Is there any module that adds the ability to use tokens here:
Such that in passing parameters to the block from code I could pass the offset number also? This would allow one view, with 1 item to display, set to distinct, to be called multiple times on the page, each time incrementing the offset to get the next item from the view.
Or am I going about this the wrong way ;D
I'm not aware of a module that allows you to do this, and I don't really know if you are going the wrong way about this as I don't know what you are trying to display and why ;-)
But overriding the number of items or offset can be done programmatically through YOUR_MODULE_NAME_views_query_alter($view) by using methods set_offset() and set_items_per_page(). See https://drupal.stackexchange.com/questions/185977/alter-views-limit-usin...
Passing a parameter to this hook is a different story and can be a bit complicated. Where is this parameter coming from? Does it depend on the context?