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View Full Version : DM Help Need help making a time limit feel urgent.



TrashPastor110
2019-10-30, 12:59 AM
I am running a campaign where the players must retrieve an extremely important McGuffin within thirty days. In reality, they could get it in two days if they made a bee-line for it, so I am curious about how to make the time limit feel more threatening without just placing it further away.

The McGuffin is basically the water chip like in fallout 1. The party comes from a settlement of humans that lives underground, thinking that the surface world is inhospitable, and the party is sent to recover a part for this settlements water purifier before they run out of water. (Very original I know).

The two ideas I have so far are to throw some side quests at them that have to be completed as they are walking by otherwise there are negative moral consequences (i.e. a little girl being chased down by a monster, saving her would also entail taking her back to her village which is not close).

And then my other idea is to divert them off their path and making them get lost in the vast forest by having dire wolves on steroids hunt them down, the wolves are intelligent because their alpha is the god of wolves, a very powerful spirit. But my issue with this is I cannot think of a reason that these wolves would hunt them for more than a day.

To give a little more context, the god of the forest rules over this forest, he hates the humans due to them bathing the surface of the world in hellfire in an age when there were only humans. The forest god's goal is to eradicate humans so they do not repeat their past, as they are bound to do. The animals in his forest have each been imbued with intelligence like the wolves, as such, they follow his bidding, killing any humans that dare to wander through their forest, and naturally, the party does have a human party member.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Pauly
2019-10-30, 02:58 AM
Why not just make the time limit 5 days?

It gives the players a sense of urgency, plus enough time if things go awry. I’m not a fan of padding adventures with extraneous fluff, it feels like grinding in a video game.

Mr.Sandman
2019-10-30, 07:46 AM
If the item they are after isn't a 'Win Campaign Now Button' perhaps they need the goodwill and help of the people they help in the sidequests later on. I like to go the Mass Effect rout when doing things like this, if you go straight for the prize you can still win, but at a cost. Doing some side missions gives you less time to get the goal, but you get a better result in the end.

Segev
2019-10-30, 09:27 AM
A little more detail on what kind of pressure you want them under would be helpful. What is the MacGuffin, and why 40 days? Why is it so close?

One way to increase time pressure on the PCs while giving them excuse to stumble across and participate in side quests is to have them not know where the MacGuffin actually is. This is a major part of the approach in Tomb of Annihilation: just finding out the name of the locale they are seeking, let alone where it is, is a major undertaking.

On the other hand, if they can get there in 2 days if they book it, but have 40 days to get it done, they probably don't feel all that much pressure...so you can give them very tempting, tasty side-quests that have potentially great rewards, but which are tricky and time-consuming. "We have time..." they might say. Just make it clear that these opportunities are one-offs, things which they miss out on if they don't start pursuing them right away.

A third possibility would be to build a massive dungeon that is extremely dangerous if not approached supremely cautiously around the MacGuffin. Make them have to crack a nut that will take them days, minimum, to get through.

Jay R
2019-10-30, 05:28 PM
The classic is for them to know of an evil party seeking the same water chip to force those people into slavery.

denthor
2019-10-30, 10:13 PM
If your group has a cleric of Good have an opponent deity of another good god want it as well three way race. Two of them against 1. In the end one or none can get it good falls for being a horrible killer to another good person.

Or

They win legit but now have to get it back.

Zman
2019-10-31, 09:52 PM
Settlement is rationing water, the weakest and oldest of the population can't survive very long. Maybe the heartwarming old codger that sits outside the general store they got to know won't make it bast 5 days of rationing etc. I've found that establishing attachment to random npcs and then letting the characters decisions affect them in more granular ways has a solid effect on players.

Maybe the lack of water is going to cause a food shortage. So it isn't needed for 30 days, but if it takes longer than 15 days they'll spend the winter half starved and others won't make it.

False God
2019-10-31, 10:27 PM
The trick to deadlines is opportunity cost. Sure, you can belt out that term paper tonight, but you'll miss out on the party. Sure, you can go to the party, but your girlfriend wants some personal time. Sure you can spend time with your gf, but your gramma is in town this weekend.

There are only so many hours in a day, and you only have so much energy.

-----
Why would the other wolves hunt a little girl on the surface? Why is there a little girl on the surface? Why are there humans on the surface at all if the gods of nature are literally trying to exterminate them? Is this viewpoint of the gods universal?

The trick to intelligent enemies is that they can make decisions for themselves. Wolves aren't zombies. Intelligent creatures can develop morals and can understand the difference between killing for survival, killing for pleasure, and killing for the sake of killing. You can add easy depth by showing there be pushback against the "KILL ALL HUMANS!" mandate, from some nature spirits, from individual wolf-pack members.

Are humans really bound to repeat their mistakes? Or does this god simply believe there is no other solution? It would seem that "Humans almost exterminated all life, so the best solution is to exterminate all their lives!" would be quite obviously hypocritical, especially to the many now-sentient animals.

You mention one party-member is human, what about the rest? Humanoids? Sentient animals? Hybrids? Why are they spared? Does the fact that a human travels with non-humans perhaps say something about human nature?

IMO: the easy opportunity cost here is the choice between "grabbing the item and making a run for it" and "trying to prove humanity isn't horrible." Sure, the party could save their hidden village. Or they could save all of humanity. Maybe their village is worth sacrificing if it means it saves thousands more?

Spore
2019-11-01, 11:57 AM
Instead of going "everything is going to be fine and after 30 days, everyone just keels over and dies together", you have to narrate how the water shortage will affect the population. Weak people, (old ones and kids) will die first (with most of the old one's probably refusing water to let the kids drink their share).

The water supply realistically lasts for 15 days, but rationing barely allows them to survive for 25. First people start dying at 20 days in, with signs showing at 15 days.

Combine that with False God's idea of opportunity (give them side quests of other people that genuinely need their help) and watch with evil satisfaction as they almost kill themselves trying to save everyone.