Concept Grand Theft Auto: Red Line

[Cebra]

On 10/21/2021 at 8:07 PM, Akaviri said:

Brilliant story. I love the first mission. Guessing you had watched Killing Them Softly or read the Friends of Eddie Coyle, felt just the same. I always wanted to do that as a mission. So much tension!

both! i think we pride ourselves on the Higgins comparisons because that's such a perfect encapsulation of the same kind of writing we want to embody: understated, non-glamorous and just f*cking real. Killing Them Softly: big inspiration for this particular setpiece if the linked screencaps from the scene in the movie didnt give it away lol. Comes from a same sort of place; none of this is glamorized, it just is what it is. Appreciate the feedback from you both

[The Coconut Kid]

On 10/22/2021 at 10:31 AM, slimeball supreme said:

---

| PART ONE - THE ITALIAN MAFIA |

| PART TWO - THE RUSSIAN MOB |

| PART THREE - CRIME SYNDICATES |

| PART FOUR - STREET GANGS |

| PART FOUR½ - MAFIA FARM TEAMS |

| PART FIVE - THE LAW |

 

THE COMPLETE AND FINISHED SERIES

THANK YOU FOR READING

This is too good to cover in one post.

 

Let's have a look at the IAA first.

 

I actually wasn't expecting you to develop them much beyond maybe an origin story for "ULPC Guy" and Jon Gravelli. But damn.

 

This is a really comprehensive insight into their relationship with organised crime since, well, time immemorial.  

 

The Mussolini-Don Zio-Trungale anecdote is beautiful. Those were the days. It's a treat to look back at the families beyond the "in the old days it was the Gambettis vs the Pavanos" of the source material you're working with. Memo Stokes is such a fascinating character that I hope this story is one you're able to expand upon in an interaction somewhere along the line -- as far away from the truth as it may end up being.

 

And what is it with the Pavanos and women? Estranged lesbian wife? Drag bars in fascist Italy? It's a subtle nod but I get it.

 

The take on the IAA/CIA here is fantastic. There's a whole world of maturity between the company men here and those we saw the last time we were in a GTA setting in 1992. No jetpacks. No green goo. Now it's puppet governments in Central America and relationships with right-wing interests.

 

Which brings me to my only criticism -- and I hate that f*cking word. The Company are lacking the vignettes of your journos and your cops and your vigilantes. They're faceless, which may well be the point. And this actually speaks louder than five profiles of five stereotypically boring, middle-aged white IAA dudes. But I would love to see your take on a Noriega type, or those right-wing Jamaicans, or shady Central American regimes. Purely for the further reading if nothing else. That's right. I'm asking for homework.

 

Wicked read.

[Cebra]

18 hours ago, The Coconut Kid said:

This is too good to cover in one post.

 

Let's have a look at the IAA first.

 

I actually wasn't expecting you to develop them much beyond maybe an origin story for "ULPC Guy" and Jon Gravelli. But damn.

 

This is a really comprehensive insight into their relationship with organised crime since, well, time immemorial.

thank you so much for the kind words as per

 

Quote

The Mussolini-Don Zio-Trungale anecdote is beautiful. Those were the days. It's a treat to look back at the families beyond the "in the old days it was the Gambettis vs the Pavanos" of the source material you're working with. Memo Stokes is such a fascinating character that I hope this story is one you're able to expand upon in an interaction somewhere along the line -- as far away from the truth as it may end up being.

