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.