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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheAuldGrump" data-source="post: 5189014" data-attributes="member: 6957">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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )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</blockquote>