There is a thought that somewhat sickens me. The thought that a Consigliere or Don would take a demotion allllll the way down to Thug just for the BG pricing. This is totally unrealistic, immoral, and disrespectful to Cosa Nostra. Once you have obtained that status in a family, there is no going back to the minor leagues even if you chopped your own legs off.

I have come up with a solution to this problem. Once you rank up to the rank of Made Man you can no longer be demoted back past Made Man. Why? So that the abuse of the system can not continue. This will make leaders and their members truly think about who they are promoting to Made Man. If they want that person to have 100000 BGs, they have to raise the money before they promote them, or buy them at the full rank price. I've no problem demoting from Wise Guy and down, as they are still associates and not full fledged members.

The rank of Made Man is not just any other. Once someone become such when their leader sees fit, they take a dying oath to them and their cause. This is their emergence into the true mafia world. The secrets of their family suddenly become more apparent to them and they swear to uphold their secrets till death. How could anyone ever go back on being a Made Man? They are an important person to the boss now. Why would anyone give it up? Temptation clouds when there is an obvious loophole.

People would still raise money for cheap bodyguards. Nothing is ever going to stop that. People would just be selling credits earlier in an account, or they would have their Made Man promotion held until they could demote back to thug from Wise Guy whey they have sufficient cash. This would give the rank of Made Man more esteem because a leader would really have to think about who to promote strategically when they truly thought that person was ready.

So to conclude, my idea is that once anyone is promoted to Made Man, they can not be promoted back down past Made Man. This will stop the abuse of the BG system and ensure leaders keep their moral high ground as well as still have the option to BG up members. This is not taking any form of punishment out of the game as they can still be demoted to Made Man. If a leader feels that the crimes is so great that they deserve to be demoted further than Made Man, that person committing the crime should probably be killed anyway. There is no going back from Made Man.

I see you point in this BUT there are other reasons people get demoted from don or consig down to thug they may stuff up to big for a wrist slapping and to little to be wacked so it would just mean more people get killed because they can't be put them down in rank and also if there is a war and say a boss goes to a new city (once it's over) the new Crew Leader will want them to prove themselves so they get put down to wise guy but if this was implemented they would have to stay at Made Man (minuimin) which some CL's wouldn't really like.

Yes i also agree it is disrespectful but if the coders implemented this isn't really benifiting many people.

So in short I believe the cons out way the pros but very very nice idea :)

Fair enough en all but.. Like Matt said. Not everyone is demoted for BG's.

Diablos pauses..

My idea.. if the gods wanted to stop this is then once someone ranks up the BG price stays at that. Even if demoted it wouldn't drop in price.

So.. A Thugs price is 750,000. He gets Gangster.. 1,250,000. He then gets demoted. Price remains at 1,250,000.

Until the gods decide its time to stop the demoting for BG's then it remains how it is.

1. If you are a Made Man or higher in a family, and your family loses a war, you Die with that family. There are very few cases in which a Made + lives through a war. The only reason I can think of is safe listing which is chosen by the HSL personally and no one is going to dispute it because its his job. Other than that you're getting a pine box.

2. If a Don in your family fucks up bad enough to the point where he needs to be demoted all the way back to thug, he should be killed anyway. What sort of crime could you think of that would make a boss feel it required to do such a demotion, and yet not kill that person. A Consig could still be demoted to Made Man, back to square one in the family. How else does a member of the mafia leave? I haven't seen a witness protection feature yet.

i think the demoting is just a part of the 'game'. like, as long as people still acknoledge that this is a game, they will play it like a game, which involves doing things unrelistic like member whoring and demoting for bgs. i say the 'cons' matt came up with turkey turned into pros, so i say its a good feature.

To be honest, demoting past Made Man is unrealistic, BG issue aside. Lets look at a button man. What crime would you have to commit to loose your button? A breach of the most sacred family rules? a breach of Omerta? You'd just be wacked. I have never heard of anyone in the mafia who lost face to the degree that he became a mere associate again and was allowed to rank back up. look at Bugsy Siegal. He lost face, and then some more. Once he was as low as he could go and kept loosing face, they wacked him. He wasn't cast out of the family and allowed to live, which lets face it a demotion to associate would represent.

Good call Turkey.

Thank you Robert I do try.

Keep it real.

