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Here's idea to give PC'S a sense of progress.
Each time a game event affects a gang, it takes damage points Maybe 1 point per gangster imprisoned or killed, 1d6 per captain/crew chief/special character captured or killed, 2d6 for the boss getting captured or killed.
Maybe the gang can heal 2d6 if the PC'S fail to prevent them pulling off a big score.
When a gang reaches 100 damage it has to roll on a Morale effects table, possibly even disbanding. It rolls again at each 50 points of damage.
Sounds good, but I'm cool with this being squishy. Also, I'm not convinced that all gangs are created equal. IMHO, the FREE MEN aren't as good as the Wound Ravens at extortion, but if a heist has to happen the FREE MEN are better at doing that. There is an M.O. to a lot of these groups that we should be aware of. Here's an idea. Let's call the hit points like a “Percentage”. Rather than rolling randomly, let's just decide how many “kingpins” or even how many adventures it takes to bring one of these down a peg, or down for good.
NEW IDEA: instead of hit points, why don't we rate a gang's power by how many districts they have? It is true that not all districts are created equally. However, we should be able to allow PCs to clear a single district in one or two game sessions. That should be the bar in my opinion. Want to take out a gang? Clear that district.
I think that 1-2 game sessions is optimistic for wiping a gang out of a district. I think the way to bust a gang is to get people to think that they're losers, so it's overall gang attrition, not localized turf war that breaks the gang. But, we can set a fixed condition for each gang (e.g., Wound Ravens: become disordered if Father, Son and Holy Ghost eliminated at once, disband if 5 crew chiefs eliminated while disordered).
What I want to avoid is doing gang demographics, that's a rabbit hole that leads only to madness.
The reason I was pushing hit points is that I was thinking that most of the adventures will take the form of a gang or super criminal springing a plot on the city and the heroes responding. They will incidentally do damage to gangs in response. Hit points for gangs gives us a way to track that and then maybe suggest some pro-active moves on the players' part.
I've come to accept that as much as I am enamored of the idea of player-driven sand-box action, in reality, the players sit on their thumbs waiting for something to react to. They don't make long-range plans, they don't set role-play goals for themselves, they don't think much about the game between sessions. So, this campaign, when I run an adventure, it's going to start with something big to react to and run its course from there. Maybe, just maybe, if they see that the Wound Ravens have taken 75 hit points of damage, they'll for once say–hey, next time let's actually go get those guys and finish them off, if not, it's a small investment on our part.
Heh! See, I kind of like the idea of “gang demographics”! I totally agree that “the way to bust a gang is to get people to think that they're losers”, and that we should come up with fixed conditions to break each gang. Okay, I'm on board with “hit points” as long as the gang can “heal” if their gang breaking conditions aren't met.
Regarding “player-driven sand-box action”, maybe we need to build something into our character creation system to generate that motivation. I'm watching Netflix's “Luke Cage” series right now, and it appears to me like for as much as Luke reacts to Cottonmouth's gang, he does plenty of sand box ass kicking because he's taking revenge or trying to protect someone. Maybe we offer bonus character generation points, or create new disadvantages that require PCs to hold a grudge against a certain gang or crime? Maybe once they “buy off” their disadvantage by achieving a goal, they may get an extra advance by choosing from a deck of new “disadvantages” which are basically just goals?
What about killing? Regular folks aren't going to be cool with vigilantes just mowing down people – even if they are gangsters. Those people have mothers and siblings and perhaps children who may be quality human beings even if they are lousy scum-sucking dirtbags. Should there be a “heat” mechanic that encourages bad guys be “brought to justice” rather than just murdered in their sleep?