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In the former case, the advantage to this trope is obvious- a [[Game Master]] in a [[Tabletop Game]] could be badly hamstrung by a sufficiently [[Genre Savvy]] player anticipating the general direction of the campaign and being [[Crazy Prepared|prepared for anything]]. The subtle [[Retcon]] this trope provides is essential to keeping things interesting. Likewise, if it's necessary for the plot in a [[Video Game]] to have the [[Player Character]] meet [[The Rival]] early on but they're technically [[Wide Open Sandbox|free to go anywhere they want]], this trope is essential to keeping the plot together.
The trope has also become increasingly important in more traditional fiction as of late because the Internet's technological revolution is such that an author's "[[Movie Twist List|twists]]" could easily be predicted ahead of time if enough [[Fanon|clever fans]] [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|put their heads together]] and [[Wild Mass Guessing|talk things over]]. (And [[Epileptic Trees|over.]]) Catching wind of this, an author might then avoid being predicted by "coalescing" '''Schrodinger's Gun''' into a [[Trick Twist|sniper rifle]], [[Flashback Twist|uzi]], or [[Pound of Flesh Twist|rocket launcher]] as the situation requires. Since these cases involve more conscious improvisation, readers are more likely to consider the possibility that the writer doesn't actually know what they're doing and is just [[Jossed|jerking them around]], if not [[Writing by the Seat of Your Pants|making it up entirely]] [[Indy Ploy|as they go along]].
In interactive media such as video games, this trope can take the form of setting details retroactively warping themselves around the player's choices in ways that cannot be logically caused by the player character's in-universe
A helpful way to look at this is how sometimes [[Mystery Fiction]] authors will constantly feed the audience [[Red Herring|"clues"]] supposedly narrowing down the possible suspects, only to select the "right" clue as a [[Chekhov's Gunman]] by the denouement and fit the facts around it. Similarly, in movies it is common practice to write most of the story - and only then pick the ending that [[Focus Group Ending|resonates the best with the test audience.]]
Also known as "
The larger principle behind Schrodinger's guns is [[Chandler's Law]].
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This can be a form of [[Cutting Off the Branches]]. [[It May Help You on Your Quest]] is related, but use of this trope doesn't necessarily imply the writers themselves don't know yet what's going to happen. A fictional character taking a similar approach to their master plan is playing [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]. Contrast [[Retcon]]. See also [[Multiple Choice Past]], where this happens when something gets different origins over a period of time and different writers.
Compare [[Writing by the Seat of Your Pants]], [[
▲See also the [[Useful Notes]] regarding [[Schrodinger's Cat|Schrodingers Cat]].
{{examples}}
* A ''[[Batman]]'' [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] involves the Joker deciding to kill half of Gotham's population. Batman decides that involves piping poison from a utility. The Joker is always at [[One True Sequence|the first utility one chooses to investigate]].▼
▲== Comic Books ==
▲* A ''[[Batman]]'' [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] involves the Joker deciding to kill half of Gotham's population. Batman decides that involves piping poison from a utility. The Joker is always at the first utility one chooses to investigate.
* The villain of [[The DCU]] [[Crisis Crossover]] ''Armageddon 2001'', the mysterious Monarch, was originally intended to be the superhero [[Captain Atom]]. After fans figured it out too soon, DC changed the story, and the Monarch wound up being a different superhero entirely. (However, the ''[[Legacy Character|latest]]'' Monarch, villain of ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'', actually ''was'' Captain Atom ([[Heel Face Turn|he got better]]). You couldn't make this stuff up.)
==
* Masterfully applied in [[Clue (film)|the movie]] about the [[Board Games|
{{quote|
▲* Masterfully applied in [[Clue (film)|the movie]] about the [[Board Games|boardgame]] ''[[Clue (game)|Clue]]''. It has [[Multiple Endings|endings]] for several characters where they are the killer, and of course they [[Flash Back]] [[Retcon|retroactively]] showing how ''only they'' could ever ''possibly'' be the killer. Each theatre showed it with a different ending. The Home Video showed all three straight through, and the DVD lets you do it either way, with a random ending or with all three. In the ''end'' end, {{spoiler|Mr. Green reveals himself as working for the government and that "They all did it!" Take them away boys}}!