 

And what is it with the Pavanos and women? Estranged lesbian wife? Drag bars in fascist Italy? It's a subtle nod but I get it.

these were such fascinating things to unearth - the marriage of the mob and the political both in the old country and in America is so f*cking rich to explore. so many instances of these f*cking thugs being used as arms of a reactionary state and worse, later growing into such a complex intermarriage of crime and cooperation that runs all the way down to the way we set up Gravelli and the IAA finding their origins in 70s heroin trafficking. i only found out that Anna Genovese was gay relatively recently and the floodgates for me and slimeball kind of opened up with that revelation because the way her husband benefited from the funds while she was running rackets in a community she cared for (mostly; she was still collecting protection money) - that's such goddamn sleaze. Vito and her were cousins, he had her first husband knocked off so he could marry her - then decades on she's protecting gay and drag clubs from a notoriously overzealous NYPD decades before Stonewall and Vito's funneling the money up the nose of a fascist dictator and his depraved son so they could do coke and have sex parties. Salò sh*t - with the Genovese family backing it. and yes: as far as Zio's employing of Memo Smokes on that hit goes look no further than Third Rail as we intend to elaborate more on it - and if 'somewhere along the line' was intended as a pun it was a good one

 

Quote

The take on the IAA/CIA here is fantastic. There's a whole world of maturity between the company men here and those we saw the last time we were in a GTA setting in 1992. No jetpacks. No green goo. Now it's puppet governments in Central America and relationships with right-wing interests.

so important. a long time ago i dug up a document that pretty comprehensively outlined the relationship between insane right wing Latin American governments, the heroin trade, and the tie that binds - Nicolo Rizzuto and a Venezuelan compound called Rio Zapa. That place had f*cking shareholders and it was nuts to try connecting the dots when seeing the names: Sicilians like Sal Greco. the Mongiovi brothers, who were sons in law of Paolo Cuntrera - namesake of the clan aptly nicknamed the 'Rothschilds of Aruba'. Pizza Connection guys. John f*cking Gambino. so on. they were quite literally funding Yeltsin, Savimbi, even the Contras by moving coke, heroin, and guns through various smuggling routes; the drugs primarily arriving stateside through Venezuelan general Ramon Davila. legitimately insane when you start digging into these names, how it went on for decades and is still so little known

 

Quote

Which brings me to my only criticism -- and I hate that f*cking word. The Company are lacking the vignettes of your journos and your cops and your vigilantes. They're faceless, which may well be the point. And this actually speaks louder than five profiles of five stereotypically boring, middle-aged white IAA dudes. But I would love to see your take on a Noriega type, or those right-wing Jamaicans, or shady Central American regimes. Purely for the further reading if nothing else. That's right. I'm asking for homework.

we actually discussed this and ultimately decided not to because the point is, to a degree, that they're faceless - and also, unlike almost everyone else who we've listed individually here, will not directly appear in the storyline. but now that you've raised this point i'd say it's not out of the question that we may update this in some form once i've spoken to slimeball about it lol. stay tuned

Edited October 29, 2021 by Cebra

[The Coconut Kid]

It's interesting how those same names and schemes keep coming up. Cuntrera. Rizzuto. The Pizza Connection. This is some Grade-A investigative journalist type research the two of you are into.

Which brings me to your journos.

These were a really unexpected inclusion for me. But they are really, really important. GTA, after all, is as much a culture simulator as it is a murder simulator. Probably more so.

It's a credit to the two of you, and the universe that you've built up, that literally the first thing I did when I began reading this section was jump over to your Three Leaf Clover piece. I wanted to grab the names of your reporters, Ned Nierenhausen & Blake Scoppettone, and see if they were here. They aren't, but it speaks volumes about the millions of points of reference I think you have.

Some of this is straight up funny: The Morning Horn; the little blurb Cangelosi Cries Foul: My Heart! The anecdote about President Peck telling the Mayor he could burn the city down for insurance money damn near killed me.

All of it is genius. Jimmy Cast is a name we already know. I get the references to the actual writers you've looked towards and they're too good. Badfellas. Ha ha.

Emigrant interested me the most -- and is a really nice touch. I'd thought about something similar with El Miami Herald once but you've gone above and beyond. An actual Petrovich owned propaganda rag.

Please tell me there'd be ex-USSR paperboys hawking this on corners, fighting out little territorial disputes among themselves?

