Is it fun to plan a heist?

[DragonLancer]

I'm with you @overgeeked .

As a player, I'd rather not waste precious gaming time going over every bit of minutia when we could just cast some divinations, do some investigation and then treat it like any other dungeon we're likely to go through. Likewise, as a DM, I don't want to waste an hour and a half scribbling notes that will probably be pointless once it all kicks off. Instead, I'd rather they just come up with a quick plan and let's get on with the game. I guess I've never understood the fixation on the heist style of play.

 

[BigJackBrass]

Making the planning part of the game is very much the focus of John Wick's Wilderness of Mirrors, which presumes that everyone involved is good at their job rather than ruining the plan simply because of a botched stealth roll. The planning directly pays off in the execution.

It's a spy game, but that's basically what heist games are anyway.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It can be fun occasionally, providing the players can keep it somewhat concise and do not waste a lot of time on hypothetical "what ifs" and useless micromanaging.

But even then, I think it would be fun only if done sometimes. Like if the game is mainly about something else, and there are occasional sessions like that then that would be fine. But for a game that is mainly about doing stuff like that more handwavy approach like in Blades is better. I don't want to start every session with a two hour planning meeting.

 

[aco175]

I found being the DM for heist or similar needs more fail-forward or free re-rolls to make it work better. you make each PC roll 10 times to stealth, then eventually they all fail. I ran one where I gave a free re-roll token each part of pre-planning the players did. Someone went to the library to investigate, another went to the local thieves' guild to try and buy plans of the building. People tried to sleeping poison to the ale being sent to the guards. They detected the future weather to when it was going to rain. Eventually they group had a good idea of what was there and how to do things. They needed the re-rolls to help get further in before things fell apart.

It might have felt a bit more railroadish in that they would succeed, but the re-rolls were mostly a tool around what the PCs would have known and the players did not know.

 

[Breaking Star Games]

Let's say in video game terms, I enjoy Monaco but don't enjoy Payday 2. Some planning is fun. Tedious planning to to get everything right isn't. And even less fun is being in a 10 min shootout with endless waves of cops.

But generally I like Blades in the Dark's execution. The PCs should still gather information and have some plans and honestly most of the time, Load or smart improvisation is how 90% of problems in my games are solved over Flashbacks.

 

[Blue]

I've found if you don't appreciate or care for sessions where you don't do anything but improv and rudimentary world interactions you're not going to like planning.

True, but incomplete. If you DO care for sessions where all you do is improv and rudimentary world interactions, you also aren't going to like planning.

 

[Blue]

It can be fun occasionally, providing the players can keep it somewhat concise and do not waste a lot of time on hypothetical "what ifs" and useless micromanaging.

But even then, I think it would be fun only if done sometimes. Like if the game is mainly about something else, and there are occasional sessions like that then that would be fine. But for a game that is mainly about doing stuff like that more handwavy approach like in Blades is better. I don't want to start every session with a two hour planning meeting.

Blades isn't "handwavy".

Picture this. Two game systems, both alike in dignity, In fair tabletop, where we lay our scene. Both require planning to overcome obstacles. But in one, any planning that isn't useful magically doesn't happen and doesn't take up time in the session. All planning is focused and useful, and skips speculation that won't come up.

Flashbacks don't magically give you what you want, they don't handwave problems away. It's just playing something back then, which may or may not be successful. It can't undo anything. You can have a flashback when you heard barking that you purchased a powerful bottle of scent so they can't track you, but if you've already been tracked by bloodhounds that ship has sailed. Plus it uses the same currency as a lot of other things in the game and can not recover during a heist, so you need to be judicious and strategic about doing flashbacks.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Blades isn't "handwavy".

Picture this. Two game systems, both alike in dignity, In fair tabletop, where we lay our scene. Both require planning to overcome obstacles. But in one, any planning that isn't useful magically doesn't happen and doesn't take up time in the session. All planning is focused and useful, and skips speculation that won't come up.

Flashbacks don't magically give you what you want, they don't handwave problems away. It's just playing something back then, which may or may not be successful. It can't undo anything. You can have a flashback when you heard barking that you purchased a powerful bottle of scent so they can't track you, but if you've already been tracked by bloodhounds that ship has sailed. Plus it uses the same currency as a lot of other things in the game and can not recover during a heist, so you need to be judicious and strategic about doing flashbacks.

Well sure, but the actual planning phase is sort of handwaved. We don't actually fully play it, which is the point.

 

[MGibster]

Other stated reasons include: it just causes arguments, gives the GM ideas to stop the players, turns into a shopping trip to gather gear, or is a waste of time and falls apart almost immediately.

Heck, as GM sometimes the players come up with awesome ideas to get the job done that I didn't think of. I'm a fan of the PCs planning heists, but I dislike it when they overthink simple task. As a player, I've experienced groups that would sit there and argue about which way to go in a dungeon when we really had no idea what was down corridor A or corridor B. When I'm a player, I tend to just choose for the group rather than get bogged down in such nonsense.

 

[Committed Hero]

It would be more fun if players did it like movie scenes. But they don't/can't.

They don't, because they are players and it's very hard to trust that a GM won't look to exploit a flaw in their plan.

They can't, because movies are scripted, while players must learn about obstacles and come up with plans in real time. A lot of times this leads to attention to unnecessary contingencies, which can be boring to GM.

The best we can do is give competent PCs the benefit of the doubt when possible. Assume they would have the gear needed to overcome typical obstructions, for example. Flashbacks help because they address both issues - they overcome exploitable flaws, and they mimic the deus ex machina of a lot of heist solutions.

I have experimented with having a bare-bones explanation of the location and personnel, and allowing the players to invent obstacles ("there's a four-inch ledge along the penthouse, but we should be able to reach it via zip line from the skyscraper across the street"). The more elaborate the security measure, the more bonuses the party gets. It's a little closer to the movie framework because they are talking like their character would. Plus someone is probably not going to come up with a problem that their PC cannot solve, while homing in on the scenes that they want to have happen.