I was working up another suggestion, when as part of it I couldn't get past the massive amount of bodyguards a person has, and how that fact could negatively affect my suggestion, from an RP perspective. In due course, I came up with this suggestion as part of the other. As the other isn't complete, and I feel this stands on it's own, I'm suggesting a Bodyguard Loaning system.

Basically this is a system where one can travel to their home city, into their HQ and "deposit" any number of bodyguards. They would lose all protective value to the player at this point. Effectively it'd be telling your bodyguards "Sit here and wait. If someone needs you, help them."

From there, CLs could then distribute these bodyguards to other members in the home city.

This would be useful for:

For RPers who are particularly fond of being completely true to form and want to do some particular actions without a large audience. (Particularly my other suggestion, coming soon)

During times of war the bodyguard supply for a family could be consolidated to specific members who might need them the most.

Getting around the "demote for Bodyguards" issue. You can have thug members load up on Bodyguards, and deposit them all until they rank up, or deposit them so that higher ranked members can withdraw them. This circumvents the higher price for higher ranked bodyguards, but so does demotes, and I feel this would be a better RP of that.

This actually sounds really cool. The last part really catches my eye. Rather than having someone demote for BGs, a thug buys them and transfers them to the hitter. Much more realistic in a RP sense, although still not perfect, it's a step in the right direction.

I'm not sure if I've missed something here, but if I'm understanding correctly:

Thug buys 200 bodyguards and donates them to HQ. Leader then gives themself enough to cap themselves, then does the same with every leader.

If that's the case, I am incredibly against this suggestion, no matter how realistic it is.

Maybe if there were a fee to transfer the BGs? Idk, DS' comment shines a new light on it for me.

Would the RP'ers who are being true to form really be happy with a thug hiring bodyguards for the rest of the family?

This may remove the whole demotion for bodyguards but at least with the demotion there is some sort of penalty for bypassing the games cost for BG's.

Wouldn't this just create a scenario where the most powerful use a low ranked middleman to buy their BGs for them and don't take any penalty at all for acquiring protection cheaply?

DeadlySin, Flash and Grin have echoed my thoughts.

Really don't like this idea in its current format.

i can't say i am a fan, the gave is too defensive already with bg limits, last thing we need is a cheap post war fix for people wanting their bgs back.

If a thug could buy bgs at 750k each then donate them to his CL wars would last for weeks.

The Crewleader/Member takes a loan of 150 BG's from the pot.
The Crewleader/Member returns the loan of 150 BG's to the pot.(2 day's later)
The Crewleader/Member Cannot take from the loan pot for another 5 days.

If something like that went along with this idea I think it would make for great gameplay.

The only way I could ever conceive something like this being possible would be to limit the number of BGs per family. If that did happen, then you would very likely end up with a situation where the strongest took all the bodyguards to protect themselves whilst weaker members are deemed expendable.

I don't really have an issue with that line of thinking, but I think it'll detract from the experience as a lot of the joy in MR, for me at least, is in it's simplicity.