3 | Building and Ending the Doomsday Clock
5 min read
Building the Clock #
The Doomsday Clock charts the apocalypse’s inevitable approach, advancing at set time intervals. Once it reaches its end the Doom is unleashed. The Doomsday Clock is made up of discrete intervals called moments. Its speed and number depend on how long you intend to run the game.
| Number of Sessions | Number of Moments | Clock advances every… |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 per hour of play | 30 minutes |
| 2-3 | 1.5 per hour of play (round up) | hour |
| 4+ | 1.5 per session (round up) | session |
For a single 4-hour session, the Doomsday Clock has 12 moments (4 x 3) and advances every 30 minutes.
Two 5-hour sessions results in 15 moments (10 x 1.5) and advancement every hour.
A game with 7 sessions has 11 moments (7 x 1.5) and advances at the end of every session.
Every time the Doomsday Clock advances, one moment is consumed. Then, roll 1d6 equal to the number of Omens still in play, consuming one more moment for every 5 or 6.
When all moments are gone, the apocalypse arrives.
The Doomsday Clock has a level of unpredictability to incite a heart-racing sense of rapidly lost time. However, if you seek a calmer and less fickle game, you can rule that Omens die rolls only consume a max of one additional MOMENT each time. This may also be ideal for games less than 3 hours.
When Doom is Vanquished #
Through skill and teamwork, the heroes ascend as legends of the land, their names forever remembered.
What happens next is up to everyone: bask in success, or face ever grander Dooms?
When Doom Vanquishes All #
It is entirely possible for heroes to do their best and still fail. The Doom happens, the tears fall. Such is life. Stories, however, can live on. The state of the world may have irreversibly darkened but it doesn’t mean the tale ends.
There are three choices. The table should decide which path to tread together.
- Epilogue You choose to accept the world’s end. Allow each player to say 2–3 sentences describing their hero’s life after apocalypse. Once they are done, narrate an epilogue to the shared story.Have a brief moment of silence to grieve what once was.
- New Beginnings The apocalypse may have happened, but new beginnings can still flourish. Use the ruins of the world to create a sequel with heightened stakes. Because of the Doom, something else happened… something sinister. Create this new Doom and ask the players whether they’d like to continue as their heroes or create new ones.
- Rewind You choose to rebel against destiny—perhaps there’s a second chance. Agree as a table up to what point in-story time will be rewound. All heroes retain their stats, inventory as well as memories of the fallen future.—If your game is a one-shot, restore 2 moments per hour of play left. —If your game is 2–3 sessions, restore one moment per hour of play left. —If your game has more sessions, restore 1 moment per session left.
Do not make this choice lightly. If you rewind time, decide or roll:- A beloved ally turns to dust.
- An innocent maiden kills her mother.
- Three pale girls rise from the dead and snake their way towards the heroes.
- A god dies, their body flung to the world below.
- A small, humble family becomes a new plague’s first victims.
- A new Omen comes to light.
The iconic Doomsday Clock is a trademark of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an independent, nonprofit media organization. All rights reserved. The Doomsday Clock, which has been called “the most powerful piece of information design of the 20th century,” was created in 1947 as a metaphor to communicate humanity’s proximity to self-destruction. The Bulletin mission is to equip the public, policymakers, and scientists with the information needed to reduce man-made threats to our existence. It was founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists who “could not remain aloof to the consequences of their work.” For more information, visit https://thebulletin.org/
Neither Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists nor the Doomsday Clock are affiliated with ARC, momatoes, or Exalted Funeral, though the Bulletin recognizes their trademarks and intellectual property.