Robert think about this half the stuff in this game makes no sense eg. having a heap of bodyguards because in rl your really going to walk around with 50 or more body guards right no you wouldn't and things can happen also another eg. is say your cl dies in a random miss fire (they shoot at a durden and die) or they commit sucide a new cl will invite them but if they must stay at made man it means that they are already part of the family which they are not they have just joined and already getting treated better than someone who has been in the family for there whole life.

Don't agree with you there Matt. If your CL dies through no fault of his own, then you will be taken in by the rest of the cities families. There should be no need for a demotion below made man as your family will already be in good standing in your city. If you decide you want to go to another city, then you are dishonouring your dead leader and deserve to be shot. If a CL somewhere else wants to take you in as a made man already, then that is their perogative and they can deal with that by holding you at MM until you prove your worth again.

As for things not making sense, that is true, but you'll see I've threads about most things in this game that don't make sense. I am the Realism police, and I'd like to see the game as realistic as possible. Sure, as its a game it will never be 100% realistic, but no game ever will be unless the Mafia really get involved and come to your house to whack you.

Just because you are at the rank of MM doesn't mean you will be treated better than others, however for realism sake again if you defected to another family, they would still consider you a button man, they wouldn't expect you to be an associate again. The same reasoning would still fit, if your CL thought enough of you to give you your button, then you deserve it, unless your CL is a complete n00bish asshat, in which case most other CLs probably wouldn't want you in their family at all.

There are only a few unrealistic things in this game at the moment:

1) The Drugs and contraband we smuggle isn't period specific for the Mob.
2) The numbers of BGs you can buy, and also get them by demotion - something that can't easily be rectified without a reset to the game.
3) The whole demotion system which at the moment is abused and used as a way to reward people and not punish them.

If there are others I'd love to hear them so i can jump on that bandwagon too :D

As you said if your CL is a complete n00bish asshat most cl's wouldn't want you in there family unless as soon as you join another family there is a set out rank that you could straight away be promoted but if a cl wants you to prove yourself then it's there for that although yes most cl's don't care to much what rank you are that rank i just said about would be useful for like seeing if they are worthy of mm and then say what ever rank they were they could get promoted straight back to.

Although during a war in rl you would fight to death or run away like a noob so really if ya wanted this as in a real life way it would be good but from my pov in a rp aspect being demoted is a good thing for a cl to have (well bad for the person) like an act that may not be bad enough to kill but to big for a wrist slapping would be like selling drugs or something (as a bad act i don't think you would die but be heavily punished) or a bad thing to add when you get demoted it is way harder to rank up again maybe 5 (or so) as hard or something so cl's will think twice about demoting just for some bodyguards.

Not advocating doing away with Demotion, I like it, simply advocating that once you gety your button then the lowest rank you can be demoted to is MM, if you are an associate then demote all the way back to civilian, go for it :D

As all rtanks above MM are at Cl discretion, then the CL needs only hold you at MM until he decides you've earned your promotion. Likewise he can still remove your gun and he can also not giver you sponsor status. He can also order you not to have a DFP, so there is no reason to demote below MM unless you are doing it to buy cheap BGs

Unless they have broken a rule, and they do not believe it warrants death.

You can't remove demotion below Made. It is used as a punishment where death isn't appropriate - if you remove this form of punishment then you will probably be increasing the amount of made+ deaths.

Taking away peoples choices = not the right way to do it. We are not sheep and we should be allowed to use these tools in any way we see fit. I believe this is one of those occasions where someone should say... "If you want to change it, rank up and do something about it"... or something like that.

Joker, can you do me a favour in that case? Can you please contact all the Godfathers and CLs and ask them this question:

If a Buttonman of yours commits a crime so grievous that you feel that you have to remove his button and bust him back to Associate, would you just kill the idiot and be done with it, or would you demote them back to associate? I'd be surprised if more than 10% would go for the demotion option.

Think about this logically for a moment. What crime could a button man commit that would require him to loose his button?

How about you let me leave my opinion, and stop trying to force yours upon everyone?

By the way - Mistakes. If someone makes a mistake they need punishing but don't necessarily require killing. Any leader worth their salt keeps their members alive rather than just punishing everyone with a bullet to the head.

I've made my point anyway - I'll leave you to your own opinion since you're obviously always right.

The Joker.

I'm not saying I'm always right, and I'm not forcing my opinion on you, what I am doing is debating the merits of WildTurkey's idea with you. However if you are not up to debating it with me, or have nothing to back up your opinion other than its your opinion, then don't get bent outta shape when I offer more to back up mine.

