Realistically, I think most options have been covered already at this point. As for me, I'd say start off by asking your players what type of game they are looking for, and let that be the determining factor for what you should throw at them next.

If they want "realism", throw the Mob at them. Gods know they sound like they've stepped on their toes enough to warrant a serious response from that side. Others have given you plenty of examples of what you might throw at your players in this case.

If they want "heroism", throw some more crime stuff at them, which they can deal with. Drug rings, prostitution ring, large drug shipment coming in, human trafficking, extortion, money laundering, protection racket, etc. and keep the retaliation from the Mob and others low or non-existing.

On a personal level, I'm most in favour of the "realistic" approach that I feel stays true to the setting. Your runners have elected to bother the Mafia, an organisation with far more money, connections, manpower, people, and guns than they can even begin to match, and they'll have to live with the consequences of those actions. Even if they are equipped with the most state-of-the-art 'ware and equipment in the game, they can not be in all places at once, and quantity is a quality on it's own, as they say. As they (roughly) write in a sourcebook for White Wolf's Old World of Darkness Vampire setting, "you really don't know what firepower means, before you've seen the mafia on a bad hairday...". If your players characters are smart, they'll relocate to a different city, which will open up new options for your campaign If they want to play things out to the inevitable conclusion, have them go down fighting in a blaze of glory, fighting the Mafia, and make a epic, memorable story out of the coming end of the campaign. And once you are done, start a new campaign.

Good luck and have fun

/Kyrel

I can see it now.

Mafia Teen: My name is Guido Sarducci you killed my father prepare to die!
Bunch of other teens appear from the shadows.
Other teens: Your father killed our fathers prepare to die!
Mafia Teen: Umm...
Other teens beat mafia teen and leave him hanging wedgie like from a street lamp.
Shadowrunner_01: Well that's something you don't see everyday.
Shadowrunner_02: I'm kinda hungry wanna go grab some NERPS from the Stuff Shack?
Shadowrunner_01: Hell yeah!
Mafia Teen: Why won't anyone help me?
Mafia Teen gets eaten by Drop Bears as the shadowrunners wander off into the night.

I hate the whole revenge from friends/family members idea that keeps popping up. What are the runners doing after they kill people? Do they go around to everyone the guy knows and barber shop quartet style sing "We killed your friend/dad/mom/pet" and give them their contact information? Very rarely will any of them have any way to find out who killed the person much less any way to effectively strike back.

Does this type of thing happen to NPCs as well or is it just the player characters who attract this kind of thing? Does gang_thug_01 get hunted down and killed by the son of a gas station attendant he killed during a robbery?

I'll use that this is an excellent idea, I didn't even think of their shadow contacts thinking them as compromised. Now they're in a rough spot, not quite legitamate since a few of them are criminals and not quite runners either, since they are working hand in hand with local Seattle Lone Star. Hmmm, good stuff, and they've trashed a shit load of the mafias assets in the process. I'm serious these guys have been slash and burning drug dens and whore houses like Batman on Kamikaze.

I think I'm going to run with the way the game is going, obviously this IS going to have harsh consequences. Contacts will turn away, or disappear, and bad, mafioso things are going to happen, (enter car bomb), I think this is just going to make the party, with Doo-Mak at its retributive epicenter, that much more hungry for justice...I got the chills guys, I think this is going to be one of "those games".

Hey man great post, and to the others telling me to run with it, good posts too, you're all right, its all about having fun. I'm running with it, period, and I think these kinds of personal strike backs will just be appetizers for them, Cris, my newly religious friend, is really into this whole righteous indignation thing. You should see his face as I'm describing these BTL dens burning to the ground, or watching the street doc of the party detox an ailing escort, he gets all beamy. The rest of the party really follows suit. So where to next? Other than the Crimson Crush, are there any other "benevolent" gangs or action commitees?

This is true too, and if any of you have checked my other posts I just brought this group from Epic 3.5 to SR and they've actually adjusted pretty damn good. They even go for stuff that I miss, like camera feeds, etc. They've really taken a liking to the Sixth World.

