I haven't the foggiest how to figure group contacts out, what would a retired consiglieri have by way of pull, and how many freaking points is the mob worth. This is for an NPC, so it shouldn't need to deal with rules too much, but I would like some help figuring out the group contact rules for future use.

"Mob" is kinda broad, assuming you are talking about the old Costa Nostra different cities will be run by different people, and in even a single city there are many factions.

As a rule I generally don't like group contacts. I prefer to take the highest rank person you know, and assume there influence covers their subordinates.

IMHO the pull of a retired consigliere would depend on the circumstances of his retirement (friendly/unfriendly, how does he get along with his successor etc...).

Regarding the point worth of "the mob", in my opinion you won't have "the mob" as a group contact. That follows from my interpretation of organized crime in the SR world. "The Mafia" (and "the Yakuza", "the Vory"...) aren't monolithic organizations, but more like networks of relatively independent crime groups of the same ethnic/cultural background. They also have their own internal squabbles (canon example The O'Malleys vs the Bigios in Seattle). So you'd rather have one specific Mafia family as a group contact.

So I'd guess for something like:

Connection Rating: 5
Membership: (20-99 members) +2
Area of Influence: (District) +1
Magical Resources: (Limited) +1
Matrix Resources: (Active) +1

= Connection rating 5(10) for a small, local family

or

Connection Rating: 6
Membership: (100-1000 members) +4
Area of Influence: (Sprawl) +2
Magical Resources: (Limited) +1
Matrix Resources: (Broad -reaching) +2

= Connection rating 6(15) for a major family

Ditto on some of the above advice. I think it's a little saner in-game, and also will supply a GM with a few more potential plot hooks (like getting drawn into mob rivalries and infighting) if a character takes a single prominent Mafia figure, or at most a single family, as a contact.

Thanks EKBT81. I was planning on just tying it to one of the families, but I wasn't really sure how big the groups are. The backstory for the character is an Eighty year old man who's been "in the family" forever and is the guy his family goes to for advice. The Wise Old Man of the family. He's not as active in the day to day now, due to advancing age, but he used to be right on the top. Now he spends his days teaching his grandkids the art of pizza, consulting for the family when the new consiglieri is over his head or out of his experience.

On that subject, any direction on where to find info for the Seattle Families? I'm guessing Vice would be the place to look? I should find out what turf each family controls, whether geographic or economic to figure out which family will be his.
Oh, and OOB, I was designing him to be the topmost contact that the PCs would have with he group, he may be the Johnson for a series of runs if the PCs don't frag it up too much.

Seattle 2072 has some info on all the syndicates and gangs active there.

Well, according to the "Made Man" quality from Runner's Compendium, the average mob would be Loyalty 4 Connection 8.

Hmm. . . That's a pretty good indicator for a Made Man, but they'd likely be less loyal to the average runner. The connection rating is the key though. I can work with connection 8, I just now need to figure out how many points that costs.

A modified connection rating of 8 would cost 8 BP (plus the cost of the Loyalty rating).

However to me a modified connection rating of 8 seems to be on the low end for a whole Mafia family.

Although you could justify low ratings if the group contact is only considered to be a subgroup of the family, like a caporegime's crew.

For example, a runner might brag of being connected to "the Ciarnello Family". But in reality he's only working with capo Paulie's robbery crew, but he isn't in on capo Angelo's gambling operation or capo Vinnie's protection racket.

I guess what I don't understand is modified versus unmodified connection rating. Do you decide the level of connection and then modify it by the stuff in the table? My impression was that you built the connection rating out of the modifiers. For example if I had some shadowy council that controlled the world, I could say that it was connection 40 despite the fact that it's only three guys, and no mages. It's modified score would be 47, +1 for having 2-19 members, then +6 for global. This is of course a ludicrous scenario, I'm just using it as an extreme example. Is connection for groups also capped at 6?

Connection is capped at 6 for Non-Groups.
Groups go above 6 by virtue of the several different categories that allow it to accumulate rating above 6.

So Yes, your example is a bit ludicrous...

Ok, Thanks. I'm really rusty on a lot of the Runner's Companion rules. None of the regulars have the book, so most of my understanding has been picked up from here. I should probably pick that up, but I'm honestly not suree which book to pick up next. Any recommendations on that front?

What books have you got, and what's the general make-up of your crop of players? I think it's hard to go wrong with Arsenal, Augmentation, and Street Magic, myself, but it really depends on what you have and what you're likely to need throughout a campaign. Seattle 2072 or Vice can help establish feel, for instance, where Runner's Companion has quite a bit more crunch and creation options in it.

1 which books do you want?

and
2. As a rule I wouldn't use options from a book I don't have.