My current take on weapons and other notable equipment in La Famiglia is that it all belongs to the family (and therefore comes from their reputations) unless a given weapon or item is a "signature piece" (like a fast car or favorite gun) that would come from the character's own reputations.

My problem, then, is how is an item acquired from the Family? Here's my inital thoughts:

Each peice of equipment has a rating in Chips. If this rating is under the Family's own Weapons Reputation then the item is immediately available to anyone who's Rank in the Family Reputation is equal to or under the equipment's rating, assuming the character has a Family-sanctioned reason for the item (if the reason isn't sanctioned then the price doubles, let's say).

If the item is either beyond the character's grasp due to his Rank or lack of a sanctioned reason he can then gamble for the item, risking his reputations. Reputations such as Loyal, Rank, and so on could be put at stake to get enough Chips to "buy" the new item.

Examples:
1) Tony "2-Ton" Parisi, a Rank 5 Thug, wants a baseball bat to smash up some wiseguy's car. The Bat's rating is 2 Chips. Even if he doesn't have an "official" reason to get the bat, his Rank makes him trusted enough within the family to get a Bat (because his Rank 5 is still enough for a 4-Chip Bat).
2) 2-Ton now wants a pistol (uh, a .38 special...) to whack the same guy. The pistol's rating is 5 Chips. If the use is sanctioned (the Family sent him to do this), then he gets it automatically. If, however, he's doing this guy on his own time then he'll need 10 Chips to procure the pistol. He decides to gamble 2 Chips from his Rank and 3 from other applicable Reputations (like "Trusted" or something...) and play for the gun. If he wins, then not only does he get the weapon, but he also gets 5 extra chips to divide between those two reputations. If he fails, then he loses the 2 chips from his Rank (he stepped out of line) and 3 from his "Trusted" Rep (He's up to no good). If he pushes (ties), then he neither gains nor loses any chips and the gun stays put.
3) 2-ton wants six kilos of C4. That's rated at, uh, 20. The Family's weapons Rep is only 12, so he can't get that from the Family at all, unless he can convince someone with a higher rank to gamble Family chips and get it (this part I find particularly shakey, but that it also has potential).

Thoughts? See any problems or issues? Thanks.

Jake

I could see that working. To speed things along it would probably make sense to list off the two categories of stuff that any given character could get..."stuff I can get any time I want" vs "stuff I'll be trusted with on official business". Anything not on the list is a potential conflict waiting to happen.

Sounds good to me. Even the part about the Family aquisitions. In fact, you could make this even more hierarchical. You get from your group whatever that may be. So if you're in a crew, you get stuff from them. The crew gets stuff from the family, the family gets stuff from the Boss Family. The Boss Family gets stuff from the syndicate.

Allow players to really push their chances and go way up the food chain to either score big or lose big. This sort of resource redistribution system could be the whole point of play. That and circumventing it.

Mike

Allow players to really push their chances and go way up the food chain to either score big or lose big. This sort of resource redistribution system could be the whole point of play. That and circumventing it.