AND THIS, is exactly what I AM looking for, not just for mafia soldati builds, I can do that on my own, but with alternative sources of punishment, to flavor things up. Because you're absolutely right, a game where the PC's just march over everything is going to get old quick, its the challenge that really makes things.

"Real Life Superheroes" in Seattle, or Phoenix Jones: Real Life Superhero. I've met this guy; I got into a conversation with him about buying body armor in my FLGS a month or two ago, figuring out about halfway through what he planned to use it for. I'm glad to see (via the news) that he's picking up a decent amount and is less likely to end up in the morgue.

He seemed pretty well adjusted. It's not that far out there in my head that shadowrunners would take a more aggressive approach to vigilantism if they decided that what was moral was more important than what paid.

The Red Hot Nukes are fairly benevolent as well. They are an all dwarf gang of explosives expert physads who protect their neighborhood.

They are described as psychotic as hell IIRC. But yeah, they are one gang we tried really hard to not to mess with. We could handle random drive-bys, but a bunch of crazy explosives experts motivated to get even? Thanks, but no thanks.

I'd add not only 'physical' (as in 'grunts of various flavors wanting to get physical with you') but as some already said some moral ones to boot. The world isn't black and white, there's plenty of shades of grey inbetween. When they burned out that BTL den, did they make sure there wasn't a few of them inside too far out on their chips to leave before getting burned ?

I don't mean making everything they do turn the worst, but show mr righteous that a war against crime is like any other war : if you don't pay attention to it, collateral damage can be serious. Which in that particular war can seriously hinder the purpose.

Also keep in mind that organised crime often provides some sort of economy where they operate : like any suscessful parasite, they need to keep their host alive rather than bleeding it dry. Things like small jobs for the unemployable, cheap goods (or even food) fallen from the truck, a modicum of crime control (rampaging go-gangs hurt business), that sort of things.

If they want their crusade to work for the best, they need to adress those needs as much as cracking mobster's heads.

I think it should be noted that the mob IS weak to direct assault, because they have a lot of immovable assets. They are strong vs. law enforcement because they can often get away clean and bribe people. The greatest danger to the mob is another mob, who doesn't need to go through all the red tape to get to them. And runners can be VERY dangerous in that respect. If they got the information angle figured out a team of high stealth, high firepower runners can seriously mess with mob operations.

It is, of course, not unrealistic for them to get any kind of trouble, too, but I'm just saying. As long as the runners keep attacking, and make sure to leave few traces, the mob CAN be kept on the defensive.

Might have changed over time, but from what I remember they were lead by a dwarf named Grinder who was training them up to stop "a great evil" that he wouldn't go into further detail about and would only say that while he was drunk. They were fairly benevolent and acted more of a neighborhood watch than a gang. Might have changed over time though. I don't recall reading anything about them recently.

Skraacha is an all orc gang that protects the orc underground.

The Mafia is a business. Businessmen buy whatever resources they need to get the job done. They will have plenty of Cyber.

Wired is CHEAP, every Mafia type who is supposed to fight will have wired 1 it if not something better. Wired 2 is 32K. A single truck hijack will cover that. Heck, Wired 3 is only 100K, but the essence cost is crazy.

If your players are having fun, then you shouldn't punish them. But the mob shouldn't take it lying down either, you want them to be worthy opponents.

Take a moment to think how much you as a GM would be willing to let them win. Can they kill all the current major criminals? Can they stop organized crime? Can they fix society? That's a bit too much and unlikely, but it's cool if what they do can change things for the better even if everything doesn't turn out perfect.

The Mafia has been a very effective syndicate for centuries, and for several reasons. They're good at working the System; they know how to corrupt governments. They promise the government that Mafia-controlled crime will be less violent and disruptive than a free-for-all without criminal hierarchy. Does KE/LS/the FBI really want anarchy in the criminal underworld? A war to see who'll be the new top dog?

Another important thing about the Mafia: they rule through fear. If you mess with the Mafia, they will mess with you. Kill a made man and they will kill you. That reputation is what protects the Mafia from other criminals. Killing a random made man isn't hard, but getting away with it is. So the Mafia has good reason to go after the Runners; they're bad for PR. The Mafia has perfectly good reason to hire better and better Prime Runners to kill the party if they can't do it themselves, and they have funding comparable to national governments to finance it with.

