So in my latest BitD session, we ran an infiltration score into the Red Sashes treasury.
And unfortunately, the session fell pretty flat.
Part of it was likely due to low energy. But I actually found the score much harder to run compellingly than the previous one (which was a Deception score, and was fantastic ).
Mostly, it felt like the players’ object was for things to stay quiet and boring. And I whirled up a decent variety of challenges, but the various resolutions were mostly, “OK, we do X to get past Y quietly.”
The scope felt very limited, and the outcomes were uninteresting – a complete reversal of the previous session.
A big part of the problem was that the players kept getting complete successes (and taking a lot of stress to achieve them). So I had a lot of trouble finding places for things to start going south, or get more complicated. But… I don’t think that was all of it (and I suspect a lot of the reason the players were willing to take so much stress was because of the whole sense of “this entire plan depends on nothing going wrong and us continuing to avoid detection).
So… I don’t know. I had trouble “making bad things happen” in my previous session as well, since I feel that during scores I’m mostly responding to player actions. But this time was a whole different level.
Any advice? What can I be doing better?
Many thanks 🙂
Did the stress lead them to maxing out? That takes them out of the scene yeah?
Add a threat that CAN’T be overcome by being quiet… This forces the players to be inventive with their descriptions and skill / trait use.
Re-incorporate things like crazy, get to the end of the score and introduce already known complications into the downtime phase – this can be just as much fun as the score itself.
Sometimes it can be a matter of attrition. I have had quite a few sessions where in two hours we managed 2 heists and one or two down times. If the game is moving quickly, then it’s fine if things go smoothly on a heist. The heist is in the context of down time, and they get the reward for it.
But then something goes wrong in the down time. Or they find themselves compelled to go on another heist they aren’t quite as well prepared for, and they don’t have a chance to clear all their stress. Or they manage the operation like clock work but what they stole is not what they thought they were stealing, so now they have other problems.
In other words, if the mission is going smoothly and they’re rolling well and/or spending stress heavily to be successful, let them succeed. Then put that success in a larger context where complication is inevitable, so there’s a variety of pacing in a session.
If things are always going desperately wrong and that’s the norm, then there’s much less impact than if things were going smoothly and now it’s desperate.
As said, if they manage to plunder the Sashes? Good for them.
Now, unto the interesting stuff. The consequences for this heist for instance.
The Sashes are going to want to find the robbers and stab them ded!
Good advice, folks. Thank you all.
So you’re saying – a “smooth” mission is fine; if that’s what’s happening, let it go smoothly, don’t try to force a complication, and count on the developments to be what leads to action and interest. That sounds eminently reasonable.
Has anybody else had the problem I’m describing – the sense that a hush-hush infiltration is less interesting? I’d be very curious to hear others’ experiences.
I think the trick of making a hush hush score ‘interesting’ is to put clocks in the way of being hush hush that require NOISE. If they insist on being stealthy to overcome obstacles, then the obstacles need to ramp up the difficulty (and associated complication on failure).
Also, you can call for flashback scenes as the GM too, introduce a hiccup from before and ask how the players dealt with it, ‘Pulp Fiction’ style.
I thought about this some more, and if all the players are bored (even the ones who are succeeding) then that could be a great opportunity to have an unrelated matter crash the party. Another group of thieves raise the alarm. A disgruntled victim attacks the VIP in the building. A bomb goes off in the building. A wave of ghosts flows in from the canal.
Or, if someone is mightily irritated by the crew, then perhaps their foes take action while they’re exposed, to catch them red-handed to both punish them and curry favor with the target.
This is for sparing use; if you do it every time things go well that’s kind of rude.
Another possibility is to throw a curveball, a twist into the action. They discover a prisoner who begs to be released and promises them a reward. They discover a skeleton being surgically supplied with meat and organs that is yet unfinished. A defense is a chandelier where each crystal is a ghost, but one has established dominance over the others and agrees to suppress their attack if they rescue the spirits and free them.
Give them one or more hard decisions to make while they’re winning, and hope that the delay or additional risk puts them off their game. Even if it doesn’t, the session is more memorable.
I think it’s safe to assume anyone who gets wealthy and survive is rife with dirty secrets and bone-stuffed closets, so if they go where they aren’t supposed to, give them a whiff of what’s rotten in Duskwall and see how they react.
Great advice Andrew!
I was thinking you could look at the Player’s crew sheet and ask what they are gunning for? What advance or territory are they hoping to achieve soon?
THEN hit them with a spotlight scene… ‘Meanwhile, back in the crews home turf’ and introduce a clock that threatens what they are working for. Then they have a choice – keep swimmingly smooth infiltration through the current score, or head noisily back posthaste to their lair to deal with whatever complication you have thrown at them!
Andrew Shields , that’s fantastic advice. Thanks muchly.
I think I still need to get the hang of improvising twists like that. I’ve done stuff like that in other games; I need to start getting into the habit here as well 🙂