What Wanted Level is your crew usually at?
Do they fear it and desperately try to avoid gaining new levels? Or do they take Fiends and ramp it up to boost their turf? Or another approach entirely?
I’m interested to know how it works out in play for others, if it stays consistent around a level or fluctuate a lot?
I imagine it varies a bit based on Crew type as well. Bravos probably tend to care less about it, while the Shadows crew I’m running for have avoided even one Wanted Level until they were almost Tier 2.
Blaze Azelski yeah that’s a good point. Crew will certainly influence it or, really, what abilities the crew takes will. My player’s crew of Shadows have taken Fiends and one has Jail Bird. That combined with high heat producing the main threat in rolling entanglements rather than Wanted Level, they often find themselves with a couple of heat remaining towards the end of a score and then work to find ways to get enough to tip it over into the next level.
The Porcelain Dolls are all about keeping things VERY quiet, as they have a reputation for professionalism. The first thing Constance does every downtime is Reduce Heat. The only time they actually got a Wanted Level, someone went to Ironhook right away.
The Blackfingers still claim to be upstanding citizens, for the most part, so an aggressive campaign of rumormongering and pre-emptive legal action keep them well within Wanted 0.
I run fairly regularly for a crew of Smugglers and a crew of Cultists. They were both trying their damndest to stay at Wanted Level 0, but the Smugglers wound up having a pretty public confrontation with the Red Sashes that knocked them up to Wanted Level 1.
My players are really paranoid about wanted level and someone always Reduces Heat during downtime. However the last couple of sessions things have been escalating quite a bit and I have a feeling that they won’t be able to keep off the radar much longer! [evil GM grin]
Our Bravo gang arsed our way into a war with a higher tier gang pretty early on, and hit Tier 2 and celebrated the night before we were all rounded up and jailed. Live and learn.