With every Durden spawn/war/death of protected mobster there is a rush to go bodyguard hunting, a feeding frenzy like piranhas devouring the carcass of some stricken goat.  These poor individuals, already grieving at the loss of their beloved employer, are then condemned to a certain death.  This all plays into the hands of the strongest getting stronger, particularly in times of war where it is usually the victors chasing the spoils.

What about another option at this point?  What about bodyguard recruitment, where you can recruit rather than kill the bodyguard?

My suggestion is that when you happen across a bodyguard, you can choose to recruit or kill.  Whichever choice you take uses your wack timer so you can recruit once an hour (maybe less often, could be 2/3/4 hours perhaps) but essentially you can’t recruit one then kill another.  If you recruit, the bodyguard comes in at minimum health so you still have to pay to get him to trust you and protect you properly.

Maybe it’s just the named bodyguards that can be recruited, limiting the amount in total that can be recruited, I don’t know.  Maybe it gives the new thugs with no gun the chance to get involved in the aftermath of a war rather than sitting idly by, who can say.

Maybe Spunky’s idea is destined to be a huge success or like a dried up crusty tissue stuck to the bottom of the bin, forgotten and discarded.

I like the sound of that, though given that the person is gaining a BodyGuard I would say that the timer should be reset to at least 4hrs. This would prevent someone running around getting BGs every hour, and also make it a substantial sacrifice to the possible gun training.

Perhaps if that option was limited to those people not already protected, then I could see some merit in it - provided you had to pay for that bodyguard. Otherwise, those who already have the most bodyguards would have an easy alternative to adding more, thus exacerbating the problem.

~C~

I think you're right Chuckle.  There are many ways to refine this. 

I'm just thinking about the poor bodyguard who might have wanted to continue in his life of protecting some of the finest criminal minds but was never asked!

The main difficulty with anything regarding bodyguards (or money in general) is that they are all so open to exploitation. At the moment, death is the only way to funnel some money out of the game and this is mirrored in terms of defense with people's bodyguards dying with them.

In our climate, where everything is so wildly out of proportion and having thought about it some more, I can't really see how it could be beneficial to keep the BGs in operation. The only way I could see it being implemented would be if they had to be purchased, but then if they weren't cheaper than normal BGs, why would you forfeit a kill to employ one? AND if they were cheaper than buying one, they would be snapped up and thereby increasing the issues with defense.

Sorry for my rather contrasting opinions on the idea.

~C~