[slimeball supreme]

  

20 hours ago, The Coconut Kid said:

Emigrant interested me the most -- and is a really nice touch. I'd thought about something similar with El Miami Herald once but you've gone above and beyond. An actual Petrovich owned propaganda rag.

Please tell me there'd be ex-USSR paperboys hawking this on corners, fighting out little territorial disputes among themselves?

this is really really exciting to introduce properly into the world of the story. its also all true, more or less

 

russian gangsterism and the insular russian community of brighton beach have a really interesting bond. evsei agron (emil argov, the cattle prod don) bought out a russian language newspaper in new york city soon after establishing himself as the biggest power in the neighborhood through the seventies and eighties. joseph kobzon, crooner and the 'spiritual leader of russian organized crime' (in this as 'krasivyy vozlyublennyy' valentin prigoda - think the russian equivalent of narcocorridos) was a very close friend of the people who published the biggest russian language newspaper in america. and Novoye Russkoye Slovo, that newspaper, is infamous for glorifying russian criminals and vilifying american authorities. excerpt from red mafiya:

 

Balagula’s fortunes improved markedly when he relocated his family to Brighton Beach and he started to work for the infamous vor Evsei Agron. “Everybody knew his name,” Alexandra cheerfully recalled. “He was so much in the [Russian] newspapers.”

 

kenny petrovich has made hove beach his fiefdom. and hove beach is an insular community wary of non-russians. as the owner of emigrant, he can tell whatever story he wants the people to believe. and thus, kenny petrovich is not a gangster: he is a proud russian emigre and businessman. he an anti-communist crusader and benefactor of the community. he is a legitimate businessman in a variety of businesses: a chain of automobile repair shops, a grocery shipping magnate, a gasoline depot and refueling kingpin, and a newspaper publisher. when he is indicted for racketeering, his reputation will precede him as a businessman. and when he dies, he will likely die a businessman and not a gangster, no matter how much a gangster he is

 

kenny petrovich will be in a minor feud with another russian-language newspaper: one that actually appears in gta 4 and is implied to own vladivostok fm or vice versa - the rather uncreatively named Газета.

Felix will unlock "Mafiya Work" after a future mission, a russian flavor of Butchie's Black Book. among intimidating unwieldy rabbis and various other unsavory activities - you'll be on the frontline making sure those streetside newsstands and kids (randomly squabbling with each other over scraps) f*cking behave.

 

20 hours ago, The Coconut Kid said:

I wanted to grab the names of your reporters, Ned Nierenhausen & Blake Scoppettone, and see if they were here. They aren't, but it speaks volumes about the millions of points of reference I think you have.

ned would very much be a modern crime journalist. podcast runner - was thinking he could be akin to someone like george anastasia, but he's actually more like josh dean. for Three Leaf Clover my personal points of inspiration were both 'the boys in the bank' (the article that turned into dog day afternoon) and dean's GQ article on The Great Buenos Aires Bank Heist - something out of gta 5. both great

 

20 hours ago, The Coconut Kid said:

Some of this is straight up funny: The Morning Horn; the little blurb Cangelosi Cries Foul: My Heart! The anecdote about President Peck telling the Mayor he could burn the city down for insurance money damn near killed me.

also just a great way of recontextualizing the 'worst place in america' thing, which i never felt quite fit the hd liberty city. until the connection to DROP DEAD occurred to me. all stuff im very happy finally has seen the light after years of gestation lol

 

sonny cangelosi - no secret now that in the Angleverse, the man based on carlo gambino does not die peacefully in his home. he is the first major RICO case in american history, equivalent to that of the real life funzi tieri, and he succumbs to heart disease serving a light sentence. b&b hopefully will one day tell how this story happens, but i think its fantastic

Edited October 31, 2021 by slimeball supreme

[The Coconut Kid]

Can I borrow some of that creative genius you two have got going on? How do you look at a couple of news stands and see a propaganda machine where I just see something I've ran over a hundred times?

