How to open a heist module?

Hey all!

I am curious on this one, because I have often considered how fun it would be to play as a player in a heist game. To me, it's the clever bits where you gain intelligence on the mark and work out how to pull off the heist which interests me. I'm thinking of framing this like a political intrigue game, but with a focus on finding a mark, working out what they have that's worth stealing, how to get it, when to get it, how to get in, and so forth.

My question is on how to start such a game. I want the party to have free reign to plan things themselves, so I don't want to have one NPC character telling them what to do. I'm considering having a fence-type questgiver who gives them a mark and a target, EG "Got someone interested in magical weapons at the moment. Word is, Ted Binns the merchant has a very interesting sword, which I'd be interested in purchasing.". 

Then it's up to the party to work out how they get it.

I'm thinking this will need some heavily fleshed-out characters and politics, and each mark needs a whole rail of opportunities (bit of a gambler, always drinks from their own flask, can't stand the heat) which the DM can offer information for the party to manipulate.

I imagine this would also work well for an assassination themed game.

So, what are people's thoughts - how would you handle this, aside from forewarning the party that the theme of the game will be heists and trickery?

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

 

My question is on how to start such a game. I want the party to have free reign to plan things themselves, so I don't want to have one NPC character telling them what to do. I'm considering having a fence-type questgiver who gives them a mark and a target, EG "Got someone interested in magical weapons at the moment. Word is, Ted Binns the merchant has a very interesting sword, which I'd be interested in purchasing.". 

Then it's up to the party to work out how they get it.

 

There's a book called Keys from the Golden Vault that's an anthology of one-shot heist adventures. It includes some advice on how to set up heists in D&D, and what you're describing here is pretty much what they advise. If you're looking for further advice and inspiration, that book is a pretty good source.

If the campaign is all about the heist, then you could break it down into all the mcguffins the party needs to pull off the heist.

Plans for the building With those, they could find a way in. 

From there they might decide they need an inside man. Which means they need to find someone who works on the inside who is either disloyal or subjectable to blackmail. 

Then they find out the thing theyre stealing is in a vault locked behind a seal that mordenkeinen himself put in place, so they reasearch how to get past that. 

Maybe they hear about some magic mcguffen that disables all magical effects, say its called the Helm of Disable. A relic lost to time, last seen a hundred years ago. So then thr party spends several levels tracking down the relic. Speaking with corpses. Eventually finding a high level npc paladin hid it in the underdark, the only place he thought it would be safe. 

So then the party has to go to the underdark. While there, they run into intellect devourers, who pass them by without a thought. And throw in some red wizards who are hunting the paladin, so are hunting the party. 

And during one combat, someone makes eniugh noise to draw the attention of a well fed, but always hungry dragon, a chase scene ensues, lots of running. Eventually, the party ends up in a dead end, and the dragon is digging its way through the earth to kill the partty. And then one of the players realizes the tunnel is close to the surface, or at least close to the bottom of the ocean, so they concoct some crazy plan involving dragons fire exploding and caving the tunnel in so they can all escape to the surface. 

And then your wizard cant attune until a couple of long rests pass. 

Eventually they break into the building with thr vault. Some fights ensue. But eventually they are caught. The enemy puts them into some sort of rube goldberg james bond death trap, which involves the party working together and eventually fighting their way out of. 

And then finally, FINALLY, they get into the vault, only to discover its empty. Someone else is doing a bait and switch, maybe a lieutenant of the bbeg is stealing the thing for themselves.

Eventually the party finds the lieutenant and their band, another fight ensues.  The party wins. Gets the mcguffin.

they are about to retire and enjoy thr fruits of their labors, only to realize that the reason the bbeg had the mcguffin locked away in the first place is because it was the only thing that could stop them from destroying the world.

So then maybe the partt decides they have to use the mcguffin to stop the bbeg. Another fight ensues. The party druid is able to wildshape into an owlbear at this point, cause youre level 19 and why not.

A massive fight ensues. Maybe the barbarian is killed, but one player along the way had found a tablet of reawakening which is the only way to bring them back.

