For our Blades game, I’m relying on ticking up and/or starting clocks in Downtime (e.g. Grey Cloaks seek to control Six Towers 3/8, Stav Dalmore demands you avenge his murder 2/6 and Crow’s Ambition 6/8).

I then tend to have a bit of a muse between sessions, and drop an email through with something along the lines of the broader evolving situation (The Fog Hounds are now allied with the Silver Nails), and some hints at jobs (Crow is offering a bounty of 12 coins for Stav’s ghost / The Hive want a smuggling job done).

The longest “planning phase” we now get is with the PCs deciding what opportunity they want to pursue, who they need to hit before their clock gets out of control, and do they now have time to pull off that sweet job they’ve been thinking about.