How to Run A Heist - Running RPGs 

This is extremely clear and easy-to-use advice. Speaking as a person who has GMed since literally 1974(!), I got useful tips on how to run a heist here. Thanks, Seth.

One bit I would add, don't forget to weigh the mission based on the player's, not just the characters ability and experience. With beginners, I usually give them an "in". For instance, their employers might get them basic IDs to get past the perimeter or info that the delivery driver is susceptible to bribery/blackmail. For intermediate players, similar assistance is available if they look. Maybe they can hire a NPC expert to exploit a weakness the team can't (for a cut of the loot). IF the PCs do enough legwork they can find a weakness (note: this is not a fatal weakness, the weakness should allow them to beat one level of security only example: the head guard on floor 17 has a thing for blondes with an Australian accent so your Face character should be able to exploit that). For advanced players, I put the defenses in place first, then it's up to the players, no Training wheels. Another thing to consider is the defenses need to make sense. Any GM worth their salt should be able to make an impregnable vault. The question is why did they spend $25 billion to defend a treasure worth $1 million? If the "treasure" is a research file for the company's new product, why would they lock it down so hard that the research scientists themselves can't access it? Just like the ecology of a dungeon should make some sense (why is there a tribe of 30 goblins on level 15 of the dungeon with no access to water or an apparent food source), the security should make sense. I mean, yes I can defend the jewelry store with a dozen automated sentry turrets and omni-directional anti-personnel mines and the sales clerks in military grade combat armor, but who's going to set foot in a store that is designed to kill you?

An interesting idea would be to reverse the scenario. The players are the dragon, guarding the macguffin, while you as the GM present a group of NPCs who are going to steal something.

An observation I came across a while back: a heist is something like a magic trick, and happens in the same three stages: the pledge - establishing the goal and limitations, what tools are available, and more importantly what tools aren't; the turn - something happens that's technically within the rules established, or at least appears to be, but that someone wasn't expecting, and that seems at a glance like those tools that aren't allowed should be needed; and the prestige - the exciting part, getting back to normal without breaking the rules.

Anecdote: to get into the secure building, players rent a shop next door so they can tunnel in thru the basement walls. But maintaining the cover of the shop becomes the main adventure, as they have to make it look and act like a real business to avoid suspicion. A rival heist team also wants that shop so is continually creating problems in order to drive the shop out of business. By the time the actual heist happens the "shopkeepers" are disappointed to abandon the thriving new business.

The Dragon could always turn that "hole in the fortress" in to a honey-trap. An obvious trap to capture the unwary...perhaps that is how another team supposedly went in.

I'm a fan of the Blades in the Dark style of planning heists. You basically just start the heist with minimal planning, and then spend points to have flashbacks to planning. For example, if you come up with a plan DURING the heist where cutting the power to the building would have been smart, you can call for a flashback where you paid off a friend to cut the power when they get a signal. Even the items you bring aren't decided before you start

Well Seth did it again, made my week. The last time I ran a heist campaign I actually had a huge flaw in the map that changed the way the game was played. I love drawing these huge detailed maps on a battle mat and I forgot a huge section of wall near the goal of the whole adventure. My players know for a fact I try to make all my games with no holes at all so the plot is as realistic as possible. They noticed it when they got near the goal and said “Why is this wall missing, it leads straight to the treasure that doesn’t make since at all.” I’m panicking at this point, then one of my players yelled allowed. “Oh my god! We aren’t the only thieves here!” So like any amazing DM, I nodded my head yes and stole that amazing idea.

Another way to handle planning is only giving the pc's like 10-15 minutes, then giving them like 3-5 tokens that they can use for flashbacks. So they just get started qnd when faced with an obstacle they can spend a token to flashback to how they prepared to overcome it. But eventually tokens run out and they have to improv on the spot :)

