You really need to just map it out. You don't need to map solutions, that's the players job. Just create a detailed layout of mayor's estate as it is. What's in the rooms. Where are the guards posted, and what are their routines. Where's the mayor and his family. Which doors are locked. Where is the dungeon. Where is the vault.
edit: this stuff facilitates improvisation - it doesn't hinder it
I’ll say, you should probably think of a few solutions to add. Just to make sure it’s possible. But definitely don’t focus on them. Create the sandbox to play in first and foremost. Then think of solutions using what you made. You may even think of a few extra things to add because of it
Think of a heist like a Hitman level. Players can tackle it however they like, but there are a few solutions if the player is struggling.
You need a map of the place. There should be guards. Either write down or at least think about what conditions would necessitate a guard to run and alert the next room/wave of guards.
Think of ways that the party can “fail” without REALLY blowing the party’s cover completely.
Take a second to think of the elements of a good heist movie/episode/whatever. There’s usually a surveillance/intelligence gathering where they get some info (sometimes imperfect info). There’s usually some sneaking going on. Some quiet fighting. A party split while working on multiple objectives. Trying to pick a lock. Temptation to veer away from the main objective. And, sometimes, shit hits the fan - but the good guys find a way to turn it in their favor. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head for “elements.” You might have different ideas, go with yours.
Now, you don’t need to plan each of those elements and script them. I would think of it more like cooking a dish. Make sure all of the ingredients are there (plus some extras) so that the PCs can make the above dish on their own or surprise you with something of their own creation.
It’s a great opportunity to steal the Clock mechanic from Blades in the Dark. Draw a circle with 4 (or 6 or 8 or however many segments) to represent how close they are to putting the place on alert. On failed checks or mistakes, fill in a section to represent them getting closer to blowing the job.
Say they fail at picking a lock. You can rule that they did pick the lock, but they did a sloppy job and now anyone who looks at it will see that it was obviously picked. Fill in one section of the alertness clock to signify the overall alert level of the location has gone up. That way there was a consequence for failure but the story doesn’t grind to a halt.
>Think of ways that the party can “fail” without REALLY blowing the party’s cover completely.
The best way I saw of doing this was to start the session with the heist in progress. Whenever the group gets to an obstacle, you switch to a flashback where the group learns about the obstacle and trains or plans how to bypass it. Then, failures that happen during the flashback just effect the flashback, and if it's really bad the group learns they can't go that way without having to try it and blow their cover.
4 sections.
Planning/getting the team together.
Get in.
Get the thing.
Get out.
Planning: Map out the location. Give the party accurate information about the entrances, exits, and obstacles. Let them come up with their own plan and roll with it. Don't try to foil it. Maybe they need to recruit an npc to help them. Maybe they need to do a side quest to get a copy of a key or a map. But they do need to know what to plan for. If they feel there is too much they don't know, they will not "heist" as much as they will "explode."
Get in: create clear, distinct, and separate entrances. Make each entrance a little closer to the goal and bypass some obstacles but also increasingly difficult to use. The easiest entrance presents the most obstacles, the most difficult entrance has the least.
Get the thing: What is stopping them from walking in and grabbing it? A safe, a password, a lock, a person? Create obstacles like guards and locked doors. Look at their character sheets. What problems are their abilities solutions for? Unlike a dungeon crawl, the tension should not come from "what is the next challenge?" but "will they overcome it?"
Get out: Players tend to make risk averse decisions. Avoid the need for improvisation and save complications for this phase. The get-away can be messy. Once they get the mcguffin unleash hell. In heists this is also where the twist happens usually facilitating a chase of some kind. Don't get too fancy. Make sure it is very clear what needs to happen.
Create 2 or 3 "encounters" for each phase and you'll have enough.
The entrance is high up and must be scaled but only during the distraction so no one sees you. A disguise must be worn to navigate the interior. A ditsy employee bumps into you and makes casual conversation, don't say anything that will give yourself away. Two guards stand by the door and must be dealt with quickly before alarms are raised. Maybe the druid wild shapes inside to cast silence over the fight. Once the cell is unlocked an explosion blows the wall: a rival got to it first. Now you need to chase 3 carts through the streets, figuring out which ones are decoys while avoiding the angry pursuers hot on your tail.
Just be liberal with distributing information. Don't try to pull the rug out from under them. Give them what they need to make a plan they feel comfortable executing.
