Exchange of Realities

Yesterday, I started riffing on plans and their importance. But as Brickwall pointed out, not all plans are created equal, and there’s a good chance of failure. Here’s my take on how to keep it from flopping.

A good plan has several characteristics. One, it’s well-informed. The group has a good idea what they’re getting into, and what they don’t know for sure they can make educated guesses on. (This is, of course, from the player standpoint—if there’s no way they could know about the gibbering horror contained in Basement 3E, I’m not going to hold not knowing against them.) Of course, this might require a certain amount of information-hunting, but that’s half the fun, isn’t it? Two, it utilizes the group’s skills to the utmost; everyone has at least some role to play, and if there is a situation to which someone would be uniquely suited, that someone’s in the situation. Three, it involves some sort of contingency; possibly a backup version of the plan taking into account the most likely cause of failure, but if nothing else, a way to get out or otherwise break off before the situation goes beyond the point of no return.

Figuring my perspective alone wouldn’t be enough, I did what any good planner should do for such a situation—asked for help, from two of my muses.

The first gave me a set of questions he usually asks himself when making plans.

• Will it achieve the results I want?
• Is it reasonable?
• Is my IC knowledge separated from my OOC knowledge?
• How can it go wrong?
• Is it the easiest way?

Note: These questions are best asked before the plan or plan segment is proposed to the rest of the group; having a group hash out all these details in character can take ages, particularly in a text-based format.

The second went into slightly more detail.

Have a double-fallback: A, A-2, B. Your initial plan, which gets broken. A point to fall back on, reorganize, and go to the next plan. And then the next, which is at least as robustly planned as the original. The group needs not to go over-prepared on A. And then needs the ability to draw the line between “adapting A” and “regroup and switch to B”, and switch before “Adapted A” becomes pure improv. The change requires either telepathic player-group unity, or requires someone who can lay down the law and is able to make the transition from A to B, to be in charge and to use the authority properly.

Using any or all of these strategies can help to increase the likelihood of a plan’s eventual success. I personally recommend a synthesis of the above; start by coming up with the outline of a Plan A, fill it in with the information and finding the ways in which it involves all of the party, then quickly run it through the questions.

Oh, and one last thing: regardless of what strategy you use, make sure everyone knows what the objective is. Common sense, right? Not always.

Good luck, and happy planning!