Sprawl uses slightly different countdown clocks than standard Apocalypse World. Are there any other games with different fornat clocks or with different numbers of segments?
Thanks!
Sprawl uses slightly different countdown clocks than standard Apocalypse World.
Sprawl uses slightly different countdown clocks than standard Apocalypse World.
Listening
(I’m planning on doing lots of stuff with clocks in Demihumans, so I wanna hear; I don’t think it’d be appropriate to list them as it’s not a done game.)
Blades in the Dark and Mashed use clocks with differing numbers of segments.
Blades in the Dark is more a grandchild of the apocalypse, but it uses variable size clocks for just about everything. Clocks default to 8-segments, but can be 4 or 6 segments depending on the MC’s discretion.
The resolution mechanic is slightly different, and you can think of it having a default difficulty of an unwritten 2 segment clock, complicated tasks increasing the number of segments.
When PCs take action, the MC can create clocks to represent oncoming badness (a guard’s alert clock; a ritual’s progress; the inevitable defeat of a group by their betters; etc.) and tick it for the equivalent of soft hits or dramatic circumstances.
PCs can also use downtime to work on personal projects that are represented as clocks. Want to befriend an NPC? Build a clock-punk grapple gun? Research a ritual? Almost anything else? Even healing is a special version of this that always uses a 4 segment clock.
There’s also a faction turn mechanic where the organizations of the city pursue projects through clocks in a very similar way.
Thanks, guys. Any others?
Victor Wyatt What’s MASHed use?
City of Mist uses spectrum (spectrii?). It’s not a linear clock but a progressing one for “narrative damage”, though you can use it for a lot of things. The track looks like this:
[1][2][ ][3][ ][ ][4][ ][ ][ ][5][ ][ ][ ][ ][6]
When you do something your effect has a numerical value (typically the same as the power (=bonus) you had on your roll. If your effect value is higher than the one already in place, it gets overwritten, so if you had “injured-2” and get an “injured-3” on top of that, you have “injured-3” total.
When your effect is below the one you already have, you add the effects to what you already have. So if you are “injured-3” and take an “injured-2” effect, you would push it up 2 steps to one box shy of 4. That means you’re still on 3 for all situations where the number is relevant, but you only need to get hit by “injured-1” to be pushed up to “injured-4”.
A player character is unable to do anything related to the spectrum when he is at 5. NPCs may vary in how much of a particular spectrum they can take. These spectrums usually include threatened, bribed, hurt, persuaded, etc.
You could even set up something like “I need to repair my car” with this track. You say it’s so badly damaged, you’d need a 5 to repair it. So in all the players are doing, they’d need to get the track to 5, either by directly hitting the 5 or by slowly gathering boxes on the track.
Mashed uses variable sized clocks for the OR segment of the game. It’s how the game measures the severity of a patient’s wounds for the surgeons. That way they have to choose which wounds to heal first and which might have to just be amputations to keep the soldier alive.
Headspace uses 6 segment clocks BUT you only ever fill in 3 of them. It’s a basic measure of how a crisis turns out: favoring the Corp or favoring the Crew. 3 in your favor is perfect, 2 is to your benefit with a concession, and 1 is clawing a concession from the opposition’s grasp. This could also be handled, I guess, with three circles labeled Us or Them, but I like the visual of the clock that is one side vs the other.
Alfred Rudzki Is there a particular graphic? Or just six equal pies?
Yeah, it’s just six equal pies slices.
Oh, i guess the follow-up/context is important: clocks form the basis of Projects, how Corps transform the fiction. Three clocks (time cost quality) = 1 Project, and who controls how much of which elements effects the final resulting Project clock and who it benefits and how.
But yeah, just a pie with six equal slices. Sorry if this isn’t what you were looking for!
Alfred Rudzki And it sounds like you don’t advance or rewind the clock, but use it as a scoring/resolution system?
The harm track in Blades in the Dark is the main one that is non-standard. It is 5 boxes: 2 that can hold minor harms (the kind that lower your effect but not chances of success), 2 that can hold moderate harms (the kind that worsen your chances of success), and 1 that can hold severe harms (the kind that incapacitate). Harm of a severity for which there are no boxes gets upgraded, and there does exists lethal harm (the tier above severe).
Harm and other consequences happen when it makes sense, and may be resisted using the stress track. This is 9 ticks (an “odd” number), and is depleted in random amounts according to a dice roll. If that one runs out you deepen your character in a moment of catharsis and failure, gaining RP triggers that reflect this moment, a negative personality trait, and a CoolStoryBro.
These combination of these non-standard clocks work together in very functional ways, ensuring characters are deepened organically or fade away naturally from view (ie: when the players care enough about a thing, they will start rolling to resist, which tells us what is important to their character).
I now love non-standard clocks btw
Josh Roby Correct, no rewinding, and yeah it’s different from advancing like in other PbtA games… it’s more like scoring, and it has a distinctive territory-control-esque quality to them, more than other PbtA clocks. These clocks, rather than simply tracking “what’s happening now,” measure “who is in control of what’s happening now.”