Casino Heist Normal Vs Hard

The heist leader can also choose to obtain two exit disguises for use after robbing the Casino by completing the optional Heist Prep: Firefighter Gear and Heist Prep: NOOSE Gear missions. If the player has collected all 54 collectible Playing Cards in Freeroam, the player can choose the 'High Roller' exit disguise when starting the heist. 7) Cayo Perico's finale is faster to complete. Also the elite challenge (extra $50K/$100 on normal/hard) is much easier to do, and less dependent on luck. Even if you go as fast as possible on the casino heist, you still may not make it because the game sent you to the very top of the map to meet the buyer.

More GTA Guides:

• 100% Completion Guide!
• How to Make Easy Money Everyday (Solo Guide).
• All Signal Jammers Locations (GTA Online / The Diamond Casino Heist).
• Mystery of the Los Santos Slasher / How to Unlock the Navy Revolver.
• How to Unlock Crew Member Patrick McReary (GTA Online).
• All Action Figures Locations (GTA Online).
• All Playing Cards Locations (GTA Online).
• All Peyote Locations (GTA Online).
• Quick Guide for the Oppressor.
• Cheat Codes.

This Guide covers the Missions of the Diamond Casino Heist and our experience with it.

First Board - Scoping Out

Starting Costs
The first time to do the heist, it will be free of charge. Every other time you want to complete the heist, it'll cost you 25.000$.
Scoping Out the Casino

To unlock all different options, take a photo and send it to Lester. If you take a picture of an A.P (Access Point) or an P.O.I (Point of Interest), the option to send it to Lester will appear.
Access Points

These points are seen in the Casino Model (if bought). The first board will be kept once the heist is completed.
Front

Back

Points of Interest

Casino Scope:

• Guards
• Indoor-Cams
• Outdoor-Cams
• Keypads
• Valet

Vault Scope:

• Security Room
• Lobby
• Staff Elevator
• Metal Detector
• Elevator (Out of order)

Possible Targets

Extras

All extras are kept once bought.

• Casino Model (130.000$)
• Door Security (425.000$)
• Vault Door (900.000$)

(Take a photo of the blueprints inside the office of the casino).

Second Board - Prep Work

Crew Choices

Gunman:

Karl Abolaji
Skill: Poor; Cut: 5%
Weapons:
Charlie Reed
Skill: Good, Cut: 7%
Weapons: SMGs and Shotguns
Gustave Mota
Skill: Expert; Cut: 9%
Weapons:
Chester Mocoy
Skill: Expert; Cut: 10%
Weapons:
Driver:

Karim Denz
Skill: Poor; Cut: 5%
Cars:
Zach Nelson
Skill: Good, Cut: 6%
Cars:
Talina Martinez
Skill: Good; Cut: 7%

Casino Heist Guide

Cars: Retinue MK2, Drift Yosemite, Sugoi, Jugular
Eddie Toh
Skill: Expert; Cut: 9%
Cars:
Chester Mocoy
Skill: Expert; Cut: 10%
Hacker:

Rickie Lukens:
Skill: Poor; Cut: 3%
Yohan Blair
Skill: Good; Cut: 5%
Christian Feltz
Skill: Good; Cut: 7%
Paige Harris
Skill: Expert; Cut: 9%

General Prep Works

Hacking Device

Get a FIB-pass from a corrupt agent, enter the FIB building and...
Vault Keycards

---
Patrol Routes

Go to a meeting of the Duggan security guys, eliminate them and search for the right car. Once found, open the trunk, take a photo of the documents and send them to Lester.
Duggan Shipments

Like a freeroam job. You have to destroy 10 shipments of these shipments, spread all over the map. Best use a helicopter for that.
Security Intel

Help poor Vincent, who is now a mall security guy. The Intel will be done in every heist when completed once.
Power Drills

Go to a construction site that is marked and collect either a vehicle with the drills or the drills alone. One person can carry two drills. A disguise is sometimes available.
Security Pass

• Level 1: Acquired from a cleaning woman.
• Level 2: Acquired from a croupier.

We had to crash a drug-party and find the croupier to search him for his pass.

Specific Prep - Silent & Sneaky

Nano Drone
You have to drive round the city and shoot down drones used by the LSPD. Then just collect the dropped parts.
Vault Laser
Go out to the desert, fight some (OP) Army guys and search for the lasers. They look like this:
EMP Device

Go to LSIA and steal a cargobob. Then fly to the university, lift the EMP out (it is right on the open filed) and fly it to the substation of LS Water and Power right across the casino.
Infilitration Suits

Go out to Human Labs and kill the guards in your way (the alarm will trigger as soon as you enter) Bags are in the rear (where you have to par the Insurgent in the Human Labs Heist). Bags look like this:

Specific Prep - The Big Con

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Specific Prep - Aggressive

Thermal Charges

Acquire Thermal Charges to blow up vault door. We had to go out to Sandy Shores and crash a Hillbilly party.
Vault Explosives

