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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8596370" data-attributes="member: 42582">Vincent Baker doesn't seem to me to be making any commitment, in his blog posts, to any particular view about the metaphysics of fictions.He is saying that there is an imagined world (clouds), with its sequence of (imaginary) events, and there is a real world, the world of cues (boxes). And there are rules - rules of RPGing - which mean that when certain things are imagined by everyone, certain things have to be done in the real world. This is where we get rightward arrows - the fictional timeline "touches" the real timeline.In the story of Harguld shooting the Gnoll, there is no point at which the closeness of the Gnoll to Harguld - which is part of the fictional timeline - touches the real timeline. That is because it only becomes part of the fictional timeline - we only all agree to imagine it - as a result of a leftward arrow generated by Dro's use of his trait. Thus it is not part of the relevant fictional position.Of course, now that it is established that the Gnoll got close to Harguld, that might inform future narration (eg if the GM gave my alternative successs-with-condition, where the Gnoll is killed rather than driven off, it is established in the fiction that there is a Gnoll corpse close to the cave mouth). But that did not inform the resolution of Harguld shooting the Gnoll.When I say something is a seed, I am saying (inter alia and ceteris paribus) that it has the potential to germinate and grow. I'm not predicting that, however. Most seeds that I encounter are in the fruit that I prepare for cooking and eating, and they don't grow into plants.On the rest, about intention, I basically agree with [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]. You seem to be talking about various sorts of functional or non-functional interaction between participants in establishing fiction. That doesn't make it part of any player's (or, if you prefer my second usage, character's) fictional position.</blockquote>

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