Planning a heist

[Sk8ter274]

Hey, I currently run a pirate campaign and the group has currently stumbled upon an ancient sahugin temple that is worship an adult sea dragon as the reincarnation of their god. Naturally, if they kill the dragon, I know they'll spend however much time is required to take the entire treasure hoard onto their ship. Besides having rival pirates and navy ships attack, I want to have where they'll be forced to either bury it or use a bank. Regardless, it's going to be stolen and they'll find it's been deposited in a high security bank. So essentially, I want to provide them an opportunity to plan and execute a heist to get their gold back and then some. However, I'm at a loss at how to do that.

Looking for suggestions and tips on how to design, run, and plan a heist for my group.

Potential idea, they find the hoard is full of fake worthless coins and gems and discover a map that leads them to a bank with a vault that they now have to plan a heist around.

[Man_Over_Game]

One particularly difficult thing that you're describing is telling the players what to think.

Be too lax on something like this, and the players start breaking away the fragile plot until the whole thing breaks.

Be too strict, and it'll be obvious that you're railroading the players and the first thing they'll want to do is get off.

What you need is an NPC that'll tell them what to do, but he has to have a reason for it all. Maybe...a pirate that had his plans for the heist before he got crippled/crew died/whatever,, and the players found his plans and tracked them back to him. NPC explains all of the individual pieces of the heist, so that it's all stuff that fits into your ideas of the heist rather than 4 others'.

[Segev]

Repeating here for completeness what I said in the other thread, but I think to achieve what you want it would be better to have the dragon simply not have his hoard (or at least, only have a small portion of it, like a personal bed or bit of finery for show) there. Instead, what they find is enough information to point to the bank or what-have-you that actually has his treasure in its vaults, but not enough to trivially fake being the dragon's representatives and retrieve it. This makes it essentially the same as getting a treasure map as a reward, rather than requiring the players to try to protect something in a particular way and/or rig things so that they auto-fail to keep it and watch it get lost. It also avoids feeling like a bait-and-switch, and instead lets them feel like they got a quest prompt as a reward rather than had their reward stolen from them to provoke another quest.

[Sk8ter274]

One particularly difficult thing that you're describing is telling the players what to think.

Be too lax on something like this, and the players start breaking away the fragile plot until the whole thing breaks.

Be too strict, and it'll be obvious that you're railroading the players and the first thing they'll want to do is get off.

What you need is an NPC that'll tell them what to do, but he has to have a reason for it all. Maybe...a pirate that had his plans for the heist before he got crippled/crew died/whatever,, and the players found his plans and tracked them back to him. NPC explains all of the individual pieces of the heist, so that it's all stuff that fits into your ideas of the heist rather than 4 others'.


Repeating here for completeness what I said in the other thread, but I think to achieve what you want it would be better to have the dragon simply not have his hoard (or at least, only have a small portion of it, like a personal bed or bit of finery for show) there. Instead, what they find is enough information to point to the bank or what-have-you that actually has his treasure in its vaults, but not enough to trivially fake being the dragon's representatives and retrieve it. This makes it essentially the same as getting a treasure map as a reward, rather than requiring the players to try to protect something in a particular way and/or rig things so that they auto-fail to keep it and watch it get lost. It also avoids feeling like a bait-and-switch, and instead lets them feel like they got a quest prompt as a reward rather than had their reward stolen from them to provoke another quest.

Both of those are great idea. I did not consider that i was tricking my players so I'll adjust accordingly. I already have an NPC perfect for planning the heist for them. He's the whole reason for them being in the underground temple. TLDR; he's a mafia kingpin that used a sahugin attack on his rival's safe house. It can be simple for them to find the treasure map and have him "decipher" the map dn plan the heist for them (for a cut obviously).

My next issue is their approach.
Do i have them try pull an Ocean's 11 and try to talk their way through it ?
Or pull The Bank Job and have them get in and out without a sound and the robbery is only discovered the next morning?
Or do I plan both and give them the option?

What do you fine people suggest?

