Free Template
A heist is a machine made of people — and the moment one of them has a secret agenda, the whole thing breaks down in the most interesting ways. The Heist Crew template maps out the full cast of a job: the crew, the mark, the inside man, the fence, and the loose end the DM hasn't revealed yet. Use it to plan a one-shot score or as the beating heart of a full Blades in the Dark–style campaign.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this only useful for a one-shot?
- No — it scales better than it looks. A single job uses it as drawn. A campaign reuses the structure per score, keeping the crew and their contacts stable across jobs while the mark, the vault and the complications change. That's essentially how a Blades in the Dark campaign accumulates.
- What is the 'loose end' node for?
- It's the thing that turns a plan into a story. The loose end is connected to the inside man by a hidden edge — they know something about him the crew doesn't. Whether you spring it depends on how the job goes, but having it mapped from the start means you can foreshadow it in advance rather than inventing a betrayal on the spot.
- Can I map the plan itself, not just the people?
- The score and the vault are already nodes, so yes — the target and the objective sit on the same canvas as the cast. Add locations for approach routes or safehouses and link them to the crew members who know about them, and the map doubles as the party's operational picture.
- Which systems is it for?
- Blades in the Dark and other Forged in the Dark games most obviously, but it's used for D&D thieves' guild arcs, Shadowrun runs, and any scenario built around infiltrating somewhere protected. There are no rules references in it.
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