So there was a discussion at the start of the year about high stealth games, but it was specifically about the No Traces ability; I’m generally struggling with how rep, heat and faction status work when the whole point is that nobody else know what you are doing. Maybe you and one other party.
I get that the change in status with a faction after you do a score with them as the target, along with the rep and heat, are abstractions for the change in relationship, reputation and unwanted official attention the job caused. It is assumed that small mistakes are made - a bullet casing here, a drunk spotting you leaving there.
That’s all great - I’m on board with the concept. But it makes playing sneaky shadows really hard as the success state is that nobody knows it was you. If your whole aim is misdirection, to place the blame for actions at another’s door through false clues, disguises, spreading rumours etc. If you successfully frame one faction for an attack you perform, without getting spotted and with efforts made to lay a false trail, it would make sense that you do not take a negative change in your faction position. Side note - it would make a good fiction to be able to meet them face to face and brazen it out offering to help them with their “problem”. This is exactly what a shadows crew should be doing.
From that you could argue that you get the rep from those few in the know who you confide in, and others in the Shadows Game who have picked up on more subtle signals, though that’s tenuous especially things you do off your own bat. Heat is also questionable, but it may be the activities round the action that lead to it. Definitely not stable ground.
How have others handled this for Shadows? I guess it’s fine if you are mostly thieves for hire and this only occasionally comes up, but if you go for the spider-like intrigue type crew, do you never take negative status directly? Do you get full rep and heat? I notice that there is an option for vigilantes to swap half rep for putting the blame on someone else. If we go down this route then rep would increase rather slowly unless they are crap at what they are trying to do, which seems counter-intuitive.