The Overclocked Encounter Die helps you create responsive, realistic, and flexible narrative motion in your game without any hint of a railroad. It uses the Random Encounter to do the work of making the world independent from the players and responsive to them.
At the end of this post, you’ll get a printable index-card reference for the rule, and a printable index-card example Encounter Table and Overclock.
The Overclocked Encounter Die
The Overclock: a list of likely regional or factional events. It represents the world in motion beyond your players and their actions. When the Overclock advances, the world changes.
Overclocking the Encounter Die: if a random encounter would repeat, instead, advance on the clock.
I developed this procedure in playtesting for my faction-heavy adventure about devout religious anarchists, The Spear of Horrendous Iron (now on Kickstarter). I wanted to solve the problem of creating region-level escalation of tension without creating a railroad. This was the system I created.
Making an Overclock
Write down 6 regional or factional events. These are not what will happen, but what might happen. It is not the outline of your novel, but a tool to keep your world nimble.
Entries should have a bearing on the players in this session, today.
Good: nearby trees growing eyes — somebody’s going to see this.
Bad: 100 miles away, the prince dies — it will take weeks for the news to get here.
Don’t get attached! Rewrite elements of the clock as gameplay progresses, replacing entries with plausible consequences of the players’ choices.
Making an Overclockable Encounter Table
Keep the encounter table tight: d4 entries per session. Swap out entries for each session if you like. But keep each session’s list to 4. It should fit on an index card.
It means that encounters will repeat. You want them to repeat. This is the engine of escalation.
Overclock Procedure
Have no more than 6 things on the Overclock at any time. (Fits on an index card.)
Advance the Overclock once a day. (Or more, if suitable to your pacing.)
Advance the Overclock when a roll on the Encounter Table would indicate a repeat encounter.
At least once a session, erase and rewrite elements of the clock as gameplay progresses. Replace entries from it with consequences of the players’ choices.
Each time you roll for random encounters, use is as a procedural reminder to also ask yourself the following two questions:
How is the world responding to the PCs actions? They insulted the local merchant, and he’s a total jerk — what’s his response?
What is happening because of their inactions? They chose to go to the forest and not the mountain — what’s happening at the Ogre camp in the mountain?
Good Overclock entries are as follows:
Something in the world changes.
Someone dies.
The environment shifts: a cave collapses, a dam breaks, a flock of murderous crows attacks the village…
A Monster or NPC from arrives on specific business.
A new piece of information comes to light.
A new faction arrives, or makes a sudden move.
Some of the entries on your clock should be encounter type events, so that your Random Encounter pacing remains consistent with the intent of the adventure. But they need not be.
Receipts
The Overclocked Encounter Die is inspired by (and compatible with!) Necropaxis’ Overloaded Encounter Die. It’s also influenced by Goblin Punch’s Underclock, I Cast Light’s Random Encounter Tables as Adventure Ram, and by Dungeon World’s Fronts and Worlds Without Number’s Faction Turns.
Overclocked Encounter Die Index Cards
Obligatory Plug
If this is the kind of play you enjoy, you might like the adventure I wrote! It’s got a lot of moving parts, elegantly organized for the GM in encounter tables and overclocks.
It’s got devout religious anarchists, a lovestruck spider, vultures with human hands, and a really nasty giant.