The Vladivostok connection is another level. I never would've made it. You are going full fiefdom. Always knew Kenny Petrovic was powerful. Now Kenny Petrovic is plain scary. Scarier than Memo Smokes -- and that's saying something.

Now, I want to go into your Vigilantes more in-depth but I'm actually going to focus just on your Avenging Angels for the moment.

I don't follow politics but it's been hard to escape the NYC mayoral race.

I sh*t you not, the second I heard that the Republican candidate was the founder of the Guardian Angels, all of this here with them clicked into place for me! Even better, Uncle Joey brought up the story of that guy getting shot by Junior Gotti and his boys. Then I just knew he had to be here.

Jesus Sentenz is an interesting throwback. It's also interesting to think that, close to twenty years on from Red Line, he'll be losing the Liberty City election to an ex-gangbanging Democrat. All of this will never come back to bite him on the ass. I see what you did there, you clever buggers.

 

[slimeball supreme]

1 hour ago, The Coconut Kid said:

I don't follow politics but it's been hard to escape the NYC mayoral race.

new york local politics are awesome because you can find some of the most craven deranged ghouls running for office. we tried as much as possible to emulate that in both the politics section and in the political aspirations of the psychos in vigilante: lizards wearing the skin of human beings. i was following the current race from the start when the frontrunner was andrew yang, an introvert who always seemed very uncomfortable in the streets talking to people. and i was following it just the same when eric adams caught up, who hysterically lied about his place of residence.

 

1 hour ago, The Coconut Kid said:

I sh*t you not, the second I heard that the Republican candidate was the founder of the Guardian Angels, all of this here with them clicked into place for me! Even better, Uncle Joey brought up the story of that guy getting shot by Junior Gotti and his boys. Then I just knew he had to be here.

Jesus Sentenz is an interesting throwback. It's also interesting to think that, close to twenty years on from Red Line, he'll be losing the Liberty City election to an ex-gangbanging Democrat. All of this will never come back to bite him on the ass. I see what you did there, you clever buggers.

two parts we're really itching to write in this concept: a massive setpiece revolving around rudy giuliani's 1992 police riot - racist cops running ragged through town, beating people throwing trash cans, causing havoc. and the hit on jesus 'max' sentenz

 

cebra and i did homework on the time period, obviously, and what better an encapsulation of the complete gen x apathy toward politics than robert downey junior's awful documentary about the '92 political race. who appears but other than curtis f*cking sliwa? curtis sliwa is a nut. he always went on radio and tv, screamed at people like the angry little outer borough lunatic he is, it's impossible to overstate the presence the man has had in local politics since the 1980s. jesus sentenz was a name we were debating bringing back at all but we decided to jump for it and go overdrive with this outspoken, boisterous, arrogant f*ck putting his name every and anywhere. the puerto rican thing is also a good spin on it, jesus going by max sente (haha) initially to get better opportunities on local radio before compromising and finally admitting "yes, i am a minority. but im one of the good ones."

 

it would've been really funny if sliwa won

 

there's gonna be a mission that combines both the spectacle of the DNC with jr gotti's attempt to take sliwa out of the picture. roy zito, the walking future of LCN, could there be a better gun? this is in the middle of a PR nightmare in the ongoing gambetti trial making constant headlines and dominating conversation. jon gravelli may understand the way life works and the limits of his power; but it will become readily apparent as missions go on that no matter how dominating and affable a personality he is, pete rea's ego is very easily bruised. and that is a man who does not sit idly by while people belittle him on the airwaves and in court

 

1 hour ago, The Coconut Kid said:

You are going full fiefdom. Always knew Kenny Petrovic was powerful. Now Kenny Petrovic is plain scary. Scarier than Memo Smokes -- and that's saying something.

it's funny you bring up memo in the context of this because in third rail there's gonna be a further dichotomy there - not in connection, seeing as the two will never meet, but in differing philosophies toward public relations.

