thread: 2012-12-04 : Positioning: Two Timelines in Text
On 2012-12-07, Josh W wrote:
That picture on the last post seems to refer to a specific practice of fictional positioning/system interaction:
Add stuff mostly after the previous events, maybe filling in a few gaps here and there, deal with it and agree it now, and then move on to fictionally later things.
Look at archipelago; people implicitly follow this kind of structure of positioning, with one exception in "destiny":
A wave of storytelling flows forward towards the future, producing maps and histories as side elements, with any issues getting immediately edited by "try a different way" or standing.
Microscope takes an entirely different view of time, but still has positioning, in the sense that the timeline fills out and conditions later contributions by players. It still temperamentally avoids retcons though, except as edge cases, because it is exactly about those kinds of causal links through time.
Universalis instead has much weaker fictional positioning; I'm not talking about the fact that you actually write down this structure of precedent all the time, I'm talking about the fact that this only gives you an advantage in challenging people, (two coins to one) inconsistencies can happen whenever you want, although they become expensive. Course, that?s the possibilities of action given the rules vs the fact that someone?s clearly written down a note saying the opposite ten minutes ago!
