Families and organized crime

A family is four to a few dozen players with a chain of command, a shared bank, and jobs that need more than one person. It is the part of the game that turns a solitary grind into something you show up for.

The chain of command

Soldier, capo, underboss, boss. One rule does most of the work: you can never act on, or promote to, your own standing or above. A boss cannot walk away from a populated family without naming a successor.

The bank

The family bank has a permanent, unalterable record of every deposit and withdrawal. Nobody — including the boss, including staff — can edit it.

This genre's defining drama is a boss draining the bank and vanishing. The record does not stop it, but it makes every dispute settleable, which is most of the problem.

The family job

The family's own crew work: four seats, a day of planning, capo and up to put it on the table, and one a day. It pays every member the same band, and it is the biggest single thing a family does together.

Signing on starts an hour-long clock of its own, so nobody works a whole board in a minute — the seat you took is a commitment rather than a browse. A seat also costs a stake up front, which comes back if the job pays and is kept by the police if it doesn't.

Everyone is paid on success. On failure everyone loses the stake and takes a beating, and the police book whoever they get — that part is rolled one man at a time, so some of the crew walk and some don't. A crew that never fills doesn't run at all, and everybody's stake is returned.

It is one entry in the wider heist catalog: the other three jobs need no family and are open to anyone on the heist board. See heists.

Turf

Families claim districts, paid for from the bank, and districts pay income back into it daily. Contested ground costs more than empty ground, and a family too small to hold territory cannot claim it.

Finding people

Every family in the city is listed, oldest names and newest alike, with its motto, its size and who runs it. The boss's name links to their profile, which is how you ask about a seat — a new family with room is usually a better first home than the one at the top of the standings.

You can also look up any player by name, or see who has been around in the last few minutes. What anyone is worth shows as a band and never as a figure, and what they can do in a fight is nobody's business but theirs.

Keeping track of people

You keep two private lists: friends, and a watchlist for anyone you would rather know the whereabouts of. Add or remove either from someone's profile.

Both are yours alone. Nobody is asked, nobody is told, and nobody can see either list but you — there are no friend requests to accept or decline, and no way to find out who has added you. Neither list shows you anything a profile does not; it only saves you remembering the name.

Blocking is the third one, and it wins over the other two. A block stops their letters arriving and hides their talk, and it clears both of you off each other's lists. It does not stop them attacking you — that is what the hospital and a bounty are for.