Prison Break Adventures. Every new GM eventually hits on the idea of doing a Prison Break adventure in their game and I think ALMOST always they get it wrong, here's why and how to do it right. This isn't that long a thread. 1/
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) November 12, 2019
What they get tripped up on is the idea of the PC’s started with no, or very very little, resources and having to kitbash everything together but too often the GM confuses “we have very little resources” with “we have very little info.” 2/ GM's for some reason fall in love with the idea of; not only are you in jail and have to bust out, YOU DON'T KNOW WHY! It's a mystery!!
This is terrible. 3/
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) November 12, 2019
What makes a Prison Break dramatic, and fun, and playable, is the fact that, at their heart, all Prison Break stories are just Heists in reverse. Same basic structure. We have a bounded problem: the jail/bank. We have plenty of time to gather as much intel as we need. 4/ Then once we have a plan, we try to break in/escape, and that's where the action starts. "Will we make it out?" "Will we foil the guards?" "Will any fellow prisoner's betray us?"
So the trick to a successful prison break is; giving the players TONS of information! 5/
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) November 12, 2019
They LIVE IN THIS PRISON! They are experts on it! Let them be! They know the guard rotas, they know the layout of the prison, they know everything except…will it work? 6/ When you decide "not only are you in prison, you don't know why!" you are overloading the players with ignorance and that isn't fun. They need some structure, some framework, they need a path forward and you're denying them that and it's Not Fun. 7/
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) November 12, 2019
I ran a prison break a la the Great Escape, huge success, and it STARTED with a plan already ready. Improvised weapons hidden around the camp, communication between prisoner's already established. I just said "how do you want to bust out of here?"
"Could we…?" Yes! 8/
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) November 12, 2019
The question was just, will the guards notice? Can you trust the other prisoners? How good is your map of what's outside the camp? These are the dramatic questions the player's SHOULD be worrying about.
fin
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) November 12, 2019