Turning Down the Heat (Unwanted Attention for Unpleasant Actions)

[MGibster]

I've had a lot of time to come up with campaign ideas since COVID hit, and I've got another one. I'd like to run a Call of Cthulhu campaign set in Providence, Rhode Island during the 1920s. Each of the Investigators (PCs are Investigators in CoC), would either be members of the mob or somehow connected to the mob. At the start of the campaign, we'll focus more on mundane gangster type problems such as engaging in criminal activities including bootlegging, numbers, prostitution, racketeering, etc., etc. and slowly introduce aspects of the Cthulhu mythos as we progress.

In Night's Black Agents (NBA), a completely different game, there's a mechanic called Heat which measures how much attention the player characters are attracting from law enforcement for their actions. The consequences of having a high Heat is that it increases the risk of law enforcement interfering with their actions. And I'd like to adopt a similar system for my CoC game. At first, I thought this would be a great way to force the players to be a little more reasonable in their criminal endeavors. i.e. I didn't want to see anyone walking through Federal Hill in broad daylight with their Thompson mowing down rival criminal gangs. But now I'm less interested in using this as a stick to moderate their behavior and more interested in using this as an interesting challenge for them to overcome.

As in NBA, the characters generate a low level of Heat just by existing as criminals. i.e. Law enforcement is aware of them, likely has files on them, and at least makes some effort to keep tabs on them though they're not necessarily the priority. Additional Heat can originate from the actions of the Investigators themselves or from other people/monsters. If a new representative from the Anti-Saloon League breezes into town and speaks about the shameful and illegal drinking going on, this may inspire the city council to direct the police department to busting some speakeasies thus increasing the Heat. Likewise, the Investigators may pull off a big robbery which will also increase the Heat. And heck, a Mythos creature might butcher someone bringing up the Heat for everyone in the area.

But how to lower Heat? If enough time passes with no arrests or new developments Heat will go down, if something else draws the attention of the police, or the blame is pinned on someone else. I guess what I'm really looking for are two things: What are some of the different ways Heat can manifest? It doesn't always have to be the police battering down the door. It could be city inspectors making a nuisance of themselves, the local WCTU protesting outside someone's establishment, etc., etc. And what are some options for lowering Heat? Bribing the right officials might do the trick. How about open a soup kitchen or donating to civic projects? Any ideas?

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Speaking as someone who runs games with Heat rules (Night's Black Agents, Blades in the Dark), whenever the PCs are travelling in town, feel free to spring a random police questioning/search on them. The higher the Heat, the more penalties on the roll needed to get through without getting into trouble.

There are lots of different ways to manifest Heat, but this is the one you go back to when you can't think of anything.

 

[Umbran]

And what are some options for lowering Heat? Bribing the right officials might do the trick. How about open a soup kitchen or donating to civic projects? Any ideas?

Bribing officials, of course.
Blackmailing officials may have similar effect.
- You may get independent dirt on an official
- Make a public official complicit with your own actions
Framing someone else for your offenses.
Snitching on other crews.
Assisting the authorities on other matters - "You helped solve the murder, so we'll overlook your larceny... this time."
Make arresting you a drawback - "Sure, you can bring me in Detective, but I'm supplying hooch for the Policeman's Ball at cost!".
Public acts of good works - soup kitchens and such
Public acts of high morals.
Public acts of bravery - "He can't be a bad guy, he swam the flooding river to save a kitten!".
Ingratiating yourself with a moral public person - "You can't arrest him! He's Abuela's favorite nephew! You'll turn the whole neighborhood against us!"
Ingratiate yourself with someone close to the authorities - "You can't arrest him, he's engaged to the Mayor's Daughter!"
Get accused of something you didn't do, and prove your innocence.

 

[MGibster]

Snitching on other crews.

That one's a lot of fun and has some ripe potential for a mob game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I guess what I'm really looking for are two things: What are some of the different ways Heat can manifest? It doesn't always have to be the police battering down the door. It could be city inspectors making a nuisance of themselves, the local WCTU protesting outside someone's establishment, etc., etc. And what are some options for lowering Heat? Bribing the right officials might do the trick. How about open a soup kitchen or donating to civic projects? Any ideas?

Heat can also be from rival organizations. Or the press. Or maybe citizens’ groups. It doesn’t have to just be law enforcement groups, though there’d be plenty of those taking interest.

Lowering heat might depend on who it was that was taking notice. But bribery and intimidation are a couple of the big ones. Others might be forming alliances, informing on others, performing civic services and the like.

I’d honestly lean on the players to come up with ideas here. They’ll likely surprise you. If this isn’t the kind of game element they’re used to, they may have some initial uncertainty, but once they get past that, they’ll likely come up with all kinds of interesting ideas. Let them. Take their ideas and help make them work.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Robin Hood acts. Make the locals love you, so they don't help the police.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

That one's a lot of fun and has some ripe potential for a mob game.

This reminds me of a story from my game.

To escape the consequences of Heat in my Blades in the Dark game, my player snitched on her rival Flint, leader of a smaller spirit trafficking gang, and got him locked up in Ironhook Prison. Then later, she arranged a jailbreak mission to free Flint, to make use of his very particular skills to overturn the spirit trafficking market.

However, in a twist, the crew found Flint's soul had been extracted and placed into a spirit jar by members of the Cult of the Empty Vessel, who were preying on prisoners in Ironhook. The crew members turned the mission into a robbery job against the cult members within the prison, stealing not one but several spirit jars in the process.

Once the crew managed to put Flint back into his own body with the help of their dangerous business associate Lord Scurlock, the spirit trafficker had a remarkable transformation, turning from his villainous ways to become a vigilante for the forces of good! The only problem was that his loot was hidden in Ironhook's work camp by the other members of his gang. So our crew literally launched a second consecutive mission to raid Ironhook. To make a long story short, they not only succeeded in their goals, liberating both loot and Flint's grateful gang, but also impressed the corrupt assistant warden of the prison, and ended up going into business with him!

 

[Ixal]

I don't see how performing nice acts would lower heat. Just because you opened a soup kitchen doesn't prevent people from investigating you. Donating to the police on the other hand...

Besides that:
Forge or destroy evidence
Get a new identity
Forge an alibi
Frame someone
Call Saul (or other lawyer)

 

[MGibster]

I don't see how performing nice acts would lower heat. Just because you opened a soup kitchen doesn't prevent people from investigating you. Donating to the police on the other hand...

Heat comes from, in part, the desire of regular people to see something done about the criminal activity. Al Capone was a somewhat popular figure, and he did sponsor soup kitchens and other charities in addition to bribing authorities, but that popularity started to wane when gang violence became too much especially after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Regular people who at one time kind of ignored Capones bootlegging activities were just sick of the violence and put pressure on the authorities to do something about it.

 

[GrahamWills]

But how to lower Heat? If enough time passes with no arrests or new developments Heat will go down, if something else draws the attention of the police, or the blame is pinned on someone else. I guess what I'm really looking for are two things: What are some of the different ways Heat can manifest? ... And what are some options for lowering Heat?

I ran NBA for a long, very successful campaign. It was pretty rare for heat to reduce in that game (not sure if I ever did, actually), mostly because in NBA, players become more powerful over time, so that if they do nothing, they can easily overcome the heat they generated previously. Basically, initial characters are seriously inconvenienced by regular police action, whereas after a year of (real-world) play, it's trivial for anyone faced with a simple police person to handle them.

Call of Cthulhu is trickier because characters do not become more powerful. If you are using the NBA style heat of "people are paying attention to you" then pretty much the only thing you can do to reduce it is to have time pass. If you are public-spirited or do anything to draw attention, heat cannot reduce under the standard NBA model. So the only actions possible are ones to reduce attention, and the best way to do that is divert attention to someone else, for which there are multiple possibilities mentioned in this thread.

One simple, mechanical way of lowering heat might be to allow players to voluntarily reduce their credit rating -- spending their personal reputation to draw off heat. That would have the effect that as the players generate heat and "pay it off" they end up becoming more isolated form society ... which seems pretty Cthulhuesque.

As an aside -- I love the heat mechanic. I knew it was awesome when I heard my players say "no, we can't sell the gold bullion in Italy, we have too much heat there. Let's try France". And then later, when they stole an assault helicopter from a Romanian Air Force base and used it to reduce a prisoner from Dracula's forest hideout, as they left Romania behind them: "Yeah, I don't think we'll be going back there for a while. We probably generated a lot of heat". Indeed they had, and did not return until near the end of the campaign.