The best RPG mechanic in any game | Beginner Tips
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- Welcome to a my series of videos helping beginners to start playing the best roleplaying ever, Blades in the Dark! In this video we discuss the best RPG mechanic that's ever been invented...
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Progress Clocks remind me of playing Hangman as a kid.
Bonus points if you can make your 'clock' an illustration of something happening, like dramatically erasing a burning wick that's about to ignite a powder keg.
Or a pie thats being eaten!
I had the idea for an uncertain clock Storm Weather system. You'd roll 2d8 and the players would see the Higher dice number, and the lower number would be the number of days/turns/etc until the Storm hits every cycle.
Sounds cool! I did something similar before I knew they were a thing. In a lot of ways the RNG helps keep things fair.
This is very similar to The Wildsea's alternative weather system found on their discord. I'm excited to try it out.
For opposed goals, I like tic-tac-toe (naughts & crosses). Each space is a skill or ability check. The opponents block certain routes to success while trying to get their own.
Ooh that’s quite interesting, never heard of that!
Lol, back in the 80's when friends first introduced me to RPGs, by way of a homebrew hybrid of Traveller and some other game I whose name I don't recall, my gm used little egg timer glasses or such to restrict time to make decisions and call actions, sometimes 10 seconds or less! Truly made playing fun and great for learning to think on your feet!
I think every GM has experimented with trying to make gameplay faster! Its quite useful to say 'well yes you *can* go explore and loot the rest of the house, but that guard clock is going to keep ticking!
Haven't tried this so the idea might be rubbish, but to combat the problem of players being able to see how much "cushion" they have left, what if the clock was the basis for a probabilistic event? For example, representing the DC of being detected by a guard, or the number (or number of sides) of dice being rolled against a DC. So as it changes, it increases or decreases the likelihood of something happening rather than directly causing it to happen. I feel like that would also work pretty well narratively, at least for some things; you keep bungling stealth checks, you're more likely to get caught by the guards. You keep trying to crack a safe, the more likely you are to get it... and the more likely you are to get caught by guards ;-) Could be a pain to balance, and might be more trouble than its worth, but I figured I'd throw it out there since I didn't see anyone else talking about it.
Sounds interesting, a bit more fun too than simply raising the DC every failed attempt. Since filming this I've started hiding the clocks more if its something the players narratively wouldn't know how close to manifesting it is, it works better for the tension but I do think Blades insists on keeping them public so that the players can feel like clever rogues when they avoid them (which is the whole raison d'etre of the game). I think it ultimately depends on what your players like best!
Progress/threat clocks where definitely present in Apocalypse World before Blades in the Dark, but mostly for more long term threats. It is more of a GM mechanic there rather than en everyone mechanic.
Ah I didn’t know that, I love using Fronts so I vaguely remember them from that but maybe not in a clock format
Came here to say that, Blade in the dark is a pbta after all and the clocks are heavily inspired by Fronts. And it's a frequent and old gameplay tool in chose your own adventure games, textual adventures and visual novels. A great example with a setting close to Blades in the dark is Fallen london/sunless sea. (It may even be one of the inspirations of Blade in the dark)
It is really a shame how often I see people claiming the clocks are from Blades in the Dark and being ignorant that they are actually from Apocalypse World.
I think probably older than apocalypse world too, I remember similar systems in wfrp 3e with their progress tracks. Probably the idea is even older.
I think even that example of a clock's shortcoming being the players feeling "safe" because they have _plenty_ of ticks before they're caught, I think being directly spotted by a guard would either immediately fill the clock, or -- if the players are quick and knock out the guard, hide his unconscious body --- it'd at least provide a few ticks all at once. Going from "oh, we have 6 ticks left, we've got this" to "oh no, that was 3 ticks all on its own... guys this is getting hairy, we can't afford to be seen again".
I really need to run more Blades / FitD games. My group only played one, which I ran. And I could've done it better. I also needed them to have more buy-in with their characters, the setting, and the system itself. But I think those latter and be achieved.
