It's not mean. It's life-like. There are always consequences. One of my players started to mess with a few mob legbreakers, when they paid him a visit, to get them 'protection'. Those guys got killed in the end, but it almost cost the life of his female co-worker NPC (whom the other player barely managed to save with First-Aid), and in turn caused some more violence. On other occasion the players didn't really care what happened with another 'background' NPC (and a lover of one fo the PC's), and they had to hit a vampire blood farm (WoD) to get her out, kill one of the bloodsuckers, release some unusual prisoners, and go through the Hedge to get out. It was only sheer luck noone lost a soul there. Especially since the only human prisoners they've released (exept the girl they went in to save) turned on them as soon as they could (releasing them was a bad, bad judgement call). Well, they were lucky. Really lucky. Too lucky. I didn't cheat though, since they were in a place where 'dumb luck' is one of the elemental forces.
So, in my games there are always consequences. And they're always comming back to haunt/reward player's for their actions. It's only fair when there are.