Question: I'm working on a new board game where there's an action (we'll call it *Brazening*) that only happens every X turns (let's say it happens every 5 turns).

What's a good way to keep track of when it's time for the next *Brazening*?

The perfect method would:

* be easy for players to do
* be hard for players to forget
* require a minimum of pieces or moving parts
* not require pencil and paper

There might not be a perfect method.

Answer: 
If you only need the *Brazening* to happen *approximately* every X turns, you could simply roll a die at the beginning of every turn with a 1/X chance. For a 1/5 chance, for instance, roll a D10, and if it comes up 1 or 2 then *Brazen* away!

Whether or not this method is useful would depend completely on the purpose of the *Brazening* mechanic and the importance of its predictability. If it's necessary for some kind of restocking of important materials (like drawing cards or recovering health), this method probably won't work. On the other hand, if the purpose of the *Brazening* is to periodically make things more difficult/interesting for your players, or to temporarily modify other mechanics to mix things up, its randomness might be desirable!
You could try a method similar to the dominion method of keeping track of actions; say it out loud! It *never* fails.

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> Say how many you have left out loud; this trick works every time (i.e. "I'm playing the Festival and now have two Actions remaining. I play a Market and have two Actions remaining. I play another Festival and now have three Actions remaining….").
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Have your players start their turn with "It has been 1 year since the Brazening" and when they say "It has been 5 years since the Brazening" they have to do the brazening action. Remember: *this trick works every time*

You could add a minor penalty to a player who gets the number wrong to encourage everyone else to pay attention and keep track!