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So I'm trying to run a stealth mission. I have the story line down and the task that need to be complete, but what I don't have is the game play. I'm not sure how to keep my players "into" the game. I have the enemies, I have a plot device on why getting caught and into a fight is a bad thing. I guess what I'm asking is how do you go about GMing a stealth mission. Any feedback would be helpful.

I'm kind of second guessing that 'get the players into it' involves them maintaining genre expectations of 'stealth'. First question is, while quite a few people enjoy supporting genre expectations, do your players enjoy it? (remember, I'm asking because by the sound of your question they don't sound 'into it').

Second, if they do enjoy it, is this about supporting genre expectations or supporting your genre expectations? I think where things go wrong is a person thinks of a stealth operation and...they don't realise they are just thinking of their version of a stealth operation. Then they get annoyed when someone does 'obviously the wrong thing'. Unless you AND the players let your idea of a stealth operation bend a little during play, I'm thinking it's too rigid to work.

And if your wondering what the heck genre expectations means, well if your not doing a play to win (boardgame style) game, there isn't much left after that but genre expectation (or soap opera). What would you call it when it's not play to win?

Anyway, some thoughts there.

Gripmann wrote:So I'm trying to run a stealth mission. I have the story line down and the task that need to be complete, but what I don't have is the game play. I'm not sure how to keep my players "into" the game. I have the enemies, I have a plot device on why getting caught and into a fight is a bad thing. I guess what I'm asking is how do you go about GMing a stealth mission. Any feedback would be helpful.

I absolutlely love running these kind of missions. The best part is when something goes wrong. And, 9 times out of 10 something does.

Best ways to run it IMHO, is to remember the time factors. Is there a time limit on the mission? How long have the players got before the next patrol rounds the corner? When is the whole building going to erupt with activity because the normal workday there starts (this was one question that got answered the hard way for a group of mine. They spent a solid 16 hours in an office building's ductwork because they took too long to get out) As long as you can keep a sense of urgency in there, you can maintain a pretty good pace. Things can get a little hairy if the dice gods start screwing with your players, so they better be prepared to think on their feet if things start to go south. They really need to get through door A and only have 30 seconds to do it before the patrol shows up and busts them. Hope those pick lock skills are up to snuff!

The pacing should also significantly increase should things head into the sharp end. Stealth mission combat has to be fast and dirty! Targets have to be taken down hard! Every moment their opponents are breathing is a moment they can sound an alarm. Your players have to understand that from the beginning and be ready to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Once the trouble is over, do a fast cleanup and get on with the mission. Understand, however, that there is now a new urgency on the mission. Bodies, incapacitated or dead, can and will be found! Once they are, it's guaranteed all hell will break loose! Time to pick up the pace!

Next, never underestimate the power of the random element. The mission is going great and it starts to look like a cake walk. Enter the janitor with his cleaning cart. Or the frazzled junior executive going for his 10th cup of coffee because he's working a late night to get the presentation done. Or the not so frazzled junior executive who happens to be in the corner office with the frazzled executive's secretary. And let's not forget the nervous security guard who's lost in the building because it's his first day on the job and he has absolutely no clue how this building is laid out. These random encounters can, and often will, happen at the worst possible times and can make or break the whole mission. Both you and your players should handle them with care. Your players because these can burn them bad. You because they can easilly get overused.

Finally... and to me, most importantly... ATMOSPHERE! Most gamers underestimate the power of the gaming atmosphere, but it really helps when setting a mood for a game. For a stealth mission game, get all your players around a single table, preferably one that is almost too small. You'll want enough room for character sheets, dice, whatever books you'll need immediately and drinks, with enough space to roll the dice. The room should be dark with a single light source shining directly down on the table. Draw the shades, close the doors and, if possible, schedule the game to start sometime after dark. Basically, you want to set up something along the lines of the stereotypical place that would have a clandestine meeting of the minds where the plans for your stealth mission would be getting made. Even your own clothes should reflect the nature of the game with dark colors and simple clean lines. Simply put, dress like a burglar! If you or any of your players smoke, encourage them to light up in the room rather than take a break outside. (air the room out a bit once in a while though. too much "atmosphere" can get annoying) This should help encourage your players to get into the mood of the game and hopefully enhance the overall experience.

Good luck and great gaming!

Gripmann wrote:So I'm trying to run a stealth mission. I have the story line down and the task that need to be complete, but what I don't have is the game play. I'm not sure how to keep my players "into" the game. I have the enemies, I have a plot device on why getting caught and into a fight is a bad thing. I guess what I'm asking is how do you go about GMing a stealth mission. Any feedback would be helpful.

It's tricky, because depending on how you do it, one botched roll could end the adventure.

