Let's Build a Heist

Worldbuilding
A heist is a burglary of goods with a moderate amount of security. Analyzing the
security and figuring out its weaknesses is the key to a successful heist. This post
will attempt to document the steps you can take to create your own heist scenarios.
I am going to create a very basic Heist scenario as we go along, just to give this
some real-world application.
I think there are 6 Factors that need to be looked at:
• The Prize
• The Location
• The Security
• The Targets
• The Escape
• The Payoff
We will also need to discuss Preparation. We will visit that at the end of the 6
Factors.
The Prize
What exactly is being stolen? The type of object will determine every other aspect
of the scenario. A painting is not going to be found in the same location as an
artefact. Giving each Prize a history and a pedigree will go a long way in
informing the rest of the details that you are going to have to create.
I'll include some loose categories, to get your mind turning. Customize to your own
tastes.
• Art: Paintings, statues, tapestries, bronzes, ornamental weapons, armor, or regalia.
• Jewelry: Rings, necklaces, brooches, earrings, or any other body ornament. This
includes gemstones without settings.
• Money: Coins, ingots, banknotes, scrip, bonds, stocks, or any other meta-value
currency.
• Rare Objects: Artefacts, magic items, one-off speciality items (like books or
letters), or any rare, unique thing.
• Personal Object: This can be anything, from a key, to a code or password, to a
keepsake or official credentials.
• Information: Records of things come in many forms, from books and scrolls to
magical devices.
• Illegal Goods: Drugs, mostly would fall into this category, and poisons, or any
illicit, valueable substance.
• Vehicles/Animals: Tricked-out surreys and prize racehorses, to work-a-day carts
and family pets.
• Weapons/Armor: This also includes ammunition for ranged weapons as well as
shields.
• Trade Goods: Any commercial commodity, from food to clothes, medicine,
alcohol and water, or any common item.
We'll need to create an example, so this doesn't become too confusing. Ok, so we
need a Prize. I happened to have written 10 categories, so lets roll <clatter> and I
rolled a 6. Information. The Prize needs to be something of high value and with
some history.
Lets go with....a Primer of Necromancy.
It's cover is living tissue and has an enslaved chain devil's essence ritually bound to
it.
That's got some teeth.
You can see that might immediately answer your next category, Location, and
probably fires off all kinds of ideas about the Security surrounding it and the
Targets who are guarding it or own it. Some evil Temple, maybe, with death traps
and alert guards protecting its underground vault. Or maybe some rich, corrupted
nobleman's mansion, in a secret shrine secreted in the walls.
If I had chosen a book of History, perhaps, a contentious one, maybe the last of its
kind, full of slander and political satire towards the old Empire, then you would be
thinking of a totally different place, a library maybe, locked in the vaults, with
traps meant to delay and detain.
But the Primer of Necromancy it is. So let's roll with it.
 The Location
This is the area where the Prize is located. It will most likely be shaped once the
Prize is decided, but sometimes (like the 10th time you've built a heist) you might
want a random location, or at least a random idea, to spark something interesting in
your mind.
The Location should always make sense to the larger world context, and it should
be relatively close to the characters' present location. No more than 2 or 3 days
away would be best. A good heist runs on timing, and you need to keep the pace
and the pressure high, to keep everyone focused and running hard.
The Location should also have its own history and its own life. The Location is just
another NPC (non player chambers) in the story, and it can be an obstacle in and of
itself. Very large, old buildings are hard to navigate, with rooms and hallways that
can branch off into a confusing labyrinth of wood panelling and tired
wallhangings. A jewelry store has its owners living above it, most likely, in a light
commercial district, and any noise created will be heard by many, many neighbors.
Random List (by no means exhaustive):
• Personal Residence
• Place of Business
• Temple
• Museum / Gallery
• Bank / Vault
• Castle / Fort
• Sewers / Catacombs
• Tower
• Military Compound
• Monster Enclave
Let's put our Primer of Necromancy inside a Personal Residence. Some rich noble
who spent a fortune to dabble in the Dark Arts. The residence is large, let's say 3
stories, 2 above ground and 1 below. Perhaps 20 rooms in total.
