Thread 96406705

I'm planning on running a game of SR for the first time and it involves stealing some goods right from a corporation and I have to ask...
How the fuck do I run a heist /tg/?

I've only ever done more traditional fantasy games before (The One Ring, 5e, and Runequest II to name a few), and I've realized that I have no real idea of where to start. I don't know what all I need, what I should have details for, if I need detailed maps out the wazoo or if I should be improvising some things, and all of that.
So got any tips, guides, anything that can give a poor GM whose totally out of his element some direction?

>>96406705 (OP)
Watch some heist movies -- good ones. Pay attention to the crew, especially their roles and unique specialties. Take note of the heist itself. What are they stealing? Where are they stealing it from and from whom? What's the security like? How screwed are they if something goes wrong? When you're done, remove the specific details, leaving only the rough outline of the events. Then, fit those events into a Shadowrun framework. Which corporation are the runners going up against? What exactly are they stealing and from where? What's the security of the place like? (note that, when it come to Shadowrun, there are three levels of security: physical, magical and digital/the Matrix)

And, most importantly, what sort of trouble are the runners looking at if they manage to fuck up?

A map of the place they'll be infiltrating alongside notes regarding the above questions will be important. Make sure to note where things like cameras, drones, magical wards and other security measures are for future reference, as well as guards, their equipment and their patrols.

>>96406705 (OP)
This might seem like a nitpick, but I'm gonna try and save you some heartache. Most Shadowruns are not heists, in the common usage of the word. Heat (amazing film, highly recommend) isn't about heists really either.
A heist has come to mean a complicated and usually duplicitous scheme with wheels within wheels, where the targets are deceived in some way. There's hard to run and usually quite contrived. Heat is about a series of _raids_ i.e. fast assaults on a target where an objective (theft) is achieved and then the actors depart swiftly. And the great news is this: if you've run a dungeon crawl you have almost everything you need.
So a raid is basically a dungeon crawl with the following modifications.
>Go Fast
The players, once committed, are on a tight deadline before reinforcements turn up and kick them to death. It's best to get player buy in early to the idea that there is a Point of No Return coming and that it's just curtains at that point. You cannot kill all the cops.
>Long obstacles
There should be obstacles that deliberately slow the players down. Smash each individual jewelry display. Try each key in the lock. Drill the safe. Thus the players must balance attention on achievement of these goals with other tasks (exchanging fire, yelling at hostages, etc)
>Casing
In D&D dungeons are usually mysterious. In Shadowruns advance info is crucial and the players would almost never go in blind. It's not fun to be blind. It is very fun to be faced with a problem like a titanium door and have to decide what tool or tactic you will use on it.
>Stealth
Disguises and sneaking can offer an alternative way to get into a site, but they collapse to combat. As such it's a tradeoff between doing the last third of the job loud with light gear, or all of the job loud but with powered armour and a minigun.

Watch some videos explaining Payday 2 levels: these provide excellent inspiration.

>>96406705 (OP)
Here's my biggest piece of advice for first-timer GMs:

Use a fucking pre-made scenario.

Shadowrun has dozens of 'em. Most are decent.

>>96406705 (OP)
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/42867/roleplaying-games/scenario-structure-challenge-4-heists

>>96406705 (OP)
This >>96407216
But also: design your players target. Because it's Shadowrun, that means there will be Physical, Matrix and Astral defences potentially. Make sure they each have at least one exploitable thing the players can take advantage of. Don't plan out a single hyper specific route the players need to go through. Let them find out as much as they can about the defenses and come up with their own plan.

>>96407216
>Thealexandrian
The faggot who named a book after himself and then it bombed? Lmao

>>96408724
Failure of marketing and a consequence of the fact that at least 50% of the book's content is already up on the guy's website, not a problem with the content. Dude gives good advice.

>>96409040
People don't read it or the website because it's mostly shit advice from a grognard.
OP if you want actual good advice just play under a competent shadowrun GM first, what you're doing is guaranteed to fail.

>>96408724
That's John Wick.

>>96409432
>OP if you want actual good advice just play under a competent shadowrun GM first, what you're doing is guaranteed to fail.
>You can only GM Shadowrun if you've been inducted into it by someone with anon's sacred seal of approval
Maybe that's true for low IQ fags like (you). Most people are able to jump straight into it as retarded 15 year olds with no experience whatsoever and succeed.

