Buying off notoriety. Options

[Hagga]

I cannot, for the life of me, think of a way to represent buying off notoriety with street cred in game. I understand the mechanics, but can't noodle out a way to model it (and the associated public awareness score drop). Any ideas?

[darthmord]

Do low profile stuff, avoid the limelight for a while. Orchestrate a big to-do involving someone else. The moment word shifts to the latest *big thing*, attention is less focused on you.

[CeeJay]

IMHO that is a pure game mechanic used to keep Street Cred and Notoriety values in check, that doesn't really have an in-game representation.

That said, what darthmord said is certainly valid.
Another way to represent this, is maybe to change your modus operandi. You know, use different weapons or other signature items, change the way you dress, move to a different neighbourhood, stop visiting the places, bars and restaurants you usually frequent, that kind of things that make it hard to connect you with your previous life.

-CJ

[Aerospider]

Notoriety results from reasons people wouldn't want to work with you or be of service to you, whilst street cred is the opposite. Someone who is famously incompetant or psychopathic, say, will have high notoriety and find it difficult to convince people he's someone worth dealing with. Conversely, someone who gets jobs done without fuss or achieves particularly heroic feats to overcome daunting odds will have high street cred and find that his reputation greases the social wheels.

Therefore, technically, buying off notoriety has already been represented. In raising their street cred the character has gone some way to undo the negativity attached to their reputation through earlier misdemeanours. Instead of becoming a champion of the shadows their street cred has made them not-as-much-of-a liability in the eyes of people who've heard of their exploits.

[AStarshipforAnts]

I thought of it as laying low for a while, and/or helping some of the information about you disappear. While you aren't doing anything interesting, the public eye moves elsewhere.

[Karoline]

Notoriety results from reasons people wouldn't want to work with you or be of service to you, whilst street cred is the opposite. Someone who is famously incompetant or psychopathic, say, will have high notoriety and find it difficult to convince people he's someone worth dealing with. Conversely, someone who gets jobs done without fuss or achieves particularly heroic feats to overcome daunting odds will have high street cred and find that his reputation greases the social wheels.

Therefore, technically, buying off notoriety has already been represented. In raising their street cred the character has gone some way to undo the negativity attached to their reputation through earlier misdemeanours. Instead of becoming a champion of the shadows their street cred has made them not-as-much-of-a liability in the eyes of people who've heard of their exploits.

I like this description alot.

It isn't so much that you are buying it off as they are canceling each other out.

As for why that lowers public awareness? Well, maybe when you buy it off, people stop talking about how incompetant you are at hardware because of that time that you simply kicked down the door during this one run, but they also don't really talk about the run either because the only thing that makes it special was how much you sucked at getting through a locked door.

[deek]

I was thinking about this and why not let the mechanic of buying it off be part of the award after a run? I had just let my group buy it off as they had points, in between sessions, but I could see playing through some milk-runs and the sort and at the end, allow the exchange to happen as part of the reward.

This could be done either in addition to a karma reward or in place of it, i.e. after the run the players get to buy off up to 7 points of Notoriety.

I think that makes it more believable, in-game, if that is what you are wanting.

[Catadmin]

The one thing you should be careful of, though, is buying it off too quickly. Some Notoriety issues should be scalded like scar tissue and take a long time in fixing. If, for instance, you were the dude who let loose the insect spirits in Chicago, I don't think a lot of people would be forgiving you anytime in the next... oh, two millennia or so.

But if you're just the guy who sucked at getting through a locked door (Karoline, I just LOVE that image. @=), then I'm pretty sure it can be worked off with a good 4 or 5 runs in which you prove you actually can get through a door-open, locked, or non-existent.

[Ascalaphus]

The way I'm handling it right now, is that characters don't gain Notoriety for most negative qualities. Instead, they start with a negative Street Cred. While on very rare occasions, Incompetence may make you scary, mostly it should just hamper your credibility as a professional.

I'm not sure if I'd even allow buying off Notoriety the old-fashioned way. The thing my system has difficulty with is Public Awareness, but that was a tricky beast anyway.