The Killer Crime Families of Garnock aka All About Organized Crime in Fantasy by John Josten is a generic role playing game supplement published by Board Enterprises. This is part of the Small Bites series and is the first “World Walker” edition (unlike the previous two, The Mercenary Vators of Myork and the The Avatar of Manoto); an abbreviated version about half the length of the full edition, the latter only available to Patreon supporters.
This is an 18 page PDF that is available for free from RPGNow. One page of the PDF is the front cover.
The first page of content is the Introduction, which explains that the supplement is about organised crime, Garnock and its military, and the Table of Contents.
The Fletnern Wiki is a number of articles reproduced from the wiki, on items, groups, the military and city, all related to Garnock and its crime families.
The Sounding Board is a series of reproduced blog posts.
Organised Crime talks about what it does in real life through protection rackets, and how they actually do provide protection in exchange for the money, the author having grown up in an area dominated by organised crime.
Street Kids (in fantasy) considers what children will be doing in fantasy settings, and how they are often potential witnesses, and therefore sources of information.
Thugs and Two-Bit Gangsters (FRPG) says that these are bullies who haven’t succeeded; big, tough-looking individuals who lack the actual ability to back up their appearance and push people around. Eminently replaceable for their bosses.
Fantasy Thieving Specialists says that thieves will specialise and acquire knowledge on what they steal; those who steal from spell users, for example, will need to know at least something about magic.
A Note on Culture examines two plays, one in Myork and one in Garnock, and what is considered to be the bad guy in each.
The Thrill of the Heist talks about the appeal of stealing things, and heist films.
Information Gathering is how a party gets information, and how the best way can change depending on the locale.
Lifestyles of the Magical and Mundane is a day in the life of a mid-level organised criminal who is in charge of a protection racket.
News of Fletnern has The Origins of the Preadomus Families, which describes how the organised crime families gained power and how the current dominant family got that way. The Legend of the Villenettis gives the origin of the currently dominant family. The Villenettis and Steel Plume is how the family and the Steel Plume troops control the city. This includes rewriting history a little. The Conquering War has a mini-timeline of this, which is resulted in the family and troops gaining control.
The Good Life gives some details on lifestyle in Garnock.
Finally, What’s Missing gives an overview of what other material is in the expanded version.
The PDF has bookmarks covering the major sections, but not the subsections. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are a number of black and white stock illustrations. Presentation is okay.
As usual, this is more of a collection of somewhat connected articles than a coherent whole.
The culture of Garnock is described as being rather Italian in nature (the expanded edition considers how and why it resembles Rome) as are the crime families. The crime families themselves effectively run the government, so it could be considered debatable as to whether or not they are truly criminal.
The portrayal of the crime families is interesting; they are not portrayed as being bad. People pay protection money and get protected – to a degree that may well go beyond what the law would be capable of. Organised crime does not permit disorganised crime, and those protecting the areas are themselves living in them. So they want a safe place for their own children to grow up. Random criminal activity is dealt with harshly. This is perhaps not a typical portrayal of organised crime, but it looks like it’s based on actual real life experiences translated into the game.
The Killer Crime Families of Garnock aka All About Organized Crime in Fantasy is perhaps not what might be expected from the title and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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