85. Threat Countdown Clocks

Countdown clocks are first raised in the Master of Ceremonies chapter when discussing the principle “Sometimes disclaim decision-making” (86-87). There they are described as a method for having a “considered and concrete plan” for making decisions “instead of just leaving it to your whim” (87). Thirty pages later, the entirety of the threat chapter is about giving the MC the tools for keeping their thumbs off the scales when determining how and when PCs and NPCs collide during play. The threat map is concerned with the spatial trajectories of various threats while the countdown clock is concerned with the temporal trajectories.

A countdown clock is a reminder to you as MC that your threats have impulse, direction, plans, intentions, the will to sustain action and to respond coherently to others’ (117).

As much as the clock is a mechanical feature, its primary goal is to serve as ”a reminder” that the threats are not yours to manipulate at your whim. In this way, clocks straddle that hard-to-define line between orientational rules and instructional rules that I discuss in post #82. The clocks work mechanically while simultaneously orienting your own behavior and attitude as MC. Even when clocks aren’t given to a threat, the knowledge that they might belong there is itself orienting your attitude. So when do you put a clock on a threat?

When you create a threat, if you have a vision of its future, give it a countdown clock. You can also add countdown clocks to threats you’ve already created.

I love the phrase “vision of its future.” If you create a threat and you see how it might unfold in the future, that’s when you clock it. Countdown clocks are a way for the MC to put down a bid on future events without scripting or mandating those future events. More on this below, after we look at the mechanical structuring of clocks in Apocalypse World.

Around the clock, note some things that’ll happen:
• Before 9:00, that thing’s coming, but preventable. What are the clues? What are the triggers? What are the steps?
• Between 9:00 and 12:00, that thing is inevitable, but there’s still time to brace for impact. What signifies it?
• At 12:00, the threat gets its full, active expression. What is it?

At a purely instructional level, this breakdown of what each stage of the clock means is incredibly useful and clear. Preventable, inevitable but with time to brace for impact, and full expression are great divisions, and the questions associated with each stage are great ways to coax out of you the expressions of the threat at each stage of the countdown. If you just look at the clock as six segments, the time of preventable consequences and inevitable actions are equal in each section, but the visual of the clock tells us how these things work as units of time. The preventable approaching of events is slow and ponderous compared to the speed and weight of the thing once its progress is inevitable. Visually, the clock tells us that the last three units take up the space of only a third of the previous three units. The clock graphic orients us to the pacing of the threat.

As you play, advance the clocks, each at their own pace, by marking their segments.

Countdown clocks are both descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive: when something you’ve listed happens, advance the clock to that point. Prescriptive: when you advance the clock otherwise, it causes the things you’ve listed. Furthermore, countdown clocks can be derailed: when something happens that changes circumstances so that the countdown no longer makes sense, just scribble it out.

For the most part, list things that are beyond the players’ characters’ control: NPCs’ decisions and actions, conditions in a population or a landscape, off-screen relations between rival compounds, the instability of a window into the world’s psychic maelstrom. When you list something within the players’ characters’ control, always list it with an “if,” implied or explicit: “if Bish goes out into the ruins,” not “Bish goes out into the ruins.” Prep circumstances, pressures, developing NPC actions, not (and again, I’m not fucking around here) NOT future scenes you intend to lead the PCs to.

This brings us back to the notion that countdown clocks are proposals for what might happen in the future. The inviolable tenet behind the game is that the story must grow from the actions and desires of the protagonists, and as such, the MC cannot pre-determine any future scenes or happenings—none whatsoever. Twice the authors have told us they are not fucking around here, so we best take them at their words. Countdown clocks are a tool for letting the MC prepare for possible futures without ever declaring by fiat that they will be so. Instead, the MC maps out a temporal trajectory that can be interrupted or diverted at any time if the PCs get involved. Like the rest of the delicate dance the game demands of the MC as a person who is both an eager participant and a detached observer, the countdown clocks ask the MC to be interested in what will happen without being invested in what they hope will happen. How much weight clocks have in determining the future can be seen in the casualness of the phrase “just scribble it out.” The nonchalance of “just” and “scribble” reflects the attitude the MC must have when a countdown clock becomes irrelevant. Nothing about the clock is set in stone or worth worrying about if it becomes irrelevant. This casualness of phrase is driven home by the direct tonal contrast with the phrase “not (and again, I’m not fucking around here) NOT.”

Side note: I’ve always liked the defining of a game element as both descriptive and prescriptive. Those things that are prescriptive and descriptive are where the meta-concerns of the game and the fiction of the game overlap. Just as fictional occurrences make the players mark up their playbooks to reflect the change, so the fictional occurrences cause the MC to mark up their threat sheets to reflect the change, and vice versa. So much of the play in Apocalypse World happens at that intersection, I think, which is one of the reasons why the fiction can roll on without getting caught up in metaplay concerns and why nothing that happens at the meta-level will bring the fiction grinding to a halt.