▲{{quote| ''{{spoiler|But if you want to know who killed Mr. Boddy, it was me, in the Hall, with the Revolver. [[Mistaken for Gay|Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home and sleep with my wife]].}}''}}
** The final ending is itself a parody of the game, in which the killer could win by exposing himself. [[Innocent Innuendo|Not like that.]]
*
== Literature ==▼
* Just about every ''[[Choose Your Own Adventure]]'' book does this heavily, in order to keep it interesting through multiple re-reads.
** Rampant in the ''[[Goosebumps]]'' [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] books. There'll at the very least be a major choice near the beginning that divides the book in half (say, try to give the magic book back or try to hide it), and the entire setup, the very nature of the situation you're in, will be completely different depending on which you choose. Then other decisions will cause the same thing to happen on a smaller scale. Worst, often there'll be a situation in which you have a single decision where both lead to a quick death and an unhappy end, but the nature of what was putting you in danger is not the same depending on which you pick.
* Chuck Palahniuk has mentioned in interviews that he got stuck at the ending of ''[[Fight Club (novel)|Fight Club]]'' until he read over what he had written earlier and found the line
* [[Matthew Reilly]] said that, in ''Contest'', the way to kill the [[Nigh Invulnerable|Karanadon]] - {{spoiler|with Swain's explosive wristband}} - came to him completely out of the blue.
==
** The "Helo on Caprica" plot in the first season was like this. Favorable fan reaction to Helo upgraded him to [[Mauve Shirt]], and a new plot was born. It
▲* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'':
▲** The "Helo on Caprica" plot in the first season was like this. Favorable fan reaction to Helo upgraded him to [[Mauve Shirt]], and a new plot was born. It's actually evolved to the point of being an entire series long affair, which in retrospect the writers may have never considered until the miniseries was over and done with.
** Likewise the four Cylons revealed in the Season 3 finale are practically Schrodinger's Hit-squad. All were perfectly plausibly human until the revelation, one even went through an "Am I a Cylon?" existential crisis and was told by an existing Cylon that he wasn't! But after the revelation, things still fit with them being Cylons. Though there are a few niggling plot details on how one managed to infiltrate colonial society for so long, the series kept its word that "anyone can be a Cylon". At this point, with one last Cylon left to reveal, the only people we ''know'' aren't Cylons are Helo {{spoiler|and Cally}} (have a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] child with a Cylon), Roslin (flat out told by the only one who knows she's not), and Apollo (can at most be a half Cylon).
** And now with the final Cylon revealed as {{spoiler|Ellen Tigh}}, the niggling details are explained. {{spoiler|Cavil, the first humanoid Cylon they built, killed them, blocked their memories and placed them on the Colonies to witness the coming genocide.}} The "oldest" among them has been explained in official statements as {{spoiler|not having served in the first Cylon war, Saul just ''thinks'' he did, a service record was probably forged by Cavil.}}
** They're still Schodinger's Hit-squad when you realize that two of the four were unplanned additions to the cast, which means that there is literally no way their reveals were planned out from the start of the show. They even had to [[Retcon]] that
** They've since added
***
****
**** Which is one place where the writers really missed a golden opportunity to tie off some dangling plot threads by making {{spoiler|Starbuck the daughter of the lone surviving #7.}}
* ''[[Babylon 5]]''. During production, [[J. Michael Straczynski]] planned the ''B5'' plot out for a 5-year arc. However, he also made plans for [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]. Indeed, the show didn't even end as he had originally meant for it to end, due to changing station commanders between seasons 1 and 2, changing several major plot points. And if you were just watching the show, you probably wouldn't have noticed (much).
** One particular noteworthy instance of a double-Schrodinger for the same plotline. Lyta Alexander was introduced in the pilot as a telepath who got to see and have mental contact with a Vorlon, thus establishing her connection with them and providing possible material for [[Took a Level
** The obvious actor/role substitutions: Jeffrey Sinclair/John Sheridan; Carolyn Sykes/Catherine Sakai/Anna Sheridan; Laurel Takashima/Ivanova/Lockley. Minor aversion with Ivanova, as she wasn't a straight substitution. {{spoiler|Originally, Takashima was a traitor. Instead, it's Garibaldi's aide.}}
*** [[Word of God]] is this was done because JMS let slip that
* Each season of ''[[24]]'' has lots of shots of various characters giving significant looks and suspicious glances, so when [[The Mole]] is revealed, no matter who it is the audience has already been given a lot of seemingly suspicious behavior to justify it.
