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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9166774" data-attributes="member: 6690965">Honestly, the best implementation of stakes I've seen at the table was in the 3PP module Strangers in Ramshorn, which arguably just took the old Gygaxian "You cannot have a meaningful game if strict time records aren't kept," concept and ran with it. It uses a slightly modified gritty realism resource recovery schedule and all of the modules factions, monster threats, town events and so on are plotted on a timeline. Each time the PCs take a week off to rest, each problem they haven't resolved ticks forward and progresses, causing specific changes to the wilderness surrounding the central town, with different permutations based on the order they've tackled challenges in.I found it thoroughly convincing, and quickly adapted the process for my homebrew. Players felt immediately and intensely that their choices mattered, carefully parceled out their resources and agonized over whether they had done enough to slow down their foes and could afford to rest, or if they had to rest to be able to continue. Building a timeline of faction/monster/enemy plans is now a significant part of my prep, and I keep time records, admittedly somewhat loosely down to whatever scale is appropriate.. Technically this limits the kind of goals I can set out for PCs, in that they have to care about what will happen to places and people in the setting if they don't intervene, and obviously it requires some improvisation as new factions emerge in importance, or an unusual solution to a problem or change to the basic state of affairs emerges, but it's worked quite well.</blockquote>

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