So one of the characters in my campaign is currently a scrub for the Crimson Crush. He's recently done right by the gang and helped out in a war with the 405 Hellhounds. The boss he reports to is ready to sponsor him into the Crush as a member.
What I'm trying to do here is tap into the collective sadism of the Dumpshock community to come up with an appropriate initiation ritual.
SSG suggests a "beating in" or "sexing in." The former is too mundane, and the latter is somewhere I'm just not going to go, frankly. I'm looking for something a little more flavorful; something that still plays up the usual gang pecking order (like the 2 options presented by the SSG) but is more unique to the Crush.
A couple of ideas I had were:
- Surviving being run over. I like this idea because it involves pain, and fits in nicely with the Crimson CRUSH. It also reinforces the initiate's place in the gang if one of the current members does the squashing.
- Gauntlet. The character has to ride (or run on foot, or just stand in the middle of the street) while the rest of the rang rides their bikes in the opposite direction and take shots at him with melee weapons.
- Some sort of physical challenge, like stealing a license plate off of a speeding road-train.
- Coup-counting, like knocking the rearview mirrors off of Lone Star patrol cars or something.
Anyway, the character in question is an ork adept (shamanic way, Bull).
Any of you have good ideas?
I don't mind if my players read this; surely they've heard awful rumors about guys getting initiated.
Full Version: Gang Initiation
I have a completed character that I haven't played yet, a physical adept who goes by the street name of Sticks. A highly improved clubs and reflexes adept who is a former gang member gone big time to the shadows. He has a minor annoyance enemy flaw in the form of that his old rival gang use him as a membership initiation ritual. Prospective members of the rival gang have to go and fight Sticks and last a certain amount of time and not get beat unconcious before the time limit.
Make the new gang initiate fight a superior opponent in melee and stay standing more than a certain time limit.
Make the new gang initiate fight a superior opponent in melee and stay standing more than a certain time limit.
Two words:
Motorcycle Joust.
Motorcycle Joust.
Beer Run!
In the middle of the Barrens. In full gang colors.
Should attract a lot of attention.
In the middle of the Barrens. In full gang colors.
Should attract a lot of attention.
Is there anything the character has boasted about being good at or apt to, especially within gang earshot?
I like the pinata-gauntlet idea. Visually, that's a funny one. Here are a few ideas off the top of my head:
1. Endurance Fight - One-on-One, or multiple-on-one, melee with an endless line of gang members. Rank awarded if the player can make it past a certain number of combatants.
2. Headlight Blinking - Have a few gang members ride with the wannabe. As they troll the streets, they flash their headlights at oncoming traffic. The unlucky SOB who responds with a similar flash is the target for a beating/slaying while the rest of the gang watches him go to town. This leaves room for an ugly situation with women, the elderly, and children being present.
3. Theft - If physical violence isn't in order, perhaps knocking over a Stuffer Shack (or other small store) for quick loot. This risks getting one's mug on camera.
4. Target: Lone Star - Having an act of vandalism on Lone Star presents a dangerous initiation as well. Maybe removing the headlights off of a Star squad car while its parked somewhere, slashing all of the tires on a car parked outside the donut shop, smashing in the windshield while an officer is sitting in his parked car or likewise spray-painting it in the same scenario.
5. "Spunkball" - This is a real one. Gang members point out a car (typically at a stop light) with the windows down. The wannabe has to throw a gasoline-soaked rag (wrapped in tin foil and topped off with a firecracker or explosive device up to an M80 in size) into the vehicle. The miniature explosion typically lights the interior of the car on fire when it explodes, causing severe burns and injury to the driver and occupants.
6. Kidnapping - This might be tough to pull off, especially if the gang requires that the wannabe do it in a well-populated area.
1. Endurance Fight - One-on-One, or multiple-on-one, melee with an endless line of gang members. Rank awarded if the player can make it past a certain number of combatants.
2. Headlight Blinking - Have a few gang members ride with the wannabe. As they troll the streets, they flash their headlights at oncoming traffic. The unlucky SOB who responds with a similar flash is the target for a beating/slaying while the rest of the gang watches him go to town. This leaves room for an ugly situation with women, the elderly, and children being present.
