thread: 2012-12-04 : Positioning: Two Timelines in Text
On 2012-12-04, Ben Lehman wrote:
If the fictional timeline has a chronology, it in no way works like an actual chronology (or, for that matter, a timeline.) Events may be placed in "past" or "present" or just "happening" and be arranged, edited, eliminated or redefined later.
For instance, because I say "I'm going to see my mother" now and it works doesn't actually have any real binding on future actions. In a later game, the GM decides that my character grew up on the streets and never knew his mother. No one objects: no one cares overmuch about that scene from a few sessions ago. (maybe no one remembers, maybe the GM's new thing is cool enough to sell it.)
This makes R go "Isn't this, like, a crack in the SIS?"
Either because nobody's paying attention, or because we're deliberately ignoring fiction as established. When something like that happens in my game, I'm bound to notice soon enough, and then we either backtrack or... that character's fictional Position becomes untenable, and everything begins to crumbles apart.
This makes BL go "No."
Shared fiction isn't vulnerable or damageable.
This makes VB go "I agree with Ben..."
You can treat it as a crack in the SIS if you want to, or if you can't help it, or whatever. But it's not necessarily one.
This makes JMW go "Shared fiction is only as vulnerable as "sharing""
Cos it depends on people. There will always be points where previous precedent cannot fully determine what happens next. In certain games, that's when we roll dice.