Figuring that you wouldn't take me up on my request, I did the foot work myself. of the 11 CLs to respond so far, 1 agrees with you, kinda. 2 Abstained due to omerta, and the other 8 agree with me.

Again, both WT and I are not advocating the removal of demotion, we're advocating the change that once you are made, you can't be unmade, pretty much as it is in the mafia and always has been.

If you are interesting in seeing my research, I'll be glad to share it with you once its completed.

Think of this say that I was the son of the cl's best friend (cl's do have friends) and i stuff up maybe I do a bad drug deal or something (well even doing a drug deal is a bad thing) they see it fit to derank me but is that really a good enough reason to kill because then the fbi are going to be all over the family so they don't really want them dead but they want them to suffer.

Well losing your gun unless they are constintly taking it it isn't that deficult to get it back.
No sponsorship some people don't like sponsoring.
Not have a dfp heck not everyone has one.

I understand what you are saying Matt, however there are two possible fuck-ups as i see it. 1)Minor and/or accidental (Not sure what an accidental fuck up would be... sure I've made errors of judgement and mistakes by accident, but this is the mafia, not kindergarten) breach of the rules. But say my CL is one of the very few who doesn't want to kill me for fucking up, after all it was only a minor infraction, I said fuck off to a family consigliere instead of yes sir because I didn't know he was a consigliere(again most CLs will not see this as a minor infraction, but I can't think of a minor infraction when you are made. He can demote me back to MM and hold me there indefinately if needs be. He can fine me, he can keep removing my gun, he can order me not to leave my home city. If he demotes me to Thug, within 2 weeks I'll be back to MM, so there's no extra loss. If I recieve none of the benefits of being made, then is my rank an issue? So far the General consensus from the CLs I have asked about this is sumurized thusly:

As an associate you are introduced as a friend of your sponsor. In a meeting, he would say, this is a friend of mine. Kinda like saying this is my mate, and I vouch for him. When you get your Button, you stop being a friend of mine, and become a friend of ours. Being introduced as a friend of ours means you have proven your worth and are beyond reproach. There is no going back from this. You can't go from being a friend of ours back to being a friend of Mine.

Now if we find a minor offense worthy of demotion, surely its only going to be a rank or two anyway, not a complete loss of status.

2) A medium to severe breach of the rules. This will always result in death so demotion isn't an issue.

If you are an associate, you are far more likely to get off with a demotion rather than death, after all, you are still green and don't know all there is to know about the politics. Made men should know better, and therefore something you do as an associate that see's you demoted, is far more likely to get you killed.


Now, please forgive me, I'm not trying to beat you over the head with my point of view, I'm just trying to lay it out as well as i can, and perhaps persuade you that it is the right point of view. however, if you can do the same, and show me how I'm wrong and how a demotion as a punishment from button man to non button man is realistic, I'll be happy to listen and alter my opinion accordingly.

I will also admit that part of my support for this is a possible end to the process of demotion from high rank to low rank just to buy BGs, something that i personally believe, and have gone on record before as saying, is cheating the system. Its a loop hole that the admins never got around to closing, and as such it is abused on a daily basis. Demotion should be for punishment only, not so i can cheat the system and buy 300 Bgs at 750k each instead of only 20-50 at full price. Again there are many players and CLs who agree with me on this, however as the way this game is played means the stronger you are the longer you live, we all have to use the same loophole or be left in a far weaker position. No GF or Cl would refuse to demote his people and BG them up to the hilt because everyone else does it and not to do so would mean that CL or GF and his family being slaughtered during a time of war.

Admin need to either step in and resolve the issue, or all CLs and GFs need to come to an agreement to outlaw the practice, something that would be next to impossible to police. Sure WT's idea won't stop it completely, but it will reduce it somewhat.

Incidentally, for anyone who is interested, the replies I recieved from the various leaders can be found here:
http://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/98771/tpass/5181d7b9dde4f3ee2955e88df495087e

sorry because this has been said many times before but when you're made your made. It is highly likely someone demoted from mademan will fl flip. not because of weakness of character but because being made is so important. Nobody can take being made away from you and if you are in a crew where mistakes end up with your button being taken then your button is useless and your made man status just a present reliant on someone elses goodwill. ie if you can be demoted from made man you were never made in the first place.

I have it on good authority that Fyodor was drunk last night. Ignore his ramblings.

personally i thought your ramblings made good sense Fyodor_