So my players might be going a little too far in the “not planning” direction, I think partly because they don’t have a good feel for the different kind of plans. Right now they’re doing everything Stealth, because then all they have to specify is where they go in, and then they’re hoping to wing the rest of it. “We go in the front door with all the other guests” specifies the entrance, but doesn’t feel very stealthy to me.
Is there a resource for differentiating the approaches? Examples, suggestions, etc?
Haha, that’s great. In that particular example, I would ask the group “So what, you’re dressed as rogues, sneaking through a well-lit area among witnesses and guards? Sounds like zero engagement dice to me. I mean, the guards can see you. They’re waving, in fact. Maybe this plan would work better as a deception, pretending you’re also guests?”
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Check out page 16 of v7.1 has a section with some details/examples other discussion about advanced uses of plan types, linked plans, etc.
I know it’s not what you are asking, but I would celebrate that level of non-planning on your players’ part. The characters certainly have a plan, decent or not, while we as players/GM just have yet to discover what it was. I find that to be the most fun part of the game. I would consider “going in the front door with other guests” would be a Deception or Social plan, depending on which aspect of the world the players want to flesh out most.
For instance, if they pick Stealth, you’ll all discover what house party security is like in this district. But if you pick Deception, you’ll find out what uniforms or behaviors are seen as norms of acceptable society in this context and likely get into conversations and relationships players weren’t expecting. If you pick Social, suddenly there are new NPCs the crew has prior connections and history with, which will be fun to use later.
To me, the main point of having the plans is to get the players thinking about what to do, how to get started. If they are willing to jump right in, then you don’t NEED the plan; it is primarily a tool to break up the excessive “sitting around and talking about what we’re going to do” tendency.
It’s other purpose is to suggest variety–there ARE different approaches, have you thought about this? In that way they might still be helpful.
But, if what they’re doing is working for them, it isn’t broken. =)
I’d remind them that if they are “unsure” of what to do, they can always gather information (even if its not downtime anymore). My issue (though similar) has been figuring out the “narrative allowance” for Details that are player generated vs “detail mongering”.
Wow, that sounds incredibly vague. For instance with stealth, I usually don’t have a full idea of the entire buildings layout prior to them deciding its a place to do a job at. So it would be feasible for a player to be like “I check out the building’s skylight as a place to enter”. So then, as GM, I have to decide how “likely” (??) this new fixture of the building is there? (This gets weirder then when they have the upgrade of underground map & passkeys)
Issue of Narrative Control/Buy-in I think…
As Steven Dodds mentioned though, sneaking through the front door of a guarded establishment as a Stealth Plan sounds like a very…. sub-optimal engagement roll to be had. Especially if the target has Tier Advantage.
I think the missing point in any plan is the ‘detail’. If this can be a surprise to all the players (including the MC) then its ever more revealing!
We love doing flashbacks to establish the detail’s highlight in the fiction.
So in the example – a stealth plan with the front door as the point of entry – we’d have a robust discussion of how that would work? Eventually someone would come up with a cool idea for allowing that level of hijinks and we’d have an action roll to establish it (usiually as a flashback).
This is one of my favourite parts of the game to play.
I look for the detail in their plan when they are planning, and for when it is missing. Based on that: I will recommend a Gather Info (downtime) action to establish the detail, or determine the plan type for them based on the detail and things they described. Sometimes their plans require things they don’t have, so that is my cue to pose a different kind of downtime action. And this kind of handling of the conversation leads to me not asking them to choose a “type” of plan or action hardly ever, it’s either clearly downtime, or clearly time for action, and instead they describe what they do using the various plan types as little more than inspiration.
I am curious if any of this also has to do with narratives that lack established details, or ones your players just pull out of thin air? I have some stories about how I handled those.. Not that you are doing this, but I find its best if I don’t allow players to treat the plan types as menu options on which they just need to press “OK.”