Chronological order

Chronological Order
Meta Type	Function
Tournament Introduced	N/A
Introduced by	N/A
Family Type Time State Argument Resolve Commitment

The Chronological Order is the penultimate function of pbp roleplaying that dictates in sequence events that occurred in play and what has yet to transpire. It serves as the main architectural flow for any turn-base roleplay and is determined by Time as a parameter for what has occurred, when, and whether an action can resolve properly or at all. Actions that do not resolve in the Chronological Order are thereby suspended until both parties establish their finality. It is the vital routine for determining States within Properties and is calculated by the equally important Time parameter or otherwise all actions are taken merely by post order instead of tabulation.

Principle

The Chronological Order is one of the two most essential and abstract core functions of roleplaying. It chronicles every action in a play dictated by participating parties in a parallel sequential order, and uses Time as a value to determine when suspended actions in their resting State resolves. Players in combat or otherwise invoke subroutine parameters in play that determine the beginning or ending of an action merely through acknowledgment of them in each post. It serves as a passively working circuit that builds a log in a split order between parties until completion of any session, and is concatenated when examining potential penalties of committed actions or discrepancies.

Events in any roleplay is logged by order of occurrences between parties by acknowledgement. Each player interprets what action comes before or concurrent of theirs by recognition whether through In character observation via internal monologue or Out of character in the same manner through describing actions passively. These established events chain together in a split but synchronal race to finalize and resolve before converging as the ultimate chronology. The Chronological Order is retroactively examined by both parties in arranging whether a desired occurrence took place and when, and discrepancies that disrupt or contradict is removed upon finalization. Any action that has yet to resolve is suspended until the next turn of either party.

Instances in a play by a player is done merely through stated action in their post. Each action follows a sequence that may happen simultaneously and is propositioned to another party suggestively. This is exceptionally true in pbp combat as all forms of attacks are stated propositions to an enemy player awaiting acknowledgement before resolving and thus suspended until such a resolution is reached. Failure to answer (boolean: yes or no) the proposition results in a penalty or dispute depending on the nature of said attack, but it is henceforth still chronically present in the attacking party's timeline in a suspended State. Two or more players in this system will then bounce propositions until a conclusion is reached and a session ends with a final product of a timeline with any and all inconsistencies ignored. Discrepancies occur when both parties cannot reach an agreed conclusion to a proposition in either timeline in the Chronological Order.

A simplified flowchart of the Chronological Order representing two players and their sequences. The example assumes Player1 has the first attack. Player2 must acknowledge Player1 in order to establish the sequence of events for allowance of the flow of time to occur.

The illustration on the right is a visual example of how the Chronological Order is dictated. The start merely act as the nexus before both parties write their propositions and actions in a sequence. Player1 and Player2 diverge from their starting position and enter their own respected lines of actions in an unofficial race to determine whose action will resolve first through carefully worded propositions. The example on the right shows a favorable advantage for Player1 as this player is allowed to move first and ergo do not need to acknowledge any activity from the enemy player as their presence in the game has yet to be literally established; however, Player2 must acknowledge player1 as the leading player and, depending on the ruling, must wait until an attack from Player1 is issued.

Hypothetically both players can willfully ignore either player's activity or work simultaneously of either, but no real action in roleplay occurs simultaneously if either one player observes or acknowledges in character the action of another. Strategies such as Auto-Defense aim to eliminate observational timing penalties to avoid the delay between observing and understanding an action and then acting upon it in retaliation. Other players will create artificial circumstances through 'luck' to adjust for offsets of time with concurrent actions. Retroactive propositions revert a player's sequences in their timeline which alters both parties by undoing their previous action regardless of commitment. These exploits gravely impact the Chronological Order's ability to acclimate situations orderly.

Two Modes

There are two forces at work when arranging the Chronological Order and that is In character and Out of Character. The basis of roleplaying is beset by both active modes of play between meta-mechanical operations. The former is the literal events of the game where a character idle, sees, and acts in either idle or active states and allows a set of established events to occur since it is happening to the character. The latter is beyond the time restraints of the character, but is responsible for maintaining the flow of events as the primary decision maker of a character's agency and thus they acknowledge the flow of events from an omniscient point of view.

When a character is in a particular situation they are first entered into the situation in question. Then they observe, analyses, and understand what the scenario is whether it's an attack or merely entering a room. This is referred to as the Registry phase of a character's more idle State and depending on their passive abilities is how much time is necessary in digesting this information versus what is occurring at an instant. The next phase is the decision making phase or Main Phase where both player and character is synchronously interpreting and calculating their next move which requires more Time in the Chronological Order of a single player's own line. Once an adequate decision is reached by a player it is translated to their character and they enter their active state when is retaliating to anything they can "observably" sense. This sequence is utterly important to know and understand how two-modes work.

