Jason recaps the events from Agents of Edgewatch S3|11: Never Tell Me the Odds!

The prep is over, it’s time to start heisting.

Before we get into the action, I did want to circle back to Steve’s show notes briefly. I did talk about this last week, so I don’t want to get into this endless loop of me agreeing with Steve agreeing with me, and then we’re still talking about the casino heist in 2027. But I did have a few more thoughts on the subject before we get going.

Let’s examine the heist genre. You have a central protagonist who’s smart and talented and can see the whole chessboard laid out in front of them. That’s your Ethan Hunt, your Danny Ocean. The problem is almost always clearly laid out because the protagonist is smart enough to understand (almost) all the dangers going in and has been thinking about how to do this for a while. The protagonist is, quite literally, The Man (Person) With The Plan.

But the protagonist is just one person and can’t do everything on their own, so they have to recruit a team of specialists (usually quirky misfits) to do the things they can’t do themselves. So the real allure of the heist genre is revealing what the specialists can do and how they use their skills to solve the problem. And of course, there are going to be one or two unexpected developments that force the protagonist to adjust the plan on the fly, whether it’s the antagonist starting to realize something is up halfway through, a double-cross within the team, random dumb luck… whatever.

Now, bless Paizo’s collective heart for trying, but it’s TOUGH to fit that into the structure of a tabletop roleplaying game.

The first, and biggest problem, is leaving room for player agency. The best way to REALLY do a heist-genre plot would be for the GM to completely lay out the plan – in the context of this game, have Sergeant Ollo create the plan for us – and then the players execute it. But then the players aren’t Danny Ocean anymore, we’re the quirky supporting characters, and we’re spending the next 3-6 episodes just doing what the pre-planned plot has told us to do. On the other hand, the more room you leave for players to make decisions, the less tight and heist-like the story gets, and it even increases the chance that the players will just come up with something that can’t possibly work and the entire scenario face-plants. So where does one set the balance there?

The other thing is those “supporting skills” that help the heist succeed… what do you do if the party doesn’t have those skills? If you started at Day One knowing you were going to be doing a heist, yeah, maybe you include a rogue for thievery and a bard for the social situations, and a brains class who has a lot of knowledge skills, and go light on classes that don’t offer as much in an infiltration. But for a heist that falls near the middle of a six-book adventure path, you’re “stuck” with whatever characters have been brought into the situation and they might not have the skills the plan requires. We even see a little of that within our team where Lo Mang hasn’t had NEARLY as much to do in the prep phase as the other three of us have.

And I think that’s where (bringing it full circle) I agree with Steve’s point that maybe this all needed a LITTLE more guidance. It was maybe a little too free-form and we spent a lot of time just wrestling with the basic “what are we even supposed to be doing?” question. (Keep in mind, as Steve mentions, our “paralysis by analysis” was actually WORSE than what you’re hearing here; he made some cuts to get us down to listenable episodes.)

Nevertheless, into the fray we go. We’re dressed up (except for Lo Mang, who’s working in the kitchen), we’ve got our cover stories, and it’s time to mingle with high society.

Annnnnd… we immediately stumble out of the gate and burn through one-third of the edge points we thought we had.

First, it turns out the edge point for the forged documents (I’m ashamed to admit that was my work) was a fake. So instead of six, we really only had five to begin with. But then that means we have to burn another edge point to get Basil into the door, and now we’ve got four left for the entire rest of the heist. And MAYBE we’ve added some awareness points, though it’s a little unclear whether using an edge point negates the failure entirely (i.e. also no awareness bump) or whether it gets you in and allows the scenario to progress but still generates awareness. That’s for Steve to know and us to find out, I guess.

And then things go from bad to worse as Dougie’s attempts at entry turn into a complete train wreck. Dougie fails his check. Fires off a hero point… that also fails. Gomez tries to jump in and salvage the situation with his goblin charms and ALSO fails. So three strikes and Dougie is both literally and metaphorically out. And now we’ve DEFINITELY got some awareness on us.

Now… I’ve got a minor quibble here. I am not a Very Rich Person, but I wouldn’t think a Very Rich Person would need a separate invitation for their servant/bodyguard. I would assume such a person would be included in the employer’s invite if they were allowed in at all. But I wasn’t going to argue it too strenuously because that cuts both ways: the casino’s policy could’ve been “the casino has its own security so your guy has to wait in a servants’ waiting area during the gala”.

So… Dougie’s out on the street, but he soon gets better luck on the dice and is able to sneak onto the floor through the kitchen, and we’re back in business. And in some ways, that signifies a shift in our luck, as our rolls start to get better. I’m able to get a good bid in the auction that won’t stick me with a 500 gp pipe, and Dougie’s able to just flat-out steal himself a ribbon.

Next up is figuring out where Gage Carlyle is because nothing else really happens until we can get the key from him. We find him, but decide that observing him for a while is better than IMMEDIATELY trying to get close to him, and that turns out to be the right call, as his security detail is aggressively brushing people away. Looks like if we’d gone straight at him, it would’ve generated some awareness. So OK, one bullet dodged.

Our next attempt to gain Carlyle’s attention is to win big at the tables. It does feel like we’re getting a little loose with the definition of Dougie’s “disguise” because it’s a little weird that two Very Rich People would let their bodyguard gamble while on duty. But I’m chalking it up as a necessary evil of game mechanics: if we want to do this right (and fast), we may need to cheat, and that means Theivery is involved, and Dougie is a little better at that than I am. (Not sure about Gomez… I just remember back in the murder hotel, John and I were both unlocking doors and disabling traps, and his was a little higher.)

Of course, an out-of-character shame is that Lo Mang was stuck in the kitchen, because in real life, Chris is the casino/table-games aficionado of the party. Then again, if Chris HAD been able to play, he might have wanted to play each game individually, and then we’d have a 2-3 episode interlude while Lo Mang gambled. So maybe it was for the greater good that he was in the kitchen.

So John is able to cheat his way to a big windfall (1500 gp), and that’s got a good-news/bad-news component to it: Gage Carlyle has now actually taken interest in us… but so has the obnoxious loudmouth guy he tends to avoid. So basically we have to shed the loudmouth (so Gage would be willing to interact with us) in a way that doesn’t seem overly hostile or draw undue attention. Fortunately, Lo Mang’s ties in the kitchen finally pay their first dividends, as he’s able to slip the guy an extra-potent drink that knocks him out. (Which seems like a not-uncommon occurrence with this person, based on the staff’s reactions.)

So finally, we’re making progress. We’re on Gage’s radar, we’re climbing the social ladder… and it’s distraction time! The casino doors bust open and here comes trouble. Is it the renegade wizard? Is it the Twilight Four or one of the gang leaders trying to get their device back? Guess we’ll find out the answers after we kick some asses… next week. As always, feel free to drop by our Discord channel or other social media and let us know what you think of the show. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week.