And a massive thank you to Taron aka Indestructoboy who is wonderful and the reason why my audio no longer sucks! Thank you thank you now our ears no longer bleed !!
"Instead of halting the game, failure means doubling down on danger" that might be one of the greatest gm advices I've heard so far! Amazing video, informative, to the point, vivid examples, witty and fun to watch! :) My players will eventually end up in a Prison Break scenario, and I will definitely implement quite a few of your tips, so thank you!!
haha, glad to see another comment from you! yup, the day I heard about the concept of failing forward was honestly a game changer! I'm still getting used to making it work though, it takes a little practice! But i'll get there! Good luck on your prison break scenario! I've not yet tackled one of those myself, but i've been itching to try it for a while..
I started watching this video and got as far as the end of the first section. Then i thought to myself, "this is GOLD. I need to come back to this with a notebook and my thinking-hat". Thank you, thank you. I'll be back. Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes - my big bad for this is a Female Strahd character. Its almost like you're single-handedly writing my campaign for me, so no pressure....
Abbria Iyengar used a "Heist Coin" mechanic she borrowed from "Blades in the Dark" in EXU: Kymal, which was essentially a flashback coin to say how you had accounted for this twist.
Hello from a pro GM in Namibia, I discovered your channel today and here you are uploading a new thing. Subbed and can't wait to see what's next. Also more on topic: I ran my first Blades session last week and boy is it a great but anxiety-inducing system. In a game designed for crime, the players decided to run a completely legal auction. Well, mostly. That happens too. No plan survives first contact with the party.
welcome! super happy you are enjoying this channel! and oh my, yes, no plan survives first contact with the party. Including the party's own plan hahhaha
I think I'd run a two-session heist. First one is the planning, second is the heist. Then they get to RP through all the scouting and preparation, building the excitement for the actual heist, with additional dramatics. Got spotted while scouting? Uh-oh - there's more security, or your face is on a poster now. No luck trying to steal that keycard? Early at the start of the second session, drop them one just to mess with their plan... So many possibilities...
The most excited I have been to prep for a session is a casino heist I'm giving my players. TONS of details and extra activities to participate in. It's going to be SO fun. Funky playlist is ready to go.
omg good luck! heists can be super fun! and YES! must not forget the funky playlist. I created 4 for mine haha, sectioning it into tiers (one for planning phase, then different levels of intensity)
YESSS! Really happy to see a new upload, and to see the numbers are growing. It's well deserved Heist are so much fun, even if the first one I ran went down pretty fast...if your players take gaseous form it's a little bit difficult to stop them. They had fun regardless, but i didn't scratched my itch of running a tense and frenetic heist Oh, and nice to meet you Val :)
leaving comments for the algorithm. You are amazing! One of the first DM ressources I've watched in a long time on youtube, because it is just so good :)
@@corkboardsandcuriosities my options for a setting are either in the local castle or they feywild. I will probably go with the latter option because it presents so many opportunities for cool encounters. They will be given a quest to retrieve an old adventure's magic sword.
RPGs are so useful for genre storytelling; most are built around turning these tropes into game mechanics. I have a series coming up about that, and because of THIS video, I am sending you an email.
Hi Val, I really enjoy your perspectives. So much of what we find out there for RPGs is the same thing, but you give new perspectives to interesting situations. Thanks for helping me get my creative thoughts flowing.
Thank you so much!! That means a lot!’ Haha I’m really just starting out, only been posting videos for a little over two months, but I’m so happy that people are enjoying this
Yes! New vid! Your videos are getting better and better mate. As your GM, i do have to say I am blessed with wonderful players. However, bold of you to assume 15 mins is enough for the briefing/j. You guys spent over an hour planning to enter a haunted room in our game. 😂 Just to add in my own two cents, I would say the twist can be at the mid point too so that its escalation can be fully enjoyed in the game, especially if this is a one shot.
