How long does your team take to plan a big run?

In game time that is. Would they think for an evening, a day, a week, a month?

I'm just curious.

-Strobe

Depends on the target.

Although my group was fairly preparation heavy- we refused time intensive runs for the most part. At the very least we didn't usually hit a place until we'd gotten- or were unable to get after trying- floor plans, local utility plans, security threat- how many guards and where- what quality are they- how are they armed- if they're hired what's the companies SOP in certain situations- patrol times and routes, what type of alarms and stuff, if they scream for help how soon could we expect the police/backup showing up, any magical defences, and possibly just stake the place out for a few days just to get a feel for the general routine.

You know, that quick phrase you utter to the combat monsters as they are kicking in the door:

'SkullF*cker, you shoot everyone on the right. Brainmeat, you shoot everyone on the left'

If you didn't come up with great plans like that, then the combat wombats would take a whopping 4.5 seconds to kill everyone instead of the 2.8 seconds it takes with with using your 'cunning plan'.

Player #1: What are you talking about? We had a plan. We were going to steal that truck.
Player #2: No. You had a goal. A goal is part of a plan. A goal is not a plan.



We typically spend about the same amount of time planning as executing. Well, other than adventures like the above...

Depends on the run. Sometimes we have 2 weeks to complete, and spend 2-3 days doing matrix searches and eating cheesypuffs. Othertimes, Mr. J says "hit this place tonight" and we spend all of 2 hours casing the joint before we kick in the door. Planning frame depends entierly on the job and the window to complete it. Given that most runs seem to take place with about a week timeframe, and its sorta baseline for a runner to do one job a month, then lie low and take some time off between, Id hazard a guess at ~3-4 days on an average job. Thats to do matrix searches, meet contacts, case the joint, prep your plan and get gear for it, etc etc.

"We have to have a plan so that we know what we're deviating from."

Plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy. So if our last one for all intents and purposes did, then ...?

Our ratio varies greatly depending upon who is and isn't part of the group at any given moment. There's one or two people who start staring blankly at walls once planning goes beyond an hour or so. My own tolerance is closer to a month or so. If I'm running the game the group can take as long as it wants in out-of-game time in planning unless there's an immediate deadline of the kind mentioned by the White Dwarf. In either case the implementation of the plan rarely takes more than an evening.

Besides the expand ad nauseum list of scoped security and utilities and history I'd add to the list of information wanted prior to action: why? What's the (real) motivation behind the hit?

I guess I am a bit different compared to the usual GM. I really do sometimes give my team a job that is all that it seems (and quietly laugh as they try to figure out the "real" story).

Sometimes everything is just the way it looks. It really confuses the veteran players who are expecting the kill squad in at any second.

-Strobe

I wish my players would learn to distinguish between the legwork, or research part, and the planning. They sometimes collect a ton of info, but don't organize themselves. Or vice versa, they have a wicked tactical plan, but don't know nothing about the target or background, or history, or participants.
I'm big on proper mission planning, ties into my real-life. I keep thinking about creating a form for my players to use for their plans. Like a mission-prep work sheet, but I don't think they'd enjoy that. To answer your question: they put in about a week of game time for legwork and 'planning'. Say half of the game session.

The most trouble I've had with planning is that the different players have different interests in the actual planning stage of the run. While a team using the 'kick in the door and shoot everything' plan will realistically fail, that level of planning may be all that the players are interested in. What is a poor GM to do?