They all become heroes, the king rewards rhem for their bravery. Gives them a large keep, and retire happily ever after,

I.e. its not so much about the heist. The heist is the hook into all the various sub adventures that keeps the party occupied for ten or twenty levels.

If you're interested, there's an unrelated RPG called Blades in the Dark that's all about heists. (It's literally the whole game, you run a crew in a haunted steampunk world and each session is a different heist.) You can get the pdf version pretty cheap I think, and it's got lots of great advice on how to set up the adventure. 

I would hook it like any other adventure. I think your current idea works just fine. "Your party is down on its luck, but one of you knows somebody who says he's got some work if you're interested." Great, now they know what to do if they want to. I think opening the game with a clear questgiver is generally a good move. It gives the players a good sense of direction. Otherwise, everyone can start the game feeling pretty lost, which can be just as bad as railroading. 

Another option could always be to open the game with them as a crew. Then, you can just have your introduction be something along the lines of "you've spent the last few weeks looking for your next big take and, over time, you've learned about the following very lucrative targets."

But yes, it sounds like your basic structure is to open the game by telling them about the target, then stepping back. That sounds good to me.

I've heard many amazing things about Blades in the Dark, so if your party is open to it, it would probably be a better option than DND for what you want.

There's also the Game Master's Handbook for Proactive Roleplaying, which is all about letting the players guide the campaign, which seems like what you want for your campaign. I would recommend, although it does reference Blades in the Dark for examples a lot, so the above recommendation still applies here.

Thanks all for the advice! I'll definitely check out Blades in the Dark!

I am also considering running the game as a party caught between two sides. Essentially, to get in good with the guys you want to rob, you need to portray yourselves as heroes, and do some traditional quests to ingratiate yourselves (all with convenient utility items smattered through as rewards). The party, if they do these quests, will get improved access to the city and less of a close watch from the guards, so they can pull off their heists easier. However, their consciences may start to nag at them when they are congratulated and welcomed by their mark.

My goal as the DM would be to put them into the awkward situation where the party are conflicted between two groups, but coming clean would be extremely dangerous, so they need to work out what they want to do about it!

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

If the campaign is all about the heist, then you could break it down into all the mcguffins the party needs to pull off the heist.

Plans for the building With those, they could find a way in. 

From there they might decide they need an inside man. Which means they need to find someone who works on the inside who is either disloyal or subjectable to blackmail. 

Then they find out the thing theyre stealing is in a vault locked behind a seal that mordenkeinen himself put in place, so they reasearch how to get past that. 

Maybe they hear about some magic mcguffen that disables all magical effects, say its called the Helm of Disable. A relic lost to time, last seen a hundred years ago. So then thr party spends several levels tracking down the relic. Speaking with corpses. Eventually finding a high level npc paladin hid it in the underdark, the only place he thought it would be safe. 

So then the party has to go to the underdark. While there, they run into intellect devourers, who pass them by without a thought. And throw in some red wizards who are hunting the paladin, so are hunting the party. 

And during one combat, someone makes eniugh noise to draw the attention of a well fed, but always hungry dragon, a chase scene ensues, lots of running. Eventually, the party ends up in a dead end, and the dragon is digging its way through the earth to kill the partty. And then one of the players realizes the tunnel is close to the surface, or at least close to the bottom of the ocean, so they concoct some crazy plan involving dragons fire exploding and caving the tunnel in so they can all escape to the surface. 

And then your wizard cant attune until a couple of long rests pass. 

Eventually they break into the building with thr vault. Some fights ensue. But eventually they are caught. The enemy puts them into some sort of rube goldberg james bond death trap, which involves the party working together and eventually fighting their way out of. 

And then finally, FINALLY, they get into the vault, only to discover its empty. Someone else is doing a bait and switch, maybe a lieutenant of the bbeg is stealing the thing for themselves.

Eventually the party finds the lieutenant and their band, another fight ensues.  The party wins. Gets the mcguffin.

they are about to retire and enjoy thr fruits of their labors, only to realize that the reason the bbeg had the mcguffin locked away in the first place is because it was the only thing that could stop them from destroying the world.

So then maybe the partt decides they have to use the mcguffin to stop the bbeg. Another fight ensues. The party druid is able to wildshape into an owlbear at this point, cause youre level 19 and why not.

