Having played a partial session of the game and read the rules a few times, I have a couple of questions about action resolution and the general flow of the game:
First, how do plans work within the context of the game mechanics? Is there an explicit point wherein the start of the heist has to be agreed upon, and, if so, other than choosing a detail, what specific ramifications does this have for play? In particular, does the type of plan constrain the type of actions you can do (e.g., when executing an infiltration plan, are you not permitted to use social or occult actions to advance any of the clocks)?
I ask, because the last session ended in a situation where our characters knew what we were doing for our operation (stealing from the Red Sashes, but doublecrossing the Lampblacks in the process), but hadn’t actually officially declared a plan at that point. My character had gone to check on one of his contacts to gather information on what we’d be up against for the Red Sashes; this got me to know what the relevant clocks were. At this point, I wanted to work against the first clock–getting past the guards–by getting my contact several different kinds of high and getting detailed info from her on guard patterns and when they changed, so we could slip through effortlessly. I figured this would manifest in game terms by me rolling consort, with the danger that she’d realize what I was doing and warn the sashes, resulting in increased security or something later. My GM maintained that this was an attempt to circumvent the rules, since we hadn’t yet formally announced a plan and a plan type, and forbade the action. Who was in the right here? I should note that at this point, none of the players, myself included, had read the rules and thus weren’t making our points clearly, which only served to muddle the situation.
Secondly, on a largely unrelated note, in situations where a clock is only partially successful, is it permissible to make the exact same roll to overcome it, or does the skill being rolled have to change? For instance, if a character uses cipher to analyze a magical device and partially succeeds, filling two segments of a four segment clock, would that character be able to roll cipher again to finish, or would she need to switch to, say, attune or something similar?