Rusty DM with relatively newbie group (they’ve played 7 sessions), we are getting the band back together after a couple months.
I plan to run a heist one shot, with pre-generated characters for the players (which they’re okay with as they get overwhelmed by character creation sometimes). It will be 5 players all level 4.
The vault belongs to a rich and powerful merchant that’s tied to backstories.
The party will have their reasons for wanting to do the heist.
The party will be contacted by a “acquisitions guild” or rival faction to the merchant who wants the score for its power.
I want to give the players opportunities to screw over this rich and powerful merchant and I want to give them various options.
I plan on having the vault hold a hag’s heart which will curse the players but they will have the option to either use it, destroy it or sell it.
Possible encounters:
- Flying sword, rug of smothering, animated armor
- gelatinous cube, helmed horror
- mimic chest and health potions
- either a gauth or a spectator
When cursed they can break the curse by going to the hag’s haunted house (which will be a giant mimic boss fight).
I was thinking of maybe rewarding good role play with “heist tokens” which they can use to creatively encounter issues like “I knew we would need a key to the gate so I bought the off duty guard drinks at the bar and got him drunk swiping the keys”.
As for the party we have:
Mc (great role player): an oathbound paladin who is drawn to the heist by rumors of a dangerous relic and is oathbound to prevent it harming people
Sh (not great role player): a battle master fighter who got their job in the army thanks to Mc, owes him a favor and also joining the heist to retire.
As (role plays when invested): a swashbuckler thief who wears a smile on her face but carries the pain of loss after her last job went awry.
Cy (chaotic player): a wild magic sorceress who is the reason As last job failed due to a surge of wild magic.
Sp (tactical/curious player): an armorer artificer whose business failed due to the owner of the vault monopolizing.
So I guess I have a storyline, but I need help to figure out what do I need to run this heist? I need to create the location/vault its entrances, exits, traps, guards etc.
I don’t know how to structure the start should it be in media res (start in the action) or prep phase of gaining intel, casing the joint and then planning and executing the heist?
How do I make the intel gathering, planning and prep fun?
How do you run your heists? What should I have ready? Structure? Complications?
Also how do you make it so that each member fills a role in the heist without it just being constant stealth/deception/investigation checks?