You don't have to kill off the party, but you do want the PCs to feel that the Mafia is trying to. To the Mafia, the PCs are a threat to "National Security", and that's the kind of ferocity the Mafia should be showing.

Other Syndicates will be paying attention. Are the PCs going to turn on them next, or is it just them vs. the Mafia? If it's PCs vs. the Mafia, then the Yakuza might start helping them when the Mafia scares off/kills their ordinary contacts. On the other hand, if the PCs seem to be rabidly going against all organized crime, then the Syndicates might unite against them.

There's potential for diplomacy there: the PCs trying to persuade the Yakuza not to ally with the Mafia against them. The PCs should also face Syndicate challenges over connections in the government. The Syndicates have more money, more experience and more contacts. The PCs may have good media spin now, but if the media can be convinced to turn against them...

The Mafia may frame the PCs for an attack on the Yakuza. Or on Aztechnology.

Or frame them for killing FBI agents who were widely considered corrupt; still getting them into "cop killer" territory, burning their sweet relationship with the government.



Once more, I want to address the impression I got that you think the Mafia is old-fashioned and "soft" compared to the other Syndicates. I don't think they are. The Mafia is the dominant Syndicate in Australia, Western Europe and the East Coast. There's a reason for that: they're less fixated on ritual and tradition than the Yakuza, more sophisticated and better at laundering than the Vory. They're very, very good at corrupting government and local bussiness. They have no prejudices against technology and have a broad ethnic base to draw from, with a lot of flexibility for talented people from other ethnicities.

Players in my game are in Puyallup, near the Tarislar and have come across the Ancients, who gone the original Hells Angel model and applied the first rule "Do not screw with the locals" and have hired out as a bit of security in the area for the local hospital and other places of public interest. The Local alderman is working trying to bring KE into the place, but it's kinda rough going, given the relative lack of money in the area. The face of the group, is also doing social engineering to bring in corporates to get the place up and running between runs. players have been working the area as they want a safe base of operations to work out of. it should prove intresting over the long term

The players kill a mafia pimp to save some hookers.
The hookers all end up dead.

This is how rule by fear works.
Object lessons.
Since Firefly keeps getting brought up, let me remind you,
"The definition of a hero is someone who gets other people killed."


Personally, I'd steer them away from the mafia, and to something more interesting.
There's always the hired psychopath gambit, but that gets old pretty fast.

I say curve-ball the bastards.
If they're funding an orphanage, have the orphanage taken over by bug spirits.
If they're cleaning up drug rings, have the drugs lead back to Aztechnology blood cults.
If they're playing neighborhood heros, have people being kidnapped by Universal Omnitech for gene research.

Shoot the goomba is boring.
Play the setting.

Why does it seem like most of the ideas presented here are just ways of punishing them in ways ranging from somewhat to majorly harshly for doing something beyond 'take corp pay, drink, rinse, repeat'...

Because people have this need to keep the setting "pure." It's probably one of the few things I preferred about DnD. Only the most die hard ever blinked an eye at changing the setting. Even in the flame wars covered official forums.

Because the GM has run out of ideas concerning the current circumstance and came to Dumpshock looking for ideas as to how to handle a runner team where one of the members has morally hijacked the game's direction to make war on a multi-million nuyen per year criminal enterprise which should reasonably wipe the floor with a bunch of upstart killers?

Point is, he's softballing it. He can either ramp it up with the mob until it's an all out war that precludes any other type of activity besides:

10: hit mob
20: mob hits you back
30: go to 10


This is about giving the game a future. Not telling the players what they want to play.
Dude needs to throw some spice back into it. Give them a target besides the obvious.

Right there is the point. The setting is DEPRESSING the players. One of the players may have been the catalyst but from the sounds of it they probably would have tried to change direction anyway. The advantage of being a shadow runner is that they are off the grid. How do you track someone down when they don't exist? The players can take advantage of their ghost status. Don't make big shows of their attacks, don't leave calling cards, and don't use a fence. Only get information from trusted sources or sources that they can't be tracked from. For example all they would need is one contact to point them in the right direction. From their they could probably gain their own info by tracking marks, hacking their comms, interrogation, etc.