A massive fight ensues. Maybe the barbarian is killed, but one player along the way had found a tablet of reawakening which is the only way to bring them back.

They all become heroes, the king rewards rhem for their bravery. Gives them a large keep, and retire happily ever after,

 Is this honour among thieves. Fantastic movie btw also managed to get a scout badge of it

I've run a couple of the Keys From The Golden Vault adventures of part of larger campaigns and the big problem I've found is if you aren't careful your players end up spending two hours arguing over plans (which they won't follow anyway) and never actually want to start. One solution I've heard suggested that I quite like and might try (might even be from Blades in the Dark) is rather than do the planning just start the heist straight away and then do the plans as a flash back, sort of "you hear a click as you put your foot down on a pressure plate. What did you plan ahead of time for this?" so that way they're only thinking about things that are actually happening rather than circling round and round infinite possibilities

Ooh, I love the idea of them doing flashbacks, but I worry that this gives too many do-over opportunities without sufficient control from the DM...

Perhaps allowing them one per room of the heist, with limited time for prep (IE a ticking clock on the flashbacks to limit how much prep they could have done). It would mean that the information gathering step may need to be automated for them (IE, their contact lays out a schematic and tells them what they have to prep for), and whilst that would be quite linear, it would be a really cool approach to the game. Maybe I will make a oneshot along these lines and see how it does...

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

Ooh, I love the idea of them doing flashbacks, but I worry that this gives too many do-over opportunities without sufficient control from the DM...

Perhaps allowing them one per room of the heist, with limited time for prep (IE a ticking clock on the flashbacks to limit how much prep they could have done). It would mean that the information gathering step may need to be automated for them (IE, their contact lays out a schematic and tells them what they have to prep for), and whilst that would be quite linear, it would be a really cool approach to the game. Maybe I will make a oneshot along these lines and see how it does...

 You can take a look at the Blades in the Dark rules to see how they handle them. In particular, they're never a "do-over". If you run into guards, you've run into guards. The flashback lets you establish that you already bribed them. They're also gated by an in-game resource that's needed for other things, like not dying. For D&D, which doesn't have a similar resource, I'd probably just give players only one, or two if they're a thief-type. One particular thing I'd definitely let players do with a flashback is "I prepared this spell".

The main thing is that it is a different way of approaching play; it gives the players more direct control over the narrative. This is something that all of you may need some time to wrap your heads around, and not everyone may enjoy.

On the other hand, it's also a good way to shake players who need to plan and discuss everything to death loose of that.

I figure that this sort of game puts more of an emphasis on the "collaborative storytelling" approach, so I am inclined to try and lean heavily into that aspect of it. The dice and gameplay will decide how things ultimately go, but I love the idea of "I know a guy" playing a huge part in this.

So, my loose opening concept for this as a oneshot (so more linear) is that the party are tasked by the quest-giver to steal the macguffin from the bad guy. The first act will be the party scouting out the bad guy's keep. I will have the place mapped out and guard schedules & rotas planned, so that they can observe them (if they choose to). There will be assorted clues that they can follow, such as an architect office where they can try to get hold of the plans (in a basic vault, as a warm-up to get to grips with heisting).

If they fail to get the plans, I will have to improvise a way for them to have another chance, based on how it went wrong (they might sneak in perfectly but fail to get the vault open, or they might break everything, which will necessitate different results).

Once they get the plans, they can make their heist plan. The Quest Giver will read through the plans on the tabletop, pointing out each room. Then they will make a basic approach - how do they get in? - and then go through heist planning.

Heist planning will involve a brief description of how they intend to get past each obstacle, and how they intend to prepare. Obstacles will be intentionally difficult. Once they have made their plan, they enact the preparations, with all the adventuring and roleplaying that needs.

Then they go through the heist, in which there will be some complications. Every player gets two "Actually..." moments, where they flash back to their preparations to overcome such an obstacle.

Then the twist - between zero and two of the players are double-crossers, aiming to get the Macguffin all to themselves. They can use their "actually..." moments to cause mayhem and problems. 

Still working out the approach, to be honest. Mainly spitballing!