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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8380286" data-attributes="member: 16814">Clocks in 5e are a bit of a challenge.&nbsp; This is due to the nature of how 5e generally works, with the party only expected to be able to handle so much without a retreat.&nbsp; If you set the clock to a binary win/loss state, then you have to pad it out so that it's rarely going to truly threaten to tick over or you're running a game where there's good failure pathways to continue the game.&nbsp; The latter is uncommon in most D&amp;D approaches, with most adventures being designed to be won.So, then, the way a number of other games use clocks is to add complications or to tick up the threat level.&nbsp; This is also fraught in D&amp;D, because, presumably, the GM didn't start with the threat being pretty easy so that such ticks move to a more 'normal' threat and then only to high threat due to clock.&nbsp; Arguably, doing this kind of design doesn't work because players quite often find ways to circumvent or bypass challenges (it is strongly incentivized to do so) and can get to the end in time that it's a easy encounter and feels anti-climatic.&nbsp; This invites use of GM Force to prevent such outcomes, either by denying easy bypassing of obstacles, adding obstacles to retain the proper pacing, or adjusting the final encounter to a high level than was initially planned.&nbsp; In other words, the clock is acting only as a way to inflate the danger, but clever play to get to the end quickly needs to be discouraged lest the outcome be anti-climatic.&nbsp; On the other side, if the encounter is designed to be hard and challenging to start, then there's not a lot of room left to tick a clock and up the danger level without threatening to swamp the PCs and end in a much more final TPK.The result of this is that clocks are not actually a terribly useful tool in D&amp;D without quite a lot of GM curation and work.&nbsp; The place they best work is when there's not a specific goal, but a general goal, like &quot;how much treasure can we get before the passage to the planar dungeon of treasures closes?&quot;&nbsp; Here a clock works very well, because it puts immediate pressure on all choices, but it doesn't require adjusting difficulties, managing pacing, or specific planning.&nbsp; This is a case where the game allows for &quot;failure&quot; states by just not having an actual failure state, just a range of success states (from none to lots).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8380286, member: 16814"] Clocks in 5e are a bit of a challenge. This is due to the nature of how 5e generally works, with the party only expected to be able to handle so much without a retreat. If you set the clock to a binary win/loss state, then you have to pad it out so that it's rarely going to truly threaten to tick over or you're running a game where there's good failure pathways to continue the game. The latter is uncommon in most D&D approaches, with most adventures being designed to be won. So, then, the way a number of other games use clocks is to add complications or to tick up the threat level. This is also fraught in D&D, because, presumably, the GM didn't start with the threat being pretty easy so that such ticks move to a more 'normal' threat and then only to high threat due to clock. Arguably, doing this kind of design doesn't work because players quite often find ways to circumvent or bypass challenges (it is strongly incentivized to do so) and can get to the end in time that it's a easy encounter and feels anti-climatic. This invites use of GM Force to prevent such outcomes, either by denying easy bypassing of obstacles, adding obstacles to retain the proper pacing, or adjusting the final encounter to a high level than was initially planned. In other words, the clock is acting only as a way to inflate the danger, but clever play to get to the end quickly needs to be discouraged lest the outcome be anti-climatic. On the other side, if the encounter is designed to be hard and challenging to start, then there's not a lot of room left to tick a clock and up the danger level without threatening to swamp the PCs and end in a much more final TPK. The result of this is that clocks are not actually a terribly useful tool in D&D without quite a lot of GM curation and work. The place they best work is when there's not a specific goal, but a general goal, like "how much treasure can we get before the passage to the planar dungeon of treasures closes?" Here a clock works very well, because it puts immediate pressure on all choices, but it doesn't require adjusting difficulties, managing pacing, or specific planning. This is a case where the game allows for "failure" states by just not having an actual failure state, just a range of success states (from none to lots). [/QUOTE]

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