All the millions in the world don't mean crap if there is no realistic way to track down your targets. They can't even attack their families since they don't know who these guys are and through that don't know their families.

And there are more ways to give spice then screwing over your players. A challenge doesn't mean you have to screw over the players for what they want to do. There are tons of ways they can be challenged without destroying everything they're working for.

I really doubt they're playing it as "untraceable" if they're working hand in hand with the cops, but my point from before sort of bypasses that whole step in the chain.

If you can not strike at your enemies, you destroy their good works.
Look at what the Taliban does to people who wave to US troops or children who attend the schools the army built.

That's ruthlessness.
You take away the other person's victory.
You say to them, every loss for us will be a loss for you. There is no winning.
You want to talk about the setting being too depressing, take a look at the real world sometime..


I say let them kill baddies and help the downtrodden, just pick an enemy you can actually kill out and move on from. If they want to play superheros, give them a villain of the month arc. Fighting wars is dirty business.

There's nothing wrong with playing a Robin Hood style game. There's punk in cyberpunk too.

So some ideas on how to make it look good...

The Top Dog has more stuff
The Mob has a lot of money, weapons, goons, elite killers, cyberware, corrupt politicians and corrupt cops. On paper, they should have the advantage.

Good deeds don't pay well
A lot of things the PCs do won't be paying jobs; saving your neighbour from Mob retaliation doesn't have a paycheck attached to it.

Underdogs get sympathy
Conversely, once the PCs have some success, common people will start thinking well of the PCs. Ordinary people will hide them from the mob, give them food, warn them of Company Men making inquiries and so forth. Folk Heroes get support from the Folk.

Bad Guys Fight Dirty
Try to come up with really despicable tactics for the bad guys to use against the PCs. Not just effective tactics; make it mean.The bad guys will try to frame the PCs, to make them look bad. They'll go after friends and family. They'll hit you when you're sitting on the toilet.
It doesn't have to be successful, but it should feel threatening. It should get the players angrier at the Mob. Righteous indignation is the emotion you're shooting for. When they take down the guys responsible, the players will be cheering and howling for blood. Few things are as satisfying to players as finally defeating a hated enemy. Make sure they hate the enemy before they defeat it.

They defeat you first, then you win after all
It's a movie cliche, but the good guys often get defeated by the bad guy first. This illustrates how badass the bad guy is, and it makes eventual victory far sweeter. Don't let them defeat a major NPC the first time they deal with him. It's more satisfying if it's harder.

Heroes are lucky
On paper, the heroes shouldn't stand a chance. The Mob has more stuff, more experience, and fights dirtier. But karma smiles on good guys, and they get a lucky break now and then that allows them to square the odds. This works best if you can link the Lucky Break to something they did in the past. Someone they helped before who suddenly calls them with crucial information for example. That way, it won't feel like the GM is just giving it; they feel the earned it.

What are the PCs' primary motivations?

If the PCs care about scoring victory but do not care about keeping it, then the mob can take away that victory all they want.

If the PCs care about only defeating the mob, even it is just temporary, then it doesn't matter what the mob does.

You don't care about victory as long as they lose. You say to them it doesn't matter how much we lose as long as you lose more. Take a page from the German SS counterguerrilla warfare fighters in Russia or the Mongols when they took a resisting city. Sell the soldatos fat little children to the ghouls. True ruthlessness doesn't care about what other people think. Burn the mob businesses. Kill the capo's families. Kidnap the soldatos families if the capos are too well defended, cut them up and cook them and then feed the poor with it, record it and show it to their other soldatos and make them think that their familes are undefended while they are guarding the boss's family.

The bad guys fight dirty, but the good guys should fight dirtier.

I think there is merit to both "sides" of the advice:

They will get into increased danger by pissing people off.

And they should still be allowed to do it, because they are obviously having fun that way.

What I would add:

They are working together with the cops, now those aren't the cops of today, those are rent-a-cop private enterprises, they may follow the laws, but only those laws that apply to them. Make them witness some lone-star or KE guys beating up and disposing of a sinless. Give them accounts of the selective justice of the law enforcement.

