thread: 2009-06-22 : Secrets: the Smelly Chamberlain
On 2009-06-22, Adam Dray wrote:
It became true in the fiction for the group at the same time it became true IRL for the group: at the moment the GM assents to including it in the fiction.
I can talk about how it was true in the fiction for a subset of the groups (the players but not the GM), I suppose, but that's not "the fiction" (the shared imagined space).
The trick to talking about "true" in the fiction is that truth is negotiable, at all times. That means what might be true now might not be true later, when we renegotiate it.
So let's suppose we say it was true that the chamberlain smelled as soon as the players secretly decided so. The GM didn't know it, so it wasn't true to her, but it didn't matter to her either. Then the GM catches on and there's renegotiation. If the GM accepts the new "truth," then it suddenly RL becomes true.
But it doesn't have to stay true. Maybe the GM plays along for one session, then has second thoughts. The next time the group meets, the GM says, "You know, I have decided that the chamberlain thing is dumb. Can we say that never happened? Because it's really messing with my head and I won't be able to play this character right anymore, and I think that will make the game suck for me." And maybe the players agree, and now it's false that the chamberlain smells until the next RL renegotiation, which probably never comes.
Oh. Now I get why you split "in the fiction" and "RL." I was conflating them. You got to watch me talk it out.
The in-the-fiction truth timeline is always negotiable, just like the truth itself. That's what "retconning" is.
Sorry for the gymnastics. I'm on board now.
