itch.io

What has been retconned from the original?

This may not help solve your issue, but if others are like me I have an interest and desire to play many more TTRPGs titles than I could ever find the time or money for. Even if a quality title is on sale I have to sometimes stop myself from purchase (for budgetary reasons) by asking myself "can find the time/other players to play this with?".   Finding players for non-AAA titles can be difficult Your title may be getting views and interest but not purchases for that same reason.

The cyberpunk-noir combination could also be a double edged sword.  It is a unique concept which could garner interest, however, it is possible those interested in the noir side of the coin are paused by the cyberpunk side or vice-versa?  This is not a complaint about the setting, just a hypothesis.  I received a publisher email mentioning your title going on drivethru which may expose your title to a different subset of the TTRPG audience.  I hope that helps sales/exposure for you.

I would prefer to leave this part of the BITD framework as is.

The issue described may be better solved with GM and players taking a step back/have a talk about trying to focus on story and less meta-gaming.  Urge players to simply proceed how their character would proceed in the story, even if it is not the "optimal" risk/reward.

Alternatively the GM can use BITD rules to push players to cut to the action (something comes up that forces decision/action from players instead of continued debate - time sensitive situation)

Overall the group may need more reflection on choosing story over exploitation of rules,  not rule changes as new rules can still be meta-gamed/exploited.

Also way I read it seems that risk level and effect level are being tied together in the situation described (must have desperate to have greater effect) when they do not need to be as I understand BITD.

In short I feel there are better ways to solve this than a rule change.