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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 9367084" data-attributes="member: 52734">Chronicles of Ramlar also used clocks, as a means of tracking experience and other progressions.  If, for example, you wanted to increase your Strength score you'd use something like a 12-segment clock.  Every time you did a "downtime" activity related to Strength (an example from the rulebook was carrying firewood back to camp, so it didn't have to be a skill check - as long as it was a detail to note you were working to progress towards completing the activity), you'd fill in a tick on the clock.  Once complete, you got your +1 permanent bonus to Strength.  You might have another clock, say "Become the Ruler of Furondy" and every time you took a significant step towards that goal (ex., say you befriended a noble of Furondy - which might be a whole clock in of itself), you'd fill in a tick.  A lot of the clocks could be used to track long-term downtime activities (crafting items, running a business, building a reputation, training, etc.).As you noted above, the clocks could be used to represent various scenes or encounters, with each tick representing some progress towards completion.  I don't think it needs to be tied specifically to a successful roll of a die, as long as the characters are taking actions towards completing that goal.  An example of a mixed clock might be "Find out who murdered Mort the Moneylender", with say, 6 segments (ticks).The characters might fill in a tick with a successful Investigate check, revealing the dagger that was used had an unusual pommel with a skull atop it, and someone had scratched out one of the eyes on the skull.The next character, who is a sage, decides to research the dagger using his Sage background.  While there might be a roll, the DM might instead simply tell the player that their research uncovers that the dagger is used by a nefarious Assassin's guild that works the city, and that losing such a dagger is a blow to the Assassin's honor, who will probably want to retrieve it.  This marks off another tick.And so on.Also, depending on how you handle XP, getting a tick filled in might grant (custom) story XP.  That becomes great incentive for building rich character backgrounds with personal goals the player would want to complete.<Edit>  I also agree some clocks might have built-in consequences for failures to progress the clock.  In the assassin example above, a consequence could be if the characters don't act fast enough, there will be another murder - or perhaps if there is a failure or two, the assassin (or their cohorts) comes after the PCs to retrieve the knife that was left behind, leading to some sort of ambush.</blockquote>

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