3. Theft - If physical violence isn't in order, perhaps knocking over a Stuffer Shack (or other small store) for quick loot. This risks getting one's mug on camera.
4. Target: Lone Star - Having an act of vandalism on Lone Star presents a dangerous initiation as well. Maybe removing the headlights off of a Star squad car while its parked somewhere, slashing all of the tires on a car parked outside the donut shop, smashing in the windshield while an officer is sitting in his parked car or likewise spray-painting it in the same scenario.
5. "Spunkball" - This is a real one. Gang members point out a car (typically at a stop light) with the windows down. The wannabe has to throw a gasoline-soaked rag (wrapped in tin foil and topped off with a firecracker or explosive device up to an M80 in size) into the vehicle. The miniature explosion typically lights the interior of the car on fire when it explodes, causing severe burns and injury to the driver and occupants.
6. Kidnapping - This might be tough to pull off, especially if the gang requires that the wannabe do it in a well-populated area.
| QUOTE (Garland @ Feb 15 2005, 05:11 PM) |
| Any of you have good ideas? |
Kill someone. Anyone, it doesn't matter. A cop is the best, a rival ganger is preferable, but it may as well be a civilian for all they care.
IIRC, a wannabe member of the Spiders has to kill an insect spirit single-handedly. That's swell for them. However, it lacks something in the sheer brutality dept.
The thing about being jumped in is that it's, well, the normal way things are done IRL. I think it's interesting, or maybe appalling, that the idea of being jumped in is too "mundane." While it is, it also presents the most vicious single manner to do it short of committing an act of unrepentent violence against a non-gang member. Some of the suggestions sound okay, but I'm of the king-shooting school. That is, if you're going to shoot the king you better make damn sure you kill him. If they are going to commit an act of violence against a cop, rival ganger, or civilian there is no point whatsoever in hurting them.
| QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0) | ||
Kill someone. Anyone, it doesn't matter. A rival ganger is preferable, but it may as well be a civilian for all they care. |
Heh, funny thought...
Gang Leader: "Kill someone. Anyone, it doesn't matter. A rival ganger is preferable, but it may as well be a civilian for all I care."
Player shoots the gang leader in the forehead.
And then the rest of the gang rapes his family, terrorizes his housing complex, and tortures him to death...
Oh oh oh. This one is real and very dangerous!!1 If you see a car with its lights off at night...
Fix your Quote citation. That was Crimson Jack's comment, not mine.
You all look the same to me.
Good Initiation for Any Gang. Stealing a Rival Member's Bike, Take a baseball bat to a Mailbox (that's at the other end of town) and try to make it back to the clubhouse in one peice, with the bike.
| QUOTE (Weredigo) |
| Good Initiation for Any Gang. Stealing a Rival Member's Bike, Take a baseball bat to a Mailbox (that's at the other end of town) and try to make it back to the clubhouse in one peice, with the bike. |
Come on, this isn't Gangs of the Rich WASP Suburbs.
Gangs of rich wasp suburbs would buy the bike off the rival.
Or have drive by arguments.
| QUOTE (Garland) |
| SSG suggests a "beating in" or "sexing in." |
That's mostly in regard to prospective female gang members. That said, beatings are still a fairly common portion of an initiation, male or female. Still, nothing wrong with picking something more flavorful, and there's some pretty decent ideas offered here. (I especially like the beer run in gang colors. Good one, ef31415.)
Well being that we usually Involve Ancients, Halloweeners, and some new Dwarven Gang we've created (Hammers) I'm quite uninformed Crimson Crush. What is thier attitude, their specialty.
| QUOTE |
| Is there anything the character has boasted about being good at or apt to, especially within gang earshot? |
Take that one ability of the prospective member and really challenge him with it.
Rusty (my first character): "If it's got two wheels, I can fix it."
GM (as the gang's leader): "Great." Shows you into the garage where there is a Harley Davidson Panhead <forgot exact year but was a very rare edition> or rather the Frame and the gutted engine of one. "You've got 48 hours, if it's don't run by then I'll cut your balls off."