Location matters. It will give you the answers to your next category, Security.
 The Security
Security is the second most important aspect of the heist set-up. How you structure
your security spells the difference between a fun, challenging adventure, and a
boring, stifling one.
Security needs to be designed the same way you would design a series of traps in a
dungeon - by looking at the physical space and imagining people walking around
in the space. Are there places where the security/traps can't be bypassed, creating
areas where no one can go? If there are chokepoints, do the denizens have the
ability to bypass the security, and if they do, how does it work? These can range
from keys, to passwords, to combinations, to magic items, to spellcasting, to all or
any combination of the above.
The security needs to be built logically, so that there is consistency in what the
party faces, and so what they are seeing makes sense, and can be used to help them
move around and interact with things - if they see a guard open a door with a key,
and then go and knock the guard out and use his key, then the key should work, it
should't magically fuck the party over because they were clever (I've seen that
wayyyy too often over the years).
Security can come in 3 forms, at least to my mind.
1. Personnel. This would be the guards, and by guards I mean anything that is
guarding the location, regardless of class or race, including animals.
2. Physical. Locked doors, bars, gates, traps, or whatever.
3. Magical. Warded areas are vast and varied in their creative possibilities. I have
always ruled, as a DM, that if there is a spell in the book, then I can pair that with
Contingency and Permanency to create really interesting, and sometimes difficult,
traps.
The simplest magical protection is the Alarm spell. It lasts for 8 hours, is
customizable, and has 2 alarm types - silent (in the casters mind) and audible (60',
for 10 seconds). Refreshed 3 times a day, its the ultimate watchdog. But it is
surpressed fairly easily with Dispel Magic, and the audible ones at least can be
countered with Silence.
 Spells that detain or teleport intruders are great in theory, but sometimes they will
just wreck the heist, and there are plenty of ways for the characters to wreck it
themselves, so you don't need any help. That's not to say I don't still use them,
because I love to teleport the unwary, the foolish, and the greedy, but you should
refrain from doing this too much, and keep in mind how much fun/not fun it is to
split the party for your DM-style.
Ok, so let's set up the Security for our Personal Residence.
• All doors and windows are physically locked.
• The exterior doors are Alarmed (and these Alarms are refreshed so that they are
active during the night hours only)
• 2 armed guards patrol the grounds during the night. They are 3rd level fighters,
armed with sword and hand-crossbows, and they carry whistles to alert one another
during a crisis. Any whistle-blasts will also call 2-4 security personnel from the
nearby estates (who work together to keep everyone safe).
• The Primer is kept inside a locked safe inside the Master Bedroom. The safe is a
combination lock, and its code is known only to the Primary Target (more on
Targets in the next section). It is also warded with a Glyph of Electricity, which
has a contingency that will trigger a silent Alarm that is keyed to alert the security
personnel and the Primary Target. The Glyph can be deactivated with a keyword
that is only known to the Primary Target.
The Targets
Targets are the people who own the object that is being stolen (Primary Targets),
are connected to the Location (Secondary Targets), or have some personal
relationship to the Primary Target (Tertiary Targets).
Because the Targets are often the only ones who have primary knowledge about
the Prize, The Location and the Security, they will be the ones who need to be
either interrogated or neutralized (killed, captured, or incapacitated). These aspects
will be dealt with in the Preperation step.
Let's list our targets
• Balthazar Kerm (Primary Target): Human, male, 45, noble. Balthazar is a
 dilettante, who inherited into his family's merchant business. His net worth is
upwards of 100,000 coins. He has few friends, who find him amusing, but dull. He
has never married, and has no lovers, but occassionaly disguises himself to visit
one of the city's many brothels. He has no vices, and seems to be a rather boring
person. In reality, he craves power and has a bloodlust that he is barely able to
contain. On some of his brothel trips, he has let this murderous rage overtake him,
and killed the prostitute hired to service him. These murders have been quietly
covered up by Balthazar himself, who has paid hefty bribes to a man named Simon
Fench, a mid-level Guild rogue under the protection of the 29th Street Jump
(moderately powerful Rogues Guild).