But I _have_ used clocks in other games. In fact, I did it before I ever even heard of Blades in the Dark. It just wasn't a circle with pie slices. It was a row of boxes that I'd check off to mark progress. Not as aesthetically pleasing but the same basic thing. But the real difference is in the visibility of them to the players. And that's where I screwed up because I has just keeping them in my notes that the players don't see, and it didn't occur to me on my read-throughs of the the book that it should be seen by the players, but it totally makes sense now.
Sounds like me before I played Blades! Honestly when I first started playing it, I read some great advice which was to keep things simple and you don't need to use all the rules. Maybe try out a clock or two, and it doesn't have to be brilliant shot-calling on your part. Get the players to help fill in gaps and details about the scores and NPCs, it'll definitely generate more buy-in. I've only learned this recently too!
I have an alternative view on how to properly use a progress clock. The players don't need to know how many successes they need to pass an event or mission, and they don't need to know how many failures they can stand to afford before suffering consequences. They only need to know the nature of the rewards and/or potential consequences. I feel like this can cut down on meta-gaming and encourage more natural story-telling. If they got their required three successes in a row right off the bat, it's fine to keep going and let them get a failure or even two before ending with a close call or a chase into a different challenge or a big fight
Yeah I keep them in the background for faction moves and machinations for that reason. Might try leaving some clocks hidden and just tell players it’s ticking, see how different it is
I half-agree- while the exact numbers don’t matter, a clock is not useful if the players don’t know it exists.
The only PbtA I’ve played (in co-op mode, so I sorta GM’d it too) was Ironsworn. I just realized the linear progress bars (progress tracks) it uses are the same as clocks. I think. They’re always 10 boxes but the amount you increase them by depends on the difficulty.
I’ve been reading that too actually yeah. May have to do a follow up video on all the other great progress trackers out there!
Blade in the Dark was 2015/2017.
D&D 4e had a very similar mechanic, though less explored and less general, in 2008.
Alternatively, the Project system from Nobilis 3e, 2011 (developed in Chuubo's, 2012-2014).
Plus directly inheriting it from Apocalypse World (2010), as acknowledged by BitD's designer, which itself inherited them from a similar mechanic from Sorcerer (1998).
The original RPG progress clock is, of course hit points from D&D (1974), but if we're talking specifically about games that had general-purpose progress tracks for any arbitrary situation, then we also need to mention Trollbabe (2002), Poison'd (2007), and Mouse Guard (2008) which is itself an adaptation of Burning Wheel (although I don't actually recall if they had anything like it that far back).
There are probably countless others we're forgetting here. The essential mechanism behind progress clocks has been with RPGs since *before* the beginning, since RPGs inherited it directly from the wargames that were using them beforehand, for hit points, for time tracking, and for other functions in the pre-RPG prototype games like Braunstein and Blackmoor, too.
Gonna be using this in a Bloodborne-inspired campaign to track growing devolution into a beast. We’ll see how this goes…
Reviewed Blades in the Dark. Don't care for the gnre but progress clocks are great. I'm working on adapting them for car chases in my Gangbusters BX games.
Having never used a progress clock... is the clock seen by the players? Could it be hidden, yet you still tell them that the failure could be turning into a +1 on the clock?
Yeah you can definitely hide them if you don't want to advertise how long they have left, I've started doing this more. It depends how gamey you want to make it but the option is there
It can be a downside if you show it to the players, but if you don't, it's a great tool for the GM to keep track of progress, specially when there's more than just one. I have come up with this idea before, but in the form of "best of n". Like in beet of 5, wins the party who wins 3 rolls in 5.
Yeah nice, since this video I’ve been using hidden clocks too, especially when something else is racing them to an objective
What is the difference between a progress clock and the skill challenge system introduced in D&D 4e?
Never heard of them before but on looking them up, sound fairly similar except clocks can go back and forth, have multiple at the same time, and are generally quite versatile and easy to throw into the game. Skill challenges sound like they can be run in a similar way but may need more prep ahead of time.
There is no substantial difference. BitD's system is the same mechanism, slightly more generalized in terms of structure. 4E's skill challenges, as understood within BitD, would be a twin clock scenario, with a 3-segment clock for towards some kind of failure state, and an arbitrary-sized clock tracking progress toward some success state. BitD doesn't prescribe any particular structure for any progress track, which both means that the structure can be flexible to create a better match for the diegetic situation, but also that it sort of drops the GM into the deep end as far as figuring out what to do, when, and how.