** The reason why is that each season only ''starts'' with the first half of the season planned out. The rest is written on the fly.
* The new ''[[Doctor Who]]'' set one of these up with the Master. {{spoiler|After his death and cremation, an unidentified hand reaches in and takes a ring he wears. The creators have said they have no plan for this, and have not assigned the hand to belonging to anyone in particular. It's meant as a hook that the next batch of writers and producers can retroactively fit into their own plot when they want to resurrect him again.}}
** {{spoiler|As things turned out, ''they'' were the ones who ended up using it for the Tenth Doctor's finale.}}
* As a nod to the pre-written victory/concession speeches from [[Real Life]] below, ''[[The West Wing]]'' final season election had Santos' speechwriter do these, then additional permutations (won but lost home state, lost but won home state, etc.) were brought up for the contingency speech list...
** This was done frequently in earlier seasons, too, and tied into Toby's general paranoia about counting unhatched electoral chickens. During the blowout midterm election he reveals that he has prepared a concession speech just in case. And there's a dark echo in the beginning of season 5, after {{spoiler|Zoey Bartlett is kidnapped}}. Toby is seen preparing two sets of remarks - one for use if
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==▼
▲== Tabletop Games ==
* A campaign example for the [[Tabletop Games|Tabletop Game]] ''[[Pokémon|Poké]][[Cosmic Horror|thulhu]]'' involves the players "choosing between four houses for shelter". The book explicitly says that no matter which house the party chooses, it will be the one which contains the plot devices.
* Included as an explicit character creation option in the [[Tabletop RPG]] ''FATE''. When using this option, players start play with an essentially "blank" character sheet, and fill in skills as the play progresses. For example, if a character is stuck behind a locked door, the player can declare that his character has the lockpicking skill and fill it in in one of his skill slots.
* The "Gizmo" advantage in ''[[GURPS]]''. This advantage allows the player to be carrying around an unspecified "gizmo", which he may at any time "pull out" and declare it to be whatever device he wants it to be (that he could have reasonably possessed). Additionally, the gizmo does not "enter play" until activated, so it cannot be damaged, lost, stolen, or uncovered in a search.
** The same is true in ''[[Toon (game)|Toon]]''
* This is essentially how ''[[Burning Wheel]]'' works: If you say that you want to kick a bowl of fruit into the guard's face to create a distraction, then there will be a bowl of fruit right there for you to kick. It wasn't there until you said it was. Essentially, the players all have Schrodinger's Gun, to an extent.
** ''Houses of the Blooded'' is similar. When a player rolls for something, it's generally the right to decide things about the scene or how actions turn out. The rules explicitly state that you can decide pretty much anything that hasn't specifically been established yet.
*** There are several other games which allow the players to retroactively decide minor aspects of the current scene, such as ''[[Feng Shui (role-playing game)|Feng Shui]]'' and ''[[Exalted]]''.
** ''Adventure!'' handles this with a game mechanic: players can spend points to perform a Dramatic Edit and declare that there is e.g. a [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer|convenient manhole cover]] in the blind alley they've run down. This is great when the players ''only'' need to use it to collaboratively make situations more awesome, but less great when, as it sometimes does, it becomes a sort of ablative defense against railroading (why would the GM decide it was a blind alley in the first place?).
** In ''Wushu'', everything happens exactly as the players describe it. Additionally, the more complicated and [[Rule of Drama|dramatic]] a description is, the more dice the players receive, providing massive incentive to weave complicated and dramatic descriptions. To prevent complete insanity, actions can be vetoed by another player or the GM, and there's generally a "pool limit" maximum dice cap.
* ''[[Nobilis]]'' has The Monarda Law, which states that the answer to a PC's question should almost never be a flat-out "no". Additionally, in that game, prophecies explicitly work by the GM throwing out a lot of [[Ice Cream Koan|meaningless]] [[Faux Symbolism|symbolism]]
** {{spoiler|The John Tynes [[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]] scenario ''In Media Res'' uses a very similar device: You're given a whole heap of weird symbolism to throw at the players, and whatever they decide it means, it means.}}
*** And really, the whole idea of it is a pretty common [[Game Master]] trick: Throw out an ambiguous scenario with a lot of plot hooks, see which one the players respond to, and run with it like it's the baton at a relay.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' and its modern cousin ''[[Scion]]'' both rely on a [[Rule of Cool|Stunting system]]. Do it with style, and even if it is utterly ludicrous, it's more likely to succeed than if done boring-ly. For the most part, "stunts" involve pieces of the environment that the players make up as they go along. Asking if something exists in the scene should be met with "It does now."
