dangerous, they'll go elsewhere. Thanks, you just made them more valuable on the job market!


As a GM I'd have no problem with it - on the condition that no one else has an issue with shifting to a gang-oriented campaign as well. This isn't the sort of thing you can just do 'on the side'. The politics and work involved mean it's a full time job. He's either a gang lord or not.

I think you need to clarify a few things with the player.

For exemple why does his character want his own pet gang ? Or what does he expects to get back from them for the training and equipment ? How do the other player's characters fit into this ?