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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9687280" data-attributes="member: 29398">Not really, in that downstream connections can often only be observed in hindsight; and we're playing in the here-and-now.Sure, punching someone in the eye might cause a bystander to try tackling me, and when that attempted tackle goes wrong he sails past me into traffic and gets hit by a bus, and when the bus hits him its sudden stop causes a standing passenger on the bus to fly forward into the windshield, and so on and so on as one thing leads to another.&nbsp; The passenger whose face became one with the bus windshield doesn't know any of this, however; the connections are as yet invisible to him and might forever stay that way.In game, this all happens one sequential step at a time without foreknowledge of any downstream consequences, because they haven't happened yet.&nbsp; Nobody knows the bystander will get hit by a bus until we resolve his tackle attempt and he wildly misses.&nbsp; Nobody knows a passenger on the bus will get hurt until we game-mechanically resolve what happens to the passengers when the bus makes a very sudden and unexpected stop.&nbsp; Etc.In the house-on-fire example, at the moment of my failing the lock-pick attempt nobody knows the people inside will later die because we haven't yet resolved any other attempts to save them.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 9687280, member: 29398"] Not really, in that downstream connections can often only be observed in hindsight; and we're playing in the here-and-now. Sure, punching someone in the eye might cause a bystander to try tackling me, and when that attempted tackle goes wrong he sails past me into traffic and gets hit by a bus, and when the bus hits him its sudden stop causes a standing passenger on the bus to fly forward into the windshield, and so on and so on as one thing leads to another. The passenger whose face became one with the bus windshield doesn't know any of this, however; the connections are as yet invisible to him and might forever stay that way. In game, this all happens one sequential step at a time without foreknowledge of any downstream consequences, because they haven't happened yet. Nobody knows the bystander will get hit by a bus until we resolve his tackle attempt and he wildly misses. Nobody knows a passenger on the bus will get hurt until we game-mechanically resolve what happens to the passengers when the bus makes a very sudden and unexpected stop. Etc. In the house-on-fire example, at the moment of my failing the lock-pick attempt nobody knows the people inside will later die because we haven't yet resolved any other attempts to save them. [/QUOTE]

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