We had to go out to Paleto Bay and recover the explosive from a sunken airplane, guarded by Merryweather. Grab scuba gear and dive out to find it.
Reinforced Armor
---
Boring Machine
---

Third Board - Heist

Your personal weapon arsenal can be collected in either Laundry or Waste Disposal

Silent and Sneaky

Take out the electric stuff with your stun gun
Kill the guards right away, DO NOT STUN THEM! Guards with a helmet can't be killed right away. You can kill them with your knife.
Our way through:

• We went in through waste disposal, disabling the first metal detector, in the area behint it.
• After that we opened up the guard rooms and killed the guards.
• In the elevator bay, there is a button in the middle of the security room, right by the window, that opens the door of a small vault. There is the daily income in there, that you can steal. Press the button, let one guy go in, close the door and wait until he has emptied the vault. The vault can be opened from the inside.

We waited for the elevator guard to pass and opened up the stairs access.

The Big Con

Our settings where:

• Entrance: Security Tunnel
• Entry Disguise: Gruppe Sechs

• Exit: Waste Disposal
• Exit Disguise: Firefighters

Buyer: High Level (is further away, but you get more money)
First: Get into the Gruppe Sechs van and drive to the casino, to the security tunnel. You are being let in and have to drive down the tunnel, where your credentials are being checked and you are able to park the van.
Then, go down to the vault area, proceed through the manhole. To go through, you have to swipe two keycards at the (roughly) same time (time-window is roughly 4 seconds) and then just go down the winding tunnel.
Then you have a short cutscene, one knocks out the guard who opens the door and then you have to start heisting.

Aggressive

W.I.P.
Recommended for You:

• All GTA 5 Guides!

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From Joel Fox

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #504

The heist is a classic scenario in fiction that, whileprevalent in film media, is rarely found in pen-and paper games. The reasonsfor this are many, but the most important one to me is most people just don’tknow where to start. Everyone knows what a heist is – most people have seenHeat, Ocean’s 11, Conan the Barbarian, Sneakers, and so forth – but actuallyGMing for one? That’s a different story.

This article will hopefully make GMing heists easier bylaying out the fundamental elements to any good heist.

While this is in response to a reader request about FATE3, it was somewhat coincidental that I was also considering the elements of aheist, albeit for a different system. So, this article is as system-neutral aspossible to make its content available for GMs of all games.

Step Zero: What is a Heist?

What exactly is a heist? For our purposes: “aplanned and prepared-for caper, targeting a predetermined site, with theintention of removing objects of value and escaping unharmed.”

Heists don’t have a specific script or style – manydifferent types of robberies and thefts fall under the blanket of being aheist. Some heists are sneaky, where being detected means failure; some arehectic, madcap melees; and most heists are a mix of these two elements plus afew more.

Casino Heist Normal Vs Hard Boiled Eggs

Step One: Heist What and Why?

The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a heist are tied together, foroften the risks and costs associated getting the loot match or outweigh thereward. The risks associated with a bank robbery, for example, are nearly toomany to list: risk of injury, death, imprisonment, betrayal, and so forth, notto mention further pursuit by law enforcement, paranoia, and having to leavethe country. Therefore, the why of a heist is often more important than thewhat, even though the what is the goal of the players.

The what is generally easy enough, such as:

• A pile of diamonds
• Money
• Bearer bonds
• Paintings
• The Declaration of Independence

It might not be intrinsically valuable like currency, butrather something of a more personal value:

• Documents showing the heritage of party members (granting them a crown at a later date)
• Blueprints to create an exotic device
• An imprisoned person the party cares about

You might come up with the what somewhere later in theheist creation process, or leave the what a mystery: the party knows somethingvaluable is in a vault, but not exactly what it is.

The why, however, is more of what makes a heist a heist,and not just people stealing stuff. The why is what makes the benefits outweighthe risks, so it has to be pretty big: a party rarely says, “Hey let’ssteal the Hope Diamond today.”

The why is:

• Some advantage or edge the party has over the loot’s defenses
• To protect themselves from an even more dire fate
• To prevent a disaster
• To keep the loot safe
• To save a loved one

Here are some specific examples:

• A party member helped design or install one of the more potent security measures guarding a treasure; they know of a bypass.
• A friend, relative, ex-lover, etc. that guards the loot is a friend of the party, and will supply the party with useful information in exchange for a cut.
• The money gained from a heist will be used to pay off a dangerous criminal organization that wants the party’s blood.
• The loot is a powerful item or will provide funds that will aid the party considerably in their current quest, whatever that might be.
• The loot is a cure or antidote for a rare and otherwise incurable affliction that one or more party members suffer from; without it, they’ll die.
• Similarly, someone has afflicted the party and will exchange the antidote for the loot.
• The loot’s owner recently acquired the item themselves, and don’t have the full security system installed yet.
• The loot’s owner has recently acquired the loot themselves; an object of great power, it spells considerable doom if the party doesn’t recover it.
• The loot is dangerous or in danger, and the loot’s owner doesn’t listen to the party’s pleas; it must be stolen to protect it or others.