When a player interprets and dictates the events they are capable of stating how these propositions will be answered. The player is removed from the committed variable of Time when their character enters between different phases and such may perceive these events either in "real" time or cut up between participating players. Since the player is removed from the penalty of Time they are capable of determining how much time their character has used between transitioning phase of both Registry and Main phase which can create exploitation for meta-game such as Retroactive, simple 'luck', or even Time Offset. Players removed from the timeline may assume no time has elapsed at all between States and may combine multiple actions in one post, and this may occur almost simultaneous of the character's ability to see, read, and act which causes discrepancies on the Chronological Order. Since roleplay fighting is highly contingent on both modes of play it is important that a player acknowledges that the time out of character is radically different than the time in character.

The Two Modes at play in summation is a two-force collaberation between players. The player can create, invoke, and dictate how propositions are either played, when they are suppose to resolve, when they are executed, and how they occur. The character is merely a medium in which their operators suggest sequences in a timeline; however, the character is subjected to subsumed limitations within the game's rules and engine. Though the players are not consequential to the overall in character world of the player their importance is properly minimized only into maintaining the order of the game, and should assume that their characters, being in the game itself, are of greater influence of the Chronological Order since they are affected by limitless variables of properties they engage in.

Time

The most important and dynamic variable of any property in the Chronological Order and shares its significance. This variable assigns all values to any action or property and influences when or how it would resolve in the chain. The Chronological Order in this instances acts as the past-tense of what is currently present when all actions are suspended into the next post. Time is a vector to which all suspended activity is bound in resolution whether or not they may occur.

Time is essentially the ultimate question to any proposition and answer since it always assumes when events begin or end. Time as a variable gives value to all actions that occur whether Passive or Active in states and though indicate both penalty and gain it never reverts unless stated otherwise. The Chronological Order logs all events between parties that occur but this is determined by how much time between actions do these events take place. The longer it takes for an effect to resolve the more likely a chance it can be interrupted and same can be said to when an event takes place. Time acts as an answer to Commitment when an action seeks to resolve needs a value to determine when it reaches resolution. It is not to be confused with an Ability or Power but rather an obvious calculation.

No action in roleplaying can resolve without Time being a factored variable. Time distinguishes events from happening not only simultaneously but instantly as a numerical and logical transition. For example: when a character sees an attack and raises a defense. Time's influence in these States of transitioning is tantamount in not only discovering in the Chronological Order how much time does the character have to see the swing, but to raise an adequate defense for such a play to resolve. If the swing was too fast for the default values in the time property of registering the danger then no such time can be given for a defense to be erected, and such FRTs become the norm to minimizing delay penalties between transitioning states. For the Chronological Order, time then acts not only the answer of transitioning states but when events resolve. An example would be the aforementioned swing of a sword, and let's assume a defense was properly erected. One must remember that a swing of a blade is fast enough to cut, and a proper defense for such an attack must equal or exceed the speed of an attack. It is then understood the transactions between both parties occurred in seconds on a timeline, and that's to say though the Chronological Order to a player seems infinite the actual time that occurred in the game is a fraction of what it took to read it. As a function then Time with the Chronological Order determines everything.

There are numerous strategies and functions that favor players voluntarily tossed into commitment. Positioning is a principle of situational awareness where one takes precautionary measures to avoid vulnerable situations whether through movement or defenses. Auto-Defense, again, allows its operators to willfully ignore enemy combatant actions "in character" so their characters aren't bogged with the task of observing actions for retaliation. Cancels are invoked by character abilities to halt their previous action if it requires little "whole" commitment without the need for retroactive. pokes as smaller and relatively light actions requiring little committed actions to avoid being trapped in the flow of the chronological order. These strategies are imperative to optimizing one's own actions in the Chronological Order since the time variable assigns a value to each action undertaken by a player.

Conversely there's a proportionate level of Out of Character exploits and strategies to use for the Chronological Order, as events in a roleplay is established by both forms of meta-cognition. Time Offset is an exploit that abuses the first attack turn of an operator unto his opponent by carefully crafting an attack onto the final State of its resting period hoping to bait a user to observe only after it is launched. FRTs reduce the delay in the Time variable to act almost immediately to an enemy player proposition to allow for concurrent actions. Interrupts are one of the most effective Interception exploits since it is geared to negating opponent's own propositions from even occurring and forces an enemy into a constant state of observation when executed flawlessly.

Examples

How players and characters can establish events in the Chronological Order (Normal)

Prima buckles slightly into his sword stance before withdrawing his blade. He nods at his opponent then dashes towards him with a horizontal swipe of his blade.

