Questions about the structure:
There are 4 ‘phases’; The Score, Free Play, Downtime and Engagement Roll.
How do you organise yours? I know the stages are not meant to be rigid, however if after coming back from a Score with little to no stress and some harm, then going straight out to Free Play (and researching the next score) may well be dangerous. I understand that this is supposed to be free flowing but do any of you have ideas on how to help the players choose the best way to deal with this dynamic?
I guess managing your resources as a player is an important factor, but the narrative must trump that right?
Many thanks.
Basically, let the fiction and player’s expectations guide you.
The structure, as I understand it, exists primarily to force characters to perform heists (and generally to approach everything with “can we so it as a heist” attitude). So any restrictions you implement should be about this – basically, spot rulings/home rules/whatever should maintain importance of heists and not create opportunities to circumvent them.
So far only limits we had in or game were (1) you only get free downtime actions after a heist and (2) money and rep can’t be meaningfully gained outside heists (especially money).
Other then that we tend to mix phases as needed and as seems logical from the events. We even had a couple of situations where GM permitted calling Downtime action during heist as flashback.