Fourty Seven and a half hours later of wrenching and calling around for parts and sending prospects out to pick up parts and rewiring and machining parts that couldn't be found it ran.
| QUOTE (Pistons @ Feb 16 2005, 09:45 AM) | ||
That's mostly in regard to prospective female gang members. That said, beatings are still a fairly common portion of an initiation, male or female. Still, nothing wrong with picking something more flavorful, and there's some pretty decent ideas offered here. (I especially like the beer run in gang colors. Good one, ef31415.) |
Pistons speaks the truth. I have a great deal of experience with a lot of gangs-Latin Kings, World Wide Gangster Disciples, Insane Spanish Cobras, Mulanics, White Dissidents, etc...-and they all use a varying amount of this stuff.
Sexing in isn't unsual in prison/jail based gangs where homosexual predators can often move about the population unnoticed.
Beating, or "jumping in" in the prison setting is a bit more rare than on the streets-because fighting of any sort can land you in the hole, and upgrade your security level.
A lot of gangs are very much based on regional stuff-Detroit's Low Money Boys are all from Detroit originally, I know most of the Wealthy Street Boys, a Grand Rapids based gang, is from GR. Prison expands the base a little, as they find acceptable candidates that aren't from home, but most like being able to trust and know whom they're doing business with.
Some common thinsg I have seen gangers at the lower levels have to do is as follows:
- provide money for the upper echelons, or just rank and file gang members. The Low Money Boys pay tribute to their leaders, who are locked at our place. They do it in the form of money orders to these prisoners accounts, news paper and magazine subscriptions and the like.
- Visits-you have a nice looking sister? Mom? Aunt? Grandma? Send her to visit, but tell her not to wear any panties. This is usally caught quickly these days witht eh computer based visitation system, and cameras, but drugs and sexual contact still happen at times. Address swapping is huge too-I give you my sisters home address, you hook me up with a cousin.
- Pimp your female relatives, friends, or whatever to guards. Subverted staff smuggle all sorts of things. On every shift, in every prison or jail in the US there is someone having sex with convicts, doing drugs or bringig drugs for cons, or smuggling something else.
- Murder/kill/assault somebody inside. There is an abundance of rats, enemies and messages to send. Even in prison there is turf to defend.
- Drugs. Get some, bring them inside somehow, give them to us.
- Other useful stuff: One guy could subvert the phone system for a long time, until they fixed it and caught him, others have access to specialized legal stuff (Wife who is alwyer or something) or the like. Providing these services for your home boy is a plus.
Literally MILLIONS of people are currently incarcerated, and millions more have had some sort of contact with the penal system in America.
I still think random murder is a pretty good one, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be a floor for initiation activity.
I don't disagree with that.
Shocking.
| QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0 @ Feb 16 2005, 09:14 PM) |
| Shocking. |
Now that would make an interesting twist on jumping in.
[edit] Being dragged into the alley naked and then strapped to the hood of an ancient, rusted Ford. Forced to hold the red and black broken claws of the jumper cables while a cackling Crush revs the engine. Spark, shock, scream. Hang on, just hang on. The world goes dark...
Actually, that thing about Spunkball was something I read that happened in Navato, CA after the rumors hyped it up. I've read the same thing about the headlight blinking initiation scenario as well. Hype/hoax to begin with, now there are several national reports of the initiation rite. We had one of these events happen here in Washington (Renton), where a gang smashed into a car that flashed their lights back at them and then drug a dude and his girlfriend out of the car and beat them up.
Make it something interesting and fun to roleplay, that keeps in step with the image of the gang. Win a staring contest with a LS cop while he's in his squad car, doing 120 down the freeway. Steal the bike of a rival gang, then do something spectacular and dangerous with it.
| QUOTE (Crimson Jack @ Feb 16 2005, 10:24 PM) |
| We had one of these events happen here in Washington (Renton), where a gang smashed into a car that flashed their lights back at them and then drug a dude and his girlfriend out of the car and beat them up. |
Wow, such wonderful people...