Making the why a personal and specific element of theheist helps tie elements together.

It also keeps party interest high. A party that decidesone day to rob a local complex might lose interest or get discouraged duringthe planning stages, whereas a party that knows a local complex has valuableitems the party can use and several exploitable security holes will stay ontask until the job is done.

Step Two: The Owner

The best place to start when planning a heist is theowner of the loot. This owner is responsible for all security measures guardingthe loot, so their personality, background, experience and skills play a largepart in what the party will encounter and have to overcome.

An owner with applicable experience or skills might haveinstalled some of the security measures themselves. A martial-minded ownermight personally guard the loot (or wear it).

Other owners are mere businessmen, nobles and whatnot and have no real experience protecting loot, so they hire security contractors to handle the details; which ones they hire, however, depend on their personality, background and so forth. Try to think from the perspective of the owner.

Here are a few examples.

• A seasoned owner might rely more on alert guards than on passive defenses like alarm systems, or cycle guard shifts more often.
• A technician/wizard owner might rely more on security systems/defensive wards than on fallible guards.
• A criminal or ex-criminal owner might be more than familiar with ways to steal loot, so he has systems in place to negate likely tactics.
• A cunning owner might have fake loot behind strong security, with the real loot hidden in plain sight or in an inaccessible location.
• A cruel or unreasonable owner might be unfair to his guards, making them more likely to betray him to the party.
• A cheap or inexperienced owner might not have state-of- the-art security, or might not keep it in good shape.

At this point you should construct a security hierarchyoutlining what people have jurisdiction over other people. The owner will be atthe top, with his top security chief(s) (if any) on the tier directly belowhim.

Constructing this security hierarchy will help later onwhen the party is planning on how to infiltrate the site; if they can see thatvault guards have higher security clearance than perimeter guards, they’ll knowtheir counterfeit perimeter guard uniforms won’t get them into certain high-security areas.

If starting at the owner doesn’t seem like the best courseof action for you, just leave the hierarchy blank for now.

Step Three: Passive Defenses

The start of a security network that guards loot shouldbe passive defenses, such as systems that function without needing directsupervision from a lackey.

Passive defenses have many advantages over activedefenses (e.g. guards): they work 24 hours a day, are hard to fool or coerce,and they require limited upkeep.

They have their fair share of disadvantages too: they arepredictable, don’t adapt to unique circumstances, often require power, and haveto have fail-safes or off switches so they can be bypassed by the rightfulowner.

There are many kinds of passive defenses, but they can bebroken down into four broad categories by their intended function.

1. Deny egress. Heavy doors, deep pits, unsalable walls, and other sorts of things that aren’t easily bypassed without specialized equipment or training.
2. Active defenses (like guards) that raise the alarm an intruder is present. Trip wires, motion sensors, security cameras, heat or noise sensors, metal detectors, and other sensory apparatus connected to bells, whistles, flashing lights and the like.
3. Kills intruders. Automated turrets, whirring saw blades, poison gas, and what-have-you. Most legal minded sites can’t use these due to legal issues. Some types can be bypassed easily (e.g. gas with gas masks).
4. Incapacitating defenses. Knock out, restrain, trap, isolate, or otherwise non-lethally render an intruder unable to proceed and make them easy to apprehend.

A prudent security chief will utilize more than one type of passive defense and scatter them throughout a site.

For example:

• A heavy door at the entrance
• Trip wires and motion sensors throughout a site which alert armed guards
• Knockout gas at the door to the vault
• A sound detector linked to poison gas inside

Layering defenses is important because each type ofpassive defense has a serious vulnerability:

• Denying defenses can be penetrated by the well-prepared
• Alert defenses are useless if no one is around to hear the alarm bells (and they’re vulnerable to the ubiquitous looped security tape trick)
• Kill traps always have ways to bypass them and multiple safeguards so an owner isn’t killed
• Incapacitation traps often leave a target awake and able to escape their bonds.

In addition, most if not all passive defenses are easilycircumvented by properly impersonating a guard with appropriate securityclearance, or by knocking the power out (or using an anti-magic field in afantasy setting).

Step Four: Active Defenses

Active defenses are those that are sentient, mobile orambulatory, possess some degree of intelligence and problem solving, and havesome means of subduing, hindering, or killing intruders.

The most common type of active defense is a securityguard: uniform, security pass, and a basic armament that doesn’t require muchtraining to use.

Elite guards with specialized training and advancedequipment exist, as well as specialized response teams that deal with specificthreats (fire crews, SWAT teams, etc.).

More esoteric active defenses, like AI’s with controlover remote drones or non-human creatures (monsters in fantasy settings andaliens or bioengineered beings in sci-fi) are possible as well, although thereare deficits to these defenses that balance their unique abilities.