[Segev]

Both of those are great idea. I did not consider that i was tricking my players so I'll adjust accordingly. I already have an NPC perfect for planning the heist for them. He's the whole reason for them being in the underground temple. TLDR; he's a mafia kingpin that used a sahugin attack on his rival's safe house. It can be simple for them to find the treasure map and have him "decipher" the map dn plan the heist for them (for a cut obviously).

My next issue is their approach.
Do i have them try pull an Ocean's 11 and try to talk their way through it ?
Or pull The Bank Job and have them get in and out without a sound and the robbery is only discovered the next morning?
Or do I plan both and give them the option?

What do you fine people suggest?

Honestly, unless your players like having the plan handed to them, I would let them decide how to approach it. You can have your guiding NPC give them suggestions as to various methods, and let them hammer out the details, but unless they ask for a plan, I wouldn't give them one. If you have A Plan in mind, it will almost certainly lead to railroading, no matter your intentions. It's just human nature.

[Zhorn]

1) Supply solvable problems, not solutions.

If you decide on a given solution to a problem, you are more likely to ignore the valid solutions the players could come up with on their own.

2) When handing over information; supply objectives and questions, not answers.

Part of planning a heist is the research and the... well... planning.
You can give them an NPC to point them towards the right questions to get the ball rolling, but again, your job isn't to give then formed plans and answers.
Where is the 'treasure' being kept (location, layout, entries and exits)?
What is the security like (guards, traps, locks, obstacles, redundancy systems)?
What is the schedule (guard rotation, inspectors, other 'customers' of the facility, staff, owners)?
What is the clock ticking down to (job must be completed before 'thing' happens)?
What is the wildcard event (non-standard occurrence that supplies a unique challenge/opportunity)?

How they go about getting this information, how much they get before making a move, and how they are going to get around each part is 100% up to the players.

[Man_Over_Game]

I disagree.

Not everyone enjoys spending several sessions scouting a vault and planning a heist. Sometimes, a big event just needs to be summarized in a few rolls and a few story-telling encounters.

Consider how it's done in the Dresden Files. There's a plan, but it's unveiled as-needed to maintain the tension.

Borderlands 3 does a unique way of doing it through a montage of the individual action scenes you need to play out in order to fulfill the entire heist (pacify guards, steal clearance, unlock door) that breaks chronological order in order to hasten the heist to suit the players. That is, while the team discusses the plan, it flashes-forward to the team enacting that piece before jumping back to the initial meeting.

My point is, there's no "wrong" way of doing it. Guess how much time your team wants to put into the intricacies and work backwards from there.

[Zhorn]

I disagree.

Not everyone enjoys spending several sessions scouting a vault and planning a heist. Sometimes, a big event just needs to be summarized in a few rolls and a few story-telling encounters.

I actually agree with you on this, which is why I say to leave a large portion up to the players.
If you as a DM plan out all the details of how the heist is going to go down, you are setting up a session time scale that dictates how the whole thing is going down.
Left up to the players, it is more reasonable to scale on the fly to suit the engagement of the group. If they want to resolve the entire heist in a couple of rolls with minimal role play, it's quite reasonable to present the whole thing as a 10-20min encounter and move on.
If they are putting in effort preparing for an elaborate scenario (which considering a forum post was made for this it is more likely the intent of the OP), details can be fleshed out and turned into a set of intricate component encounters to span a whole session (several sessions is a bit much, but there are players who would be all into that).

As i said in my last point, how the players respond to the heist is 100% in their control. They set the pace from discovery of the encounter, formulating a plan of action, and executing it.
Some group can take an elaborate death-trap and seal team six that thing into a smash'n'grab job.
Other players will turn a pick-pocket event into The Thomas Crown Affair.

[Sk8ter274]

I actually agree with you on this, which is why I say to leave a large portion up to the players.
If you as a DM plan out all the details of how the heist is going to go down, you are setting up a session time scale that dictates how the whole thing is going down.
Left up to the players, it is more reasonable to scale on the fly to suit the engagement of the group. If they want to resolve the entire heist in a couple of rolls with minimal role play, it's quite reasonable to present the whole thing as a 10-20min encounter and move on.
If they are putting in effort preparing for an elaborate scenario (which considering a forum post was made for this it is more likely the intent of the OP), details can be fleshed out and turned into a set of intricate component encounters to span a whole session (several sessions is a bit much, but there are players who would be all into that).

