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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 9755364" data-attributes="member: 75787">I think for me, the in-game "you have X turns to achieve a goal" is something I think of a resource management issue. So, for example, in The One Ring, when you have a council scene, you geta  fixed number of chances to try to influence the other party until they run out of patience.  D&D4E's skill challenges were similar -- a fixed number of attempts to gain enough successes. For me, this is the same sort of thing as saying "your characters have 4 days to achieve X". Some number of success are required, and there is a limit of the number of attempts.The issues of slow players is one that I don't feel would be solved well by creating time stress. Like others in this thread, I prefer to just skip over them and then come back to them when they are ready.I have deliberately used time stress a few times in gaming. It's rare, so not something I'd do a lot of, but it has been effective. I would not use it in a group where I knew that anyone had serious issues with fast decision-making and I don't like to use it in high-risk situations (I would not make it a 'choose wrong and die' choice. Even when I ran Tomb of Horrors, I modified a certain room to make it a 'choose wrong and get seriously hurt' room). I also make it clear to everyone that this will be a time stress challenge, so everyone is aware and paying attention. So, for example:"Ok everyone, when Gogo opens the door I'm going to describe what you see and give you five seconds to decide what to do immediately the door is open. I'll go round the table and ask what you do. Please don't let previous players' decisions change yours!"Puzzles are another situation I have used (and seen used) time stress. A few months ago I played in a game where we were re-wiring robots to fight zombies and the GM gave each of individual physical mini-games to solve in a fixed amount of time. It was definitely stressful and definitely fun. But many people do not like puzzles, or don't like to have player intelligence substitute for character intelligence. So it's a bit of a risky scene to run. Worked great for us -- but can be a bad experience for some people, so be cautious would be my advice.</blockquote>

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