That’s not even a hack, really. The instructions under Reduce Heat read: “Say what your character does to reduce the heat level of the crew and make an action roll.”
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It actually does say that. I interpreted it like you’re supposed to roll one of your actions, like for Long Term Projects…
Was I supposed to set Position and Effect all this time?!
I don’t know if it’s kosher, but I did. If a roll failed, then it impeded results. If it was success with consequences, then I’d sort out some other kind of consequence stemming from their intervention.
However, I also took into account critical successes - which happened THREE times that I can remember - during actions to reduce heat. So I made sure they got something extra from it. For example; improving status with another faction, a tip on a well-paying score, or even improving relationships with rivals or contacts.
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I’d set Position and Effect any time you make an action roll, even if, for downtime actions, it’s usually Controlled/Standard.
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I’m not running a FitD atm, but next time… It’s an excellent way to make more complications outside scores!
“I talk to people nearby to get them to be quiet about what happened. Whoops, a 3” 
There is ambiguity here, which has been discussed a few times on the Discord. The player kit for REDUCE HEAT does not say “make an action roll”, but “roll your action”. So just like another downtime roll, a fortune roll without consequences. It’s more coherent with the normal downtime activity rules. It’s probably an editing bug.
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I’m leery of that interpretation. At my table, at least, the ref is usually responsible for furtune rolls. The passage quoted specifically tells the player to roll, which is what you’d expect from an action roll. And it starts out my instructing the player to say what their character is doing, which is the normal precursor to an action roll.
I know that Harper was revising until the last moment, so it’s possible that the action roll there was a last moment addition, or maybe even something he meant to remove to square the text with the playsheets, but given that I think it actually plays better as written, I’m not inclined to agonize over authorial intent in this particular case.
Of course, this could be an useful clarification to have.
The incentive is that you don’t have to spend your downtime reducing heat! You could spend your downtime doing all the other cool stuff.
players the world over don’t do bad things to their characters unless you give them the right incentives.
Yes they do! in fact, I’d argue it’s hard to enjoy FitD games if you have this “optimal decisions” mindset. You have to go in to these games with the mindset that its good to fail and do suboptimal things in the name of a good story
Rather than there being any issue with the heat system, it just sounds like your players were overly risk averse to me.
Not at all! These are tradeoffs for a reason. Why would your players be realistic all the time? Are they all playing hyper intelligent characters who never make mistakes or take risks?
I feel like it definitely does. You can just award less coin for a mission, or choose that when a player rolls a 5 on a test their minor complication is a level 1 injury. Or you dish out more heat. I don’t recall anywhere in the rules that say you can’t give out level 2 harm for failing a standard test if you are so inclined.
The whole position/effect system codifies what level of harm the GM is supposed to inflict, depending on the position. So it is not “GM inclination”.
Totally correct.
Incidentally, a “standard” Harm for a 1-3 on a “standard test” (ie. a Risky action roll) should be 2 (moderate harm).
Well, technically, on a Risky roll, if 2-Harm is the consequence, you suffer it on 1-5, not only on 1-3.
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Coming to this a bit late, but one question that I haven’t seen asked here is: How are your characters reducing Heat, within the narrative?
If (for example) they’re trying to frame another faction for their misdeeds, what is that group doing in response? If the Bluecoats come knocking at the Lampblacks’ door for a robbery that the Lampblacks know very well that they didn’t pull, they might do some digging of their own. This drops faction status with them, and maybe leads to a turf war.
Or if your group are regularly paying off one of the Bluecoats, maybe that officer gets put under investigation and won’t take any bribes for a while. Or confesses everything to the Inspectors.
Even if there’s no-one directly connected to the group, a string of unsolved crimes in the area might increase the levels of policing in the neighbourhood - so on future scores, the Bluecoats arrive more quickly and in more force.
Just some thoughts.
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Coming to this late.
Having played in a campaign of BiTD (20+sessions) and also GM’d a campaign of S&V (15+ sessions) my experiences of the Heat system have been somewhat different. In BiTD we played a crew of Shadows who specialised in quiet, subtle scores and we also hammered our downtime activities by paying off the blue coats. But we still cranked up the heat and wanted levels, one of the crew did time, and we all carried a couple of traumas and what with upgrading the crew status etc we always seemed to be chasing coin.
My experiences as a GM (S&V) are that Heat is only one way of putting narrative pressure on your players. S&V is more forgiving and Heat is spread over multiple star systems. I really cranked up the game of factions in S&V and had multiple clocks (12+) running in the background. Factions also have downtime activities and make a fortune roll to fill the clocks. If the crew did something to annoy a faction then they would launch and investigation and I broke that investigation down into a series of clocks that eventually resulted in reprisals/obligations etc.
Jeremy - I’d be interested to know if you played the game of factions? Using clocks is a great way, in addition to Heat, of putting good pressure on the players and generates great narrative. For example In our BiTD campaign we seized a claim off another faction and their reprisal was brutal that resulted in a reverse score - an assault on our lair. The rival faction had been tracking us down (clocks in the background) and launched an assault. They burnt down our lair, a few of their number were killed, lots of noise, lots of heat, one of the crew did prison time to reduce our heat and the crew had to relocate their lair which cost coin etc. We declared war on the faction which reduced our downtime activities and our ability to clear heat etc etc…