Kurtz finished up some work in the office and walked out into the streets. There was a blossoming optimism around him. The streets of New York were reverberating with activity. Businesses setting up shop, hustle and bustle of a million ideas and plans being developed. The whole place was buzzing. It was rewarding to see. So much work had been done in such a short time and now things were starting to flower.

As he strolled along he thought about the infrastructure that Marston had established. The operation behind the scenes. Everything that was happening now was a knock on from the way things were organised at a base level. Without the building blocks, none of this would happen. It set Kurtz off thinking about the different approaches people took to running a city and the different expectations the population had of the cities they lived in.

As he valued differing opinions he decided to get some feedback on the matter. Going to the secured block away from the civilian population and the attentions of the police, he got a drink from a cafe and addressed the gathering mobsters in the square.

There has been a couple of conversations lately where participants touched on the subject of cities and how they operate. This subject is very interesting to me for obvious reasons.

I went with Marston to New York and along with Lancelot and Apples we set up the city to operate in a very defined way. I won't go into detail for obvious reasons but Marston's set up does follow the general idea of one city, one family. Under his overall leadership and design, we all pull in the same direction, hold a similar set of values and carry out our business abiding in the same principals. We have a unified set of rules and procedures and we all work toward collective goals. We are very happy with this system.

Now, I am not saying ours is the perfect system or better than anyone else's, it works for us and we are happy. That's enough. I have listened to some voices saying that a city should not operate the way ours does. That in fact it should be separate entities with a more distinct individual mandate and differing objectives. I can see how there may be some advantages to that approach. Indeed there may be several other approaches and overviews that people feel are the optimal method of city ordinance.

As I said, I am not trying to suggest that we have the perfect method, I am just interested in what you all think the best approach is?

As a working mobster, what do you want from your city? How do you want it to be run and what do you want it to do for you?

I am interested to your views.

Taking a seat at the cafe, he enjoys a drink while he waits to see what people think and feel.

For all those that want each family to hold individuality to each other and work for their own goals and own ideals. Thinking that a city would operate better that way for the individual and the country as a whole... I have four words to say to them. The Las Vegas Experiment.

It started as anyone who wanted to and had the rank could set up in Las Vegas with the permission of their current crewleader. Then those people would all be on their own to fight it out for leadership in Las Vegas by what ever means they saw necessary. A LOT of people died. A LOT of people failed using this way of doing things. A LOT of people alienated themselves from the chance to prosper and potentially lead Las Vegas due to sticking to their own personal gain and ideals rather than figuring out what would work best for the city as a whole.

After a long while a few leaders started to realise this and started to work together. Animal's Muppets found themselves at the forefront of this movement and then Betsy_Poke after him. Then after her unfortunate death myself, DeadlySin and Romeo(GRHS) carried it on. Working together for the betterment of Las Vegas while all holding the same ideals and the same thoughts on what should happen and become of Las Vegas.

Now what do you see? Romeo is unfortunately dead at the hands of DeadlySin and I yes but... DeadlySin is now Godfather of Philadelphia and I am Acting Head of Las Vegas. It took what felt like a generation to achieve this but the point is at the end of the day, all this was achieved with the idea that a city is essentially a family. Working together in all aspects and towards shared goals.

That in my opinion is the best way to operate a city.

As a one time former member of the Las Vegas Experiement, I can agree with PoisonousJelly totally. Seperate unitities, with varing ideas either coming together, or duking it out until one clear cut leader emeraged from the pack. As a leader in that situation, you learn alot about yourself, the crew that follows you, and the crews within the city. I firmly believe you become a better leader when you're forced to deal with, or cooperate with other leaders who dont exactly share the same ideals as you. It forces you out of your comfort zone, forces you to deal with situations you may not have encountered before, and when its all said and done, you're a better leader. Well that is, if you survive.

If you survive, and you learn to work together with the other city crew leaders, you develop the eyes on the prize mentality. That mentality leads to success and longevitiy within this thing of ours. Hell, you may even be the one who leads the city. If you can survive the 'only the strongest survive' mentality, you can work with other leaders and establish a great city.