A heist killed my group of 2 years. I had been running shadowrun with them for about 9 months, and to be honest they never were the most creative bunch even when we played different systems, but I figured they were ready to do a heist since it's a very common kind of run in the setting and I wanted to give them a different kind of session from the usual, figured maybe it's spark their interest. Long story short, their lack of initiative drove the game to a halt for three weeks, and my patience ran out. I know I should plan games to cater to the group, and this was really a problem that was going on for far longer than just three weeks, but I gave them every tool to do the job; I prepared blueprints, I planned shifts and routines for the staff, I took into account each of their abilities, they even had not one but two contacts with previous criminal experience ready to advice them IC in case they needed the help. I made sure they were *aware* they had all of these tools too, but they were all so goddamn lazy and unable to think that I ran out of patience and flipped the proverbial table on them. They don't even have the excuses of them just not wanting to play a heist since they could always just not take the job. In any case, I just wanted to drain since I felt wronged for the amount of effort I put into every single session for them to never appreciate it. Showing up late, missing lots of sessions without prior notice, the lack of action on the actual heist was just the last straw in a series of annoyances I had with them. It's a shame since I consider them all my friends, but god they made me being a GM just not fun anymore. Anyway, just wanted to vent since this happened two weeks ago and this video proved somewhat topical.

I break down stealth heist and assault heist into "going quiet" and "going loud" respectively. Usually my players try to go quiet, but inevitably one of them says something stupid or does the wrong thing or flubs a roll. The whole job goes pear-shaped and then they have to go loud. Except of course whenever I try to make them go loud; that's when everything goes off without a hitch.

I’ve always thought the Batmobile should be a souped-up white utility van. No stealthy urban ninja is going to drive a matte black tank through urban streets-that’ll stick out like a sore thumb. But a windowless white utility van with rotating license plates could be parked anywhere for any length of time and no one will pay any attention.

Seth just last week I was talking to my wife about how I wanna run a hiest for my group great timing!

Ok so i kinda want to hear that full rooftop heist story.

Nice breakdown on How To Do It. Especially liked that you gave a number of different possibilities for each phase. Vroom! Vroom!

Theres a game out there called Cryptomancer that was invented by a group of IT CyberSecurity professionals. It takes the concepts of cryptology and applies it to a fantasy world with a fantasy internet. It goes on about how to think like a cryptologist, breaking things down in to systems and how to hack those systems, whether its layers of security or social circles. Its really interesting. Its not for everyone however as its a Death Spiral kind of game. How long can you keep the Fantasy Illuminate from coming down on your head? But its really neat. I agree with lots of things in this video. I love basically setting up a series of obstacles in front of the players and letting them figure out how to go about pulling off their heist. I have a group of friends who totally love heists/assault heists.

As someone who just ran a heist in DnD 5E just a few weeks ago, you really need to make sure that the players realize that combat will not be the main focus of the session/campaign. I find it can be difficult to not have combat/ want combat when that’s all DnD basically is

Someone send this video to the chain of acheron

I really appreciate the way you lay out the versatility of a heist style adventure, particularly at the beginning, but also how each phase can be tweaked for a different feeling or focus. It highlights how a GM could run a heist themed campaign and still have a healthy amount of variety in the individual adventures.

I prefer to differentiate them as "Burglary" amd "Robbery"

First also you should have a podcast

Seth really loves jumping the gun on Bombshell when it comes to Cyberpunk

I see Seth, I click.

Currently working on Waterdeep Dragon Heist and attempting to redesign the final bit to make it a real heist, so this video is fairly helpful.

Sitting around a map planning the heist is almost a game in itself 💜

I'd like to put in a good word for the (sadly now out-of-print) _Leverage_ RPG. Even if you don't use the ruleset, it's a masterclass on how to construct a heist story. The chapter of tables where you can randomly roll up a mark and situation is pure gold.

10:45 oh yes... our Shadowrun games often ran into this trap when we were kids... those gun and chrome supplements were the game itself :D

One of our PCs had gotten a weird random rolled artifact that was basically a portal gun with 5 uses. He didn't use it for months and everyone forgot about it. We basically forced our GM to do a big payoff heist. The GM made it practically impossible. Portal gun guy stole everything. We bought a city district.

22:31 is the part that killed my phone because I spit-taked coffee all over it. 😂

Someone the Hole in the Fortress' security could be the source of the time limit. Take the Rhodes Bank Heist in Red Dead Redemption 2. The bank had bricked over a window that lead into the vault, but the bricks were weak and due to be replaced.

Been waiting months and months for colville to do his how to run a heist. Finally we get the amazing work of Seth to help us out! Love your videos man, I always tune in when I see the alert on my phone.