Sounds like all you gotta do to join a gang is prove you're a murderous psychopath with an IQ 80 or less.
Where's The Punisher when you need him?
Hey, that's an idea: send them against someone like The Punisher and set certain conditions short of killing him (like grazing him with a bullet or something). If they live, they're in.
Yeah, but American prisons are chock full of these people. People who aren't educated enough to understand society like we do, the apthetic who just don't care, the abused who lash back out-you name it.
Gangs are about power-economic, social, sexual: you name it. I've dealt with guys who have shot nd raped two year olds, to guys who killed their best friends with hammers over slices of pizza while on drugs. (Makes you wonder if best friend was a really good description.)
The opposite end of the spectrum is the dangerous one-smart, viscous, and no compulsion about killign at all. they're fewer in numbers, but scarier by far. That's what we have primarily housed in our history of bein open. Makes for fun work days.
Gangs are about power-economic, social, sexual: you name it. I've dealt with guys who have shot nd raped two year olds, to guys who killed their best friends with hammers over slices of pizza while on drugs. (Makes you wonder if best friend was a really good description.)
The opposite end of the spectrum is the dangerous one-smart, viscous, and no compulsion about killign at all. they're fewer in numbers, but scarier by far. That's what we have primarily housed in our history of bein open. Makes for fun work days.
| QUOTE (Kanada Ten) |
| [edit] Being dragged into the alley naked and then strapped to the hood of an ancient, rusted Ford. Forced to hold the red and black broken claws of the jumper cables while a cackling Crush revs the engine. Spark, shock, scream. Hang on, just hang on. The world goes dark... |
Nice, K10. I likes how you think. I think a person could punch this up a little bit by having the car racing down the highway at the time...
I love you guys. No, really. Like I said, I wanted to tap into the collective pool of sadism here and boy did I get what I wanted.
Since someone asked, the Crimson Crush is a go-gang, prowling the highways of the Barrens. They clash with other go-gangs, smuggle drugs and BTLs, that sort of thing.
Still thinking about what to actually inflict. May put up a poll, that'd make it easy to choose between some of these great ideas...
Anyone else flashing back to Warriors?
| QUOTE (Garland) |
| Since someone asked, the Crimson Crush is a go-gang, prowling the highways of the Barrens. They clash with other go-gangs, smuggle drugs and BTLs, that sort of thing. |
Kill a rival ganger always works.
Do some sort of crazy bike stunt like; jumping off the end of a trashed bridge, play chicken with a Lone Star car, set yourself on fire and ride around the block.
How about a death race?
2 prospective candidates are chained together with 2 m of chain between them, they gotta race around the nearest rival gang's turf once. The winner is the one riding his bike back, the loser is likely ghoul food somewhere along the route.
2 prospective candidates are chained together with 2 m of chain between them, they gotta race around the nearest rival gang's turf once. The winner is the one riding his bike back, the loser is likely ghoul food somewhere along the route.
"Come out and plaaay-yaaay..."
That death race'd be a good one if there were more candidates than open positions in the gang...
That death race'd be a good one if there were more candidates than open positions in the gang...
| QUOTE (Nikoli) |
| Anyone else flashing back to Warriors? |
I never flashed out! Warriors come out to play! Arcanum V's sig is from Death race 2000 by the way!
I just looked into this thread because my character is about to undergo initiation. much to my surprise, the originator of the thread is my GM, and it's all about what he can do to my character. Yikes.
BTW, Garland, is there any chance I can get enough Karma to raise my Bike and Brawling skills (and maybe Body) before the initiation? ^_^;;
BTW, Garland, is there any chance I can get enough Karma to raise my Bike and Brawling skills (and maybe Body) before the initiation? ^_^;;
Ooops. Looks like you made the fatal mistake: Actually admiting you're reading Gawds notes. Best hope the almighty doesn't decide to send the thunder!
