D&D General How often are your stories on a clock?

[prabe]

Time pressure? Often. Actual in-world deadlines? Approximately never.

I try to keep the world moving in places the PCs aren't, but I mostly don't bother thinking about what that movement is until/unless the PCs interact with it.

 

[iserith]

But it doesn't have to be "an emergency," it just has to be a bit of time pressure.

My players learned that the temple of Heironeous in Greyhawk had a potion of supreme healing available, which they wanted -but they didn't have the means/funds to get it. They did however have an opportunity to acquire the funds, they pursued the opportunity.

The opportunity took them 5 days. I had privately determined that, after 3 (1d4+1) days (It's Greyahawk, lots of wealthy people), a 3rd party would buy the potion.

So when the players returned for it, it wasn't there - a bit of a loss. But they still had a boat load of gold and had gotten experience along the way - they weren't exactly crushed.

Not any kind of emergency, just a time pressure.

Right. The ship to the Island of Deadly Perils leaves without you. Rival adventurers get to the Lost City of Gold ahead of you. The hobgoblin outriders are reinforced with heavy infantry. The price on a needed commodity goes up. Parts of the dungeon are flooded with water or sand.

There are practically infinite ways to create time pressure in the context of a game based on make-believe. In the doing, it tends to create a sense of urgency and, as I mention above, gives more weight to the players' decisions.

 

[Stalker0]

My answer depends on what level I'm running. At low to mid levels, I use time pressure occasionally but not consistently. At high levels, almost always. I feel like time pressure is a needed component to make high level adventurers make sense, as at high levels players can do almost anything given enough time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Time pressure? Often. Actual in-world deadlines? Approximately never.

I try to keep the world moving in places the PCs aren't, but I mostly don't bother thinking about what that movement is until/unless the PCs interact with it.

Yeah, I tend to use mild time-pressure a lot. Far more mild than the examples @iserith gives, actually - I would say most of those are close to "emergency" level time pressure, and you don't need to go as hard as that, and indeed, if your players "call your bluff" on some of that sort of thing (usually by accident!), it can lead to situations that are vexing and uninteresting for everyone ("the session where we spent two hours trying to arrange another ship to take us" is not likely to be a memorable favourite barring particularly spectacular inspiration from the DM). But, for example, the senators who you are escorting want to get to the fortress and safety as soon as possible, plus they're kind of annoying, so the adventurers don't want to draw things out. That keeps them only resting etc. when they have to.

There's also some value in juxtaposing adventures with little or basically no time pressure against those with pressure, because those without seem more special and interesting when it is normal to have at least some.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well, I run Starfinder these days, and while rests between major combats is a sensible tactic and certainly occurs in game, most of my adventures don't have time limits. The only adventure that has some kind of built in time limit is my FREE one-shot module, Rude Awakening. With multiple places requiring having to wear space suit armor to pass through areas lacking in atmosphere and sometimes gravity. However, after "oversleeping" in cold sleep for 9 years due to a caused malfunction while in cold sleep. The space suit armor available has been sitting idle for 9 years and have leaked oxygen out all that time and now only 10 minutes of oxygen remains in all the suits. So this creates hair raising tension, having to negotiate the zero atmosphere areas with precious little oxygen to use - it becomes a race to avoid the obstacles and still have air to breathe, until reaching the end of the module. So the time limits placed regards the hazards of limited oxygen, not for any other reason...

 

[Mort]

Right. The ship to the Island of Deadly Perils leaves without you. Rival adventurers get to the Lost City of Gold ahead of you. The hobgoblin outriders are reinforced with heavy infantry. The price on a needed commodity goes up. Parts of the dungeon are flooded with water or sand.

There are practically infinite ways to create time pressure in the context of a game based on make-believe. In the doing, it tends to create a sense of urgency and, as I mention above, gives more weight to the players' decisions.

All good examples of time pressure and a ticking clock (of sorts).

And there, I think, is the productive discussion.

If a "time clock" is always "Free the princess in 2 hours or she dies," "stop the ritual by tomorrow or the cultists take over," "you have 6 hours to save the universe from destruction," then, yeah, it's going to get old and the players will start rolling their eyes.

But if, instead, there are time pressures that just change the situation and move the group along? Those are nearly essential. And the true question is, what are fun ones that keep things from getting stale.

 

[Ondath]

I was guilty of using "You must defeat the BBEG immediately!" time pressures a lot in my earlier campaigns, and then I'd always lament the players never using downtime (hah!). In my current game, I implemented house rules (downtime to level up, long rests outside safe havens requiring 24 hours) that force the flow of time to some extent (even still, a bit less than one year of in-game time has passed in my current campaign that's been going on for a bit longer than 2 years) and most of the time there is no immediate time pressure. If there will be some time pressure, I always try to make the stakes clear (the enemy dwarven airship will reach its hometown and get repairs unless you intercept it in 48 hours!). Then again, the world does move on its own without the players' influence, so players might make deadlines by themselves if they care about a world element (e.g., the party wanted to help the small resistance in a land under a dragon overlord's influence, but the resistance was pushed out by the time the players got around to dealing with that threat. Now they want to avenge the dragon that caused this).

 

[pogre]

Occasionally, I employ time pressure. It's just one type of adventure I run during a campaign. I would guess every 4th adventure or so has a time pressure.

 

[FrozenNorth]

If ticking clock means there's a deadline - not very often. If ticking clock means things are happening in the background and reacting even if the PCs turtle up in their Leomund's tiny hut for a long rest - most of the time.

I was going to say this as well. Occasionally, there is an actual ticking clock (you must rescue hostage by midnight or they are sacrificed).

Very often, there are various types of time pressure:

• location is cursed, you must make a save every long rest or suffer increasing penalties;
• 5 people were poisoned and you are racing for the antidote, they will make saves against the poison at regular intervals, if you are dlow, they may not all survive;
• the adventure will continue while you take a short or a long rest: you can’t clear out half a fortresses guards and expect no one to notice;
• your provisions/ torches will be consumed while you rest.
• other people may be attempting to accomplish the same goals;
• the nature of your objective is one that can be put off indefinitely.

At the end of the day, it’s just unrealistic for the party not to generally have to hustle to complete their objectives.

 

[Minigiant]

My stories are never on a clock.

My NPCs are.

It's just a matter if the players want to be involved with a particular NPC.