Just found your channel by accident and am loving it (subscribed). Thank you so much for taking the time to design, write and make these videos they are extremely useful. Stay well, Stay safe....Helen with Kat and Terri with Robyn (E|astern UK Fenlands)
I really like the flashback mechanic. Already thinking how I would use it for my players in 5E. Maybe when they have inspiration, they get an additional use for it: if they run into a situation they have not prepared for before, they can go into a flashback and get an opportunity to prepare now. This channel deserves more subs and views!
This video came at a really good time for me! last session of Curse of Strahd (stop reading now if you're a player in a Strahd campaign...) My players began to plan a heist into Vallakovich's mansion, and they were there to steal the Tome of Strahd (and as a secondary objective, assassinate Izek Strazni). My current layout for the heist is somewhat lacking admittedly, as they could theoretically be in and out within 30 minutes of play if they got lucky. Thanks for the upload, and take a well-earned subscription :D
oh wow! this comment is really coming at a good time for me haha! I'm also running a CoS campaign and we should be in Vallaki very soon, I hadn't even considered running a heist in that campaign but honestly... sounds perfect.
@@corkboardsandcuriosities Haha, glad I could be of help! There are plenty of different player maps of Vallakovich's mansion, and I'm sure there are some out there for Wachterhaus too if you decide to go down that route. Good luck! :D
I wasnt planning to, but now i may need to include a heist in my campaign xD. I was already considering the flashbacks mechanic, but the last trick for a grand finale i hadnt considered, thank you so much :D
Aaaww thank you so so much! I’m hoping to post more frequently haha, had a lot planned for the summer but life got in the way haha, but I’m very excited to make more. Using every few minutes of free time I have to work on the next vids!
Great ideas! Putting a limit to how long players can plan, specially in a one-shot, is brilliant! Keeping a complication in your pocket instead of scrambling to come up with obstacles on the spot is also something to keep in mind when you put a puzzle in front of them. Sometimes that one player that has barely spoken a word the whole season will solve it immediately 😅 As an aside, I've noticed a marked improvement on sound quality in this video, and reading the comments now, I see you had help on that. Keep it up and best of luck!
This channel is great and refreshing. You're doing a fantastic job too and I appreciate how clearly you know the hobby at large! Would love to hear you talk more about Leverage, as I've heard a decent praise regarding the game itself but have not had the opportunity to see its depth.
I will run a heist for my vampire game and I did the following, which I would like to add but what basically makes exactly the same: I borrowed the mechanics from a cyberpunk game, a PBTA called "The Sprawl". So I will let them make a leg phase, based on the accumulated successes grant them benefits during the heist, maybe do some flashbacks where they can play how they got the infos and gear, and will let the timers tick away whenever they make errors. (= I am really looking forward to that session. Thanks for your videos, looking forward to your next one. 😄👍
@@corkboardsandcuriosities I like it very much. PBTA in general is not my favorite but this one is exceptionally good, especially the "mission generator" and the timers.
Love this video. For some reason I had never considered Call of Cthulhu for a heist, but that sounds awesome. I’ve run a few heist games and they are always a riot. I think it’s time to plan one again after watching this 😁
hahaha I was about to come say this and here I see my GM in the comments already has it covered! thanks Jack! Yes, Pulp Cthulhu for sure! Time to plan a heist on the cultists' lair or a library of forbidden tomes!
Once again this channel proves to be a hidden goldmine for Game/Dungeon Masters. Thank you so much for the great content you put out and I cannot wait for the next video!
hi Val!! i just found your channel today and i'm really glad i decided to check it out! great videos with some really good gm tips! very much looking forward to more of your content :0
I kid you not, all of your videos have helped me figure out some kind of plot-point I’ve been stuck on in my dnd campaign. You give really good insight and examples. Can only say, very well done!
