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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7057580" data-attributes="member: 6775031">In any objective linear-time causal reality, every element is settled in sequential order, with past elements resolving before later elements. That's part of the definition. If this is not the case, then you are not playing in an objective linear-time causal reality.This is not the case in the example you are citing, and thus, the characters do not exist in an objective linear-time causal reality. Your characters are just characters in a story, which is governed by narrative convention. There is no underlying model.An RPG is not authored fiction. You're not all sitting around a table, bidding over narrative control to see who gets to author any given element of some story that you're collectively telling. The backstory and setting may be authored as fiction would, but once the actual game begins, it is just a process of determining how things progress from that premise. The contents of the chest on the seventh floor of the dungeon, hidden behind the throne, are set in stone before the PCs ever enter that room (if they ever do).At least, that's the case if you're trying to model any sort of objective linear-time causal reality, as the method of play is described in various editions of the rulebooks. It may not be the case in very old editions, and even 4E would make much more sense if you assumed it was intentionally deviating from that style.</blockquote>