Active defenses have several advantages over passiveones:

• They can react to changing circumstances
• They have experience and training which makes them well-suited to respond to specific threats
• They can’t be turned off with the push of a button

On the other hand, guards have to eat, sleep and use therestroom, not to mention they get bored, have to be paid, housed, entertained,fed, equipped, scheduled, and so forth. Most active defenses have considerableupkeep. It costs a lot more to have an armed guard watching a door 24/7 than itdoes to lock it.

An active defense’s benefit of being intelligent issometimes a hindrance, as well. They can be bought off, coerced, tricked andconfused. Additionally, many types of guards aren’t on-site 24/7. Many securitycompanies, for example, don’t show up until an alarm is tripped.

Neither active nor passive defenses alone are enough toprotect valuable loot. A good balance of both is the best way to keep intrudersout, with several types of both as well: snipers watching the perimeter,foot-soldiers walking the halls, elite guards protecting the loot, and responseteams on stand-by to back up everyone else.

At this point in your planning, the security hierarchyshould be shaping up considerably, with security chiefs, passive defenses, andactive defenses making at least four or five tiers total if not more.

Likewise, the monthly bill to support this securitynetwork should be reaching steep levels as well. Make sure to weigh the cost ofprotecting a treasure against the value of the treasure itself. If it costs$50,000 a month to keep a million dollars safe, is that cost effective?Sometimes it’s hard to put a price tag on how much it costs to run a laser tripwire, or how much to supply ammunition to 12 foot-soldiers for a month, soestimate if you have to.

Step Five: Façade

A façade is a front or false face. In terms of a heist,the façade is everything from the property line to the start of secured areas.In a bank robbery, it’s the area of the bank where patrons are allowed; in acasino, it’s where people gamble, eat, and sleep; for a laboratory, it’s theoffices and public areas.

Not all heist sites have façades, but mostbusiness-related sites will have them, so they are an important consideration.

Now that your secured site is starting to take shape,filling in the façade is the next natural step, since most heists will involvenavigating the façade and some heists will bypass certain secured areas by manipulatingthe façade (going through ducts, drilling through walls, etc.).

Façades are designed around utility, cost, ease of accessand legality. The easiest way to build a façade is to think of how you wouldbuild a normal business. Try to consider all the things that business wouldneed. Then surround the secured areas with that façade.

For example, in a casino, there should be:

• Gambling areas
• Food courts
• Bars
• Bathrooms
• Information kiosks
• Stages for live shows
• Chip exchange areas
• Elevators
• Staircases
• Parking garages
• Hotel rooms and everything that goes with hotel rooms (e.g. laundry rooms).

You should also consider portals between areas in thefaçade, and portals between the façade and secured areas:

• Doors
• Security doors
• Fire doors
• Secret doors
• Trap doors
• Ladders
• Windows
• Ducts
• Dumb waiters

There should also be some light security in the façade,just to keep an eye on things and prevent intruders from reaching securedareas, even if the entrance is hidden. Maybe façade security doesn’t even knowthere is a secured site, or they don’t have security clearance to enter thesite.

Non-security personnel, like cashiers, waiters, and soforth, often have some involvement in the security system (such as the abilityto activate silent alarms, or access to a few secured areas) so they should goon the security hierarchy as well (maintenance men, for example, can probablyaccess many areas that cashiers can’t).

Step Six: The Team

Now that your site is basically complete, it’s time tomove to the ‘heist-er’ side of things. The team consists of the players, ofcourse, but sometimes NPCs will be involved as well.

For heists that require a lot of manpower, or ones thatrequire a specialized skill-set the party doesn’t possess, hiring an NPClockpick, security expert, wheel-man, and so forth might be necessary.Additionally, having NPCs involved with the heist can help by introducing somechaos into the carefully laid plans of the players (see Complications lateron).

There are two ways to build an adventure: build thechallenge to match the players, or build the challenge independent of theplayers so they have to adapt and plan to succeed.

Heists should generally be of the second type, withsomething of the first type mixed in. Challenges that are part of the heistshould require a good deal of planning and moxie, but should be within thelimits of the players’ power.

For example, in a fantasy setting, if you had a party ofnothing but fighters and rogues, it would hardly be fair to have a site’sdefenses be nothing but magical traps that only a wizard can disarm. In thatcircumstance, mundane traps and plenty of armed guards would make a better site– something the party can do with some planning and effort because it matchestheir skill-set. At the same time, they may have to buy a scroll of DispelMagic or hire a wizard NPC because they know there is a ward somewhere in thecomplex they can’t disarm.

The easiest way to balance this sort of problem is tomake a list of the skills the party has, and then draw the list of skillsrequired for the heist from those skills.

Next, add a few skills the party doesn’t have to theskills required. Adding more makes a heist more difficult and require moreplanning. Here are some skills that could be required in a heist, with modern /fantasy equivalents where applicable:

• Strength
• Speed
• Size
• Lock-picking
• Sleight of hand
• Stealth
• Acrobatics
• Persuasion
• Disguise
• Driving, piloting, boating
• Explosives / sapping
• Scuba-diving / swimming
• Sky-diving, rappelling, skiing
• Security disarming / trap disarming
• Technical / artifice
• Marksmanship / swordsmanship
• Electronics, computers / magic

An epic heist will require a great number of these skillsand more, although your average heist will only require half or fewer.

