How to run an airhsip heist session?

[NOhara24]

Hello Playground,

Through events that are going to happen in the opening seconds of my campaign, my players are going to wreck their airship for the second time. (I rolled credits on the last session as they were seconds from disaster.)

Now obviously they'll have to replace their airship and conveniently they know of one that can be...retrieved. Does anyone have experience in running a heist-centric session?

I've run sessions in which players have brute forced caravans and that was fairly simple, but this is going to be very different. I don't see any way that I could run it except:

Objective 1
Objective 2
Objective 3

Fly away.

Any thoughts?

Some background: The ship is presently lodged in a mountain, sealing the hole its crashing made in a dwarven settlement.

[kraftcheese]

I guess you could do a "getting the team together" thing where they recruit a few npcs to help them out? Not sure if that would be particularly fun, though.

Maybe make them a map of the area, let them create their own plan; give them options to scope out guards, angles of entry, etc. I know that's what I'd find fun; annotating a fancy map and talking to the other players about what we should do.

[ElChad]

It Depends on the length you want the heist to go and your willingness to plan it all out. If you want to have getting an airship to be a one session side quest, then yeah, objective A,B,C.

If the airship is truly important to the plot and you want to make it an arc , then you will want to spread it out, so that it's a lengthy progress which encourages them to be more careful with their new ship. I would take a look at how Rockstar handles heists in GTA V. In that system, the heist is fun, but it isn't the only aspect. A lot of the fun comes from all the preparation involved. Have set up missions to set up certain parts of a ultimate heist, which leads them to certain area to pick up equipment or NPCs

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Build the skeleton of the heist. The pathways, and the major bones. Come up with a layout of the ship, and the obstacles they may face. Figure out who owns the ship and why. What sort of security measures are in place, what would be the definite they get onto the airship. Static parts of the plan that cannot be changed.

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Then you add the flesh to the heist. The variables and arteries to get through it all:

If the players are clever enough to come up with their own plan, then they would need to do it on their own time, between sessions, or have a session dedicated to coming up with the plan. Have them be able to do a harmless recognisance to get an idea of what they will be expecting and provide them a map with the obstacles they will be facing. Work with them in this event, not against them.. Sit with them, and help them piece it together. Point out things they may think are interesting, and any sort of flat obstacle.

The strength is that it allows your team to get more invested in the mission since they made it up themselves.
The con is that if they only know as much as you tell them, so they may not be able to come up with as detailed of a plan as you can. Finally, the set up missions will be harder to come up with if their plan is unimaginative. This will ruin the fun for everyone without you shoehorning it into a success.

If you want to prepare it yourself, which is the safer option, RP it as having a third party who is knowledgeable (a criminal who is also a divination wizard perhaps) about heists and 100% trustworthy be brought in who would be more than happy to give you a plan for a favor. Pro : Allows you to create the heist as you see fit, as you would know every variable and detail. Con : Players may want to plan it themselves and not enjoy being told what to do.

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For example : You wish to take the airship, but can't just walk into the airship yard and take it on the ground as security is too heavy. So you need to find a time when or where security is light. You get a lead from a trustworthy gentleman who offers aid by his sagely wisdom in exchange for a favor down the road. Maybe you decide to take the airship of a playboy duke who is holding a private party on his fancy new airship. The party is by invitation only, but obviously they have hired servants. You need disguises, which are specifically tailored by the best seamstress in the city. She can definitely be bought, but maybe she has gone missing. You need an inside man to be able to your gear in, he wants you to help him court a woman. Maybe there's some expensive arcane eye or alarm security that you need to disable, and the only way to get past it is to find the wizard who created it. Is there somewhere you can hide the airship for a while until the heat goes away? Maybe some cove near the coast? You definitely need to secure the area from the boggarts that may be living there. What will you do with the guests? Perhaps you could find some rare highly potent flayleaf from a nearby grove and spike the punch bowl, putting everyone to sleep and leave them in a nearby field.

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The set up missions give you the tools and people needed to complete the major obstacles of the heist. Go to places, do quests, battle monsters, secure hideouts, rescue people, anything you wish to add depth to the heist. The more depths you add, the higher the stakes, means the higher the participation.

When it comes to actual heist. Make sure everyone has a role they would enjoy doing. Depending on the size of the airship, there may stealth aspects to the airship so the rogues would have jobs to do. Maybe the two martial classes are to find a way to take care of the secret guards stationed below deck? Maybe the socialite will need to create a distraction to take attention away from a guarded door? Go with the objectives that each role has, but make sure parts of it tie into the set up missions they did. That way everyone has something to contribute based on their playstyle.

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Failure comes from getting caught, but unless they are overt or fail miserably/numerous times, do not set off the alarm. There is no reset button, so do not let simple poor dice rolls completely ruin a night's fun. Maybe the rogue caught the attention of a guard, who decides to try and take care of him personally? Maybe that despite the fact that the socialite could not create a distraction, there's an alternate route by claiming in through a porthole of the side of the ship?

The airship isn't exactly the biggest of places, so if things go sour, allow the players to continue to accomplish their roles, but if they need to, regrouping won't be too hard,.


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And finally, the get away sequence. How are you going to get away with the airship? Did you make it so they manage to sneak away with it? Is the taking of the airship going to attract attention? Are there pursuers? Will there be a sudden betrayal of an NPC? Every good heist, has a getaway sequence, unless you have an entire team of rogues who can manage to take a colossal sized airship without getting attracting unwanted attention.

Assuming your players are down for a heist, they may be 110% on board. Or they may just grab their gear and do a complete hostile takeover. You just have to plan for the adventure to go smoothly, and what would happen if they get caught.

[FabulousFizban]

airship combat mechanics:

each airship has 5 metrics that rate from 0-5
offense
defense
cargo
speed
luck

offense represents what the ship hits on using a d6. a success is your offense number or less. so if your ship has an offense of 3, you hit on a 3 or less.
defense represents how many hits your boat can take before sinking. a ship at 0 is derilect and cannot move.
cargo represents max load of the vessel, can affect speed and offensive capacity
speed the number of map hexes a ship can travel in a day
luck represents a party's capacity to "luck out" and find what they need or otherwise experience some fortitous event on their boat. maybe they find extra fuel or don't sink when they oherwise should. DMs discretion.