The Big Score

What The Big Score is

The Big Score is a recurring event where The Fixer names one target and the whole game gets a run at it. It is not a race with a single winner. Every crew that gets its plan together runs the same job on the same night, and they are all paid out of one shared pot.

That pot draws down as crews settle. A crew that runs the job cleanly takes a full share; a crew that limps in after the well has been drawn down finds less waiting for them. There is no second attempt: one run per crew, per job. When the job closes the whole event is over and The Fixer goes quiet for somewhere between two and six weeks. There is no fixed schedule and no date until he gives one.

Getting in, with or without a crew

A syndicate is five players, one per seat: mastermind, wheelman, muscle, ghost and face. You can found one yourself once you reach Bodyguard, or take a seat somebody else is offering. One membership per player per event, so choose before the seats fill.

You do not need a seat to take part or to get paid. Scouting the target city earns intel, and every crew still forming is buying it: sell it to one on the contracts board and The Fixer pays you favours for every point. His own jobs are posted there too, and every scouting run in the city counts towards them; when the city finishes one, everybody who helped gets a bonus. Masterminds can also post paid work on the board for vehicles, bribe money or a lookout on the night, in cash up front or a cut of what they bring home. Favours spend at The Fixer's store, and whatever you have not spent is paid out in cash when the job closes.

The five seats

• Mastermind: founds the crew, sets everyone's cut, picks the approach and carries the blame.
• Wheelman: gets the crew in and out. Driving carries their beat.
• Muscle: for when the quiet way stops working. Strength carries their beat.
• Ghost: locks, alarms and the parts nobody is supposed to notice.
• Face: talks the crew past the people paid to stop them.

Intel is the preparation

Intel comes in three lines: Routes, Schedules and Personnel. Working the streets of the target city turns energy into intel. Hand it to your syndicate and it counts for the whole syndicate, so a crew that splits the work gets there faster; once handed over it cannot be taken back. There is a daily cap per player, which is why starting early matters more than grinding hard.

What intel buys is choice. Each approach to the job demands its own intel before a crew can commit to it, so a crew that skips the legwork is left picking from whatever is still open to them. Scouting carries a risk of being picked up, and it warms the street for everyone.

The night itself

Until the mastermind sets the cuts, the take splits evenly as seats fill, and every member locks in on the number they can see; if that number changes, they are asked again. Plans lock at a deadline. The mastermind can lock any plan the crew has everything for; at the deadline, a crew with every seat locked in and a complete plan has the best-paying one locked for it, and a crew with none folds, with everything it put in coming back. If no crew makes it, the job ends there: bets come back at once, and anyone holding favours has a day to spend them before the rest is paid out. Once plans lock, nothing changes: no new seats, no adjusted cuts. On the night there is a window of a few hours. Your crew's five beats open one at a time, each when the one before it ends, and only the player holding that seat can make the call; they are notified and have up to 90 minutes. Miss your window and the beat resolves without you, worse than it would have.

The rest of the crew can steady the hands of whoever is playing, from the crew's own war room. Rivals can pay to tip off the law about a crew mid-run, so a loud job attracts company. Every noisy choice raises the alarm for everyone still to go that night.

Marked money, and keeping it

Payment is cash, scaled by how cleanly the crew ran the job and split by the cuts agreed beforehand. Contract cuts come off the top before the crew's own split, and there is a ceiling on any one player's share that rises with rank.

It arrives marked, and marked money does not spend. Fence it immediately for certainty at a poor rate, run it through the wash over several days for considerably more, or sit on it and take your chances. Part of the take can arrive as crates of merchandise instead, which hold their value for a while and then start to slide.

For several days afterwards the law is counting. Evidence picked up during the job feeds a daily audit roll and a final reckoning, and you can burn evidence or buy a file thinner before then. Anyone still holding crates is worth robbing, and the street will sell your name to whoever asks after it.

If you have never done one

Take a seat rather than founding a crew, and scout every day the job is open. Never lock in before your cut is written down. Be online for the execution window, because that is the part that cannot be done for you. And decide what to do with the money before the aftermath ends, because doing nothing is itself a choice and rarely the best one.