Make their temporary allies go behind their backs.

Give them some moral conflict, don't just let them feel good about themselves. There's a reason this world is pretty devoid of heroes - most people get dirty as soon as they start fighting for something, because they have to make alliances they might regret, later. Of course, there should be a way out, but it should be a bit hidden, or ridden with personal sacrifice. Heroism comes from going the whole nine yards, you can't get it with a cakewalk. The easy way is usually the one where your intentions are subverted or where someone pulled back on purpose, only to return with a vengeance. Even a near-death stunt like in Taxi Driver shouldn't necessarily succeed, because, for instance, some people just don't want to be saved.

So, the road should be full of setbacks, pain, loss, and hardships, or else you're just giving them cheap gratification.

That charity street clinic, the orphanage, and the soup kitchen down the street? Money laundering operation, BTL manufacturing facility, and drug distribution ring. Mix the good and the bad. Hell, if you really want to go over the top with it have mafia soldiers have a bring your kid to work day at the next place the runners decide to hit, or have them wear children as body armor with biomonitered explosives attached.

No matter how brutally effective this kind of approach could be in the short term, I don't think that a character experiencing some kind of religious illumination and seeking atonement for his past misdeeds (as exposed by the OP) would feel confortable following such role-models...

The following sentence will have three words, which I harp on people in any setting I play.

Actions have consequences.

I will say them again.

Actions have consequences.

Just as in real life, if you set a bomb somewhere, then the heat is going to come down when it goes off. You may have a Commissioner Gordon on your side who knows what you're doing and tacitly assists, but IA may be breathing down his neck if someone catches wind. The runners need to obey the Eleventh Commandment in this, and as long as they do then they won't have to worry about the other Ten. They've hit the Mob in a very public manner, and the Mob will want to hit back.

The suggestions offered have been done so in a way that targets the team without one-shotting the team. The Mob will have an idea of who to go to in order to see who has been buying up explosives, unless the team is brewing their own ANFO, in which case they may be watching the Home Depot for whoever's buying all that fertilizer. They'll lean on contacts. They'll disable a support network. And then they'll move in for the kill, ratcheting up the tension.

Frankly, this is what makes a good story arc. This is what makes a challenge. This gets the team going, to figure out a way they can put the kibosh on the Mob and keep their operation going. This is where the roleplaying Karma comes in, man!

Oh, toturi is just being contrary as usual and not really paying attention to the discussion at hand.

My point is that they should not be fighting a war if they want a feel good hero of the streets campaign.
Wars are fought dirty and won by atrocity. If GM wants to go that way, ratcheting up the reciprocity until the PCs "win" by becoming complete monsters, only then realizing that they've just been helping the far less restrained Asian syndicates take over the Seattle underworld, then I suppose that's a good story. Still, I don't think it's what the players want to hear.

Instead they should be on a plane hijacked by Nagas trying to make a political statement against Aztlan.
Yeah, that's right. Bringing back SoaP...

Well thats the thing, if they're fighting a war then yes bad stuff would happen. In the real world. This is a game and sometimes it can and should for the sake of fun be treated as such. The most fun I've had was in Pink Mohawk campaigns when we would do something completely ridiculous and the everyone, including the GM, would be laughing as the dice rolled to see how awesome or see how screwed we were. Maybe they don't want a dark serious game world. Maybe they want a lighter world with crime to fight. This doesn't make it any less challenging, in fact it may be worse as the laws of logic the enemy would follow in a Black Trench Coat game no longer apply and they send a swarm of steel lynx's down Main Street.

What I think is the OP should check with his players how dark they want this world. Once they have decided whether they want Grim Dark or A Team then the proper type (not amount as both can be equally difficult) of challenge can be produced for them.

One thing I've noticed in my own games, is that yes, even though the players were professional criminals, they were always fighting bigger evils in the megacorps they were hitting or the people they were killing. I mean, even at worst, a mission might just be a neutral outcome (in the sense of good vs. evil). I don't think there are going to be a majority of tables that are playing through gritty and diabolical murdering psychotics. I mean, I am sure there is an over abundance of players that think their PC is bad ass and could kill anything its put up against. But its another thing when players are planning truly evil and graphically sick acts just for the fun of it.

