Push the players with triggers and phases

This is, to some extent, a development of my previous post where I talked about how to add "combat rounds" to other things, and in other time scales, than just combat.

In this post, I want to add two more ideas/ concepts. The first one is Phases, and the second one is Triggers.

Phases

A phase is a part of a module, adventure or story. When you go from one Phase to another, something in the world or the story must change. In order to motivate a phase-change, it should be something significant. For instance, in a game with a vampire as the antagonist, the first Phase might be about investigating strange deaths. After a couple of hours, the vampire learns that the players are on it's tail, and acts indirectly against them. This would be the second Phase. In this Phase, perhaps, the vampire has gotten some control over the local police, the keeper of the vast library that otherwise could be useful etc. In the third Phase, the confrontation is more direct. This is where the players (or the vampire) seeks out the enemy.

One could add in meta-rules as well, rules that dictate not only changes in the story, but also if something is allowed to happen or not. For instance, in our vampire-example, you could say that no major character in the game can die in the first two Phases. It's only when the story proceeds to Phase 3 anyone can die (both the players and the vampire).

Triggers

Instead of having the Phases occur at set, predetermined times, you could let the players actions decide when to go from one Phase to another. Some actions doesn't advance the Phases and, unless the GM says otherwise, could be done an infinite number of times without advancing the plot (mind you, this has the slight disadvantage of not.. you know... advancing the plot). However, certain actions advance the plot to the next Phase. Let's say that you can do an infinite number of library research, but you can only talk to three people before rumors spread and the vampire hears of you (thus advancing the adventure to Phase 2). So, the players can basically decide when they want to further the plot, but they do so by raising the stakes.