You may have heard of the use of "clocks" in games such as Powered by the Apocalypse and Blades in the Dark. In those games (AFAIK) clocks are used to measure danger and risk build - up, as well as used to display current progress through a story element.

(If anyone knows PbtA and FinD better, please provide a better description.)

Clocks can be used as a simulation tool - to abstractly measure risk or damage - and as a narrative tool - to keep track of progress through a story.

For the purposes of this discussion, we should not think of player-character HP as clocks / count-down timers, even though functionally that is what character HP is.

Questions:

• What are notable and interesting usages of clocks in published games?

• What are the benefits and downsides of using clocks?

• What are some interesting and original usages of clocks and meta-counters in games?

Discuss.

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