Actually, Garland did mention that he didn't mind if his players read this, and he knows I read the DS Forums regularly, so I'm sure I won't get any extra fallout from this. (Ghost knows, the anticipation'll be bad enough.)
| QUOTE (Paul) |
| Ooops. Looks like you made the fatal mistake: Actually admiting you're reading Gawds notes. Best hope the almighty doesn't decide to send the thunder! |
No, no problem. I even said in the original post I didn't mind the players reading it. The gang probably taunts the scrubs with horrifying tales of their own initiations...
Joe: I plan on about a month between the current story arc and the initiation. So yes, time to train.
Of course, you do realise this means those 3 skills won't come into play...
Some other options:
If the Gang allows metahumans and the initiate is a metahuman, steal the hood off as many Humanis members during a march or rally as possible and live to tell the tale.
If the Gang is anti-metahuman, steal something equally symbolic from a pro-metahuman group member during a march or rally (just one)
Swipe a control valve from a Gaeatronics power plant
Snag the traffic camera from the highest point on the block.
put a sidecar on your bike and try and catch someone in it the hard way (run through traffic, scooping them up on the way).
Roshambeaux a troll
Kill a rival gangs BTL dealer or runner
Some other options:
If the Gang allows metahumans and the initiate is a metahuman, steal the hood off as many Humanis members during a march or rally as possible and live to tell the tale.
If the Gang is anti-metahuman, steal something equally symbolic from a pro-metahuman group member during a march or rally (just one)
Swipe a control valve from a Gaeatronics power plant
Snag the traffic camera from the highest point on the block.
put a sidecar on your bike and try and catch someone in it the hard way (run through traffic, scooping them up on the way).
Roshambeaux a troll
Kill a rival gangs BTL dealer or runner
C'mon, now, I'm not that harsh a GM. And it'd be a pretty sad initiation that didn't involve a Body roll.
I'm definitely expecting Body to play a part in the initiation process, and given that the Crimson Crush is a go-gang, I'm expecting to use my Bike skill. Brawling can't hurt no matter what form the initiation takes.
FYI, Nikoli, the Crimson Crush is a mostly Ork gang that runs in Redmond, just south of Touristville, IIRC. (I do have a poor memory for maps and directions, though, so I could be mistaken about the exact location.)
FYI, Nikoli, the Crimson Crush is a mostly Ork gang that runs in Redmond, just south of Touristville, IIRC. (I do have a poor memory for maps and directions, though, so I could be mistaken about the exact location.)
| QUOTE (Nikoli) |
| Roshambeaux a troll |
ROTFLMAO!
I'll have to remember that one! I'm definitely gonna use that one some time.
Ask him to steal the harley scorpion of Lord Torgo, the leader of The Spikes.
Then say goodbye, 'cause that's the last you'll see of 'em!
And I always pictured him on a viking
And I always pictured him on a viking
Doesn't matter. What is hilarious is the thought of a non-troll trying to flee on a troll sized bike. Or whatever else they can imagine.
I ran a session like that once. Very entertaining. One PC troll started a fight in a bar attended by the spikes and during the confusion the rest of the team neutralized the look out, tied a chain to the leader's hog and then tied the other end to a truck they had just jacked. What followed is to date the wackiest chase I've ever run.
I ran a session like that once. Very entertaining. One PC troll started a fight in a bar attended by the spikes and during the confusion the rest of the team neutralized the look out, tied a chain to the leader's hog and then tied the other end to a truck they had just jacked. What followed is to date the wackiest chase I've ever run.
| QUOTE (Nikoli) |
| Roshambeaux a troll |
What does that mean?
Get dragged behiend a motorbike for a while. Extra status if you do it without armor 
| QUOTE (simonw2000) | ||
What does that mean? |
It's kind of like a catapult.
| QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0) | ||||
It's kind of like a catapult. |
Huh? I thought Roshambo was Rock-Paper-Scissors.
I like the initiations from The Shadowrun Comapnion.Disarm a bomb; Kill an Elf; Brand a metahuman; Meet the Spider totem - Its fun for the whole family.
For a Go-gang I must agree with Voorhees - Motercycle jousting can't be beat.
For a Go-gang I must agree with Voorhees - Motercycle jousting can't be beat.
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