Another awesome video! I wanted to take my time to watch it properly, because I knew it would be great, and you did not disappoint! The tips and ideas are on point and, as always, it is concise, clear and cool. Another (heist) job well done! It is always a pleasure and useful to wtach your videos; although, I haven't watched the Strahd one because I'm afraid I'd get the adventure a bit spoiled. P.S. My thanks to Indestructoboy, too. 😝 Also, great job on the subtitles, it's nice to see such inclusiveness.
thank you so much haaaaa!!! Haha, yeah, The strahd vid does have a few spoilers! As for the subtitles, i'm still a bit late on that, this moth has been crazy and i'm finally catching a bit of free time (I was editing in small pockets of time, it wasn't easy haha), you might want to wait a couple of days for the subtitles on the bloodied embroidery video, imma get to that tomorrow! but first... sleep. Until then, super happy to see you again in the comments and that you're liking this!
You are doing an amazing job with your videos. These are topics not covered in other RU-vid videos. Can you do some on adding nontraditional horror elements to the game. Great job!
By nontraditional, I was thinking of things other than zombies, vampires, or werewolves. They are great, but some of my favorite horror is early Hellraiser and other books by Clive Barker. I enjoy the temptation of flirting with the unknown to get great rewards, but at great cost. I really appreciate your response and am working the sleeping room into one of my campaigns I am designing. I love the story you told with it and what it can mean. Keep up the good work.
it's... daunting for sure. But can be super rewarding! I think I have the tendency to be an overprepper tbh, and in the case of a heist it does help. Although i'm ready to drop what i have planned and lean into the fun stuff my players come up with, i find it helps with the stress if i feel like I have something solid to fall back on, but tbh, i'm kinda trying to get out of this habit haha
Just found your channel and this video and it couldn’t have been at a better time! I’m planning a steampunk heist game Oneshot and I haven’t run a heist before. I’ve been watching heist movies and reading heist books in preparation and this video was insanely helpful. The flashback sequence idea is AMAZING and I’m definitely going to incorporate it with my own twist. Keep making cool vids!
Hooray, another video from you! Really surprised that you didn't mention Blades in the Dark for this, it specifically has mechanics that do everything you're talking about in this video. But then, it is a system that's designed to play criminal masterminds and pull off heists.
Hello! delighted to see you again 😄 Haha yeah I only placed it very briefly in the intro, but didn't really say more about it since I'm not super knowledgeable about this game just yet. The real reason is I have not yet played it! I have just acquired the pdf of the rulebook and I'm planning to run it sometime this summer but haven't really started getting into it. Ooooh if there's built in mechanics for all of this already I'm quite intrigued. I've been told also that it has awesome roleplay oriented mechanics, I haven't taken a moment to read through it yet but I heard wonderful things about the game overall and am quite looking forward to it (if I can stop procrastinating...). Dang, perhaps I might need to update the heist video after getting more acquainted with blades in the dark haha
Nice, a new upload ! Great video again, filled with cool ideas, well done !! I'm especially fond of the inspiration gives flashback, inspiration is a mechanic I always struggle to use in my games. And I'm wondering, about the timer you mention, are 10-15 minutes enough to plan a heist ? Obviously I haven't tested it so I'm probably wrong, but it seems like a really short time. I assume it depends on the scope of the heist, and I can see it working with smaller groups and/or players already used to this style. And at the same time I suppose a shorter prep time means the actual heist gets more thrilling because not everything was planned. I guess my question would be how much time is too much time ?
Happy you found this useful! For the timer, I'd actually say I think it's better for them to feel like they don't have enough time than the opposite. When running this one shot with different groups, I've always gone for 15 minutes, and we had quite a lot to get through (on top of the planning and scouting, they also had to pick 3 gadgets). I think it also largely depends on the group. If you have players who really enjoy the plotting phase, perhaps they would appreciate a little more time. In my case, my aim really ways to start the game with a lot of tension. People were very aware of the time pressure and it was delightful, the moment I started the timer they got to work super fast, and quickly enough people were screaming ideas in all directions, and I loved it. When the timer alarm went off, all groups actually had a pretty decent plan and were both very excited and biting their fingers because they had no idea if that all would actually work. There is one instance where I gave an extra 3 minutes because they had thought of something really cool last minute and I wanted to give the a chance to try it out. But for the most part, I try to keep in mind that several conversations are going on at the same time. While I'm busy answering someone's scouting questions, the group has partnered up and some are talking about gadgets while others are trying to think of their plan, it's quite efficient. But overall, I'd rather give them _just slightly less time_ than they'd need for a perfect plan, rather than giving too much time and for them to feel too safe.
