Are there any rules about reducing the crew’s wanted level? My players misbehaved a good bit on their first few score, and are now trying to get that wanted level back down into the realm of reasonable.
Are there any rules about reducing the crew’s wanted level?
Are there any rules about reducing the crew’s wanted level?
As far as I know, your best bet is to make it the subject of a heist.
For example, the Unrecommendables are currently waging a shadowy war against a bureaucrat in the city who has an unimpressive title, but wields enormous but subtle influence.
If they wanted to reduce their Wanted level, and they got solid blackmail on her, I’d likely allow them to burn the blackmail advantage and reduce a level of wanted.
According to the first QuickStart, wanted levels are permanent.
But nothing is impossible and like Andrew I could see doing something to reduce it. However I would consider that a huge undertaking – I imagine a wanted level to be something that reaches the broader Bluecoats / Inspectors organization and making it go away would be a big deal. The criminals would also need to be careful not to just generate more and more Heat while trying to reduce it…
(One quicker solution: the classic crime story setup of having the crew team up with / work begrudgingly for a powerful law enforcement figure or agency who can make things go away / shield them from lesser cops.)
I really like the idea of teaming up with law enforcement grudgingly. I also think another way to do it would be to frame up an enemy and lay your misdeeds at their door.
It happens in so many stories. Think of Whitey Bulger, or The Greek in The Wire season 2, or where it happens in every GTA game… Maybe a Bluecoat Commander or someone on the Council needs a desperate crew to handle their dirty work.
Another great example is Peakey Blinders, and how the criminals are pressed into government service (and how hard they fight to subvert the relative positions) for both seasons 1 and 2.
Of course, you could also do what corporations do. Split up your assets, scatter, and quietly reform in another neighborhood and do the exact same shenanigans while sticking your creditors with your debt of public service. =)
Considering the Inspectors are their allies, I think I will give the crew the option of doing more black work for them so the intervene on the crew’s behalf
The main way you make an anti-hero sympathetic is by pitting the anti-hero against a threat that is much worse.
One possibility is to find the identity of the one filling the hollows with spirits. The faces of the criminal agents may change but the animating ghosts are the same ones, making the ring difficult as hell to crack. The inspectors can’t get at them very well within the confines of the law. They need someone the hollowers won’t see coming…
RELATED: does anyone have any experience with, or advice on, replacing “Wanted” level with negative rep with The Bluecoats? I’ll play BitD as written until I get a better hang of it, but I really like the idea of the Bluecoats being just another faction, albeit a well-equipped and broad-reaching one.
Part of what is deliberately fuzzy about Wanted is that it’s a general sense of how lightly you need to tread because others are annoyed with you. That’s REALLY abstract.
I like what you’re suggesting, of making it a factional issue.
There’s no guaranteed mechanic for reducing wanted level, but, as Andrew and Jason say, you can always attempt anything by setting it out as a goal and working toward it.
… and now I do have a mechanic for reducing wanted level. It has to do with incarceration. I’ll include it in the next QS update.