So, I agree with several of the above posts. Figure out what your players are looking to play, now that there has been a shift of priority at the table. Really, that's your job as the GM from game to game, to notice trends, notice what the players are enjoying and create more of that for everyone at the table to have fun with.

Like Redcloack and Xykon from Order of the Stick? They are both Evil, but, as Xykon likes to put it, Redloack is the "vanilla evil for a good cause" while he is evil with capital bolded letters who takes pleasure on the suffering of others. Guess who's funnier?

And the other players are going with it.


Shadowrun is a game, and games are supposed to be fun.

To use the previous example of saving some hookers, and them later turning up dead, that essentially takes away a player victory and turns it into defeat. How is that fun?

It depends on how the rest plays out. I agree with you if everything the players do, the GM just ruins it and leave the players no recourse, then no, its probably not much fun (and the GM is probably not a really good one). But, if the dead hookers end up leading into the players tracking down bigger fish, maybe tracking down a serial killer or some sort of sex trafficking ring and the player end up shutting that down...well, then I'd say that would be a much bigger victory for the group and probably a lot of fun.

I mean, really, if the players are going down that path, you might as well work them up to defeating bigger and badder antagonists.

Considering I myself have ended up pissing off the local Seattle mafia enough for the GM to start bringing it in, I hope he dosent read this particular form thread. Im already at a loss as to how to truly deal* with them in a way that just wont result in 'well we`ll kill you 5 yrs down the road or make you suffer until you die' after a few minor victories. Short of carpetbombing everywhere but the Aztech pyramid with bunkerbusters, anyway. Its far too easy to envision the multitude of ways any situation like this(mine, OP's, etc) can end badly, even not counting the methods already listed

Ah well.


*Dealing with them means a permanent solution not involving cutting a deal, working for them(already proven even more untrustworthy than standard SR expectations), working directly for a megacorp, or allowing the Yaks\Triads\Others more power. They're just as bad.

@Teryon
In my SR experience, when it gets too hot in the kitchen, then get out. Its really a rather common theme at the tables I run and play at, that when you piss off enough people and its more trouble doing day-to-day stuff than it worth, you go under. If you can't do that effectively in the city you are in, then you go somewhere else. I'm sure you GM would love to run a series of missions for you so you can get a new SIN, physical identity and all that jazz and get started fresh someplace else.

Maybe, if this wasnt just the fourth mission. I think he's got something planned, and as a Properly Paranoid Player™ I dont trust 'im. Oh, Im talking comedically mostly but Ive already taken what steps I can given character type(face) and cash resources. Just not too sure how it`ll all pan out.

Depends on how you hacked off the guidos. Did you hit them as a whole, or just rile up a local funcionary?

You've managed to handcuff yourself into "them or me" and that's bad for business. They won't blink at wiring every car that comes across anything within three digits of your (fake) SIN number, and they just might detonate to some Italian opera as well.

If you want to 'deal with them', you need to fill the vacuum that would appear by their removal, either by showing it was a personal beef with their local capo, or by taking over yourself and becoming the power (which is a whole new set of problems, natch). You don't leave a lot of options for resolution that doesn't involve fighting a war.

No deal on the table, or no willingness to broker, your only real options are to skedaddle or go Boondock Saints and hope you can decaptitate the organization in one swift move. That being the case, try to court some of the higher ups so they're salivating at the idea of a takeover instead of gearing up to take you down.

Well, actually it was just refusing to pay the inflated interest on a debt I owed them(was kind of broke at the time; Im not now, but damage is done really). IC and OOC I wouldnt blink at wiring every car that even remotely gets involved with them either, its a case of 'them' being far larger. There's an accepted rate of interest for cash 'loaned', and if they're just going to randomly raise it for the sake of raising it, what trust there was(as always bare minimum) is gone. So I cant envision cutting a deal working too well, Ive little to offer as a counterpoint. Besides, we kinda ended up decapitating one of the local Yak leaders on our first mission(stealthy troll with a mono-katana), so even if they were an option theoretically, kindly disposed to the group and I they arent.