Here are my thoughts:

The art of roleplaying is immersion in the situation at hand, and putting yourself in the heads of the characters in the game. Consequently, each roleplaying game's rules get more detailed in areas of focus than in areas that might come up, but that won't be used as much. For example, you're going to find a lot more rules on and about computer hacking in Cyberpunk 2020 than in Toon. Meanwhile, Toon is more likely to have rules about dropping anvils on people's heads than other games.
The more important an aspect of a game it, the more attention and detail should be focused on it.
In Rifts, stealth is something that comes up, but it's not really designed for a lot of focus, mechanically speaking. You just have two rolls that really interact, Prowl skill checks and Perception checks. That's not a heck of a lot to go on.
Picture Rifts Combat if you only had two rolls, Strike and Dodge. No mechanism in place to see how bad the damage is. No safety measures like Rolling With Impact, no anything.
It's pretty limiting.
So it's a good time to either write up a bunch more possible rolls to affect the game, or it's time to focus on roleplaying over rollplaying.*

Spend more time on the details and building suspense and interest through words instead of numbers.
I forget the entire context, but one of the books (BtS?) has a bit of advice on GMing, and one of the things that stood out for me was a bit where the hypothetical GM says something like:
"Okay, you're slowly reaching toward the doorknob.... which hand are you using?"
It doesn't matter if it matters which hand the character is using; just asking will make them suddenly rethink what they're doing and worry that the situation isn't what they think.
They'll wonder why it matters.
You don't want to nitpick everything they do, of course, just get them to put more attention and urgency on what exactly their characters are doing.
Instead of saying, "Okay, you need to sneak across the courtyard, roll a Prowl check," tell them the exact setup and ask for exactly what they're doing.
Then have them make the roll, once all the factors are determined.
By focusing on roleplaying, careful and clever players can stack up enough situational bonuses that the die roll is mostly just the finishing touch, all but a foregone conclusion.

They're still going to fail die rolls sometimes, though, most likely.
So you need to be prepared for it when it happens.
In combat oriented adventure, the main way to fail is to die. While that's still a good possibility in a stealth scenario, a lot of the time the main way to fail is to get detected.
One of the general rules in combat game mechanics is that it shouldn't be too easy to die. Most games avoid situations where a character can die from a single die roll, "Save Or Die" situations.
Usually it's has to be 2-3 rolls before a character is outright killed.
Strike, Defense, Damage, for example.
Or strike, defense, savings throw.
Or Savings throw, savings throw, at a bare minimum.
This model should be used in stealth situations as well; a single failure of the dice should not mean that the entire mission is blown.
The minimum number for stealth checks is two: Prowl check vs. Perception check.
This can easily be bumped up to three: Prowl check, secondary prowl check to minimize negative effects, then a perception check to see if anybody notices the failure.

Say you're trying to assassinate somebody. They're sitting in their office, at their desk, with their backs to the door.
Your character has successfully made your way to the office door undetected.
The door is closed, with the knob on the left-hand side of the door, the door opening inward from the hall.
You press your body chest-first against the wall and slowly use your right hand to grab the knob, all the while listening for sounds that might mean somebody is coming, or that might indicate what's going on in the office on the other side of the door.
You very slowly start turning the knob, then inch the door open.
Does the knob make a noise?
Do the hinges squeak?
Does the door rub against the frame as you start to move the door?
Does the bottom of the door scrape against the floor or carpet as it starts to open?
Does the man inside happen to turn around and see the door moving?
You make a prowl check.
You fail.
So what happens, exactly?
That's up to the GM.
I could decide that you're completely busted, that any or all of the above factors kick in, and the target detects you.
OR he could let you make a secondary check to redeem yourself.
In this case, we'll say that the door starts to rub on the floor, but that you have a chance to feel the resistance before any actual noise is made. You make a second roll, and this time you make it.
You manage to stop before any noise is made.
You hold your breath and wait a bit, and there's no noise from inside, so you pull out a small vial of oil and pour it along the bottom edge of the door, and let the oil work its way under the door a bit.
Then you try again, rolling another prowl check, this time with a bonus.
This time you make it, and the door opens. Your target is across the room, his back turned, his attention focused on his work.
You pull out your garrote and start moving across the floor, your soft-soled shoes minimizing the sound of your footsteps. You make your way across the room, sticking close to the wall in order to keep your shadow from falling across his field of vision, and you make another prowl check.
In spite of any situational bonuses, you fail again!
This time, you bump into a vase on a table, and it starts to tumble toward the floor.
You make a strike roll to grab the vase, and a prowl roll to catch it silently and set it back upright.
But you fail again!
The vase falls to the floor, landing on the oriental rug that covers that half of the room.
Is the rug soft and thick enough to muffle the sound?
The target rolls a perception check.
He fails. He's too wrapped up in his paperwork to notice the soft sound.
You make another prowl check (with situational bonuses), and you succeed. You move close enough to put your garrote around his neck in a surprise attack. Roll to strike, roll for initiative, and move on to combat.





*A term that's incredibly abused, but that is actually appropriate here.