Never played BitD but this is interesting although I don’t really understand some aspects. How do you determine how many segments the clock is? Where is the line between when something is an Action Roll (? I think that’s what it’s called) where everything is resolved in 1 Action, and when that Action is only completed in segments (via Clock)?. It seems like the clocks are a lot more work to manage for the GM, especially as it seems you can have multiple clocks running at same time? (I might have misunderstood here). Anyway thanks for the video.
Yeah so like most things with Blades, it's quite tricky to see it in your mind but after playing a few sessions it all clicks! Usually a success (roll of a 6) is 3 ticks on the clock , success with consequence (4-5) is 2 ticks, and a failure is still 1 tick, so you can work out from that how big you want the clock to be. 6 and 8 segments are the most common really, so averaging 3 or 4 Action Rolls to complete a project, or that's several consequences during a score that will tick a countdown clock. How to know when something is a clock and not just 1 action roll? Usually if the nature of what the player wants to do is going to take several Actions or has multiple stages, or takes a while in-game. To be honest, clocks make GM-ing easier because its an easy way to deal with all the 'consequences' that are generated, they always create drama and tension in a score, and it gives the players some room for failure which they can see, so they can't blame the GM when a single guard spots them and raises the alarm, ruining their plan.
Hmmm, you might be right and I need to experience it to understand it, because if ‘failure is still 1 tick’ I don’t understand how you can fail any task (it just takes longer?). Can you recommend an actual play to watch so I can see this in action?
@@age-of-adventure Sometimes failure still ticks it, sometimes it doesn't, depending on what makes sense. Pretty sure the blades book (or any forged in the dark games) contain a section explaining them pretty well. If I remember a good bit from one of our games I'll let you know which ep it was in
The BitD rulebook describes these factors you're talking about as GM "judgement calls", and basically offers no advice of any kind - they're supposed to be elements of "style", so the official stance of the rules is that there is no right or wrong way to do this. In practice, it's exactly as you've said: deciding whether or not to use a clock, and deciding how many segments a clock should have, is a cumbersome decision-making process and if you fuck it up you can end up with important scenes being over in a flash or have a scenes be drawn out for far too long. If you play tons of BitD you'll eventually develop a "style" - that is, an intuition - that allows you to avoid those pitfalls.
"Progress clocks" and "enemy HP in D&D" are quite literally the exact same mechanic, my guy. They work the same way and do the same things, both mechanically and dynamically.
Not quite, I mean yes they both 'track' something, but the concept of tracking HP of a creature vs the concept of tracking progress through objectives, potential threats and dangers, progress on projects and goals is quite a big difference. For example you can literally use progress clocks as HP in Blades for tougher enemies, but it represents the fight not the damage, so each success fills it in, but failures can empty it again, in a tug-of-war fashion to simulate the duel. You could have a clock for each combatant and treat it like HP but which one is more dynamic and interesting, and does the Blades thing of feeling like a cool scene?
@@DiceyEncounters Killing a creature is an objective, and its HP are the clock that tracks progress through that objective. A players HP is a danger clock that tracks a monster's progress toward killing the player. Page 27 of the BitD rulebook, discussing the concept of Effect Level, literally describes the effect system as the same "type of pacing mechanic" as hit points - citing hit points by name. Healing can "empty" the progress clock by restoring HP, either as a danger clock (if a player is being healed) or as a player progress clock (if the monster is being healed). Healing an ally as an enemy damages them is also an example of a tug-of-war.
Neither of these is dynamic or interesting, progress clocks were the eternal bane of my BitD campaign until I decided to just stop using them, and this is exactly why. They ARE hit points, and they suck in all of the same ways and exactly the same ways that hit points do. They don't create cool scenes, they stifle them, just like hit points do, because they are the same thing.