 

memo smokes in 1982, similar to carmine galante, will be publicly touted in liberty city newspapers as the boss of all bosses. there's no factual basis to this at all (he's the head of the 4th largest family in LC), but you see how the press labels every single gangster as a 'mob boss' - trungale will become enamored with the stories being told about him. he will strive to emulate those articles, strive to have the newspapers tell stories he wants them to tell by orchestrating plots purely for the potential press. the power is destined to go to his head, the stubborn and vicious mutt that man is. every other gangster looks at the inconsistencies and wrong details in the news and laughs at it: gonna be an article written for third rail that completely misidentifies various family members just like the local press did at the time.

 

Spoiler

 

memo will see his face broadcasted as capo di tutti capi, the biggest heroin smuggler in the country - and he will be the happiest he will ever be.

 

kenny petrovich is the opposite. this is also something that is explored in red triangle - he wants anything but the recognition of being boss. to the point he buys out the local press and makes them tell the stories about him he wants. ive read about a dozen russian gangsters in europe and even in america who have gotten away with their reputations unscathed despite being linked directly to murder: wikipedia pages where they only brush over the mafioso allegations. this is a russian specialty and a far cry from the thuggery practiced by the likes of mikhail faustin, and one i find significantly more appealing and interesting than the classic this man is the most violent and angry russian boss in town! he's above that sort of thing to a certain extent, insulated to no end.

 

kenny is the russian boss of the east coast for a reason. and he wants to always be that, and remain that forever. to do that, you need to keep your face out of the press for the wrong reasons. his aim will be to engineer history to the affect that the dominant story is the one he wants told. i cannot begin to say how enthusiastic i am to plant these seeds, because as red triangle is coming to a close they're gonna blossom there just the same

Edited November 5, 2021 by slimeball supreme

[E Revere]

Alright. This is gonna be a kinda stupid and nitpicky comment but the inner nerd in me saw it and thought it must be deliberate. I sense that your choice to describe some of the ethnic groups as West Indian rather than Caribbean was deliberate. What's the reason behind that? Is it a term preferred by NYC newspaper writers or something? You guys always give a lot of care and attention when it comes to matching the real life aesthetics of settings, so forgive me if I overanalyzed and wrongly presumed this one.

Edited January 16, 2023 by E Revere

[Cebra]

6 hours ago, E Revere said:

Alright. This is gonna be a kinda stupid and nitpicky comment but the inner nerd in me saw it and thought it must be deliberate. I sense that your choice to describe some of the ethnic groups as West Indian rather than Caribbean was deliberate. What's the reason behind that? Is it a term preferred by NYC newspaper writers or something? You guys always give a lot of care and attention when it comes to matching the real life aesthetics of settings, so forgive me if I overanalyzed and wrongly presumed this one.

not nitpicky or anything! it's an astute observation (and I appreciate you digging through our setting section to find it lol) but the answer probably isn't very glamorous. my understanding has always been that the main way to differentiate between the West Indies and the Caribbean is that the former includes the Bahamas and Barbados as well - this is partly relevant insofar as Crown Heights and Flatbush (South Slopes and Beechwood, ofc) have New York's largest demographic share of people from these regions. they tend to self-identify as West Indian more than Caribbean; irl Crown Heights celebrates the yearly West Indian Day Parade on Labor Day after the permit was yanked from its previous iteration in Harlem so you've got a real hodgepodge of cultures assimilating here and uniting under that banner. to boot, the LCPD database in IV refers to Jamaican criminals - Little Jacob, Badman, and Niko and Roman's association with them - as West Indian. maybe Rockstar chose that nomenclature over Caribbean in light of the West Indies cricket team but who knows lol

[Slezzy]

Very very very beautiful and interesting, I was always interested in the Five old families on NYC and fictional stories like this since a kid playing GTA LCS and GTA 4 for the first time. Thank you so much for writing this I love it so much, I still can't forget the Family Ties story written by creative member here @The Notorious MOB. Loved it immediately by first view. Very well deserved. 

