I'm fairly certain that, were I to accidentally chance upon your table, I probably wouldn't make it past session zero. The idea of establishing the stakes for a challenge is entirely at odds with the nature of the play structure, as established in the PHB and the Basic Rules.
The DM describes the environment, the players explain what they want to do, and the DM narrates the results (after calling for a check, if the result is uncertain). That is how to play D&D 5E, and if you follow this play structure, then you will succeed in having fun and telling an interesting story.
The structure you advocate is taking things out of order. You are trying to tell an interesting story, but in doing so, you violate the process which is supposed to lead there. As such, any story you end up telling is corrupted. No matter your intent, this isn't the story which would have been generated by the process of play, and thus it is not the fun story that was supposed to have happened.
Which is fine, of course. You can go ahead and do whatever you want at your home table, as long as your players buy into it. But calling it D&D, or trying to tell any new player that this is how D&D is supposed to be played, is slandering the game.