I'm looking for a GM that has more playtime than myself (currently, the next session is mid November) to try out something I worked on last week.
As you can see below, my choice in coloring is horrible. Try not to hold it against me, I'm no graphical designer

Presenting, the Gameclock:

What on earth is this eyesore?

The first image is a combination of 2 predefined tracks . One (the black triangles on the red ribbon), a standard initiative track, there to make use of some otherwise empty space.

Two, the real idea, is the big elliptical thing with the 12 blue triangles.

Combine that with the second image, which are paired chits. It involves some printing/cutting/laminating, any each player can get 1 colour. You get to keep the rest for yourself (for monsters, or any events you want to plan to do with the current encounter)

So more chits, in order to reduce the amount of chits on the table? I want some of what you're smoking!

How to use:

When we play, there is always one player that is in charge of tracking initiative. We usually pick the one with the lowest initiative, since he/she has some extra time. This player would use the above tool from now on instead of pencil & paper.

- At the first round of combat, the initiative-tracking player takes a single triangular chit, and places it anywhere on the blue fields. We'll call this marker "current round".
- Every time you completely run through the Initiative-track, the initiative-tracking player moves this time-chit to the next field (in the direction of the arrow).
- Every time a player uses an action-card that has a recharge, he takes any pair of chits he has (for example red1 and red1). He places the first chit on his action card, and the second one # spaces away from the time-chit as the action card has recharge.
- The DM does the same thing with monsters that have recharging abilities.
- temporary modifiers get the same treatment
- exhaustible talent cards get the same treatment
- every time the time-chit lands on a new field, the player that is keeping track, hands the chits back to the owner. Only at that moment does an action card recharge.

Rules:

Slight difference compared to RAW: the recharge-steps happen at the end of the party-turn, not the end of the player's turn.
Can make a difference for active defenses.

Benefit:
No fiddling from OCD players with their recharge chits.
One player in charge of keeping track of ALL things that have a timer on them.
Clear visual representation of when everything will recharge in relation to each other.
Easy pre-printed initiative track for 7 spots, and a gameclock that plans 12 turns in advance.
If needed, simply cut gameclock in 2 down the middle, and add some extra slots yourself. (ok, the circular arrow might be a little off then )

So what do you want from me?

As said above, next playing session is a long way off (for me anyway); I'd like some feedback from people about this as is, and hopefully somebody to playtest this thing in an upcoming session and give me their findings.

If you've stuck by my rambling so far, I already thank you.
If you want to take the time to give me some feedback (other than that my coloring sucks), I'd be very happy.
If you take the time to actually playtest this (if only just once), you'll have my eternal gratitude (and 2 free internetz!)

You made these with Photoshop right? Add a saturation layer above them all and give it a rating of about -20 (could be even more). That should stop us from seizuring.

My group will not be playing until two weeks from now. But I can already say that at least to my group this would seriously rise party tension. I can see how this can be helpful but I dread of the conflict where it would take my group when somebody notices "the tracker" has missed a certain move. They just wouldn't be up to this.

That being said I think that it could work out actually quite well. IF you have the right kind of group for that. If this would be for WFRP2 or 1st edition I'd award the "Tracker" some extra exp. for his efforts.

doc_cthulhu said:

---> I'll redo this later after using it, probably will ask somebody with better taste to pick the colors for me Working on my character sheet at the moment. I'm sticking to the same colors as the official sheet, that should cut down on the seizures.

doc_cthulhu said:

--> Hmm, did not anticipate this. We've always had somebody use pen & paper in all other systems to keep track of initiative, and this person counts the # of combat-rounds as well. I'm not sure how it would cause tension though. The tracker moving forward is beneficial for the whole party, since it brings the countdown of all things down by one at once. So if you would miss moving the tracker for some reason, you can just move it up right away? If you foresee tension, by all means skip using it, that's the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve