First off let me say how much I have enjoyed the past several days. One thing I hate is never knowing what the hell happened for real and why. Due to the New York Post I decided to write the OOC post I didn't when Mob Marley posited that I did this "cause I didn't get a city/suit."

Couple things, I can separate characters easily enough and would not pursue the the goals of a previous generation. Secondly I can separate real life from game life. If you cannot or do not do this just don't read on.

Yes I was surprised that LA was given to a boss who had a Don in his care. I did not care that a Don was not put in charge. Never have. What was more important to me as a player and Al as a character was the protection issue. If the game sees Don Morgan as the city head and puts numbers into place that reflect that rank then Don Morgan is the city head. I saw it as gaming the game OOC and figured if I made the shot I used the game to stop you. Then we have the whole in game Don answering to a boss. Well as a character it sickens me, as a player I roll my eyes.

The 10 grand hit was mine and it was meant to be an insulting sum just to rile him a little. Principalities (credit:Movie Friday "Big Wurm") was a play on words to insult his pal who gave him LA and a Don (hi scipita). I have no idea who posted the other one, I just figured to take the fall for both when I missed the shot. It pissed me off (as Al) when PJ posted the reward for information. He was pushing and asserting his authority now and he probably knew it was a Don that posted the hit. I had been thinking about the shot for a while by then. In my limited experience I did not know if the miss would be witnessed or not, would he know or not and would they go after someone else if they didn't know it was me. But if I made it and got away with it, LA is fixed in Al's view. What is the saying? Don't whine, do something about it. So I did and missed. I came forward assuming I was going to get found out, who knows? As for Detroit. All great people as far as I know but I was surprised when I was killed, by who I was killed (late, but very respectable actions) and not a soul asked a single question of me. But not really, they are very bright in Detroit and read very deep into events much like myself. I hold no rancor or grudges and don't even know most of you, but so far it's been a pretty good time and I am sticking around.

I'm glad you made this post and explained why you did what you did - can't say i agree with your actions but we all have our own values and principles and try to stick by them as best we can. I've no idea who killed you and don't really care but there is an old saying - 'he who lives by the gun dies by the gun' - from the sound of your post you knew this when you took the shot and decided to do it anyway - not only that but you publicly confessed to it and for this you earned my respect (if not my admiration) and took the consequences.

If you need to explain why you did something.

Chances are, you're doing it wrong.

~Barnabie

xoxoxox

P.S. That's what she said.

If you need to explain why you're explaining to someone why they're explaining their actions, chances are, you are doing it wrong.


(Love you, sport)

I never claimed to be good at anything.

~Barnabie

xoxoxox

P.S Again...she made note of that.

No, she didn't. You're too much of a pansy to call her, remember?

A winner is you....

The thing is, it's hard to take rank literally on this game. So despite you having a problem with a Don answering to a Boss, you yourself were also a Don, since you were not the leader of a family, this in itself was an error with regards to rank in the game. It's for these kind of reasons, we have to try and look past the ranks. Of course, if someone is the rank of GF/GM then it's a different story, only then I suppose can the ranks be taken quite literally, along with the step up to Made Man. Other than that, ranks don't really mean a great deal in terms of who is running a city and who is not.

A few people, including myself stood up in public announcing that they respected what you had tried to do. You felt strongly enough to act on what you thought was a bad situation over in LA. However, as I said then, I can only assume you didn't have the backing from Detroit to act in such ways, and due to this you were then a rogue individual, whether or not you were hiding behind your sponsored status to keep protected for a little while longer is irrelevant, you were a rogue. The fact that there were a limited number of people around to take the shot on you meant someone else had to step in before anymore damage could be done. In this case it was Scipita.

I take issue with the idea that I must look past rank. Why would I keep playing if this turns out to be true. Indeed I won't and neither will many. You need suspension of disbelief in any game, particularly a text based rpg. It's one thing to give a suit to someone lower than another but in my view, if the game provides protections in a city based on the ranked suits, you game the game doing what was done in LA. It is no different that finding out someone on the admin crew used the game logs to determine who did what in game and used the information in game. It's one thing to check on harrassment and act and wholly another to use the game mechanics in an unintended way to effect players.

As for explaining myself, The New York Post had it wrong enough for me to feel the need. I did enjoy the read if only because I now know who Don Keypunch is. Too bad so much witty commentary was edited out.

Part of the problem you may have had in understanding this is that often the perception is given that the highest rank is in charge, when behind the scenes that won't be the case.

Many of the experienced players here will be able to tell you of the crews they've really ruled themselves from behind the guise of RHM, some going as far as to ghostwrite posts and threads for their leaders. It isn't about the reality of the situation, just the appearance of it to the untrained eye as people panic when they think a Gangster is running a city and they would much prefer to believe it is a Don.

That is kind of the problem you've had in this situation, because the wool was pulled from your eyes and rather than pretending it was Morgan who ran the city, you were told from the off that it would be PoisonousJelly. The fact they are in two separate families further offers up a problem and the idea of a Don answering to a Boss from a role-play standpoint is ridiculous. It is the reason why you aren't allowed to have anyone in your crew higher ranked than you are and in the past not even the same rank. Ours is a hierarchical organization that is based on advancement and structure. The current setup in Los Angeles contradicts this, I agree.

However, I have long since resigned myself to the fact that often the role-play aspect of this game rarely matches the reality of it. The simple truth is the reality of this game, the politics and the things that go on behind the scenes are lost on the majority of the userbase. Only very few people ever truly work out what is going on and why. You'll see the justification for things in the streets or posts people make, but you need to look beyond that if you want to reach the actual reasons for them. Part of the allure (to me anyway) of MafiaReturns is its apparent simplicity - anyone can log in and click, click, click their way to brilliance, right? Wrong. These people get eaten alive the moment experienced 'players of the game' enter, most often shown after resets, because they just don't see the moves being made around them.

So, to get back to something of the point, the fact that PoisonousJelly is really running LA and not Morgan is something of a role-play faux pas. You won't really be able to get around that until PoisonousJelly outranks Morgan and the world is re-aligned. However, given that this is often the case behind the scenes anyway, it really doesn't impact on the majority of us that significantly and certainly wasn't worth throwing a Don account away over.

I'm not sure about likening this situation to cheating by an admin, as it is completely different. This is players letting your see behind the curtain, not code manipulation for the betterment of any individual. Sure, you might still have the disappointed look that often comes when you find out something wasn't magic after all just deception, but they are not even close to the same thing.

If you can't look past the rank people hold and see the people who hold the rank, then you are going to struggle on this game. It isn't the rank people hold that is important, sometimes you can cause yourself more trouble by insulting a Gangster or a Goomba, then tangling with a Don. Connections are everything in the Mafia; you need to know who has cultivated the powerful ones.

That is enough of Grin rambling anyway.

~G~rin the [CENSORED].