No joke...I needed this. I was thinking of doing a heist one-shot for a few games. I wanted to do one with Sylgar (Xanathar's goldfish) but needed some interesting concepts. I hate to rip off Firefly's train job again.

THe first heist I ever ran was in a D&D game. the party had bought a treasure map from a guy in a tavern. The map was real and showed where the treasure was. Only problem was to find out which island it was you also needed a ship's logbook and a nautical chart. The guy was in town because he had located the logbook. But it was in the fortified home of a wealthy merchant captain, and he couldn't get it. The party had other ideas.

Ironically this just popped up in my Recommendation section after I finished Castle of Cagliostro on Netflix.

1:46 The Artifact 2:37 The Fortress (4:07 Powers and Abilities) 7:22 The Dragon 8:54 The Setup (9:16 Time Limit; 10:26 Getting Equipped; 11:12 Making the Plan; 13:17 Glaring Hole) 16:22 The Job 16:56 The Kink 20:25 The Escape 20:55 The Tradeoff

A great module to look at is "Downtown Data Heist" for The Sprawl (Powered by the Apocaly0pse Cyberpunkt game) availlable for free, I think. It builds the location based on the legwork of the players, so basically they get exactly what they came for.

Honey Heist has a really interesting flashback mechanic that lets you potentially solve a problem or an obstacle - at the cost of adding a point to your Criminal stat. You play as bears trying to steal honey (as well as one other item rolled randomly) - if you fail a roll, you get angry and take one point out of your criminal stat and put it in the bear stat. If either the Bear stat or the Criminal stat ever reaches 6 (you start off with 3 in each) your bear either goes berserk and gets taken away by Animal Control, or you realize you’re a criminal at heart and betray the party! The best part? Honey Heist is free

"Go Dweebles! Get those mo***kers!" Lol

John Wick (a writer who is not a retired mobster played by Keanu Reeves, but is a completely different and real person who helped write the Legend of the 5 Rings and 7th Sea rpgs), had an interesting way of doing this sort of game. The planning and preparation phase is the majority of it, with the players adding details about the heist during this time. Every detail they "discover" (as in they just make it up) is true, but the GM has final say on whether or not the detail can be used (e.g. the detail makes the adventure too easy). Just let the players come up with things; the more they make up the more interesting the heist will be. Every time they think up something, a token is added to a pool, which are spent to give bonus dice or advantage, or extra points or whatever works in your system. This is incentive to get them thinking up details, and the number of tokens depends on how useful the detail is: One for a useful addition that adds to the adventure, a second point if the addition complicates things and makes it more challenging, and a third if they do something like supply part of a map or something physical for the GM and other players to use. After they've added enough to make the adventure interesting, the adventure begins. Now, ever 30 minutes of planning or so, the GM gets a token for themselves (I would also add one for every 5-10 points earned). These tokens can be spent by the GM in order to change things up, allowing them to add wrinkles to the carefully laid plans of the PCs. A guard where their shouldn't have been one, an alarm system being upgraded, a path being closed off, forcing alternate entry; all take a token. Have fun with the game.

When you talked about how the escape can be the juicy part of a heist, I remembered this level from Dead Cells (spoilers from an area from the base game of Dead Cells). The level I'm talking about is the Temple, or Sanctuary. One of the new features of this level, apart of its new construct enemies, are the statues of creatures, most from this very same level. You approach them carefully, but when you gel close, nothing happens. You can't break them, either. You can't interact with them entirely. You keep going through the level, and you eventually stumble upon a closed door. You can't open or break it. So you search for another way. At some point, after killing waves of enemies, you will find a room with some kind of lever you can interact with. When do, the door of this room closes, the walls from the temple start to emit an orange light, the music turns more fast-paced and epic, and a teleporter that leads to the start to the level activates (for context, any other level would have some more teleporters, and the are used for quick travelling between rooms). Now you're at the starting room, cleared of enemies. But when you approach the statues, they come back to life. Now you have to go through that locked door and ~exit~ escape the place. But it won't be that easy. I won't spoil it, but there is a very original way this level makes it harder for you to run away without fighting. The first time I entered this place, it was truly magical. That's why I hate spoilers. This is a memory that is carved in my heart. Hope you enjoyed this, and that it may help you blooming your own aventure, and that you can have your own beloved memory.

