I know this has been brought up before, but I don't really think from a realistic point of view that a gangster can walk off a boat with a posse of guards following him and making sure he's safe? I think their should be a minimum rank to earn body guards. Maybe when you hit Made Man you have earned 'x' number of money and earned 'x' of experience points you can start to buy guards, and maybe their should also be a cap for each rank until Boss or Consigliere (probably not this last one) Godfather? I'm not sure about the second idea but I stand behind my first. They don't have to be these certain requirements but I think something should be implicated to stop power plays from now getting into another power play spot when their son arrives.

Now this may seem like whining but I don't buy the realism of this, when a maybe RHM or a high ranking consigliere or boss dies, that when they get a new character that as soon as their son takes their place their given a number of bodyguards straight away. I may be wrong here but this over and over cycle of blood lines could lead to stagnant game play with the same bloodlines ruling over and over. Now this may not be the case for all Cl's but in some cases it could be.

I really think there should be requirements implicated though, just to mix up game play a little bit and add some realism.

-Prophet-

And I really don't think it's realistic that someone with a vast amount of money - regardless of status - can't be able to buy themselves a massive posse of bodyguards. The almighty dollar rules all when it comes to that department. The one thing I do take issue with however is the process of demoting to purchase them, however. From a roleplay point of view, it simply makes no sense.

Okay maybe scrap the RP side of it. But maybe this could be put in so that the new blood could be given a shot at leadership. Yes I know they still have to work hard to get to the top but still... With 20 bodyguards overshadowing your every step it's pretty hard to stop you.

Since at the moment the game seems to be heading towards making itself more realistic, I don't believe you're coming up with the right kind of ideas here.

Let's be honest, myself in real life could hire as many bodyguards as I wanted provided I had the money. Do I need them? Hell no. Could I still hire them if I wanted? Hell yes.

Bad idea, very unrealistic.

As I've spoken at length about this elsewhere, I'll add something to AfroSamurai's post.

Would 100 bodyguards really protect you more than 10? Would they even be able to all guard you at once? Would they even be able to fit in a room?

Whilst money is king just because you can have 100s of bodyguards, does not mean you should. In terms of realism, the thing that stops people in the real world having so many bodyguards is the fact that after a time you either can't do anything or they cease to serve a purpose. Here every additional bodyguard increases your defence, in reality this wouldn't be the case. After a while they would just prevent you from getting things done or cease to be of any use to you because you are already so well protected.

Tapering the benefit for each additonal bodyguard after X amount of bodyguards have been reached still seems to be the way to go in my opinion.

For any interested in the full breakdown of that suggestion: http://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/93501/page2

A great suggestion if I might say, Gwarble. I agree that after a certain amount realistically bodyguards could do no more, and the tapering of defence increase is a great way of converting that issue into a numerical form.

Like you (even though my account is nowhere near as old as yours) I have woken up some days and wondered what the point was in putting in so much effort when I don't believe I could ever catch up with the accounts at the top. I don't think I'd ever stop putting the effort in though, that would put me even further behind everybody else.