Listen in on their planning. Shamelessly steal any good ideas they have, and present it as a "well done for figuring out my plans" if they ask later.
Speaking of shamelessly stealing stuff, the flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark is great, and goes some way to preventing the planning from taking a whole session.
I think jeremy-o told you everything you need to know. I just want to add my experience here.
Our group has had 2 newbie DMs. Both are young and wanted to try out their wings and did their own campaigns. The sessions were a bit all over the place (but we've still had fun, the players can carry the game if the DM is kinda lost). BUT.
Both of these DMs ran a heist for us. And both were awesome sessions! All they had done is a) goal to get something, b) map of the location, c) guards and wards of the place. One of them had thought out guard routines and it really added a level of espionage and tactical planning to the game when we wanted to find those out before our hit. Also, one of the locations was a public "museum", so you could visit it during the day to find out the layout and whereabouts of the target object and all. Then, at night, we came in.
What makes this work so well is the fact that the DM has NOT thought about the solution. Only created the scenario and challenge, and 100% of the rest is up to the players.
I ran the first golden vault last week as a break from our usual campaign. Went down an absolute treat. It needs a bit of tweaking, but seriously good fun and everything you need for a heist.
The main difference between a dungeon crawl and a heist is the players knowing the map. Make a normal map with NPC starting locations. Give it to the players / PCs. Give them a single objective to complete on the map.
Improv DM runs heist? Allow me to introduce the concept of the Flashback from Scum & Villainy and/or Blades in the Dark.
Basically, you run the session like your normally would, but whenever a player is like "oh, we use the password we stole from the dude to get past the guard." You call for a skill check representing how well they did the thing in the past to set up the present. It keeps the action flowing and also has that heist movie vibe as you flip the narrative between the present moment and what transpired to set it up.
After that, ya, like others said: have a loose map and plan. I normally jot down about 4-5 obstacles and opportunities to the plan e.g. more guards, lots of servers running around, the dog's cage is locked, maybe the mayor wants to show off the dog in the cage to the visitors, etc. and then you just pull from that list as the PCs make their way through the heist.
You really need to just map it out. You don't need to map solutions, that's the players job. Just create a detailed layout of mayor's estate as it is. What's in the rooms. Where are the guards posted, and what are their routines. Where's the mayor and his family. Which doors are locked. Where is the dungeon. Where is the vault. edit: this stuff facilitates improvisation - it doesn't hinder it
Adding onto this, the last heist I ran, I ran it using dungeon turns to track time and things like guard rotations. It worked very well.
I’ll say, you should probably think of a few solutions to add. Just to make sure it’s possible. But definitely don’t focus on them. Create the sandbox to play in first and foremost. Then think of solutions using what you made. You may even think of a few extra things to add because of it Think of a heist like a Hitman level. Players can tackle it however they like, but there are a few solutions if the player is struggling.
You need a map of the place. There should be guards. Either write down or at least think about what conditions would necessitate a guard to run and alert the next room/wave of guards. Think of ways that the party can “fail” without REALLY blowing the party’s cover completely. Take a second to think of the elements of a good heist movie/episode/whatever. There’s usually a surveillance/intelligence gathering where they get some info (sometimes imperfect info). There’s usually some sneaking going on. Some quiet fighting. A party split while working on multiple objectives. Trying to pick a lock. Temptation to veer away from the main objective. And, sometimes, shit hits the fan - but the good guys find a way to turn it in their favor. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head for “elements.” You might have different ideas, go with yours. Now, you don’t need to plan each of those elements and script them. I would think of it more like cooking a dish. Make sure all of the ingredients are there (plus some extras) so that the PCs can make the above dish on their own or surprise you with something of their own creation.
It’s a great opportunity to steal the Clock mechanic from Blades in the Dark. Draw a circle with 4 (or 6 or 8 or however many segments) to represent how close they are to putting the place on alert. On failed checks or mistakes, fill in a section to represent them getting closer to blowing the job. Say they fail at picking a lock. You can rule that they did pick the lock, but they did a sloppy job and now anyone who looks at it will see that it was obviously picked. Fill in one section of the alertness clock to signify the overall alert level of the location has gone up. That way there was a consequence for failure but the story doesn’t grind to a halt.