I've genuinely been talking to my friends a lot recently about how much I want to play a heist game. So I'm going to have to ask you to stop reading my mind Seth because it's rude without asking.

Something I like to do is after the guards and protections are in place, I allow the players to make their set up plans. One may flirt with the secretary. Another may carouse with the guards at the local tavern. The key to the "research phase" is that if they fail, the protectors are alerted that "something is up". The more they fail the greater the chance of getting caught. Contrariwise, if they do exceptionally well, they may get some bonus information. At any event it sure beats: "I make my Steal Things roll."

I just ran a traveller hybrid stealth/assault heist heavily inspired by your video and it went perfectly. The time limit was the best part and ramped up the stakes 💰 A high tech imperial military equipment transport 🐲 Local imperial Navy 🏯 The travellers choice of 2 separate military bases on the route of the military transport . The two players got to pick a team of Marines and specialists for their mission.

As a driver of a white cargo van. thank you for making my life a bit more interesting

The employer betrayal is classic! "Ironman, Ironman this is Charlie One. Message is: Pass them by."

About 'Bombshell'... We used the term 'Plan Ultra B' You know - when plan A inevitably fails you go to plan B... when plan B fails....

Oner mechanic for heists I really like is giving the players "heist points" that they can use in response to either kinks or other unexpected circumstances to explain, in hindsight, how they actually *DID* think about and plan for a circumstance. It works like a flashback in a movie where the player describes a previously unmentioned detail. Some examples: 1) Say the vault they are stealing from has an emergency lockdown if the artifact is ever moved and the players didn't consider it, by spending a heist point, the player can rewind and flashback to his holding the door open a crack by dropping a wedge in it as he entered. 2) If the PCs are being chased, a heist point can be used to say they stashed bags of ball-bearings or placed tripwires or bear traps along the escape route (if that would otherwise make sense in the game world). Since they placed them, they can easily avoid them, but they will slow down pursuers. 3) Or, say that the client hiring the party specifies that no one in the Fortress can be killed, but a crazed (and cursed) PC panics and fells a museum curator with his axe when he's discovered (this really happened in a game), then one of the PCs (even the offending PC) can spend a heist point to flashback to a scene of him grinding away and dulling the edge of that axe...so that the blunt axe may injure - but won't kill - anyone. How many heist points people get vary depending on how many kinks the GM is throwing in or expects they will face. I think one or two per player as a base. The more PCs there are, the fewer heist points they should get. Too many heist points can make the heist too easy, but having them as a resource also helps diffuse "planning paralysis" if the PCs are just afraid to get the actual heist started. Players seem to enjoy basically being able to co-create the story in an imaginative, but plausible, way.

I love how short your plug ins are. I could really use the inspiration for my heist campaign

To get around overly long planning phases, I have them intentionally brief. If their plan fails we rewind to the planning phase and all the events that happened were hypotheticals. The failed plan does have the downside of the time being incremented by one (eg if they have 5 days they have just wasted a day). This lets them explore different approaches and playstyles for the dungeon with less stress but still have stakes. Edit: grammer

I once ran a heist in Call of Cthulu not to long ago. They needed to get to an artifact held in a giant bank with alarms, guards and police. They ended up having the mob blow up part of town to distract the police and some guards while they used a flimsy board to walk from roof to the banks roof, it ended up with them with the artifact with no one knowing.

Tons of useful stuff here. I especially appreciate the advice about how to implement the Dragon. I normally think of that as something like a level boss who's supposed to be defeated. Making it instead a threat that's broader in scope and best avoided will definitely give my next heist adventure more suspense.

No van is ever truly complete without a hidden retractable turret of dual-linked autocannons on the roof.

Running a heist in CoC this week. Using a bank from a videogame as my place, mostly due to my printer crapping out so i had to find a premade one and it had a bunch of names for Callouts used in game that makes it easier to follow how we are moving. But im super excited because i have a couple of small details to add to the campaign inside as well as a being able to watch my players dive into it.

I've been watching your videos for a while, and I've been considering getting my hands on one of your books. I'll be honest the fact that you said R C Bray narrates the audiobook for you has made my decision where this month's credit is going.

Funny enough, the first session of the most recent campaign I ran was a Heist. Tons of fun but I do wish I had seen this first. Great advice and always Seth!

