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roleplaying:cyberpunk:heat

Heat

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Night City is a sprawling cityscape full of prying eyes and informants (both analog and digital). Anything you do might be witnessed, and there’s always evidence left behind. To reflect this, your crew acquires heat as they commit crimes. After a run or conflict with an opponent, your crew takes heat according to the nature of the operation:

  • 0 heat: Smooth & quiet; low exposure.
  • 2 heat: Contained; standard exposure.
  • 4 heat: Loud & chaotic; high exposure.
  • 6 heat: Wild; devastating exposure.

Add +1 heat for a high-profile or well-connected target. Add +1 heat if the situation happened on hostile turf. Add +1 heat if another faction has marked the crew. Add +2 heat if killing was involved (whether the crew did the killing or not). You mark heat levels on the heat tracker on the crew sheet.

When your heat level reaches 9, you gain a wanted level and clear your heat (any excess heat “rolls over,” so if your heat was 7 and you took 4 heat , you’d reset with 2 heat marked).

The higher your wanted level, the more serious the response when authorities take action against you (they’ll send a force of higher quality and scale). Also, your wanted level contributes to the severity of the entanglements that your crew faces after a run.

Reducing Heat

Say what your character does to reduce the heat level of the crew and make an action roll. Maybe you network with your friend who’s a Cop and she arranges for a few incriminating police reports to disappear. Or maybe you demand the fear of the local citizens so they’re afraid to snitch.

Reduce heat according to the result:

  • 1-3: one
  • 4/5: two
  • 6: three
  • critical : five.

To avoid having to get into position, you might choose to simply “lay low” without choosing an action—in this case, mark 1 edge and roll 0d.

roleplaying/cyberpunk/heat.txt · Last modified: 2018/12/12 18:32 by 127.0.0.1