Blood on the Clocktower online sessions run on a video call or livestream, so a visible clock on the storyteller's screen is the simplest way to keep day-phase timing, night-phase transitions, and overall session pacing honest for every participant. An online browser clock that displays the device's local time in both analog and digital form, paired with the local English date and the resolved time-zone label, gives the storyteller a single shared reference that players can glance at during discussion. Because the clock is just a webpage, it can be dropped into a second monitor, pinned above a stream overlay, or mirrored through the screen-share feature of any conferencing tool without installing extra software. The clock updates four times per second, which means the second hand moves smoothly while the digital readout only changes when its visible fields change, so the display stays readable even during a tense accusation phase. Before the first session, it helps to verify that the device's automatic time, date, and time-zone settings are correct, because the clock reflects exactly what the browser reports.
Why Blood on the Clocktower Online Play Benefits from a Visible Clock
Social deduction games depend on shared pacing. When Blood on the Clocktower moves online, the storyteller loses the natural body language of an in-person table, and players on a video call can lose track of how long the day phase has run, how close the meeting is to its cap, or whether the night phase has dragged past its expected length. A clock pinned to the storyteller's screen, or shown through a screen share, restores that shared sense of time without forcing the storyteller to call out the clock.
Many online platforms used for BotC play — Discord, Zoom, Google Meet, and live stream services like Twitch — do not show a large, persistent clock on every participant's view. A standalone clock page solves that gap. It runs locally in the browser, requires no account, and never uploads readings to a server, which matters because game nights often involve private notes, script choices, and character information that storytellers prefer to keep on their own machine.
The clock also acts as a fair timing reference during accusations, nominations, and defence speeches. Players who disagree about how long a debate has run can look at the same screen the storyteller is sharing and reconcile their recollection with what the clock shows. That small piece of visibility removes a class of arguments that have nothing to do with the game itself.
Open and Verify the Online Clock Before Your Session
- Open the Online Clock page in the browser you will use during the session and let it load fully.
- Check the English date line and the resolved time-zone label. The zone label is what the browser exposes for the device, which can be a region name like "Europe/London" or a generic local-zone fallback on platforms with limited zone data.
- Compare the displayed digital time with another reliable source — your operating system clock, a phone set to the same network time, or a known broadcast pips stream.
- If the displayed time is wrong, review the device's date, automatic time synchronization, and time-zone settings before opening any other tool. The clock does not contact a time server and will not correct drift on its own.
- If the host platform is changing zones during the session because of travel or daylight saving, refresh the page so the next reading uses the updated Date object.
This verification step matters because every later timing decision in the game leans on the same reading. A clock that is five minutes slow will quietly shorten every day-phase timer the storyteller sets around it, and players will feel rushed for reasons that have nothing to do with nominations.
Choose the Display Format That Fits Your Group
The clock offers two digital formats and one optional seconds field. The choice depends on how the storyteller's screen looks during play and how the table reads time under pressure.
| Display mode | What it shows | Best fit for BotC online play |
|---|---|---|
| 12-hour with seconds | Hour 1–12 with AM or PM, two-digit minutes, two-digit seconds | Storyteller screen share with a mixed audience that reads civilian time most comfortably |
| 12-hour without seconds | Hour 1–12 with AM or PM, two-digit minutes | Slower day phases where the ticking seconds would feel like pressure on the table |
| 24-hour with seconds | Hour 00–23 with leading zero, two-digit minutes, two-digit seconds | Late-night or international sessions where ambiguity between AM and PM has caused past confusion |
| 24-hour without seconds | Hour 00–23 with leading zero, two-digit minutes | Streamed sessions where the storyteller wants a clean, formal clock face in the corner of the overlay |
Midnight is rendered as 12 AM, noon as 12 PM, and all other hours use 1 through 11 with a clear AM or PM suffix in 12-hour mode. In 24-hour mode, hours run from 00 through 23 with a leading zero, and minutes and optional seconds are always two digits. The analog face is computed from the same Date object, so the second hand includes the millisecond fraction, the minute hand includes the fractional second, and the hour hand includes the fractional minute — even when the seconds field is hidden from view.
Enter Fullscreen for Streams and Shared Screens
When the clock is part of a stream overlay or a screen-share layout, a larger face helps players at the far end of the call read the time without squinting. The page exposes a single fullscreen control that asks the browser to take the whole screen. Fullscreen is a request, not a forced mode, and the browser can deny it for several reasons: a missing direct user action, a strict embed policy, device restrictions on managed devices, or a user setting that blocks fullscreen prompts.
Practical steps for a clean fullscreen experience:
- Click the fullscreen control with a mouse or trackpad — keyboard shortcuts alone do not count as a direct user action in most browsers.
- Watch for an on-screen error message if the request is rejected, then decide whether to resize the browser window or move the clock to a second monitor instead.
- Leave fullscreen with the browser's normal Escape key or fullscreen exit control. The clock does not hide system controls or override the browser's escape behaviour.
- Avoid relying on fullscreen as a screen-saver replacement. The clock does not prevent the device from sleeping, lock orientation, or claim to be an operating-system screen saver.
For a single-monitor storyteller who is sharing the whole desktop, resizing the browser window to a corner and using the page's analog face as a watermark-style overlay is often more reliable than fullscreen, because the screen-share session can drop the fullscreen request when it tries to capture the display.
Match the Online Clock with Other Timing Tools During Play
The clock itself does not alert, count down, or stop. For day-phase caps, nomination timers, and night-phase budgets, the storyteller needs a tool that watches a target and signals when the time is up. A countdown timer set to the agreed day-phase length is a clean companion: start it when nominations close, share the timer window alongside the clock, and announce when the buzzer hits zero.
For elapsed time, such as tracking how long a single player has been on the hot seat, an online stopwatch with lap splits gives the storyteller a clean record without disturbing the main clock face. For a wake-up alarm that rings before the meeting ends — useful when the storyteller wants the whole table to refocus after a long night phase — a separate alarm clock with on-screen sound serves the same role.
When the group includes players in different countries, the storyteller can keep the device clock visible as the session reference and ask remote players to consult their own local time through a world clock page, rather than try to argue about time zones in chat. This separation keeps the storyteller's clock honest for the local day-phase timer and lets international players translate between their local zone and the session zone without distracting the table.
Privacy and Storage During Online Play
The clock runs entirely on the storyteller's device. It does not upload the displayed time, the resolved zone, or any preference, and it has no account requirement, no analytics event tied to button presses, and no background service. Closing the browser tab ends the display immediately, which makes it easy to drop the clock between sessions without leaving behind a persistent window.
That local-only behaviour has two practical consequences for online BotC play. First, the storyteller can share the screen without worrying about leaking game state, because the clock carries no script, role, or note data. Second, the clock's accuracy is the device's accuracy. If the laptop has been suspended for a week and lost track of network time, the clock will show the wrong time until the operating system resynchronizes. Treat the verification step at the start of the session as a routine habit, not a one-time check, especially when the same machine is shared between travel, work shifts, and game nights.