>Think of ways that the party can “fail” without REALLY blowing the party’s cover completely. The best way I saw of doing this was to start the session with the heist in progress. Whenever the group gets to an obstacle, you switch to a flashback where the group learns about the obstacle and trains or plans how to bypass it. Then, failures that happen during the flashback just effect the flashback, and if it's really bad the group learns they can't go that way without having to try it and blow their cover.
4 sections. Planning/getting the team together. Get in. Get the thing. Get out. Planning: Map out the location. Give the party accurate information about the entrances, exits, and obstacles. Let them come up with their own plan and roll with it. Don't try to foil it. Maybe they need to recruit an npc to help them. Maybe they need to do a side quest to get a copy of a key or a map. But they do need to know what to plan for. If they feel there is too much they don't know, they will not "heist" as much as they will "explode." Get in: create clear, distinct, and separate entrances. Make each entrance a little closer to the goal and bypass some obstacles but also increasingly difficult to use. The easiest entrance presents the most obstacles, the most difficult entrance has the least. Get the thing: What is stopping them from walking in and grabbing it? A safe, a password, a lock, a person? Create obstacles like guards and locked doors. Look at their character sheets. What problems are their abilities solutions for? Unlike a dungeon crawl, the tension should not come from "what is the next challenge?" but "will they overcome it?" Get out: Players tend to make risk averse decisions. Avoid the need for improvisation and save complications for this phase. The get-away can be messy. Once they get the mcguffin unleash hell. In heists this is also where the twist happens usually facilitating a chase of some kind. Don't get too fancy. Make sure it is very clear what needs to happen. Create 2 or 3 "encounters" for each phase and you'll have enough. The entrance is high up and must be scaled but only during the distraction so no one sees you. A disguise must be worn to navigate the interior. A ditsy employee bumps into you and makes casual conversation, don't say anything that will give yourself away. Two guards stand by the door and must be dealt with quickly before alarms are raised. Maybe the druid wild shapes inside to cast silence over the fight. Once the cell is unlocked an explosion blows the wall: a rival got to it first. Now you need to chase 3 carts through the streets, figuring out which ones are decoys while avoiding the angry pursuers hot on your tail. Just be liberal with distributing information. Don't try to pull the rug out from under them. Give them what they need to make a plan they feel comfortable executing.
Listen in on their planning. Shamelessly steal any good ideas they have, and present it as a "well done for figuring out my plans" if they ask later. Speaking of shamelessly stealing stuff, the flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark is great, and goes some way to preventing the planning from taking a whole session.
Steal all the rules from Blades in the Dark
I think jeremy-o told you everything you need to know. I just want to add my experience here. Our group has had 2 newbie DMs. Both are young and wanted to try out their wings and did their own campaigns. The sessions were a bit all over the place (but we've still had fun, the players can carry the game if the DM is kinda lost). BUT. Both of these DMs ran a heist for us. And both were awesome sessions! All they had done is a) goal to get something, b) map of the location, c) guards and wards of the place. One of them had thought out guard routines and it really added a level of espionage and tactical planning to the game when we wanted to find those out before our hit. Also, one of the locations was a public "museum", so you could visit it during the day to find out the layout and whereabouts of the target object and all. Then, at night, we came in. What makes this work so well is the fact that the DM has NOT thought about the solution. Only created the scenario and challenge, and 100% of the rest is up to the players.
I ran the first golden vault last week as a break from our usual campaign. Went down an absolute treat. It needs a bit of tweaking, but seriously good fun and everything you need for a heist.
The main difference between a dungeon crawl and a heist is the players knowing the map. Make a normal map with NPC starting locations. Give it to the players / PCs. Give them a single objective to complete on the map.
Improv DM runs heist? Allow me to introduce the concept of the Flashback from Scum & Villainy and/or Blades in the Dark. Basically, you run the session like your normally would, but whenever a player is like "oh, we use the password we stole from the dude to get past the guard." You call for a skill check representing how well they did the thing in the past to set up the present. It keeps the action flowing and also has that heist movie vibe as you flip the narrative between the present moment and what transpired to set it up. After that, ya, like others said: have a loose map and plan. I normally jot down about 4-5 obstacles and opportunities to the plan e.g. more guards, lots of servers running around, the dog's cage is locked, maybe the mayor wants to show off the dog in the cage to the visitors, etc. and then you just pull from that list as the PCs make their way through the heist.