Questing 101

Missions. Tasks. Whatever you like to call them. These are events in their own right that players go on, and can be set up by mid-to-higher authorities in affiliations or by the affiliations themselves. Some are public, involving odd jobs like mining, scouting, delivery, teaching & so forth. Others are more 'malicious' or risky too (tending to be private), such as kidnapping, killing, theft, fighting, trading of 'questionable' goods & so on, with underground factions or very close, trusted long-time affiliates getting them. Event characters can sometimes get these too, but they are reserved for those of the same or similar level to you.

Lethality

Determined on a quest-to-quest basis just like any event. They can be automatically lethal or completely innocuous.

Pay

What you get out of quests apart from loot is determined by Danger Rating. For player factions & families, it is entirely decided by whoever is leading you. This tends to be something only reserved for characters not on payroll (getting a boost to their salary from faction affiliation) or taking on actual troublesome quests like rare, hard-to-come-by encounters or direct combat.

Rather than using a range, these abide by a minimum you can expect to get. This is the base pay that participants have to distribute among one another:
★: lol.
★★: 30'000+.
★★★: 200'000+.
★★★★: 1'500'000+.
★★★★★: 10'000'000+.