Edited January 22, 2023 by Nicki

[Phil McCrevis]

I like this a lot more than your Third Rail topic. It captures the time period in a way that the other one really doesn't.

[Cebra]

On 1/22/2023 at 8:09 PM, Phil McCrevis said:

I like this a lot more than your Third Rail topic. It captures the time period in a way that the other one really doesn't.

I've gotten that impression from your posts, which is a tad disappointing since you seem to be very knowledgeable about the subject matter! but I suppose third rail, or concepts that have been directly inspired by third rail like mob rules, don't typically meet the glamorous 1980s neon synth vibe which is, at least in our case, intentional.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Cebra said:

I suppose third rail, or concepts that have been directly inspired by third rail like mob rules, don't typically meet the glamorous 1980s neon synth vibe which is, at least in our case, intentional.

I'm honestly preferring these explorations of different sides of the 80, outside the usual synth aesthetic that heavily defines the eighties.

 

Third Rail isn't my cup of tea, narrative-wise, but I do enjoy Greed & Grit alot; and I appreciate the different grittier vibes that the two concepts have attempted to tackle.

[Phil McCrevis]

4 hours ago, Cebra said:

I've gotten that impression from your posts, which is a tad disappointing since you seem to be very knowledgeable about the subject matter! but I suppose third rail, or concepts that have been directly inspired by third rail like mob rules, don't typically meet the glamorous 1980s neon synth vibe which is, at least in our case, intentional.

I kind of see this as like a 1990s version of LC1978 in terms of detail and how it represents that decade with the culture etc. The pictures are also a nice touch to put people in the time period. But I am a big fan of the 80s yeah. It was generally a really gritty time. Especially in the big cities.

 

wise_man used a good word there which is aesthetic. With the other one writing wise you're describing a lot of events from back then but visually for me it's not matching up. The whole thing looks very glossy and in my opinion suggests a 90s or 2000s vibe as opposed to what you're going for. There's a whole hard hitting section about heroin addiction and you have this playful graphic that doesn't really add up.  This one is a lot more complimentary of the story you're trying to tell.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Phil McCrevis said:

The whole thing looks very glossy and in my opinion suggests a 90s or 2000s vibe as opposed to what you're going for. There's a whole hard hitting section about heroin addiction and you have this playful graphic that doesn't really add up.  This one is a lot more complimentary of the story you're trying to tell.

It's actually the most appealing part of Third Rail for me. I see the aesthetic choice there as more of personal creative decision than a decision made to fit the story's tone (gritty or lighthearted). In my opinion, the subway map-inspired designs are used to reflect how interconnected the factions in the story are, especially between the five families; just like how interconnected the many places in Liberty City is through the subway. Because the story is more than about Derrick's addiction, it's the interconnected underworld politics that becomes the focus.

[Akaviri]

On 1/26/2023 at 7:23 AM, wise_man said:

It's actually the most appealing part of Third Rail for me. I see the aesthetic choice there as more of personal creative decision than a decision made to fit the story's tone (gritty or lighthearted). In my opinion, the subway map-inspired designs are used to reflect how interconnected the factions in the story are, especially between the five families; just like how interconnected the many places in Liberty City is through the subway. Because the story is more than about Derrick's addiction, it's the interconnected underworld politics that becomes the focus.

I would throw in that Trainspotting is an obvious influence on the addiction themes, which I think cleverly coincides with the railway styling.

[E Revere]

I want to give my compliments. Initially, I was mostly interested in Felix's storyline. But that didn't stop me from enjoying the hell out of the Bantonvale Boys. I was taken aback. These kids, they feel real, really dynamic. Great dialogue and personality.