Thanks for that very thorough answer ! You make very good points. I actually hadn't even consider that multiples conversations could happen at the same time, which seems kinda obvious now that you mention it. I don't know when I'll be able to introduce a heist in my campaign yet, but I'll be sure to come back to this video when the time comes !
I really like the idea of "partial success" or "failing forward", hell, even just adding more interesting descriptions to the failed rolls than simply stating "you've been detected" can go a long way. E.g. I sadly haven't played TTRPGs that much, but one of my most memorable moments was when our entire party of adventurers kept failing to finish off one last Mite that was also frozen solid. At this point combat was just a formality but we screwed up so many rolls that it almost ended up with us knocking each other out while slipping around and stumbling on rocks and our own feet, lol. By the way, do you mind sharing what country you're from? I'm curious about the accent
The "partial success" concept is awesome. I'm not sure where it originally came from, but it's a big part of Powered by the Apocalypse games, and the first time I played one of those, it really felt like a whole new relationship with the narrative part of the game. I'm still quite new to using failing forward in my games, it's definitely a skill that gets easier over time, but it can be really really lovely. Also to answer your question, I'm french! But I moved around a bit, so my accent can never really stay consistent haha, sometimes it just sounds like a frankenstein of different accents.
@@corkboardsandcuriosities Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I thought it was French at first, but then I thought "or is it?" so I figured I might as well ask As for the "partial success" thing, I'm not sure how common it is since I only played with one DnD group, but our DM would sometimes ask us to roll 1d100 and guess if it's "high" or "low" and then if we guessed correct he'd add some more positive flavour to our bad rolls (he'd also just do it randomly sometimes). For example one time when we were crossing a small stream I decided to boast a bit and claimed I could totally backflip over it. Well, turns out I couldn't, but at least chilling in the cold water reduced my exhaustion a bit, lol.
It would help if you kept a little more space/breathing room between the jump cuts you do between each sentence. Now it feels as one long sentence. Each sentence seems to be a different take/cut. Putting just a little space between them would make it feel much more natural and easy to follow.
note taken! Other people have told me that before, I hope that the later videos are easier to understand, but I know I definitely tend to easily slip into the "gotta go fast" rhythm hahaha
I just found you, and I gotta say, LOVE your videos, you're awesome! Also, out of curiosity, where did you get the paper you used for the blueprint map? I'd love to play some mastermind who walks up to the table and rolls out that kind of map for the players, but I don't even know what to search for that other than "blue paper," but that just brings up sheets, I'd love a bigger, mat-sized piece of paper
thank you so much, I'm super happy you like this 😄 The blue paper is really just printed! I made the map on photoshop and printed it on A3 paper, and then got coated it with and adhesive plastic roll so we could write on there with dry erase markers. I do have a dry erase battlemat that I use for most encounters, but I found that for a one shot that I'm likely to use again and again with different groups (and that one has seen quite some use), sometimes it's nice to go the extra mile and build a little something in photoshop haha
@@corkboardsandcuriosities I love making crafts for games! That's super smart, I'll probably start adopting photoshop instead of struggling with Paint and scissors XD
@@SpiderDilly oh wow that's some dedication! it's awesome that you're making fun crafts for your players to enjoy! I love those but these days I play mostly online so it might be some time until I get to have fun with this again haha
@@SpiderDilly heh, I’m not even mad, I found a wonderful gaming group that is a perfect fit for me, so I’m very much willing to make time difference and online platforms work!!
