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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7401598" data-attributes="member: 82106">OK, I'm kind of commenting as I read... I don't follow you here. If the 'Alarm is Raised' clock is filled, then there is a very definite change in the fictional positioning. Now, it may be true that not every clock filling is an end state of the 'challenge' which is in progress, but it seems to me that in your example the alarm being raised is PRETTY MUCH failure! Still, I see that you HAVE raised a distinction in that clocks filling don't represent, absolutely, end states, they could simply be triggers for changes in the narrative positioning. I guess, then, my question is how does the positioning evolve on a per-check basis? This is IMHO the core concept of 4e SCs, that for EVERY check made, the fiction HAS to evolve. Anyway, reading on... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />OK, I obviously haven't played this game, so far be it from me to try to tell you how it works! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Still, it seems to me that the 2 clock setup you used in your original example was fairly 'natural' and it seemed telling to me that you chose that formulation. Does an additional clock make that much difference? I mean, couldn't you simply use the 'package leaves the building' clock? If the alarm goes off, then certainly this is a likely event! See what I'm saying? I just think of it in terms of an SC, and if I formulate it such that the 2 major end states of the challenge are "the PCs get the package" and "the PCs cannot get the package, it leaves" then we have the essence of the challenge in a '2 clock form' effectively, do we not? Now, I accept that intermediate fiction won't have additional clocks to rely on, but 4e's three failures provides a pretty ready mechanism there. If you get to 2 failures while still fictionally outside the warehouse then "the alarm is raised". If you make it in through the window (which would clearly generate some number of successes) then failures at that point might represent some other consequence. Again, the basic concept seems like it maps pretty well, doesn't it? OK, so this is a rather different use. Its not a bad idea that some of the same terminology and, presumably, mechanical processes of the game can apply to both. In 4e you might use a long-running SC for this, but that is a fairly unexplored concept within the mechanics of the game, and does have some differences in that SCs aren't intended to be perpetually ongoing. You could use a disease track, which is basically a BitD 'clock', but again this isn't really something you could fairly call explored within 4e, nor is it closely related to the SC mechanic. I guess then the only real question here is, how does the commonality of the clock mechanic between this 'status' situation vs an 'action' situation like the warehouse work out in terms of BitD mechanics? I'm curious how effectively this mechanical symmetry is leveraged. Well, 4e does handle this a BIT differently. You CAN grant several successes based on either an extraordinary result (IE a crit) or in response to a resource expenditure by the player (spend an AP or an HS, or a Daily for example). There are other mechanics that serve a similar purpose, like advantages and secondary skill use/Aid Another. Those are a bit different in detail though, granted.In some sense though I feel like this actually DEVALUES the mechanism, as one of the strongest points of the SC mechanism is that it tells you 'how much is enough' in order to drive to the endpoint of the plot of the SC. If each success could potentially do that, you wouldn't know anymore, the GM is then thrust back into the position of eyeballing it.However, I think the key point is really that, from what you're saying, fictional position only changes with the filling of a clock, so clocks fall in a level of granularity below a single success of a 4e SC, at least potentially (this might not always be true). So, you might consider the advantage in this mechanism to be more in terms of being able to choose how significant something is. The equivalent choice in 4e would be to frame something as a single SC or as multiple SCs, each of which represents an incremental level of progress to an overall story goal. Well, obviously there are different ways of looking at these things. I think each of the two mechanisms cover the same sort of concept space in slightly different ways. Putting on my game designer's hat: In my own post-4e games variable level of success has emerged as a standard feature. I haven't used that to dictate more or less sucesses/failures in SCs, but that's mainly because those scales are fairly granular. Now, I suppose SCs could accomodate a more formal mechanism of 'position' and 'effect', but that is generally established within the framing of the SC, so the GM constructs the parameters of the thing and the fictional situation mostly dictates how risky an action is, for example, and how drastic its effects might be. I'm sure clocks work. I'm not sure I see them as a vast advancement over the SC mechanism. There appear to be some strengths and weaknesses to each, and they do largely cover a lot of the same ground, with the exception of 'status' type situations which 4e has a different mechanism for. I think part of the difference here too is the basic assumptions of the two games. 4e isn't generally a game where you focus on ongoing relationships between the party and other groups in quite the same way that BitD does. You'd be more likely in a 4e game (or my games) to resolve an SC and that element would become relatively fixed from then on, unless the party did something to radically change the situation. So a 'status clock' isn't really something that 4e NEEDs that much, it just isn't a focus of the game. So I think its cool that BitD is able to meet the status need with essentially the same mechanism as is used in 'challenge resolution', and I can see how it casts relationship management into a sort of ongoing challenge/struggle/task. That's cool! Anyway, I certainly accept your "they are not the same", though I do still think there are quite strong parallels.</blockquote>

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