I'm not going to lie though, I do greatly admire the way New York is ran. One uniformed city, one established forefront leader, all eyes on the same prize. It's a time tested, successful model. Continued success New York!

I appreciate the extreme example of the Vegas experiment. It becomes self evident at that level, that wasn't the way to run an organised city. It was what it was. A dog eat dog set-up that was only transcended when a few more evolved individuals, started working together for the collective good. As you pointed out PJ.

My reference to individuality in families wasn't meant as quite so extreme. More a view and varying value systems and methods etc. Not so much smoking gun, dog eat dog different. Still working as a group in a city but retaining different individual objectives, styles, rules values etc. Maybe the distinction between this and the more extreme example gets a little blurry at points but I have seen cities run while containing significant diversity.

Or again, if there is an entirely different approach. Top-down, alternative way of organisation that I at least, haven't considered.

Ah, Fair enough. Then I shall offer my opinion on that also.


I feel that if you have a city where the families with in the city do not share the same values and do not share the direction in which they want the city to head then you encounter problems. Problems that can go from something as simple as "I want Godfather before JoeBloggs" or to the extreme of "I do not want to share a city with that person". As we have most recently seen with Cory_Chase taking down Skorpeon and indeed Skorpeon surviving an attempt on his life from Chris_Flannery formerly of Chicago.

Then you can go to the even bigger extreme on a more established city that we seen with the Roman take down many moons a go.

My point is that if you don't share your ideals, directions and family way of life as a city you can be near certain that the city will emplode within itself.

Well, what I would want from my city is knowledge,intelligence and protection of course. If I have decided that your organized crime syndicate is the right for me then I have ultimately given up my choice to make a decision on my own. Thus leaving to the city heads to decide to way there going to plan out peoples futures. Most of us are gears working the machine, but please believe we have high expectations for our glorious leadership figures.

Being well structured and goal oriented is always guarenteed for success. It is extremely important that the new faces out there in the crowd learn from us old folk and even better if you can teach an old dog new tricks. I expect nothing but the best from everyone and eventhough that is my personal opinion I do expect positive things from those I surround myself with. I have a lot to be appreciative for but those are just a few things that I expect from my city on a day to day.

Scott-Weiland overhears Kurtz asking for opinions about how cities are ran, and decides to stop by and listen to the discussion, and share some of his own views.

I believe in uniformity, to an extent. I believe that as a city, all leaders should have the same set of values, and be working towards the same goal. Everyone that is a leader in the city should want their city to succeed. This becomes especially paramount when considering cities where there is no Godfather. Someone is set up as City Head, and that person is regarded as the "de facto" Godfather. Therefore, every other leader in the city should share his core goals.

However, individuality should be expressed also. For instance, in the promotion of Made Man +, each family should have their own ceremony, their own rules. Pick pocketing and shooting guidelines, should be shared by the entire city. If the city head, or even the Godfather, and other leaders in the city have different visions of the future, different directions they are wanting to go, and wanting the city to go, it will simply never work.

So, in summary, uniformity and individuality are important in how a city is ran.

Kurtz, Sir, I agree with your definition of family, same rules, values, principals and collective goals in all operations (crews). But I tend to look at it from a different angle.

A Family isn't something that should be geographically defined. It's much bigger than that, it's a way of life, so why bound it by city or state borders. Which means...

A family can have interests in different geographical areas. For example Marston (as head of the family) runs certain operations from New York, and Apples' runs an operation in LA. Each city will now have crews of different families. In addition to their own family's rules/values they will also have to follow the rules of the city set by the (acting) Godfather who can be of any of the families roaming the streets.

So in my opinion running a city and running a family are two totally different things. A city is defined by geographical borders a family is not.



(OOC) This could really work if there were some differences between (the crimes you can commit in) every city.

I'd like to discuss the notions of factions. There exists within each city inter and intra factions of individuals - ofteb, their allegiance is not to their CL but to each other. History has shown that these networks exist, co-operate and scheme. Most recently, a faction within Skorpeon's family conspired to have him killed, and achieved a measure of success. Iron Fist, Unknown Assailants, Project Mayhem - the list goes on and on.

Can anything be done about these informal networks? Why is it that, aside from a few instances, these networks do not capitalise on their numerical strength?