I’ve a question about the intent/spirit of the BitD rules. In our first session, they were instructed by the Lampblacks to recover the treasury of the Red Sashes, per the introduction in the QuickStart. The players chose a Deception plan, and so we spent the evening working to complete a plan to frame the Lampblacks for the theft of the Red Sashes’ treasury. They’ve all taken a significant amount of Stress, and will need Downtime.
All along, I’d been thinking that since they chose a Deception plan, we were pursuing that as the means to abscond with the treasury. Had they chose Infiltration or Assault, we’d have done one of those. I’d intended at the completion of the Deception heist to let them have the treasury and to progress the plot from there.
Is this the correct interpretation? Some part of me thinks it shouldn’t be so easy to make off with the treasury of a Crew well up the ladder from this starting crew. The Red Sashes shouldn’t be such pushovers, should they? Perhaps the PC Crew has succeeded in setting up a situation for a frame, but should they have to then do an Infiltration to get the treasury? But wouldn’t that be the GM telling the players what to do, instead of them having more narrative control?
I’m a bit confused by it all, and welcome any suggestions or interpretations.
Well, it depends on the type of game you want to have and the type of gm you want to be. It certainly sounds like your concerns are leading towards a traditional take on the game and your role. However, I personally think there is more to gain by letting the PC’s choose the tone and what can work. If you think that pulling off the deception, then if you say yes to it then that sends the message that the crew is just that awesome. There are plenty of mainstream media examples of such stories (Ocean’s 11 comes to mind). My advice would be to be a yes gm and to throw some interesting twists to lively things up.
I’m curious, How did they use deception to steal the treasure?
My players made just the same choices: deception to steal from the RS. And I had the same issue. The answer I got form here was that the plan TYPES are just a kickstart to put thing in motion. Strictly following the plan type during the execution is not required.
Did the Deception plan involve actually lifting the goods, or was it only to create the frame-up? I think you could absolutely use a Deception plan to do the heist, but it doesn’t sound like that happened. A Deception plan to create a frame-up is a great idea, but if that was the whole plan, I would say they still need a plan to actually steal the stuff, which would then be blamed on the Lampblacks due to their successful framing.
A deception plan would be to convince the lamp blacks that something is going on so that they’ll react and leave an opening to their vault.
Yeah, the way I’m reading this, all this plan was is a complex setup – there doesn’t seem to be anything in the intent of the plan about actually GETTING the treasury.
While it’s absolutely possible to DO that with a Deception plan, it doesn’t seem like that’s what happened here.
THAT said, I don’t think that’s entirely relevant to the real question here, which is “Should it be that easy?” and the answer is probably “Well, I dunno, how easy did you make it?” Also, I should point out that if you stole someone’s treasury, there’s probably gonna be consequences unless you managed to do it without them knowing who you are… and it sounds like the Plan, as described above, is to take care of that secondary problem, but hasn’t actually accomplished the primary goal of actually GETTING the money?
There are several ways to run a deception heist. Convince guards you are movers. Convince them that there are ghosts and you can exorcise their vault. Convince them that some other even bigger crew is gunning for them and they have to move the gold which gives you a chance to get it while it’s being moved (would still require a means to get it while it’s in the carriage which would likely be a fight but wouldn’t need to break in).
In any case, unless you are leaving something out it doesn’t seem like their plan involved getting the goods and this is a heist game so you shouldn’t hand wave that away. Best way of thinking of the plans is that plans represent the plan of attack but plans can always go sideways.
Yeah, a plan is just a plan. The action of the game determines whether they achieve a goal or not. A deception plan to frame the Lampblacks is one operation. Stealing the treasury is a different operation (with a different plan).
For difficulty, it’s up to you and how you represent the obstacles. But remember that consequences are often where the real problems are. Maybe no one steals from the Red Sashes — not because it’s hard to break in to their place, but because the Red Sashes kill anyone who steals from them.
Gotcha, thanks for the input. You said it very clearly, John Harper, in terms of operations. Do we then have Downtime between each operation (setting up the frame with Deception, then doing the actual Heist), or do I make them try to do the second operation with all of their Stress?
The one confusion that crops up from all of the above excellent feedback (thank you all) is when to determine there’s enough of a plan to proceed. My understanding of a central premise of the game is that it allows us to skip getting bogged down in planning and get to the action. I suppose that will come with more practice.
The players can choose to do Downtime, or not, between operations as they like. Whenever they take Downtime, the NPC groups do things, so it’s not always a good idea, depending on what’s going on.
A plan is sufficient when the type is chosen and the detail is provided. Just cut to the action right there. Anything else plan related that crops up can be handled with flashbacks.
Brion Oliver
I think the answer to “Do you have downtime” is just “Go to the fiction”; Do you think what they accomplished with their plan will ‘keep’ for a couple of days, or is it going to be useless/found out if more than a few hours pass?
As to your second question, I honestly don’t understand it – the rules are quite firm about how much “plan” you need to “proceed”; You need a plan type, a goal, and you need the missing detail, and then you can proceed. So:
“We’re going to use an infiltration plan to sneak into the Red Sash’s hideout and sneak the treasure out.”
“Okay, what’s your entry point?”
“The rooftops!”
“Okay, make your standard engagement roll.”
and proceed from there with jumping right into the action. Flashbacks are there to cover your ‘planning’.
Thanks, John Harper.
Mike Pureka, there’s comments above asking if the Plan covered X or Y, to which my response is no, the Plan covered:
“We’re doing Deception” and
“The Method of Deception is disguising ourselves as the Fog Hounds and getting the Inspectors on the Fog Hound trail.”
So we followed the RAW. RAI, it appears the Plan the group came up with didn’t address all of the elements needed to effect the Heist within the Game Narrative, but the rules don’t mention such considerations. Thus, the confusion my group got into. I can see now that as the GM I need to be able to identify that the plan they came up with is for a different Heist, but I didn’t have those tools in the first session. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to apply the rules to what they wanted to do, and I eventually had to just move things forward by assigning Clocks and having them work to overcome them.
Brion Oliver
I guess I’m still a little confused – while I agree that the rules should probably point out that a plan needs to have an objective, it seems like your group had one.
And I’m not sure why you need tools to determine that when someone says “We’re going to going to go crash the party at High Street!” that this does not get the money out of the vault at Lord Scurlock’s Manor… unless it does. If, in play, the characters get the money out of the vault, then they have gotten the money out of the vault, otherwise, they have not.
You didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, the rules seem to have caused you to lose sight of the basic idea that “What happens, happens.” – meaning, in this case, that once the plan is formed, the PCs still have to actually make it happen, and regardless of what the plan was, if the PCs don’t do something, that something doesn’t get done.