• Gyush Gizek (Secondary Target): Head of Security for Balthazar's estate.
Dwarven, male, 261. Ex-soldier. Only drinks on his nights off (Tuesday and
Thursday) and occassionally gambles to excess a a local tavern. He suffers fools
lightly, and would not normally work for a man like Balthazar, but the nobleman
pays him triple a normal wage (which has highly raised his suspicions about him)
and Gyush needs the money for his retirement, which is rapidly approaching. On
cold nights, he limps.
• Hector Yukult (Secondary Target): Watchman at Balthazar's estate. Human, male.
31. Ex-soldier. Hector does not drink and does not gamble, but does have a quite
severe addiction to amphetamines, and spends nearly all his pay on the speed. He
has been able to keep this from Gyush, but will not be able to much longer, and has
even taken to extorting a local excommunicated cleric of the Deity of Love (whom
he is blackmailing to keep the cleric's raging bestiality a secret). Hector has a large
family that he does not talk to anymore and has several lovers who share his
addiction.
• Uly Minsch (Tertiary Target): One of Balthazar's friends. A noblewoman of some
means, who shares Balthazar's interest in opera, and the two are often seen together
at the theatre. Uly puts up with dull Balthazar because she secretly wants him to
marry her, so she can poison him (as she has done with 3 former husbands) and
inherit his wealth. She is a plain woman, however, and Balthazar has no romantic
 interest in her.
You can create as many targets as you want of course, and they should all have
some connection to the Primary Target, the Location or the Security.
The Escape
This is the final important consideration. How will the burglar escape with the
Prize?
The best heists should have several Escape options. Best is stealthy, worst is
bloody and noisy, but all should be viable and all should have several challenges
along the way. There should be multiple ways to overcome these challenges, and
Diplomacy, Skills and Combat should be the primary means, but don't
underestimate the ingenuity of the characters!
Let's set some escape options for Balthazar's Residence.
• The Roof: The best option, as the private residences in the area are very close
together, and the rogue can flee across the rooftops to a pre-planned
point/rendezvous.
• The Basement: Connects to the sewers. A good option, but without extensive
planning and recon of the sewer system itself, this could be very dangerous.
• The Front Door: The least desired option, this is the "run and gun" exit, very loud,
very messy, and very dangerous.
The Payoff
The Payoff is when the Prize is either sold/traded to some third party, or when the
burglar is able to make use of the Prize. Sometimes the heist was purely for
personal gain, and the Prize will be kept.
A Fence is a person who will purchase the Prize for coin or some other form of
currency (gemstones, magic items, spellbooks, etc..), and has a reputation for
discretion. The Fence will never give the full value of the Prize to the rogue, and
usually won't pay more than 50% of its "real-world" value.
In the case of a heist that was contracted, the Payoff comes when the rogue
delivers the goods to his employer. The chance of betrayal (on both sides) is
always a consideration, so caution should be taken to ensure that the rogue can
 make the Payoff work for him while keeping his life.
Preparation
A heist works best when the Rogue has done their homework and has spent time
watching the Targets, the Location and the Security to learn as much as they can
about the factors involved. A prepared Rogue is a cunning Rogue. Sometimes the
Rogue will need to put a lot of preparation in place and these can take the form of:
• Bribes for information about the Target, Location, Security, or even the Prize
itself.
• Disguises
• Forged documents (security passes, invitations, identification or other important
papers)
• Escape vehicles/mounts
• Hired personnel (or simply allies) to distract, contain, or neutralize any roadblocks
during the Escape phase.
• Specialized tools, weapons, poisons, or spells.
The Preparation phase can be played out over as individual sessions, where each
aspect is prepared and can be "ticked off the list" before moving to the next phase.
GTA V did this really well. Each heist had around 4 sub-missions that needed to be
completed before the heist could be unlocked. These ranged from stealing vehicles
for the getaway, to securing information.

I hope this encourages you to create some fun, interesting Heists for your games!