There are a few things to consider.
1st, what level are your PCs?
2 - Do you normally do puzzles?
3 - How invested are they in the current city?
It may seem a bit cliche, but one way you can add that sense of urgency is to foreshadow bad events that will happen if they take too long. Once way of driving that point home (that you're tracking time)would be to constantly ask them how much time they're spending on tasks, or if you want to be more subtle, maybe keep a turn tracker up front and visible (that way you can non-chalantly advance the tracker while they talk, reminding them that time's ticking away).
Also, if they have NPCs that they value, maybe have them get kidnapped, or be placed in dangerous situations that the PCs need to address, and if you do several of these at similar times, it forces the PCs to think about which one to work on first and to plan out how best to accomplish everything before the place burns down.
These are just some ideas.
Well, I can offer the thing that instills a sense of panic into me in real life:
Make the problems roll in faster than they can deal with them.
EDIT: To explain on this a bit - have multiple NPCs requiring their help, and make it clear they can't do it all, that they'll have to start deciding what to deal with and what to leave. Give them that "argh, whatever we do we're screwed!" feeling :)
A lot of what I've seen in "choose your adventure" type books is that the characters in the story are presented with choices that they can take, and what choices they take determine what can happen in future events.
I suggest you take a page from that genre of book (or all of them, in this case), and make some of these things as "choices".
The chaos comes with having to deal with several things at once, and making a choice as to which ones they want to deal with first. With our last encounter in an Evil campaign we're playing, the midst of combat had us forced to deal with breaking our allies free from Webs and Enchantments, while stopping Outsider Hounds from channeling a nasty Leng Spider in, while that same Spider was trying to summon more Outsider Hounds to take over our base.
They should be more careful though; making one choice may eliminate the other. With your example, the Civil War may end up causing over half the town to be destroyed/killed, or even have it be destroyed entirely due to how divided the town was on a certain issue, if the PC's don't do something about it.
Simultaneously, if the Leader's daughter isn't rescued, she may be executed, and the conscience that would befall the heroes for inaction may lead to the Civil War being worse, or perhaps the Town will force them out (if not try to kill 'em themselves).
It sounds like you could also add in the whole "do we take the direct route and hope we can fight through quickly, or the back alley route (which will avoid encounters) which may be faster, but could be longer" dilemna at them as well.
Puzzles and such are really great for this kind of thing, but it can leave your players feeling cheated if it's "too tough" and they run out of time because of it.
One thing you could do, given the set up you described, would be to have the villain give them the time frame. Kind of a "if you don't stop the rebellion by midnight, your daughter's fate is out of my hands" type thing. Then you could periodically have the city belltower go off reminding the PCs that time is of the essence. Once they get to the noble's house, that's where you could throw locks, traps, and puzzles at them to slow them down, eat up time. Now they're not only racing against time to save the girl, but if they fail, then what happens? Does the rebel leader yield to save his daughter? Does he push forward? Does the noble hold up his end of the bargain, or does he kill her anyway? SOO Many Options! lol
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Well, I can offer the thing that instills a sense of panic into me in real life:
Make the problems roll in faster than they can deal with them.
EDIT: To explain on this a bit - have multiple NPCs requiring their help, and make it clear they can't do it all, that they'll have to start deciding what to deal with and what to leave. Give them that "argh, whatever we do we're screwed!" feeling :)
This is a great suggestion. Building on it, don't just tell the players they can't do both. Present them with multiple things they can do and when they finish one, tell them the other is now impossible. Then when you present even more things which need to be done, they'll be conscious of the events progressing where they aren't present. The factor of not knowing what will happen while they aren't paying attention is the key to causing the tension you want.
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Lots of people have good contributions to this thread.
Matt Thomason: You know what game did a good job instilling panic like you said? XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It never feels like you have enough resources (time/money/manpower/equipment) to get comfortable. It's always a matter of asking yourself "which objective gets left behind?"
Mortag1981 & Lurk3r: Combine their two ideas.
For example, the PCs are given a task. Their contacts suggest two possible avenues of progress: one is easy and guaranteed, but slower; the other is difficult and risky, but much quicker. After the goal is reached, based on which method they took, explain what further tasks they are unable to accomplish based on the time they took.
We ran a game like this in our group last year; if you're going to GM this style of task resolution, it is important to build a timeline chart detailing the series of events that will transpire, and a list of how fast the PCs can do various tasks. That way, you can keep track on the timeline what the PCs were doing, and which events have expired and are unavailable to be completed.
Matt Thomason: You know what game did a good job instilling panic like you said? XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It never feels like you have enough resources (time/money/manpower/equipment) to get comfortable. It's always a matter of asking yourself "which objective gets left behind?"
OMG yes. "Do I go for the huge crashed UFO that'll have goodies or do I save the city under attack? Which out of all these flying dots on the map do I shoot down? Arrrgghhh!!!!"
I loved that game (although I probably made that kinda obvious :) )
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This sounds almost exactly like Siege of the Diamond City.
That's multi-table, and timed, so tough to relate to your situation, but the idea is that
Here's the thing - I've actually given that special a 2-star rating, solely based on its "unfair" difficulty, despite being an excellent premise for a special scenario. It can be a real dealbreaker for your "total chaos" campaign if the players feel helpless to react to it (but don't make it overwhelmingly easy either - find the balance).
You want panic? Well outside of invoking Mr. Fishy just present your group with the following.
You open the door. Beyond you lies a large chessboard with several pieces missing. Along the east and west walls are several large statues; the west statues appear to be missing one, while the east wall is missing two. In the middle of the room there's a chest. A dead body with a broken magic circle lies to your right, to your left there is an unconscious body inside of an unbroken magic circle. Directly in front of you lies an unbroken circle with a massive hole crunch through the floor. Looking up, all you can discern is a black void that might be wriggling and shifting as if the darkness was alive. Dangling down is a rope that has a dark liquid dropping down and puddling on the ground. One of the black tiles of the cheese board is missing, in its place is a skeleton, suspended in a series of spears. On the north wall a large clockwork mechanism appears to be in operation, but the ominous "clunk" noises are coming from the south end of the room. The south-east corner in covered in an unfamiliar, spidery crawl. On the opposite side of the room there are three doors; a red one, a blue one, and a yellow one. Each door is flanked by a pair of unmarked, white columns. On the wall opposite from the doors there are sets of levers; a green set, a pink set and a white set. Along the north wall is a desecrated altar to Asmodeus.
What do you do?