#dnd heist

[whoreocookiesnmilk]

My DM ruined my masterpiece of a heist and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive him.

[curse-of-dming-strahd]

okay since I'm running a PG-13 Curse of Strahd game in which my players specifically asked for it to not be too scary, and this party of ex-burglars and thieves responded really well to their old boss being the one who sent them to Barovia, I'm gonna go full-speed ahead on a pretty big tone change

which is that instead of this campaign being a horror crawl

I'm gonna try to frame Curse of Strahd as a giant heist mission

THEIR MISSION (should they choose to accept it):

Steal three magic artifacts out from under the noses of Strahd's associates. The first is in a hidden safe in the Abbey, the second they'll have to sneak out past Baba Lysaga, and the third is in a high-security treasure vault deep in the Amber Temple.

Assemble a crew. They'll meet many people in Barovia but there are two fated companions who'll be of the most help: Pidlwick II has intimate knowledge of the layout of the castle. Ez has experience dealing with supernatural bullshit and can advise on how to get past all of Strahd's goons.

Case the joint. Somehow they need to get invited into Strahd's castle so that they can poke around, learn about his defenses, plan their entry and exit, and figure out how to best dismantle his entire operation from the inside without him catching wise to their plan.

Then, once the final plan is in place, they strike.

And then idk they kick his ass, take over his castle, take all his money, steal his carriage, and ride off into the sunset.

[lockhinge]

"Man, that heist was great. I'm glad I finally got to use my college major—they said I'd never actually use it, you know?"

- Rogue who holds a degree in Heists and Hijinks

[dr-lemonade-mouth]

On Friday I'm running a modern dnd heist oneshot.

What my players don't know is that they're gonna have to steal an NFT that also a Lich's phylactery, and the only way to kill the lich all the way is to funge the token, whatever the hell that means.

[keplercryptids]

planning a d&d heist

heists are fun! we can all agree that heists are fun. they’re fun in dnd too, but planning for one as a dm can be challenging. so here’s how i’ve handled it.

first of all, a heist has three main stages: the planning stage, the execution stage and the escape stage. all three stages don’t need an equal amount of time or attention in-game, but they should all be present, at least.

planning stage

what’s difficult about planning a heist from a dm perspective is that you cannot plan the heist alone. part of what you have to do is see what your players plan to do, and react. i recommend a session where you all plan together, but don’t actually run the heist in the same session.

it can be tempting for some dms to guide the players too much and assign them tasks. resist the urge! what’s fun about a dnd heist is that your players can choose to do stuff their characters are really good at. maybe the bard with endless disguise selfs will pretend to be a nobleman and demand entry to the safe. maybe the character with a sailing background will get a job on the barge where the heist will take place to gather intel. maybe the druid will wildshape into a cricket and give the party updates via covert chirps. maybe, if your party is like mine, they will do all of those things. let them!

in the planning session, you should come prepared with information the party COULD learn. this can be as simple as a bulleted list and is obviously very dependent on what your party does. i recommend something like: “kitchen crew knows [THIS]. guard rotation is [THIS]. nobleman x knows [THIS].” having an npc help the party along can be useful but again, don’t help too much! try to leave the planning up to the party as much as possible. i do recommend giving them a blueprint of the place and maybe a guard roster to start. see what the party comes up with to learn more. maybe there’s a gala happening at the mansion in question and the party can sneak in. maybe there’s a cleaning crew that shows up every thursday. etc! then give yourself a few days to plan what’ll actually happen during the heist.

something else to consider is that perhaps your party isn’t the only faction vying for whatever they’re stealing. you can reveal this before or during the heist, and it can work in interesting ways either way.

execution stage

arguably, there are formulaic things you should include in this stage (if you google “heist structure” you’ll find a bunch of stuff). what i recommend: a time crunch, at least one roadblock, and a twist. a time crunch is self explanatory. your party has X amount of time to complete the heist. you can organize the heist by stage to keep track of the passage of time yourself.

a roadblock is a small hiccup that makes the party think on their feet. you don’t want to completely nerf all their planning, so don’t include too many of these, but! maybe there’s an extra guard where there shouldn’t be one. maybe the key isn’t where the party was told it would be. don’t fall into the dm trap of trying to solve this problem for them before you’ve presented it. let them figure it out! it’s their problem now, you know? (incidentally, “it’s their problem now, you know?” is good dm advice in general.)

and the twist! this is something that totally flips the heist on its head and completely subverts the party’s expectations. i think you could probably get away with a few roadblocks and no major twist, but a twist is fun! maybe the thing they’re trying to steal is already missing when they get to it, and they have to stop a competing faction from escaping with it. maybe an alarm goes off they weren’t expecting and now every guard in the place is after them. twists are fun.

escape stage

you can make the escape a big part of the heist if you want. maybe guards chase the party through the city and they have to do skill checks to avoid pedestrians, obstacles etc. maybe one of the party gets captured and they have to rescue them first. this is a flexible part of the heist too, because how it goes probably depends on how the whole heist went, so you should be thinking about multiple possibilities and be willing to think on your feet.

okay those are my heist tips! i have no idea if this is useful (i’m still struggling to plan Heist #2 lmao) but hopefully you find some good tips in here. happy heisting.

[lockhinge]

"And this guard is over here in the café on his break, chilling on a couch, so... he'll be prone."

- DM setting up the battle map

[lockhinge]

DM: So what the guard sees when he walks into the break room— Player: —Is an HR violation?? DM: ...I mean... Guard NPC: Wow, you two… Rookie, when I said 'stick it to the man,' this is not what I meant.

[lockhinge]

"For real, that grappling hook was MVP... Most Valuable Prop."

- Player