Pro bono story runs / ungated content

[biscuitWizard]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
As more content gets added, reputation-locked content (where runs are inaccessible to characters with too high a rep) leads to situations where players miss out on new or existing content. This can feel frustrating, especially when entering a region and discovering you’re locked out of story content you didn’t know existed. It also impacts late-game characters trying out new professions (e.g. decking) who are then unable to access early profession-specific content designed to teach them.

Describe the solution you'd like
Allow players to experience content regardless of reputation, even if they are over the intended rep cap — but without offering rewards. For example, if a character's rep is too high for a run, they can still do the run as “pro bono” work, with no payout. Add clear signposting, such as a line when the job is offered: "I can’t offer you much right now, so let’s say I’m calling in a favor."

To prevent these runs from flooding normal job pools, consider:

• Tagging such jobs as "easy work" (e.g. say Have any easy work?)
• Adding a player-side toggle to show/hide pro bono runs
• Optionally allowing full reward the first time a run is played, even over rep, but removing rewards afterward

Additional context
This would benefit players who enjoy replaying story content, trying out new roleplay angles, or learning a new profession mid-game. Some ideas discussed by the community:

• Label these jobs as "pro bono"
• Avoid reward farming by disabling payouts for high-rep characters
• Possibly store which runs a character has completed once, to allow a single rewarded experience regardless of TKE/rep
• Concerns about server strain were raised, but deemed minimal by others, since memory usage and adding MySQL columns are cheap

This change would make content more accessible without breaking game balance or economy, and supports long-term character engagement.

[mudkipslaps]

It would probably be easiest to have jobs be in two pools, the normal pool and the outrepped pool.

Normal Pool works as current.

The outrepped pool works as a separate pool that can be accessed via simply including 'easy' or 'pro bono' in the ask for a job question to a Johnson. This could be accompanied by a default string mentioning its status as said easy work, that could optionally be customized by builders if they so desired.

Realistically when it comes to rewards, I see no reason to fully eliminate them. Reducing by half or to a quarter of their rewards and still including keys and the like would prevent them being reasonable for farming, while still giving some payout. This is especially true given most low rep runs are lower payout than high rep runs before any reductions. Still rewarding keys/items that the Johnson would give out regardless of karma and nuyen wouldn't hurt because A: Most of these are unsellable, keys, soulbound, transitional (not Best in slot), or are often unique and B: It would help prevent issues with items required for some shops and quest chains being locked behind low rep ceilings on accident.