* The ''[http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12960.phtml DC Heroes RPG]'' had a similar feature. A PC may spend a few of his/her Hero Points to decree the existence of specific objects in his vicinity, if the GM agrees to allow them.
** Then there's the Omni-Gadget, Omni-Connection, etc. advantages. "Whaddya know, this 8 AP
* It is explicitly written into the rules of ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' that anything the GM says goes. ''Anything''. The GM is perfectly free to roll a 5 and declare it a 17. Similarly, players may discover that they had mutations they were unaware of, that the NPC they're assigned to kill suddenly belongs to their secret society now, or that their weapon was actually sabotaged by Communists, or that while they were fleeing from a renegade robot they caused an Ultraviolet citizen a twenty minute delay in his routine. If it doesn't contradict established fact, or if the GM can invent a justification for why it doesn't, then it's all good. (Although, considering that this is ''Paranoia'', contradicting established fact is perfectly acceptable behavior.)
* In the
* ''[[Spirit of the Century]]'' is fond of this one. The languages that a character knows need not be specified at creation. A character can spend "Fate Points" in order to make declarations about the scene in their favor or create weird coincidences (e.g. "I declare that the guard holding us hostage was my college roommate"). Players can use knowledge skills to make similar declarations (so an expert in architecture can "create" a secret passage in a building by declaring that he or she learned such in his or her research). Furthermore, numerous stunts allow for Schrödinger's Gun situations, like Personal Gadget, which gives the player a gadget less fancy than the standard, but the player can create it on the spot when he or she needs it (they had it all along), or Master of Disguise, which allows a character to effectively stop playing, then later declare that any unimportant character "is really ''me'' in disguise!" The game also gives rules for on the fly character creation, which works similar to the ''FATE'' example
* ''Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies'' and other [[Prose Descriptive Qualities|PDQ]] system games are fond of this one - there's usually a power currency (Style Dice, Hero Points) to let the players declare significant facts about the game, such as inventing useful NPCs or giving them new abilities. S7S even encourages players to make flat statements that something exists and tossing a Style Die down, as opposed to asking if it's so and having to pay the cost the GM sets (though the GM should ask for more dice on particularly large changes anyway).
** PDQ2 rules game ''Vox'' has a starting scenario to run character creation similar to a FATE game, where you choose what you can do as you need to do it until all your abilities are set.
==
* A musical based on ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood'' stops the action at the point where [[Charles Dickens]]' death left the novel unfinished and then uses audience votes to determine the villain, lovers and true identity of Dick Datchery.▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Some computer games (especially [[Interactive Fiction]], given that it is just one step away from a table-top RPG) can do this. For example, in the ''[[Homestar Runner|Peasant's Quest]]'' game, at one point, there are four bushes with a trinket hidden in one of them. No matter what order you go to the bushes, the trinket is ''always'' in the fourth bush you look in.
* Plenty of [[Interactive Fiction]] games use this to let the player configure his character.
** The classic [[Infocom]] game ''[[Leather Goddesses of Phobos]]'' does this, where you have to go to the bathroom, and whatever room you
** A less known IF game called ''Enlisted'' pulls it off for the same reason, where you get your uniform out of a dispensing machine, and what settings you set it to (short, tall, etc), turn out to be the right ones.
** In an even less known IF game called ''Amnesia'' the main character closes his eyes and visualizes his appearance, to check how badly he's affected by the titular condition: your choices of features turn out to be completely wrong. [[Mind Screw|Dude be whack.]]
* ''Moonmist'' does this with your favorite
* ''Aisle'' type one-move games take this to the logical extreme: you get only one move and the world need not be internally consistent since each world instance ends after that single move. For example, in the parody game ''Pick Up The Phone Booth and Aisle'', climbing shows you to be {{spoiler|a mountain climber}}, whereas entering the titular object reveals {{spoiler|that you're a spy}}.
* Some IF designers call this the Magician's Choice, and it's a very good way to turn an initially wide-open map into a small one. Whatever direction the hero goes, that's the right way to go. See ''[[Photopia]],'' for instance.
