Do you use deadlines in your campaign?

[TheAuldGrump]

Both - I generally use a timeline that gets modified by the players actions, rewriting it as events occur that are beyond the villain's control, and I will sometimes fudge things so that they arrive 'in the nick' when they had something like a few hours, or had 'missed it by that much'.

Generally I use a timeline, not just a deadline - the bad guys have a list of what they are trying to accomplish, and when they attempt various portions of their nefarious plans.

Sometimes it is fixed by events beyond anyone's control - a solar eclipse, the tide, the thirteenth full moon of a year (a 'blue moon').... Things like that. If a sea cave can only be entered at low tide, and incoming the tide becomes a battering ram smashing all before it, then no one uses the cave after a certain time. (Gotta love the Bay of Fundy. )

If I am going for a pulpy feel then the heroes will enter the chambers of The MOLOCH Engine in the nick of time, because it is more fun that way - the players don't need to know that the plot revolves around their actions, and they have been in enough of my games where time did matter that they won't shilly shally.

The Auld Grump

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I try to avoid deadlines in part because I, like others, am not a fan of precise bookkeeping. If I use a deadline, I prefer it to be a dramatic one.

Experience shows for time-related deadlines to have a big problem: they can only work if the players know about them.

Look at Power Behind the Throne of the 1st ed WFRP. The bad guys have a fixed deadline; at the last day of the carnival they will make their move. The characters, brought to town by an essential Red Herring, just note several curious things while investigating something completely different.

The adventure revolves around the heroes discovering what's going on, who's working against the city. The real reason of what's happening is as hard to discover as the identity of the bad guy. Red Herrings abound. The players may make wrong decisions based on their information which are completely reasonable.

If the gamemaster doesn't succeed in dropping working hints, the characters will lose without having any idea about a deadline.

It works better with a clearly defined deadline, say, the characters learn of a prophecy that "on the last day of the Middenheim Carnival in the year 2512, the powers of chaos will strike at the city's heart." But this will, of course, steer the adventure very early in the right direction, removing some of the attraction of investigating the goings on.

Perhaps one could tie deadlines into the campaign background. If everyone in the campaign world knows that evil summoning rituals, assassinations or whatever work best when performed on days of the full moon or solstices or some other regular events like that, than the players might - correctly or not - assume a deadline to be in place.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Just two of many tools available for maintaining tension and excitement in an adventure or campaign.

 

[Wolf1066]

Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy brig,
The midship mite,
And the Bo'sun tight,
And the crew of the captain's gig...

Now, that's just downright eerie. Before I came to the computer I had the penultimate verse of that very poem going through my brain (the bit about eating the cook in a week or less and then being rescued) - then I sit down and find that quote staring me in the face from the bottom of your post.

 

[Dark Mistress]

I often do when I run. I do that usually cause I will drop more than one plot hook at a time and just let the players do what they want. But by having time lines I and my players feel it makes the world feel more real. Since events will happen regardless of what the players do, plus they tend to have a bit more a urgency and care more when they are trying to save people. Since they know OOC that things can start happening. I do modify the timelines on what the players do, but I have a rough draft of a timeline of events that will happen if the players do nothing.

 

[Wolf1066]

I often do when I run. I do that usually cause I will drop more than one plot hook at a time and just let the players do what they want. But by having time lines I and my players feel it makes the world feel more real. Since events will happen regardless of what the players do, plus they tend to have a bit more a urgency and care more when they are trying to save people. Since they know OOC that things can start happening. I do modify the timelines on what the players do, but I have a rough draft of a timeline of events that will happen if the players do nothing.

Agree with all of that, especially the points/reasons I highlighted.

If the players decide to pick up a plot hook, the timeline becomes even more relevant (e.g. say they decided they wanted to stop a serial killer before he next strikes) if they don't, at least I know when to report events if they are important enough to make the news - another murder, corporate buy-out, assassination etc.

Timelines happen in real life, when they become important to us they become deadlines. Maybe after they've happened they become headlines.

If there's a plot to assassinate a popular anti-establishment rock star during his concert in a particular town then there's a natural timeline established. If the players get wind of it and actually give a damn enough to try and stop it, then there's a time constraint on doing something about it.

If they don't meet the right people to find out or don't give a damn, it happens on schedule and the news is full of it for the next week. It may be an isolated event or part of a bigger picture that the players might gradually become aware of. In the latter case, whether they prevent the murder or just hear about it afterwards, it's part of the story arc - a valuable clue to what's going on...

"Hold on, there have been three murders/murder attempts involving..."

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Now, that's just downright eerie. Before I came to the computer I had the penultimate verse of that very poem going through my brain (the bit about eating the cook in a week or less and then being rescued) - then I sit down and find that quote staring me in the face from the bottom of your post.

Nice to run into another fan of the Bab Ballads. It is one of the poems that I can recite from memory, along with Jabberwocky, the Cremation of Sam Magee, and a big ol' pile o' Poe.

Dark Mistress did a good job of summing up my view on timelines and deadlines - it adds to the verisimilitude.

And a timeline means that sometimes the PCs are going to miss something, if things are happening in more than one place at the same time.

The Auld Grump

 

[Wolf1066]

Nice to run into another fan of the Bab Ballads. It is one of the poems that I can recite from memory, along with Jabberwocky, the Cremation of Sam Magee, and a big ol' pile o' Poe.

I can recite most of the Yarn of the Nancy Bell from memory and all of Jabberwocky and some other Lewis Carroll poems and a large number of poems from AA Milne to Rbt Burns to Banjo Patterson (his "Bush Christening" is a hoot) to WE Henley and many many others. Also have an extensive collection of limericks...

Well met, fellow fan.

 

[Punnuendo]

I chose sometimes for both. Like several others have mentioned up thread, I tend towards more open world sandbox style games when I run something. Thus there are groups and organizations working for their own goals in the game world with their own time tables independent of the PCs. Now if the players choose to get involved, they can throw a wrench in those plans and lead to more dramatic type events.

However, if the characters over heard in a tavern that an assassin was going to go after the local baron in four days, and then spent five days out in the wilderness chasing after another plot hook, the assassination attemp would have already happened by the time they returned.

 

[Wolf1066]

However, if the characters over heard in a tavern that an assassin was going to go after the local baron in four days, and then spent five days out in the wilderness chasing after another plot hook, the assassination attemp would have already happened by the time they returned.

Yep. Go out of town for the wrong couple of days and you could come back and find everything changed - not necessarily for the better.