Heist

Overview

This Heist consists of four stages: legwork, infiltration, rescue, and extraction. Each contains several scenes divided into Obstacles, Opportunities, and Complications that provide the GM with challenges for the PCs to overcome. Obstacles have to be overcome for the heist to proceed, Opportunities give PCs advantages in other scenes, and Complications crop up if the PCs are drawing too much attention. How well the PCs handle these scenes shapes how cleanly the group enters the compound, avoids detection, and completes the objective.

Terminology

• Obstacle: This is a scene that the PCs need to overcome or bypass to achieve their objectives.
• Opportunity: This is a scene that the PCs have the option to perform, but that’s not required for final success. Completing an Opportunity provides an advantage, often an Edge Point.
• Complication: This type of scene represents an unexpected problem during the heist. It functions like an Obstacle, but the GM introduces it in addition to the current Obstacles. Typically, a Complication has to be completed before the PCs dealing with it can return to working on Obstacles.
• Awareness Points: This is a value for tracking how suspicious guards and bystanders are. Failures and critical failures typically increase Awareness Points. Awareness Points also increase by 1 at the end of each scene of the heist, as the passage of time makes it more likely that the PCs will be discovered. When Awareness reaches certain thresholds, new Complications and dangers come into play.
• Edge Point: This is a special advantage granted by good planning, quick thinking, allies’ intervention, or the like. Edge Points are precious, and typically gained by pursing Opportunities. When a PC fails at a scene, they can spend an Edge Point to succeed instead (even if they critically failed). Some Edge Points can be used only on certain tasks, and once used the Edge Point is lost.