There is a lot of A+ advice in this thread!

My only contribution is to make sure you have players who LIKE stealth missions. I love them, but some groups get bored quickly without combat. So talk to your players!

Sounds pretty much covered.

I'll add this;

Get everyone to preroll Perception checks. I tend to go with 20. So write everyones name across the top of a sheet of paper, and then go around the table and get each player to roll their perception checks and note then down under their names. Also note down if they have any modifiers that sometimes come into play (nightvision goggles only give a bonus if worn, etc), and make sure if they have permanent modifiers that they're factored into their Perception checks.

Once that's done, keep the sheet to one side.

Then make up some rolls for your own use, maybe noting down modifiers of your NPC for Perception checks.

Then when the time comes to see if the characters notice some detail (a trip wire, a micro security camera, etc), instead of getting them to roll dice and get them thinking that they should be ready for combat or to be more cautious, check their Perception checks. You should already know the number needed to 'notice' your unseen item, or if it's a NPC, check your own NPC list (making it an opposed check).

This way, if no one in the group makes their check, the players won't be any wiser and will keep playing as they are. If one or more make it, tell them what they notice and maybe how the noticed it, and don't worry about making any reference to the mechanics behind it.

Every time the characters would make a Perception check, cross that number off the list. Depending on how much use the list gets, you may find you have to get them to make a new batch of numbers. If you feel it will disturb the mood to get them to roll up another batch of numbers, you can do several things. All involve keeping the same numbers, but maybe start working backwards through the list, or pick a number say 5 down the list and start from there. Or roll a dice and use the corresponding number on the list (ie, if you rolled up 20 checks, roll a d20, etc).

Can certainly be used with other skills too, even Prowl. They may think they're hiding in the shadows, but maybe they don't realize that there's some moon light glinting off their gun barrel. But don't go overboard and preroll a heap of skills. Really it's restricted to the more 'passive' skills. And also you're players will want to roll dice at least sometime.

8]

OMG! You guys gave me wonderful feedback. I ran the game this Sat. and it went very well. I took something from each post and worked it into my gaming style. I'll give details once I've done the last part, but at one point I let me player know that they detected motion in the room. At that point even the players that didn't have their character in the room paused. Everyone at the gaming table froze in place and didn't say a word. My players were up against a handful of manhunters. They used their heads and only got into 1 fight the whole game and that was mostly because it was 4:00 am and we had been gaming since 8:00 pm. All in all it went well and I got great feedback from the group. Thanks Forums of the Megaverse.

We'll send the bill.

JuliusCreed wrote:

Gripmann wrote:So I'm trying to run a stealth mission. I have the story line down and the task that need to be complete, but what I don't have is the game play. I'm not sure how to keep my players "into" the game. I have the enemies, I have a plot device on why getting caught and into a fight is a bad thing. I guess what I'm asking is how do you go about GMing a stealth mission. Any feedback would be helpful.

I absolutlely love running these kind of missions. The best part is when something goes wrong. And, 9 times out of 10 something does.

...

Finally... and to me, most importantly... ATMOSPHERE! Most gamers underestimate the power of the gaming atmosphere, but it really helps when setting a mood for a game. For a stealth mission game, get all your players around a single table, preferably one that is almost too small. You'll want enough room for character sheets, dice, whatever books you'll need immediately and drinks, with enough space to roll the dice. The room should be dark with a single light source shining directly down on the table. Draw the shades, close the doors and, if possible, schedule the game to start sometime after dark. Basically, you want to set up something along the lines of the stereotypical place that would have a clandestine meeting of the minds where the plans for your stealth mission would be getting made. Even your own clothes should reflect the nature of the game with dark colors and simple clean lines. Simply put, dress like a burglar! If you or any of your players smoke, encourage them to light up in the room rather than take a break outside. (air the room out a bit once in a while though. too much "atmosphere" can get annoying) This should help encourage your players to get into the mood of the game and hopefully enhance the overall experience.

Good luck and great gaming!

Great thread! Sorry to be a wee bit late.

Julius, kudos for the atmosphere ideas, would love to be able to play at your table once!

Allow me to add this tiny bit:

NOISE DISCIPLINE AT THE TABLE
- Enforce "speak only as you speak in the game" from here on no out of character talk (but for a rules clarification, dice roll results and such). Let your players whisper, hit them in-game when they don't.
- Use "You can communicate with each other only if you have the means". If they are near enough to each other they can whisper. If they are not, they might have to and will shout (give them maybe one warning if they forget that their characters are not so close to each other as they are at your table), unless they have communication devices.

PARTY SPLITS - SPLIT THE PLAYERS, TOO
- If the party splits, if you have the space or the tools and the party is willing, use paravents (partitionings of some sort), so that they at least do not see each other at the table or send them to other rooms.

Instead of cigarette smoke, which I would not mind , you could use incense sticks or dry ice.

Cheers
Hendrik