>>96410056
Kek, you can't even give good advice and you wanna tell people this? Please.

>>96408724
That's weird, I thought his name was Jason Alexander, not So You Want To Be A Dungeon Master. Also, the book immediately sold out it's first print run. You sound like a salty nogames.

>>96406705 (OP)
first design the place to be robbed, security, location, matrix, magical security ect.

anyone worth describing. guard who can be bought off? guard who cant? secretary that is a junky? heads of relevant depts?

how long do they got after taking the job?
how hard is it going to be to get an edge? steal a security badge from guards? easy? hard? matrix protection levels? magic protection levels? is the item being stolen make sense for the price?AA systems?

is this a real run from a trusted jhonson? is this planned to fail? is lethal force allowed? how long after the mission do they gotta wait to give the mcguffin to the buyer? are they allowed to steal other things? any staff that can or must die?

basically start at the base and work up. where, who, why, when....
whats the twist? is this a scam? a test of security? is this a milk run that another team going to steal the loot? did the PC's talk to much when doing research? does the government care? will the corp hunt them to the ends of the earth?

make it hard if they do shitty prep work but be forgiving if they are trying pretty hard, your players are rarely as smart as the PC's they are playing as. they cant help that be nice.

>>96406915
if this is honestly your first time running this is the right answer. if its your first time not running a pre-made then be forgiving of yourself.

picrelated if you cant find a premade shadowrun mission you like pre made cyberpunk and premade dark conspiracy missions are easy to convert but have the right flavor for what you want to present.

>>96410398
NTA but he did actually try to name the book after himself initially but the editor shot him down.

Here's what I posted last time this came up:
---
I ran a heist campaign in Spycraft. Here's what you do:

1. Conceive of a location ("the Dwarven Bullion Depository")

2. Draw a floorplan of the location.
>Include bathrooms, service corridors, offices, etc.
>give the map directly to your players at the start of the session.
>don't make it as complicated as pic related because this was a PITA to make

3. Write a blurb about the staff and their schedules. Write about the security systems, if any.

4. Conceive of an INCONVENIENT treasure that the party must steal
>a cask of poisonous grunglor eggs, which must be kept ice cold or they will hatch

5. Have an NPC brief the party on their mission and set them loose.

6. Throw in an unforeseen twist in the third act
>There's a sleeping dragon in the vault?!
>They store all the gold in molten form?!
>The priceless portrait is twelve feet tall?!

7. Once the party has the treasure, throw guards and crossbow bolts at them until they either die or escape.

it's your PARTY's job to actually plan and perform the heist. All you need to do is create the floorplan and arbitrate the rules and NPCs.

Include fun features like skylights and pits.
Give your party funny supplies, like explosives, acid, and invisible rope. They'll find a use for most of it.

>there are 4 (FOUR) Shadowrun threads on the catalog right now

What the fuck is going on??????

>>96413152
indeed how dare they take up space that could be used for bitching about D&D or Warhammer

>>96413655
>Anarchy kickstarter going up
>SR threads suspiciously start popping up like crazy as well

Am unto you, marketer-san.
I love SR so the more the merrier, but do it with a little more stealth, next time.

>>96410788
Wrong. That's a different blogger, whose seething mad that Keanu Reeves used his name for a series of movies.

>>96415563
To be fair I’d also be a bit salty if someone took my name (there’s two people with my name in the country I live in, very rare) and made a billion dollar movie franchise out of it making everyone think of some action hero character.

>>96415563
Who, John Wick? I don't know whether he tried the same thing, but I do know for a fact that Alexandrian did.

>>96415031
I'm the OP, I'm actually running an autistic homebrew system and not SR. From what I know through osmosis though the same heist principles apply and even the combat is pretty similar, so I just used it for ease of communication.

>>96413152
>Thread stalls for six hours
>Anxious Zoomer OP makes a new thread with the same premise

>>96415728
You haven't seen John Wick's Play Dirty by John Wick? (Foreword by John Wick)

>>96415728
Did he try to name it after himself, or did he try to name it after the blog he's been writing for over 20 years, that's the thing he's most known for, that the book is a refined version of? His name isn't "The Alexandrian."

>>96417697
>His name isn't "The Alexandrian."
His name is Justin Alexander, so his website literally is named after himself.

>>96418580
You're acting like naming the book he wrote after his blog is some monumental act of hubris, and not (poorly thought out) branding.