Party members should be able to fill out most of these,with career criminal/rogue types making considerable contributions to the partyskill base.

Step Seven: Assets

Assets comprise elements external to the PCs that might assist in a heist. They come at some cost to the party or add additional planning considerations.

For example:

• Buying or bartering for information from people who work at the site or helped design it
• Specialized or uncommon equipment that might be unwieldy or hazardous
• Associating with contacts that might have their own agendas

Acquiring assets should require spending time or money.It might also require certain social graces, specialized skills, orpre-existing contacts to bring into line without drawing unwanted attention.

Creating assets for PCs to use is an important part ofbuilding a good heist. Assets are an essential part of heists, because withoutthe outside help that assets provide, the party has everything they need onhand to perform a heist.

While this might seem like a positive, it only serves tomake a heist boring, with no twists or turns; everything goes according toplan, tip-toe in, tip-toe out. Requiring PCs to seek outside help means thescope of a heist is grander and the loot more valuable. If any random guy offthe street could do a heist with no help, heists wouldn’t be nearly asexciting.

For each considerable obstacle in a site (generally, eachtier of a security hierarchy), there should be at least one or two assetsavailable (with a little digging on the players’ parts) that can partially ortotally overcome it.

For example, say there is a state-of-the-art security door that guards the loot.

Sample assets could include:

• Hiring an expert to deal with it
• Buying a high-powered drill that can penetrate it
• Contacting a bomb-maker and buying an explosive that can remove it without destroying the loot
• Acquiring the passcode from a security guard through some means of subterfuge.

Some obstacles can have multiple available assets; someobstacles can have no available assets; it’s up to you.

Step Eight: Planning

Now that the site, security hierarchy, and assets arestarting to take shape, players can begin to actively plan their approach tothe heist. This step is where you actually start playing. Everything up untilthis point should have been prepared before the session.

GMing for this part of the heist takes a differentstrategy than in most types of GMing. You should just sit back and, for the mostpart, let the players do the work.

Step in when you are asked a specific question about thesite that the players could have access to information about. Maybe they’vebefriended a butler who can give them a limited floor plan or has some sort ofinsight into the security infrastructure (a hack into the camera systems, or ina fantasy setting, a crystal ball).

Don’t tell players outright a plan won’t work. If youfeel the need to intervene, have their information sources reveal some detailthat puts a burr in the plan. If the players want to use explosives topenetrate a security door, and you know the kind they plan to purchase won’teven put a dent in it, maybe have the butler mention that the security chiefoften brags about how resilient the doors he’s installed are.

This ‘soft no’ should specifically be used for majorpoints, such as doors that, if impenetrable, end the heist in a failure. Forlesser obstacles with flawed strategies, failure can spice things up.

Much of what occurs at this point depends on yourplayers. Some groups will have a unified vision of their strategy. Some willargue endlessly about what route to take. Some groups naturally lean towardcertain strategies (a group of all fast-talking types might go for a confidencescheme). Some groups are all over the place in terms of party composition andhave to come up with a similarly convoluted plan.

Try to stay flexible and allow the party to attain assetsyou hadn’t considered if they come up with a good plan (estimating costs for exoticequipment or services as best as you can).

Step Nine: Preparation

Between planning and execution comes the time where theparty gathers up all the materials they need, hires the specialists and takescare of their checklists.

This preparation stage is probably the largest in-gametime expenditure for a heist adventure. It often takes weeks or even months tohave illegal or exotic equipment imported, and NPCs often have other jobs orthe like they have to work on. It might seem like tedium to some groups, but itcan be a good opportunity to introduce interesting characters and do somerole-playing.

Beyond these necessary steps to making the heist work,there can sometimes be sub-adventures that are just as essential.

Perhaps a special piece of equipment is a sub-adventure –a mini-heist if you will. One or more of the PCs must enter a secured facilityother than the primary site to acquire some thing or piece of information.Maybe specialist NPC (or even a PC) is in a secured location like prison orinsane asylum and the party must break him out for the job. An interesting oneis a player gets a part-time job at the site and has to sneak around, gatheringinformation and misplaced security cards. There’s a lot of room forsub-adventures, but they’re not necessary if your group doesn’t seemparticularly interested.

Complications should start to appear during this stage.Maybe the site security catches wind of the group’s efforts and ramps upsecurity, or certain necessary equipment or personnel simply aren’t available.

Compromise and lateral thinking are important skills forplayers during a heist, so having them start using those skills before theactual heist starts is not only generous on your part but also makes for abetter heist in general. If players are absolutely stumped when they run into acomplication during a heist, the heist is going to be short.

Step Ten: The Heist

The heist itself is hard to describe. There’s an elevatedlevel of tension, but at the same time a general confidence because of theamount of planning involved. Sometimes plans are changed in light of thecircumstances, or abandoned entirely when things go wrong.

