Whilst I'm not new to GMing, I am new to GMing specifically non-combat encounters such as infiltration etc. This is mostly due to the folks I've had round the table.

Fortunately, next week I will be running my first non-combat encounter and I am struggling to find ways to make it non-linear or not obvious.

Backstory

The crew around my table escaped from imperial custody and in the process, ended up screwing the hutts and the valarians. This accrued a sizable bounty and now that they have found themselves in a situation where the dust has settled, they can finally work on removing it. Without the ability to pay it off, an NPC i am using as a guide has informed them that if they get access to an 'Imperial Records Terminal' typically used with recruiting and managing civilian and criminal databases, they would be able to delete the official records of their bounty and potentially clear their names. Not an easy task but far easier than paying off their debt whilst on the run. The guide has pointed them to Bestine, an imperial occupied town on Tatooine and they are currently journeying there now via a public shuttle from Dathomir.

GM Notes

• The crew are taking a shuttle from Dathomir to Tatooine. Chances are it'll stop along the way. I am going to have a bounty hunter stumble on board and begin speaking to the crew to try and worm his way into their favor to later betray them. Depending upon how much information they supply him with, he'll lie and try to convince them that he runs a local anti-imperial organisation in that part of Tatooine and if they need any assistance, to let him know. One of my PC's is quite easy to charm by simply getting a beer out and playing some dice. Should work.
• The crew will be running with fake ID's. Due to low funds, they could only purchase temporary ID's which will stop working 72 hours after their first use. These will be scanned as soon as they enter customs at Tatooine (Unless they sneak through)
• The objective is a military compound which, conveniently is hosting a recruitment drive over the next few days which will see the gates open and less security precautions as civilians will be permitted to walk through certain hallways whilst deciding if the empire is right for them. The terminal in question should be behind some security measurements.
• Weapons will be scanned and confiscated upon entering the compound.

The Problem

I can't seem to come up with interesting ways to get access to the system aside from 'Follow officer x after work and take his keycard'.

• What should I be thinking about in terms of NPC interactions?
• How much control should I give my hacking players to bypass security programs and gather intelligence on the base structure? After all - If I give them all the information, things might get dull - I'm not sure
• What should I be thinking about in terms of map design? We don't use a conventional map on the table system but I'm thinking graph paper might be useful for those moments where they do find a map or require one. What obstacles such as doors / etc might they run into? I've never designed a heist and would like to make it as interesting as possible so as to reward all playstyles.

Help me y'all, you're my only hope!

With the described setup faking an emergency (fire-alarm, bomb-threat, weapons malfunction etc.) might become quite interesting: Irregular procedures effective, loads of panicked civilians behaving irrationally; opportunities do arise in like situations.

My players always jump on the "Surprise Inspection" ruse. One or two impersonate officers and try to strong-arm their way in while the others sneak and slice their way in elsewhere.

If you have a dedicated slicer player, definitely set up a counter-slicer who is actively defending the base's systems. Then you can use Threats and Despairs to close off access, or pinpoint where the PC is and send security directly to them.

Example: Success with a Despair means the PC gains access to the base's security cameras, but the counter-slicer has actually fed them a loop of outdated footage so when guiding the insertion team, they're actually facing more troops than originally thought.

Or the NPC plants false leads. The slicer locates the exact server node where the information is stored, but wait, here it is again on this server two rooms over. And over here one floor down. Which node is holds the real data? Do they delete all three to be safe?

How I tend to do these: Create the backdrop/setpiece, and don't decide the correct way for PCs to work. Then, when playing, remember "yes, and". Allow action to unfold as player decide.

On 9/1/2017 at 6:32 AM, closecraig said:

I can't seem to come up with interesting ways to get access to the system aside from 'Follow officer x after work and take his keycard'.

That's not your problem. That's the PCs' problem. They offer a solution and you either say "Yes" or "roll some dice."

Build yourself a random roll table. I did so with a game I'm going to eventually run once I can find players and from playtesting it seemed to work well.

Here's the thing about running heists, the gm shouldn't plan them, the players should, the players brain storm gather ideas and your job as the gm is to go with anything plausible that they come up with. The other job of the gm for a heist is to come up with a set of obstacles and a plan for how the pc's will learn about the obstacles. After that let them go nuts, and expect them to invoke "if you can't solve the problem, change it to a similar one that you can solve" to come up with crazy ideas you never anticipated, crazy enough that they just might work and then you run with that.

Half crazy idea: Take some inspiration about Blades in the Dark rpg. Start at the middle of things, skip the initial planning. PC step into target facility when game starts. With Destiny points, they can do the preparing things, like drug a guard's food, (roll dice normally to see how they succeeded).

Or start at the end. PCs are at vault and they just got what they wanted, but now they have to get out. And also narrate how they got in.

Definitely behind kkuja on this one. Blades in the Dark is a fantastic heist game that boils heist planning down into a super simple question and answer:

What is the first critical part of the heist? This varies by heist a lot, but if you have a 2-3 step plan provide by the players, it's enough to go with. In the original Mission Impossible, the first important point is when they enter CIA Headquarters in disguise. The next is likely drugging a poor sap who will get in their way. Last is the actual infiltration of the room.

Just have players grab some gear, and then roll some skill to see how things are going at the point when the action picks up. This could be good or bad. Then from there on out, if they need to cover a bit of planning (acquiring a critical piece of gear they didn't have) then they flip a DP, narrate a bit, then roll dice to do the thing. If they fail, it costs them two DP to have accomplished the thing, or they accept the failure and narrate why it suddenly doesn't work during the actual heist or some other complication. EXAMPLE: Say they need to have drugged a guy to make him sick and get out of the way. They flip a DP to have the drug, and roll for acquisition. They fail. Now they can choose between flipping another DP to force a success or narrate how say, they got the drug but it doesn't affect Rodians (oops), or it works but they had to promise the dealer a cut of the score and that will come back to bite them.

The reasons this model works so well are that it plays out like heist films (non-linear structure), and avoids the marathon 6-hour planning session that is plagued by analysis paralysis.

An one other pro tip from a long time GM: Failing a Stealth check doesn't mean you were caught with your pants down - it probably means you didn't make any progress towards your objective. A 3 Threat might mean someone is coming to investigate a noise (do something risky, quick!), and Despair is actually being spotted quite clearly, but don't ever hinge the whole heist on one flubbed roll.

Things that helped me plan heists were not, strangely enough, Ocean's 11 or heist films.

It was the computer games Payday 2 (how you can mechanically make a heist interesting and tense) and Grand Theft Auto V/Online (where you weave narrative with objective based milestones).

Playing either of these, if you have capacity, will give you good insights. GTA's heist setups are fun and work well with the personalities of the single player campaign. And successfully pulling off jobs in Payday 2 tells you, as GM, ways you can set up challenges for your player.

Your Bestine terminal story would support these mechanics - if you can even find playthrough vids on YouTube it will help I think. For GTA V/GTAO, just watch the heist cutscenes. For Payday 2, watching YouTuber GeneralMcBadass is your best bet - doing stealth heists is his thing.