Great advice. I prefer to be in the room during the planning phase. This allows me to make the encounters meaningful and interesting. Every "obstacle" should have a means of how it can go sideways, and knowing what they are going to do and where allows me to figure out what happens when their rolls go sideways and not just default to combat.

Dweebles is so bloodthirsty. I love it.

Doing a side quest with 2 players for our Waterdeep campaign cuz one can't come. Thanx again Seth! Love your content.

Passing this video to my friends who enjoy DM'ing

I have been waiting my whole life for this video

I love your videos!!!!😍 keep it up! Love it!

Nice Ryan Reynolds "Foolproof" thumbnail shout out. An underrated heist film IMO.

Don't forget about the NPC wrench in the heist plan....think John McClane (Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho!)

I am truly inspired to try and make a heist game. A crazy kink would be a secondary NPC team from a separate contractor. That would be lit.

This is motivating as hell.

Handy tool for Fantasy-GMs for preventing magical solutions: A Homestone (not sure if there is a translation, I just did a literal one). It comes from the P&P RPG Midgard. The spell permanently empowers a certain set of stones that need to be built into the protected structure (be it as small as a house or as big as a huge castle), the main focus - the Homestone itself - having to be kept somewhere inside, and if it is removed the spell breaks. With this spell active, it is impossible for magic to leave or enter the building in ANY way, which means no flying, no teleport, no telekinetic yoinking of important objects, no magical attacks from either side (can suck for the defenders if they have more spellcasters), summoned creatures can not enter or leave and if they are furced they are very likely to be destroyed or dismissed. This makes it an ideal tool for heists, as magic still works inside, so casters aren't useless, and opens the possibility of a teleport escape if the party manages to snatch or destroy the Homestone. But getting in will require creativity, because even the fallback plan of "fly over it, drop feather fall", doesn't work, as the featherfall will be dispelled as soon as the enchanted people enter the protected zone. The size of that isn't precisely described other than "encompassing the entire structure", so GMs can assign the height of the blocker zone wherever they want to make falling down a bad idea. EDIT Sidenote: Quite possible this also exists elsewhere, but Midgard is where I personally encountered it for the first (and so far only) time.

About to run a multiverse spanning multi-heist in D&D 5E. This video was a great help I appreciate it!

Just started writing a dnd heist style game using gritty realism rules. Great timing

Good video man, will help me setup the Shadowrun heist this weekend

I really needed this for my adventure for 8-11 level adventurers. Thank you Seth for the inspiration and advice!

I was running the 2nd edition AD&D module a howl from the north. My players just discussed there plan to sneak into the barbarian camp for over 4 hours.

I like to prevent "Analysis Paralysis" by offering each PC a flashback. The flashback is used to put in place a plan they would have done, if only they realized an issue. This eliminates the issues of forgetting equipment, bribing someone, getting info, etc. It makes the game move along too.

I finally found some time to come back to this video after having watched the "What bug" war story. When you described the roof scene in this video (and especially after you talked to the GM afterwards about "where we got caught"), my first thought was essentially, "Damn. He DOES go bombshell all the time." xD

I've had a problem with being "too helpful" for a heist. Stepping in to fill in "character knowledge" that would preclude a particular plan *as stated* or complicate it... but maybe it's a natural detail that can be overcome. Usually I try to have every plausible route have its own challenges, but communicating that it's a challenge and not necessarily a fence is hard, and sometimes the PCs don't try to break through. I try to have almost any idea have *some* chance of success given enough perversion, but timid PCs... sometimes nothing to be done. In other words, sometimes they think it's a trick, and there's only one right answer. Hard to coax them to go *through* the obstacle when they're worried if they're on the right road. "That sounds too hard, there's got to be a better way". Well, maybe. Maybe there isn't, and that's why you're here, to cut the knot... and maybe your wacky scheme is hard, but not impossible...

I love your stuff man! Keep up the good work. Being a RPGer since 1984, you've help renew the love for gaming I haven't felt since the 90's. Thanks again!

Tnx. You have narrowed it down to digestable tips

What a coincidence, I was trying to work on a one-shot heist Vampire and this video has definitely given me a good idea on how to approach it. Great job as always!