How the heist goes has a lot to do with what plans theparty has made. Some areas of a site and defenses will be skipped entirely, andareas you hadn’t planned on them visiting might be the primary location of aheist.

One of the largest issues during a heist is that partymembers are often in different locations performing actions simultaneously. Thetiming of these maneuvers is crucial, but it’s hard to gauge exactly how longit takes to perform many actions. Additionally, the question of who goes firstis also an issue.

One way to resolve both problems is to break timesegments into five minute intervals, and have each player describe what they’llbe doing in those five minutes. Estimate how long a task takes based on itscomplexity (easy tasks 1 minute, medium tasks 5 minutes, hard 10 minutes).

Calculate travel times based on speed (remember thatwhile incognito, moving at top speed is generally a poor idea in mostcircumstances). When time-sensitive occasions like combat occur, switch back toround-by-round for a minute or so.

This method of five minute turns help players synchronizeactions during the planning stages for a more harmonized plan. With each playerhaving written down a list of actions based on a common time frame, the actionwill go more smoothly and it’ll be easier to keep everything in sync.

Even if this method isn’t used, some sort of organizedtime- based mode seems almost necessary to make the heist more closely resemblea planned sortie, rather than a group of guys haphazardly performing tasks.

Step Eleven: Complications

It may not seem obvious at first, but in reality,complications make the heist. Without complications, there’s no conflict;without conflict, there’s no danger; without danger, there’s no challenge;without challenge, there’s no fun.

Complications are what turn the best laid plans into aslapdash scramble to get out alive. Consider a heist where every plan andpreparation comes to full fruition. No guards are alerted, no security measurestripped, no team member caught, the loot recovered in full, and the getawayunchallenged and complete. Where’s the fun in that? You might as well betelling a story about how they got away with the treasure, rather than havingthem play at all.

GM intervention is often unnecessary to create acomplication. A player will roll a fumble, act based on flawed information, orchange plans mid-stream without other team members knowing. However, the GM mayneed to step in and put a little chaos in the mix.

Either way, the best preparation to create complicationsis to make a list of every type of defense measure located in the site (withthe help of your security hierarchy) and consequences for when it is tested.Then add a few specific instances where something can go wrong for even thebest plan. Creating these ‘murphy complications’ might seem difficult, but justthink of a few from some heist movies and then go from there.

For example:

• An NPC betrays the party. Maybe the site owner made them a better offer, or they want all of the loot for themselves.
• An NPC ally acts irrationally. Maybe they have a prejudice toward the guard’s ethnicity or attitude, or a hidden mental ailment.
• Equipment that worked perfectly during testing suddenly malfunctions. A quick check reveals the batteries need changing.
• An unscheduled inspection, celebration, or other event alters security measures (generally, making them tighter).
• The bribed security guard is arrested for outstanding parking tickets, so there’s a different, non-bribed guard at his station.
• There’s a power outage due to inclement weather, which resets the entire security system before the backup generators turn on.
• Traffic is unusually heavy, which makes specific elements arrive late and getting away all the harder.
• Another team planned a heist for the same day and has a team in the building at the same time as the party.

It’s possibly nicer to keep these murphy complications inreserve and not use them if the party screws up enough on their own, but atleast one should occur during every heist to keep the players off-guard andmake them deal with unexpected events. You don’t want the players to fail, justto have to work for it and do some critical thinking.

Step Twelve: The Getaway

The getaway is probably the most important part of theheist for the players, for obvious reasons (if you don’t get away with theloot, it doesn’t matter).

Physically getting away is only one part of a successfulgetaway. You also have to plan for future pursuit and prosecution for a heistto be truly successful.

Planning for both types is essential for players, butsometimes it’s hard for a GM to adequately speculate as to the effectiveness ofa planned measure in a dynamic environment. Say a team plans to get away byusing dirt bikes to navigate traffic, then fake their deaths in a boat accidentwith fake money in the boat? Who’s to say it works?

For the immediate escape, plan out a typical responsesystem in advance, with multiple stages for the amount of heat the party draws.

Guards in outer layers of the hard site or in the façademight be able to pursue the team on foot, though specialized response teams andlaw enforcement (given that the site is a legal one) will comprise the majorityof resistance to the players’ escape.

Just checking the speeds of the players’ getaway car vs.that of the pursuing forces isn’t sufficient; have both parties make someappropriate attribute checks (driving, athletics, etc.) to ensure their escape,with bonuses for quick thinking, planning ahead and reaction to theenvironment.

As for the latter, ‘getting away with it’, part of theanswer is to go back to the owner. Having the owner or his security chiefs makeappropriate attribute checks (testing their gullibility, perception, andrelated skills), as well as appropriate law enforcement agencies (the FBI beingthe major one for domestic crimes in the US) making checks as well, is a goodstart.

If no one detects anything awry with the evidence, thenfor the most part the team is off the hook for the time being. There’s always acatch, however; new evidence is found, a particularly tenacious investigatormakes the heist his pet case, and so forth.