Secunda observes Prima and reads his Buckler while turning a slight shoulder during his opponent's nod. When Prima neared and then unleashed his cut is when Seconda met his blade with his shield

The Chronological Order flows in the events that both parties acknowledged each other. This is done so far by their in character gestures. Prima and Secunda followed a simple structure of Prima leading Secunda despite both characters acting concurrent of one another. Let's give the following example of when a discrepancy occurs

Failure to answer a proposition

Prima buckled slightly into his sword stance before withdrawing his blade. His sword glimmered intensely enough to foul the air between them with pure blinding iridescence. He swiftly dashed to his opponent admist this glimmer to cut him across his waist

Secunda Observes Prima and readies his Buckler while turning a slight should during his opponent's unsheathing. When Prima neared and then unleashed his cut is when Secunda met his blade with his shield.

In this instance Secunda failed to acknowledge the blinding light from Prima's blade though acknowledging such a blade was brandished. This immediate discrepancy will cause a dispute between both parties until a resolution is met, but chances are that the ruling will favor Prima for Secunda's negligence of what occurred in the chronological order as Prima attacked twice but Secunda only met with the latter. As a general rule: the first attack in the sequence of attacks take precedence to resolve first, and the others may be interrupted to accommodate the change. See Combos.

Out of character acknowledgement

Prima reclined his head while sipping his red wine. He had wondered the time he squandered creating articles for a game no one understood and believed he would die alone, but of course hadn't the faint of heart to profess this to Secunda who sat adjacant to him before setting the news paper down between them.

The succulent red wine touched Prima's lips before Secunda turned his gaze elsewhere. He was looking at the local waitress passing by before standing up and rocking the table that divided Prima and himself which unintentionally rocked the glass of wine in Prima's hand mid-sip

Prima laid down his paper but in frustration at Secunda, having been the catalyst of misplacing a stream of red from his lips down his neck and cheek all over his white shirt. He merely stared death at Secunda's oblivious backside.

Ignoring the obvious meta-cues laden throughout this exchange it is inferred that Secunda was unaware of Prima's drinking or even the wine itself, but the author did establish it in writing as an action. It goes without saying that it does not require 2 parties or more to establish an action, and that Prima sipped his wine whether or not the other player even knew he did; however, the mention of it from Prima alone impacts the Chronological Order nonetheless and since this was not a fight post then such a proposition was even less necessary to answer to, and that Prima answered to Secunda's negligence with the table by having his drink spilt on him establishes these events in their roleplay as well.

Time as a factor

Prima creates two golems to and have them walk at Secunda as he reclined on a rock.

Secunda runs up to one of the golems and with glea he hoisted the monster's back to his stomach for a belly to back suplex

Prima smiled was Secunda approached his golem and attempted to wrestle. As he lifted the creature up into the air Prima detonated both golems into exploding immensely like large barreled size grenades.

Secunda noticed a spark in the golem and stomped the floor hard enough to dig a hole. He would then take a piece of rock and cap the hole's top and survivied the explosion through this newly formed trench

Time in the chronological order is not on Secunda's side as he was locked in full Commitment in his previous turn. There was no initial spark that triggered the exploding golems nor did Secunda answered to his own previous action of suplexing the NPCs. Had there been a spark then a more justified Argument can be proposed but even still he would have to cancel his suplex action, get the hole, and seal it all in which Prima had expertly calculated to detonate during mid-commital. It stands to reason the fate of Secunda as he would not have the time or knowledge to answer to Prima's attack.

Usage in TZDL

There are many instances in TZDL history where the Chronological Order was called upon, though it may not have been called by name in any given time. TZDL2007 had an instance of where Ares' character used his aura to explode a plasma field that engulfed Psyko Ducky's character. The latter would retroactively claim his character's internals were made of a uranium composite to keep his plastic form from melting, but due to the nature of his profile sheet it was ruled against him; furthermore, he was locked in a committed melee attack that was blocked by Ares' sword as his aura ignited.

TZDL2011 had the most notable instance of the Chronological Order being referenced and that was Argryia vs Lokanas during the Lokanas Incident. Lokanas' character flamboyantly flaunted a myriad of taunts to his opponent which allowed Argryia to prepare her retailation. Lokanas, having first attack, then would unleash a debuff attack to his opponent to intercept her retailation, but Argryia had intercepted his interception with a piercing strike using his taunts as justification to for an attack. Lokanas invoked a retroactive by undoing the nature of his first attack to create a barrier with it while his second attack in his combo would count as the first. This was the first ever instance of priority used as a ruling against Lokanas as his opponent cannot attack until he attacks first, but since he altered his attack to accommodate the change Argryia would have been suspended from retaliating at that instance. The ruling ended in Lokanas taking a critical shot to his heart ergo killing him and awarding Argryia with an OHK during the preliminaries.