Its worth taking a look at Blades In The Dark - it has a mechanic that addresses the planning/shopping paralysis. It starts in media res, the heist is on! As the players progress they are allowed to declare that they bought this or that as required, up to a limit, and they can also declare that they anticipated a situation and have to explain how they made provisions for dealing with it. For example, the guard on the back door, the players declare that they know he has gambling debts, they used underworld contacts, or followed him, but they have arranged to have those debts written off if the guard leaves the door open and goes for a break at a certain time. It makes prep easier too.

Big fan of your content - discovered you a couple weeks back and your how to run videos have been invaluable for prepping some aspects of my newest 5E campaign. On a different note, do you happen to know of any good places to begin looking for a group to run some sci-fi games with? (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, or, since your videos have solid me on it, Traveller)

Good solid advice as always. Heists were never my strength as a GM, but I certainly enjoyed playing in one as a PC.

I'm definitely going to have to watch this video again to absorb the advice, and plan a session if I ever run a game. I enjoyed it.

Great advice! The kink is a great excuse to plug a hole you left, but the key is to roll dice to “see” if it happens. Roll for each thing the heist plan relies on. All of them should be an easy roll vs having a problem, not a brick wall. Eventually, they’ll run into a kink. This sort of thing seems fair & natural, and if one of them plug the hole you left that would’ve made it too easy, that’s a plus.

Thank you, your videos are always fun but this time you’re right on target, I’m running a city based pathfinder campaign and one of the missions (if they chose to accept it) will be a heist so your suggestions and advice will come in very handy.

really nicely set out seth - and just in time, turns out im running a heist next weekend and didnt even realise. Thinking about it in these terms ive a lot to plan out but damn its gonna be a much better game now.

Fantastic summary and breakdown. Thank you!

Awesome video, I’m currently writing a heist story and this was really helpful!

Really love this channel, one day I will see a Seth Skorkowsky game here on youtube, unfortunately here on Brazil, finding game masters is a problem and a cool one that is commited to make the players experience fun like Seth is even rarer.

This video giving me all kinds of ideas for a fantasy heist where the players have to break into a wizards tower to steal a magic item... really great video!

I'm running a heist tomorrow night, and as luck would have it I have done no prep. Come at me Seth!

This is awesome; thanks! What is fascinating is the implications it can hold for all adventures in ttRPGs; one can easily flavor all adventures as "heists"! Even in the adventures that see you hunt a particular target down, it would behoove the DM to always have a bigger threat that the players don't want to attract the attention of.

I like to just come clean when I mess up as a GM! I find it really helps my players understand that we are all playing a game together not them against me. Thanks for the great video! Lots of awesome tips! :D

My players expected the Kink. So did I, planned it. But with the constant critical success rolls, their characters are now known as ”the guys, who ran the Kallistas job without a shot fired.” And that made a little less exciting game session very memorable.

Funny. I just introduced my players to Blood of Heroes (formerly DC Heroes RPG) and they need to break into a secured military research facility and steal both a particular research project and its head researcher. They are told that the researcher is not to be harmed in any way but otherwise any collateral damage is irrelevant. The facility is patrolled by multiple heavily armed guards and dogs and there are three entrances, each with their own issues (one is the large freight entrance protected with heavily armed guards, autocannons and even missile launchers. The "main" entrance is where the researchers and staff enter/exit and it moderately secured by security guards with assault rifles and body armor, as well as dogs. The last is relatively lightly armed with security guards in light armor and submachine guns, but that's the entrance most security guards use to enter and exit. Once inside, there are 4 banks of elevator, each going to an isolated level of the facility and each level is working on a different project. They need to find out which bank of elevators lead to the project they need. Since the information available on the facility is all hearsay, some information may be wrong or just their employer's "best guess". Waiting until Saturday to find out what hi-jinks they have planned to get in and out. :)

Running the heist later today. So excited. And very grateful for your tips 👏

This is the best heist breakdown vid on RU-vid. Thank you!

Damn you Skorkowsky! I was happy as a lurker, but you went and made me get an account just so i could subscribe to you. If it wasn`t for your phenomenal content RU-vid would have never gotten my info! Seriously, Best RPG channel i have found, fantastic stuff. Stay safe.

thanks man this video was really informative and inspirational :)

Great vid! Love the system neutral aspect

TotalCon 4 lyf! Great vid as always!

Props for the Blue Brothers slide!