The best way to deal with the party being ‘found out’ inthe long term is to just have another adventure at a later point. They mighthave to placate the party that found them out by performing another heist, orby going on some other sort of quest.

Comment from Johnn: Awesome tips, Joel! Thanks very much.Readers, stay tuned for more heist tips in an upcoming issue.

A Brief Word from Johnn

Keep It Simple – a 5 Minute Exercise

My favourite quote from this week’s article about heists:

“GM intervention is often unnecessary to create acomplication.”

In my experience this is bang on. Keep it simple, let theplayers complicate.

We GMs tend to worry too much about planning, details andhaving everything perfect for next game. Let’s stop worrying. Instead, we justneed to take care of our end of things and give players a chance to interactwith it. And if we keep our end simple, we make planning and preparation mucheasier on us and our busy schedules.

Do you remember the 5 Room Dungeons series RPT ran a couple years ago? That was simplicity at its best. Why plan a massive crawl when you can create a bunch of little crawls over time, and let the players create all the complications that will spawn a whole bunch of great gameplay?

Here, tries this next time you need to create anencounter and have five minutes:

1. Select a foe
2. Give the foe a goal that opposes the PCs
3. Give the foe a weaker friend
4. Select a location
5. Give the location a cool interactive feature
6. Pick a reward
7. Look on the internet for game stats for the foe, his friend, the interactive feature and the reward (if needed)
8. Clone the friend if you need to make the encounter more difficult when it triggers

Next game, as soon as you have an opportunity to triggerthis encounter, do so.

Leave out all the details about when the encounter shouldtrigger, NPC backstory, NPC personality, detailed motivations, complicatedset-up, plot hooks, map and so on.

Add these details off the top of your head during thegame as needed or as they occur to you. Let players complicate things for youso some details take care of themselves.

Certain encounters deserve more planning. But if you arestuck, blocked, out of time or overwhelmed, use this simple formula to hammerout a few potential encounters fast.

This is just an example of keeping things simple. As youGM, look for ways to simplify all the tasks, to dos and things you do to planfor and run a game.

Website Gets a Blog + New RSS

RoleplayingTips.com has a clean new look, and along withit a blog that has its own RSS feed.

CampaignMastery.com is still my main blog for in-depthGMing articles. The new blog at the RPT site contains reader tips, short bitsof advice, newsletter news and interesting links.

Visit the blog and let me know what you think: Roleplaying Tips Blog’s.

Subscribe to the RSS: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/url/rptsrss

4 Ways to Make Haunted Houses Great

From Andrew “BlueNinja” Tripp

Johnn, I’m working on building a campaign based on apopular video game. While considering how the various locations would havechanged in the several centuries since the game, one of the buildings seemed tobe the perfect location to have a haunting. I don’t recall seeing a topic likethis in the archives, so I wrote up an article. Hopefully it sparks some goodsuggestions from other gamers!

Pick an Interesting Location

Casino Heist Normal Or Hard

Location is important. The castle or mansion at the topof the hill is an obvious choice, especially if it comes with timed backlitlightning strikes. But think of other places – an office building, a dark alleyway,a theater or guild-hall.

If you have a haunted house in the middle of aneighborhood, what kind of effect does that have on the people who live in thehouse or their neighbors?

If you have a public library with a ghost, how do the employeesreact and what do they tell patrons?

If the haunting is deep underground, does the ghost makethe cave or basement wetter, drier, colder?

If the haunting is on the top floor of a skyscraper, doesthe view outside reflect the city as it is, or the city the way it was when theghost was alive? Or, possibly, consider thebuilding might itself be a ghost, appearing only to the right person, item ortime – and what happens to the luckless people inside when that conditiondisappears.

Such buildings could be used to travel into the past, thefuture, or alternate dimensions.

Why Is It Haunted?

Most ghost stories revolve around death, but neverpeaceful deaths. The haunted are often unfortunate victims, suicides, orvicious killers. Either their spirits are trapped, or the powerful emotionsinvolved leave a psychic recording.

If a building itself is the ghost, it could be due toacts of great evil, or perhaps it was built on a ley line nexus.

How often the ghosts appear could be completely random,or there could be circumstances the PCs can create to make specific ghosts morelikely to appear.

Think about what situations are required to make theghost disappear and the haunting cease. This could be as simple as casting anExorcism spell, or as complicated as tracking down the descendant of a killerand enacting retribution for a centuries-old crime.

If you’re playing a modern-day campaign, maybe the PCscould buy or rent some proton packs and play a branch of the Ghost Busters,while futuristic campaigns can talk about psychic residue and echoes ofsentient beings.

Interactive Versus Expository Ghosts

There are normally two kinds of ghosts: those you can interactwith, and those who ignore the presence of the living.

The second category tends to be the ‘psychic recordings’ type and are good for putting out information and clues to the players. Perhaps the images reflect something similar to what the PCs have seen, only decades or centuries earlier. Such ghostly scenes should be short, no more than a few minutes. While the PCs might be able to cause the sequence to start, nothing else they do will cause any change in the replay of events.

