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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jan van Leyden" data-source="post: 5189049" data-attributes="member: 20307">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.</blockquote>

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