Wait, wait wait.

What kind of inflated interest are we talking about? Is this the goon with the Cheshire grin saying "You owe us 100% interest"?

If it's something along those lines, me as a GM pulling this on you would be seeing dual consequences in my world.

One, that's bad bad bad for business. People won't borrow money from you and you can't turn a profit if you try that kind of extortion. Two, you're giving a deniable asset with the powers of legal invisibility the moral high ground.

Now, I'm not saying 'honor among thieves' or any crap like that. It's not unheard of for them to tell you 20% interest up front.

It could still happen. The guido that does that in my realms tends to be on their own when they do it - his boss would rather replace him than throw good money after bad. Then again, I prefer 'Uncle Enzo' mafia organizations.

Along the lines of 25% compounded while I was in prison, when the agreed upon was 10%. Bad for business indeed, thats my whole logic. Plot and game flow as they may though; the guy may be on his own, pushing for more cash to do his own thing. Ill find out this week probably.

Ah. You broke the Eleventh Commandment. That 15% isn't an unreasonable increase for absolution for your sin.

It is in *my* book Im also a cheapass, despite the reasonable sums of money handed out thus far since most of it'd gone toward rebuilding life and gear. Out of curiosity, 11th commandment?

Thou Shalt Not Get Caught.

I read a lot of Heinlein, sue me.

*facepalm* I shouldve remembered THAT one. Read enough Heinlein m`self, just didnt make the connection. And its alot easier to follow the 11th commandment now with a chameleon suit, alot of agility and the whole stealth group...

Hm. Might have an idea after all.

Eeeexcellent. Moo hoo ha ha.

First – Private police forces, like Lone Star, must maintain a profit to function as an organization. Their primary source of income is linked directly to the running of the legal economy. Thus, their priorities are going to be aimed at protection of property and the safety of the workforce of the legal economy. Protecting the workforce of the illegal economy (example: rescuing a prostitute from an abusive pimp) is not the best use of their resources, which means that the PCs will get marginal or trivial support from Lone Star.

Second – The player trying to redeem himself needs a lesson in supply and demand because the entire criminal world, like just about everything else, operates on economic principles. Those that are exploited within the illegal economy (example: prostitute junkies) are commodities, and as such by “rescuing” them the PCs have decreased the quantity of that commodity available in the local illegal economy. This will effectively empower those that control the commodity because the demand has not changed, which leads to a higher value placed on the “non-rescued” commodities. The raw resource that supplies this commodity will be exploited more to bring up the quantity… a natural force in a free market. In actuality, more under-aged vulnerable girls will be targeted into forced prostitute and controlled via addiction.

Third – As with mega-corps and state powers, the mafia (corps in the illegal economy) will stop at nothing to eliminate any factor, subject, or otherwise problem that is directly putting a dent in their profits. The bigger the “dent” and the smaller the importance of the cause of the dent, the more immediate and intense the response to illuminate the cause. Short of Seattle being turned into a totalitarian police state, the PCs actions will not be tolerated for any link of time by the local mafia.

By the books, the mafia is the good guys of the Underworld.
They don't have racist/fascist agendas like the Yaks, kidnap girls and force them into prostitution like the Vory or run drugs with the kind of savageness that the Cartels or the Triads do. And the Ringu, hell, they do pretty much all that shit at once while screwing your girlfriend.

I understand that "your/my 6th world" isn't necessarily "the 6th world" but if you're running out of ideas, the text is a pretty good place to look.

The yaks also take away people's ability to control themselves via the whole bunraku thing. Shunting someone's personality aside, turning them into someone else (physically and emotionally), and making them forget if afterward? If that's not pure freaking evil I don't know what is.

Did they drive into a town with untraceable guns, drive up to house on a map, shoot the guy who they had a picture of as he drove down his driveway, drop the guns and leave town? That's how the Mafia tended to make it hard to track them, the men who did the hit had no connection to the guy who was hit.

There are almost always connections. How do they know about the sites they attacked? Did any of the PCs recon them? Did any PCs get wounded? Where did they get the explosives and weapons? Remember that the Mafia will likely have contacts feeding them the results of the PD/FBI/ATF investigations.