The first category is fun because the ghosts are awareand can interact with the PCs. A poltergeist can move items, either leading onor trying to drive away the party. A silent ghost can mime or lead the party.Then there’s the all-out ghost, which can talk, move things around and even usemagic or special abilities they possessed in life.

For more fun, combine the two kinds of ghosts. Have ascene that replays, but have one ghost be fully aware, playing her part untilshe can take the party by surprise.

Put out ghosts who will embarrass or humble the party. Orjust run a haunted house full of undead – Halloween is coming up soon!

Inspiration

As inspiration, here are some of the more memorable ghoststories I remember.

• Thief: Deadly Shadows video game. Specifically, the Robbing the Cradle mission -a haunted orphanage/asylum, still roamed by the hostile spirits of the patients and staff. Good if your PCs can’t fight them or have another reason not to disturb the dead.
• System Shock 2 video game. Filled with sudden replays of other crew members, usually shortly before they died. Excellent atmosphere for a group of PCs being chased or who are lost.
• The Hawk and Fisher books by Simon R. Green. One of the books has a palace built atop the ruins of a slaughterhouse, and the villain brings the ghosts of the butchered animals to life. Another has the protective ghost of a family return to help destroy a foe. Many of Green’s writings are good for finding bizarre entities.
• The Dark Tower, book 3. The haunted house Jake uses to travel between worlds is a good example.
• Monster House movie. The ghost isn’t seen until near the end of the film. Instead, it animates the house like a living being. The movie also shows some great traps.

Readers Respond

Halloween Westerns

Subscriber Angela made this request in RPT#504:

I volunteered to run a Halloween one-shot. On top of that,I agreed to make it an old west setting.

Is there anything special you would do to help create thefeel of the Old West?

Anything new or cool you would do for a Halloween adventure?

-Angela R.

Here’s how you responded:

From: Mike

Cardboard or plastic Stetson hats should be widely available.Add to that a rubber Halloween mask for the GM to wear, plus spares.

Why spares? Because if you’re a player, you can wear bothhat AND mask.

I would also check out the Kenzer and Company website for freebies relating to Aces & Eights, their wild west game, and would look at running a modified Call of Cthulhu scenario set in the wild west (to get the combination of flavors).

From: Jeremy B.

Expeditious Retreat Press has two very nice western adventureseeds packs for, I believe, $2 each.

[Johnn: yup. Available at my store for $1.75 right now: Seeds: Western I

Casino Heist Normal Vs Hard Disk

The horror rules at the end of Victorian Monstrosities byAdamant Entertainment are an excellent adaptation of fear horror and madnesschecks to d20 gaming.

[Johnn: PDF version: The Imperial Age: Victorian Monstrosities

Casino Heist Normal Vs Hard

As to evoking Westerns, go for cinematic. It’s dusty, hotand tiring. You just wanna get into town and leave the tumble weeds behind you.You walk through the swinging doors of the saloon and take your place at therail.

From: Jim Springer

Here’s one I ran once for my yearly Halloween game:

“A filthy child sneaks into what appears to be aburnt out church. She scurries up to the bullet-riddled alter and effigy. ‘Ohlord, we have lost so many to the scourge, this El Diablo!” Tears streamdown her cheeks and the words are wracked with sobs.

“Please, oh lord, protect us. Since my mamasita andthe Sheriff are dead it has been hard to keep love and hope in our hearts undertheir rule. Please save us, oh lord!”

At the same time a stranger walk up to Boot Hill, dressedlike a mortician. He leans heavily on a shepherd’s crook and whispers mutedwords. Then an eerie green mist rises from Boot Hill, flickering in the nightbreeze.

The earth begins to move a few grains of dirt, then more…untilwooden coffins rise from the ground. As the mist penetrates the aged wood ithas an odd effect: the clothes and bodies seem to mend; decomposed flesh turnspink and leather belts and boots seem fresh and soft.

Then their eyes open – not the white eyes of the dead,but eyes with the energy and vitality of a sleeper awakening from a long sleep.

As the mists finish their work they retreat, taking with themthe strange man in black. The only one to witness this was ‘

Laughingcrow, the town drunk and only witness to thisunholy event, mutters to the wind, “Spirits of vengeance have awoken, bigtrouble coming tonight.”

Meanwhile, a woman carrying something limp in her arms shufflesdown the street. “I found tha’ little girl! Intje ol’ church. Help me get’erto the saloon, ok? She was runnin’ to boot hill.”

The group rolls up characters, as normal. Only once they finish,let them know they’re dead! For this one time (just on Halloween), the veilweakens and the PCs, who happen to have all been slain by the same vile groupof western scum, can rise from the afterlife and seek revenge (and hopefully leavetheir loved ones better off).

The story lead to an easy encounter with three goons tosave a little girl, great motivation for any group, and she can fill in thestory gaps. Then just insert any old western plot.

Hope this helps inspire!