Dice Rolling and the Creation of Time

YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT. We all know this. But what is even truer is that one cannot have time records, or even time at all, IF DICE ARE NOT ROLLED. Let me explain.

Pierre-Simon de Laplace posited the existence of an 'intelligence' which was capable of knowing the precise location and momentum of every single particle in the universe at any given moment. To such a being, it would be possible to know both past and future in perfect detail, and indeed concepts such as past, present and future would lose all meaning because it would know them all equally well. This is because, knowing their current positions and trajectories, it could simply work out, with a single formula, where every particle in the universe would be from moment to moment until the end of time, and where they had been at every moment in the past back to the start of existence itself. It would thus in effect know the entirety of time simultaneously - it would have, if you like, a bird's eye view of the entire chronology of everything. How could such a being meaningfully distinguish between present, future or past? 

Later writers called this 'intelligence' a 'demon', which I'm sure you'll agree is far more evocative. (William James had a similar idea, which he called 'the iron block' - the idea being that since everything is in the end just physics, and because everything in existence obeys the laws of physics, everything that ever happens is predetermined because it is all caused by something that has been caused by something else which has been caused by something else, and so on: from the moment of the Big Bang the whole thing - what you had for breakfast today, what you thought about while driving to work, the fact that you are currently reading this sentence - was already predetermined by a long chain of causation and we are just watching it all play out.) And 'Laplace's Demon' is a concept which somehow stuck. It remains highly provocative as a thought experiment to understand and argue about determinism.

It is also, though, an interesting way to think about DMing. A DM is, or can be, a pseudo-Laplace's Demon, in the sense that (if he devoted sufficient time and effort) it is at any given moment possible for him to know where all the moving pieces are in his campaign and where they are going. If the campaign were taking place in a megadungeon, for example, he may very well, at least in theory, know the location of every single monster, item of treasure, piece of scenery, and so forth - and even, if he wants, have a grasp of where they are moving (if anywhere) - at any given point in time. In practice few if any DMs actually know their creation at that level of detail, but it is theoretically possible.

Yet the DM's world is subject to fundamental indeterminacy because of the unpredictability of the dice. Since he can't know the outcomes of dice rolls in advance, he never has the knowledge necessary to be a true Laplace's Demon. He may observe everything, but he cannot also know where it is going (the echo with quuantum mechanics is obvious). 

The DM's world therefore experiences an authentic past, present, and future. And in a sense the act of rolling the dice is what allows this to happen. It is only with the appearance of uncertainty that one can grasp time, and it is dice rolling which actualises uncertainty most purely. (Players can be negotiated with; the dice are final.) It is because the game involves dice rolls that it has a chronology - we know that this is the present because this is when the dice are being rolled, and we do not yet know the future because we have to wait for the results. This allows us to distinguish between present and future and therefore, by implication, the past. It allowos us to have time as such.

It follows that the rolling of dice is a metaphysical act. It is the fundamental ontological condition of campaign time. Yes, as some of you will be no doubt thinking, the actions of the players bring uncertainty in themselves, to a degree. But it is not genuine uncertainty without the rolling of dice, because without the rolling of dice what happens is ultimately decided by DM fiat, and DM fiat in the end simply reflects his own understanding or vision of his own world. DM fiat is the world of Laplace's Demon, where everything is simply caused by everything else. Dice rolling makes things uncertain for everyone, and it is therefore in the dice roll that time is brought into existence in a D&D world.

You can not have a meaningful campaign if strict time records are not kept, then, but you can also a fortiori not have a meaningful campaign if you are not rolling dice. It is the rolling of dice that gives the campaign any form at all. 

Postscript: I am not sure what the precise implications of this are for Amber Diceless - the domain of Laplace's Demonic DM - and similar as playable games, but it is worth elucidating the point a little further in this regard. The point about Amber Diceless and its genre is that since it is DM fiat which determines what happens, it may have the appearance to the players of uncertainty. But for the DM nothing is uncertain because he can identify what has happend in the past, and what is happening now, and therefore has a fair idea what will happen in future. It is true that he does not know what a given player will do at any given moment, but he has complete say over what the consequences will be. Can he then meaningfully be said to be in a position of uncertainty?