GURPS/Organization CR

[Alonsua]

Is there any limit to organization CR? I mean, if I were to set up a new business venture in the United States, would I be able to set up a CR of 4 or 5 for my workers, in example?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Is there any limit to organization CR? I mean, if I were to set up a new business venture in the United States, would I be able to set up a CR of 4 or 5 for my workers, in example?

There are certainly limits. For example, you could not (in this century) treat your workers as slaves, and would face criminal charges if caught attempting to do so. Nor could you put them to death for breaking work rules.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There are certainly limits. For example, you could not (in this century) treat your workers as slaves, and would face criminal charges if caught attempting to do so. Nor could you put them to death for breaking work rules.

The problem is that's all dependent on the setting. There are certainly settings where you could do just that as well as settings where you could have military hardware. Even if a controlled society, you could run an outlaw gang that flaunted the law by supplying controlled substances <or> or be one of the rare merc groups (blackwater is a common TV trope) that can do all sorts of stuff.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There are certainly limits. For example, you could not (in this century) treat your workers as slaves, and would face criminal charges if caught attempting to do so. Nor could you put them to death for breaking work rules.

For the most part, an organization can require members to abide by whatever requirements they want - with certain limitations regarding things that would run afoul of discrimination statutes, particularly in the case of employers and service providers - but the worst penalty they could generally inflict would be expulsion.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

There are organizations, private ones even, which purport to exert the equivalent of CR4 and even CR5 in the US today. Military schools, drug rehabilitation clinics, and actual monasteries dictate lots of aspects of the lives of their members/inmates. They tell people when to get up in the morning, when to eat, what to wear, what to do all day, and so on.

On the other hand, their ability to enforce that CR on individual members on an ongoing basis is limited. Disillusioned monks can walk out the front door at any time, parents can yank their kids from Major Tom's Military Academy For Wayward Youth at a moment's notice, and barring court orders someone in rehab can take off if they want to badly enough.

The key distinction is that organizational CR is not the same thing as societal CR. Organizational CR gives you an idea of how deeply involved the organization is in people's lives, but depending on the society in which they exist, members aren't necessarily prevented from walking away if they feel like it. The organization's Loyalty indicates how likely they are to do so. The GM will, of course, have to come up with their own modifiers for penalizing a higher CR organization attempting to recruit new members in a lower CR society. And, as noted above, civil rights guarantees imposed by the society in which the organization exists may prohibit an organization from taking specific liberties with its members.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Is there any limit to organization CR? I mean, if I were to set up a new business venture in the United States, would I be able to set up a CR of 4 or 5 for my workers, in example?

If you did, expect a lot of people to draw comparisons to cults and organisations like the Church of Scientology, which, of course, is engaged in substantial commercial activities.

CR 4-5 organisations will generally be considered extremely odd in a purely business context and will probably be viewed by others primarily in the context of the control they seek to exert on employees, with any business activities likely to draw less attention, in comparison.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

There are organizations, private ones even, which purport to exert the equivalent of CR4 and even CR5 in the US today. Military schools, drug rehabilitation clinics, and actual monasteries dictate lots of aspects of the lives of their members/inmates. They tell people when to get up in the morning, when to eat, what to wear, what to do all day, and so on.

On the other hand, their ability to enforce that CR on individual members on an ongoing basis is limited. Disillusioned monks can walk out the front door at any time, parents can yank their kids from Major Tom's Military Academy For Wayward Youth at a moment's notice, and barring court orders someone in rehab can take off if they want to badly enough.

The key distinction is that organizational CR is not the same thing as societal CR. Organizational CR gives you an idea of how deeply involved the organization is in people's lives, but depending on the society in which they exist, members aren't necessarily prevented from walking away if they feel like it. The organization's Loyalty indicates how likely they are to do so. The GM will, of course, have to come up with their own modifiers for penalizing a higher CR organization attempting to recruit new members in a lower CR society. And, as noted above, civil rights guarantees imposed by the society in which the organization exists may prohibit an organization from taking specific liberties with its members.

Accepted. I will make it with CR6.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If you did, expect a lot of people to draw comparisons to cults and organisations like the Church of Scientology, which, of course, is engaged in substantial commercial activities.

CR 4-5 organisations will generally be considered extremely odd in a purely business context and will probably be viewed by others primarily in the context of the control they seek to exert on employees, with any business activities likely to draw less attention, in comparison.

Sure, how about CR6?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Is there any limit to organization CR? I mean, if I were to set up a new business venture in the United States, would I be able to set up a CR of 4 or 5 for my workers, in example?

If you mean 'ban anything below CR x from company property or when on the clock', probably as long as you're a private company and the space is not accessible to non-employees, though you may run into flak from various groups (most commonly first or second amendment concerns). It's much harder to limit what people can do when off the clock, or in areas that are public or semi-public.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Sure, how about CR6?

Are you talking about a situation where employees are have no rights to quit, no duties defined as outside their areas of responsibility, no right to refuse overtime (ever) and the employer decides when they are sufficiently sick not to be able to work?

Or is it more than that, does the employer control whether employees are able to date, marry, have sex, have friends, associate with certain indiciduals, read certain publications, use the Internet (without filtersmfor approved websites only), practice a religion (other than, obviously, worshiping their employer) and so forth?