Everything you said in this video about progress clocks can be used to defend HP, and everything you implied criticizing HP is a criticism of progress clocks. Changing the name and drawing it as a clock that fills up instead of a numeral that counts down does not change the mathematical nature of the mechanic, nor the dynamic that it produces at the table.
@@DiceyEncounters Blades in the Dark rulebook, page 27: "If you’ve played other roleplaying games or video games, you’re probably familiar with the concept of “hit points” for a character or a progress bar during a boss fight.
The effect system in Blades is this type of pacing mechanic, abstracted so it can apply to any type of situation, from fighting, to social manipulation, investigations, arcane powers, infiltration, whatever!"
It seems like the designer of Blades in the Dark disagrees with you.
@@DiceyEncounters The preoccupation with whether the clock represents one creature's health or represents a whole fight is missing the point. Whether the mechanic represents X or Y within the diegesis does not change how the mechanic behaves, either mathematically or dynamically.
I don't like this idea too much. Because this makes it no longer matter if the characters do everything perfectly or not. If they do everything wrong or make a bustle anyway the nearby guards might not even appear because their clock does not indicate it yet (if I understood correctly that the clock advances due to mistakes and/or actions), and if the players do everything perfectly and well planned, are negative things going to happen to them anyway because that's what the clock says?
This mechanic is not really necessary, it is simply a matter of good planning by the GM about how everything is distributed in the place and applying common sense. But I see use in it as a mechanic for SOLO RPG, in which you are emulating a GM and it would be good for you to give all the guards a clock, for example, to simulate uncertainty about patrol/surveillance routines.
Actually even if the clock is 99% full, if the players complete their objective, or render it irrelevant, the Bad Thing still doesn’t happen. The guards were suspicious but never got to the point of raising an alarm. Also, if the players roll 6s for their action rolls they’ll not accrue any “consequences” and can have a perfect score. It’s fun every now and then but also a bit boring when everything goes to plan
@@DiceyEncounters
I would really appreciate it if you had given an example to better visualize how it works. So much in the abstract/theoretical, I think it is not very clear how it works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I really don't understand clocks. It's a scale from zero to six. What makes it a clock? Is it just that it's drawn in a circle? What's the innovation here?
There's no reason it couldn't be a progress bar, or progress health meter, or progress pebbles. The important part is that it's a specific number of successes of failures that move things along.
Yeah pretty much this. I think clocks just make it clear that it’s marking time passing, and also it’s clear from a glance how many segments there are
And also add as many segments as you need.
You can spot the size of segments rather quickly, bc people are used to read clocks. Also the circle form allows you to repeat the whole proceas over and over again, like an ebbe and the tide
I have never used a clock, but i think it is called a clock because you fill in the pieces in a clockwise order which of course signifies progress on the clock.
It could also be because it is, technically, a timer for the players, once the clock strikes a certain piece something happens that makes the task of the players more difficult. So the clock is 'ticking' while players try to execute their plan.
These are just my guesses though.
The zoom in and out it really throwing me, sorry.
I wasn’t a fan but it does seem to get people through the video
@@DiceyEncounters It's not that it's zoomed, it's the zoom animation. If you want to push in for emphasis, don't use an animation, make it a hard cut.
If you use stylistic elements, use them how they're actually used. It's been tried and tested. An animated push in is maybe used for a final showdown, or a sudden, highly emotional reaction in a scene, or a comedic moment, think Kill Bill or any Chackie Chan movie. But for conversations, just use a hard cut.
Why do we constanly put fancy dresses on simple counters? The thumbnail shows two counters at 4/6.
Actually it’s 4/6, and 2/8. These are from the Blades Roll20 pack.
@@DiceyEncounters still a product that is designed to replace tick marks on the margin of a notepad... consuming both resources and time.
@@jamestaylor3805ticks are the opposite of exciting and lack any visual significance or definition.
You can't see ticks from across the table. They will look the same next to other ticks. Nobody ever got excited over a tally.
While progress clocks are popular because they're visually engaging and add weight to an otherwise mundane tally. A table of players get to literally watch time run out with absolutely minimal effort.
Complaining "Why do people keep doing this thing they like?" isn't very helpful to anyone, and nobody is making you use them.
Maybe don't actually reveal your clock to the players?