Competitive Clocks, a Mosaic Strict Mechanic
By now, everyone who is deeply in the TTRPG development sphere knows what a clock is in the context of TTRPGs. If, somehow, you’ve stumbled across this and you don’t already know about clocks, allow me to explain for you: Draw a circle, and have in mind a task that takes multiple steps to complete. Make some lines across the middle of your circle, ideally resulting in a circle with 4-10 slices. This is your clock. Whenever a character does something that would bring them closer to completing the multi-step task, color in one of the slices. Once all of the slices have been colored in, the task is completed. Clocks can be used both positively (i.e. something that the players want to have come to pass) and negatively (i.e. something that the players don’t want to have come to pass). I believe that I have come up with a clock variant inspired by the way that Ironsworn handles its clocks, i.e. once the clock is comfortably full you roll to resolve the clock, seeing if you successfully complete your task.
It goes like this: When a player and someone or something else are competing to complete a task, make a competition clock with a size between 4 and 12. Whenever the initial player does something to push for victory, mark in a segment of the clock. Whenever the opposition make notable progress towards their goal, mark in a segment of the clock with a different color. Once the clock is filled in turn to your standard response system. Attempt to resolve the situation in a single roll once, plus an additional time for each segment in the clock. For each segment marked in for the original player, delete the worst version of the attempted resolution. For every segment marked in with the opposition’s color, delete the best version of the attempted resolutions. You should eventually have one final resolution after canceling out resolution attempts. The result of that final remaining resolution is the result of the competitive clock.