As i said in my last point, how the players respond to the heist is 100% in their control. They set the pace from discovery of the encounter, formulating a plan of action, and executing it.
Some group can take an elaborate death-trap and seal team six that thing into a smash'n'grab job.
Other players will turn a pick-pocket event into The Thomas Crown Affair.

That's the case exactly. The plan was for them to the following

1. Decide on a approach (smash and grab or Ocean's 11)
2. Prep for the heist (Recon, set up a getaway, etc)
3. Put everything into place
4. Execute the heist

I think my best bet is to make a check list of minor objectives and let the players decide from there how to deal with them. For example, they have to find a way to deal with the guards. However, it's up to them do they poison the guards rations or bribe the one on duty to look the other way or another solution entirely. I think that might be my best bet.

As for time spent, our sessions are usually from 6-10 so I doubt the entire heist, from planning to executing, will take more than two sessions. 3 1/4 tops. Plus, who in their lives hasn't wanted to be part of a heist.

[Vogie]

For my players I use some mechanics from Blades in the Dark as an augmentation for heist campaigns.

Time Passing - To give them feelings of urgency, I use the BitD time clocks - Circles divided into various size pie charts that represent the passing of time. The 'default' is a 6-slot pie of 10 minutes each to represent an hour. That is always available for the players to see. However, I mixed this with theAngryGM's time dice, so each 10 minute section is represented by a die, and once an hour passes, all are rolled, and the number of 1s that come up represent the severity of the random encounter, which could be social, stealth, combat, or skill challenge.
Flashbacks – Each player starts the game with 2 poker chips, called Flashback Chips. At any time, any player can trade in one of their flashback chip to go into a flashback scene to show how they had previously planned for dealing with the obstacle in front of them. Any player may play a flashback, but only one flashback is allowed per encounter/obstacle. Your expended Flashback Chips do not refresh after expended. You gain an additional Flashback Chips at levels 5, 9, 13, and 17.

This gives the campaign a cinematic feel, like the Ocean's series, The Italian Job, or the Netflix series Money Heist.

[Segev]

For my players I use some mechanics from Blades in the Dark as an augmentation for heist campaigns.

Time Passing - To give them feelings of urgency, I use the BitD time clocks - Circles divided into various size pie charts that represent the passing of time. The 'default' is a 6-slot pie of 10 minutes each to represent an hour. That is always available for the players to see. However, I mixed this with theAngryGM's time dice, so each 10 minute section is represented by a die, and once an hour passes, all are rolled, and the number of 1s that come up represent the severity of the random encounter, which could be social, stealth, combat, or skill challenge.
Flashbacks – Each player starts the game with 2 poker chips, called Flashback Chips. At any time, any player can trade in one of their flashback chip to go into a flashback scene to show how they had previously planned for dealing with the obstacle in front of them. Any player may play a flashback, but only one flashback is allowed per encounter/obstacle. Your expended Flashback Chips do not refresh after expended. You gain an additional Flashback Chips at levels 5, 9, 13, and 17.


The flashback chips would be good fodder for inspiration dice, or for a feat or subclass centered around being a mastermind. The feat or subclass grants one per long rest, or something like that.

[Democratus]

Was going to suggest Flashbacks, like "Blades in the Dark".

Happy to see that the suggestion is already here. Carry on!

[Sam113097]

Was going to suggest Flashbacks, like "Blades in the Dark".

Happy to see that the suggestion is already here. Carry on!

I second the recommendation of Blades in the Dark! It's got a system that you could steal that works very well.

You really can't decide how your players will approach the heist. so my only suggestion is create a detailed outline of the bank, security measures, etc. with a handful of weaknesses or ways to breaks in baked into it. Make sure there are at least 4 or 5 noticeable flaws in the bank's security, so that the players can pick up on them and have options that you have already planned for.

[Sk8ter274]

I second the recommendation of Blades in the Dark! It's got a system that you could steal that works very well.

You really can't decide how your players will approach the heist. so my only suggestion is create a detailed outline of the bank, security measures, etc. with a handful of weaknesses or ways to breaks in baked into it. Make sure there are at least 4 or 5 noticeable flaws in the bank's security, so that the players can pick up on them and have options that you have already planned for.

That's sounds like an great idea that won't be to hard to prep for.

[Veldrenor]

Here's some advice/systems I picked up from a great little supplement on the DM's Guild called "Here's to Crime" which, in turn, borrowed ideas and elements from Blades in the Dark.

Phase 1- the Plan
If the party spends a session or more planning a detailed, Ocean's Eleven-style heist and it all works perfectly, that can be anticlimactic. In the more likely event that they spend the session planning and the plan falls apart in the first five minutes, the plan feels like a huge waste of time and effort. But the plan doesn't need to be fleshed out at the beginning: while the plan is chronologically the first step of any heist movie/show, the audience is never shown the whole plan up front. Ocean's Eleven, for example, we don't know how they're going to get the money out of the vault until after it happens. So, abstract the planning phase. Present the players with the basic situation and have them tell you how they want to approach it:


Do they want to pull a hit job and fight their way through everything?
Do they want to pull a con job and manage some kind of deception (they're an influential potential customer and entourage, they're with OSHA, etc)?
Do they want to pull a heist where it's all stealth and thievery?
Do they want to work the mark, where they manipulate someone else into doing the job for them (seduce the bank manager to get access to the vault, blackmail an employee into arranging a shipment of funds that the party can intercept, etc)?

After that, let each player make 1 skill roll as part of the planning phase. The Rogue wants to steal a copy of the building's blueprints from city hall so they'll know the layout; have them roll a Sleight of Hand check. The Fighter wants to get a job as a janitor so they can scope out the security; have them roll a Persuasion check. And so on for each character. If they do well, they earn inspiration to use during the caper. If they do poorly, no foul: it's the planning phase, missing some intel they want is punishment enough. And like Zhorn said, it's all about supplying objectives and questions: you tell the party that there's a password to open the vault, it's up to them to figure out how to get that password or how to bypass the need for it. Don't plan the path to victory, let the players surprise you.

Phase 2 - The Caper
Throw challenges at the party, some they're ready for from planning and some that come as a surprise. Most of the challenges should be tied to their chosen means of approach, but there should be a small number that are from other categories. For example, if the party is performing a heist and sneaking through the location, they suddenly stumble on a guard who's off his patrol route and they can't sneak past. That way, characters who aren't good at the main approach can still contribute to the caper. 1 of the challenges should tie directly into a successful planning roll the party made, letting them bypass the complication entirely without a further roll. That way they feel really clever at having taken the planning action they did.

The Caper phase is also a great place to implement a flashback mechanic, to capture that feel of "it was part of the plan the whole time." Each player could have a certain number of flashbacks they get to use, or they could use the Inspiration earned during the planning phase to buy a flashback. The flashback could be used to bypass the challenge or, more interestingly, allow a player to approach the challenge with a different skill than would normally be applicable.


The players get to the locked vault, how are they going to get in? Flashback! Yesterday, the party's fast-talker had lunch with the bank manager to try and convince him to give up the combination - use Persuasion to open the vault instead of Thieves' Tools.
Guards burst into the room where the rogue is lifting a needed key? Flashback! The rogue paid off one of the guards to distract his fellows at exactly this moment, roll Stealth instead of going into combat.

It's ok if the player's idea would require a ridiculous level of foresight or luck to work, it's a heist movie and that nonsense happens all the time (in Ocean's Eleven the world's largest EMP device just happens to be within driving distance of Las Vegas? Really?).

Phase 3 - The Score
The players are in position, the goal is in sight, now they have to wrap it up and get out. Go around the table, having each player describe something they're either doing now or did the previous day to aid in the escape. They then make a skill check tied to that action: Stealth to grab the loot, Deception to change into the disguises they packed yesterday, Animal Handling to have a horse-and-carriage waiting in the back alley, etc. If they get 5 successes then they get away without a hitch. If they get 3 failures then the escape is a bust - what that means is up to you.


Does the party get caught?
Does the party escape but there are witnesses, and now they have to dodge an investigation or deal with a blackmail attempt?
Does the party escape without being identified, but they have to leave their goal behind in order to do so and must try again with a different approach in the future?