Author Topic: Other Interstellar Players - Criminal Organizations?  (Read 1025 times)

CungrVanck

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Other Interstellar Players - Criminal Organizations?
« on: 08 August 2013, 10:15:51 »
Throughout the many Battletech products, there are mentions of criminal organizations (i.e. Mafia, Yakuza, Triads, Tongs, etc.).  These have usually been passing references with little to no details and have no effect on the storyline.

To your knowledge, has there ever been discussions on elaborating on these criminal enterprises?  They would make an excellent entry in any new Interstellar Players book!

Thanks for your time!

HABeas2

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Re: Other Interstellar Players - Criminal Organizations?
« Reply #1 on: 08 August 2013, 11:56:15 »
Hello,

To be blunt, we have discussed it, but found little of use there that we could expound upon more than the passing references in the main books. I mean, what can we really say about them? Organized crime rings would vary regionally, even down to planetary and city levels, based on what the local laws, contraband, and economic systems are. After a while, they'd get so "generic" that differentiating them would be more like filling out a Mad Lib rather than an interesting aspect of the setting. ("The [insert last name] family operates on [world names], and specializes in [crime], [crime], and [crime]. They have been known to make use of [color] [item] as their official calling card, and they are said to be run by a [gender] known as [name].")

There is also the main theme of the setting: BattleTech is largely a universe more centered on grand-scale politics and military actions, rather than police and crime lords. While interstellar conglomerates have occasionally made themselves known in the various conflicts and activities in the setting, we felt to over-emphasize corporate or organized crime activity was basically "encroaching on Shadowrun's turf".

Thank you,

- Herbert Beas

CungrVanck

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Re: Other Interstellar Players - Criminal Organizations?
« Reply #2 on: 08 August 2013, 13:04:12 »
Thank you for the fast reply!  Also, thank you for the blunt answer.  Those are the best kind!

Your comments on the scale of Battletech not being a good fit for fleshing out crime syndicates make perfect sense.  It also leaves me free as the story teller to create something different for my role players to deal with rather than the usual 'mech assault.  Muhahahahaha!

Thanks again and keep up the great work!




 

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