* [[Sierra]] [[Adventure Game
* In the horror RPG/adventure game ''[[Elvira Games|Elvira 2 - The Jaws of Cerberus]]'', there are three places where Elvira may be hidden. No matter in what order you reach them, the first two Elviras will be fake and transform into monsters.
* In ''[[Fire Emblem:
** That being said, there ''is'' a difference in the routes, at least storyline wise. In Eirika's, {{spoiler|Lyon's spirit is subsumed and killed by the demon king's.}} In Ephram's, {{spoiler|Lyon's spirit ''unites'' with the demon king's and does a full (if very [[Tear Jerker|sad]]) [[Face Heel Turn]].}}
* In ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'', the player can choose three party members for the whole game: one main character and two support characters. Whoever the player picks as the main character becomes the only one who can wield the Mana Sword, and it also determines which of the three evil factions wins the race to the Holy Land, and which of the three [[Big Bad|final bosses]] the player ends up fighting.
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** Or, in one particularly egregious case (Bowman), just not interested in traveling with you anymore.
* ''[[Drakengard]]'' has what might be the most strenuous version of this. Depending on which ending you get the very fabric of reality functions differently. Your Dragon might be the only thing that can save the world, or you may be destined to destroy her lest she destroy the world.
* At one point in ''[[Fable (video game)]]'', a key is hidden in one of three books. No matter what, the key is always in the second book you pick.
* In the second ''NES'' ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (video game)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' game, the player faces a [[Wire Dilemma]] when defusing a bomb. Any choice turns out to be the right one, though one causes the screen to flash white with a boom, [[Fission Mailed|then revert back as one character says "Just kidding!"]]
* The "It's War" chapter of ''[[
* The ''[[Blade Runner]]'' [[Adventure Game]] had several plot points (such as whether characters were replicants or not) decided either at random in each game, or depending on the choices the player made.
* ''[[Dead Rising]]'': {{spoiler|Did Barnaby manage to bite Jessie when he started turning into a zombie? Only if you start case 8-1. If the truth vanishes into darkness before then, no he didn't.}}
* At two different points in ''[[Persona 3]]'', you can join one of three clubs. No matter which club you choose, the characters for the related social link will ''always'' be members of that club. It's most obvious with the Culture Clubs, as Yukari says Fuuka is a member of one of them, but can't remember
** To a lesser degree, the Athletic Club in ''[[Persona 4]]''
* Happens in ''[[Radical Dreamers]]'' the so-called "prototype" to ''[[Chrono Cross]]''. Depending on which room you entered first and what you did; Magil is either a ''[[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|time-traveling guitar playing rockstar detective from Mars who plays with hand-puppets]]'', the forgotten lover to Ridell, or a demon from hell. Likewise Kid is sometimes else raised by a nunnery that Lynx killed off, raised by Lynx's daughter Shea, or a ''gigantic berserk magic-wielding sunflower''. Lynx himself is a nobleman, a ghost, a [[Humongous Mecha]], or a ''giant space octopus''.
* In ''[[Myst|Riven]]'', the passcode near the end of the game {{spoiler|which unlocks Catherine's prison}} is randomly generated the first time you see it, retroactively setting the lock to that code. It is impossible to open the lock without having first seen the passcode. This prevents a [[Medium Awareness|medium-aware]] player from saving the game early, finding out the code, loading the saved game, and then opening the lock much earlier in the game, which would have required the designers to come up with a completely different ending. (Note that the ''other'' randomly-generated passwords are not Schrödingified, so you can use this trick to unlock them ahead of time.)
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* Each ''[[Mass Effect]]'' game has an instance in the beginning; regardless of what Shepard's background and military reputation are, he or she is the ''perfect'' candidate for the first human Spectre. Likewise, when ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' begins, regardless of whether the imported save file flags the council as saved, lost, or lost and replaced with an all-human council, Shepard "did everything right."
** Justified in the latter case, as no matter the outcome, ''it is perfect for Cerberus''. Although the degree and specifics of it vary, any of the endings puts humanity in an unprecedented position of power and influence, which is exactly what Cerberus wants.
* In the end of ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'', you {{spoiler|are to choose between two guns, one loaded and one not, to and shoot Ocelot, while he shoots you with the other one.}} No mater what you choose, {{spoiler|you and Ocelot both survive. If you grab the gun and purposefully miss, there is a hole in the wall, but if you shoot him or grab the gun with no bullets and he shoots you, it turns out the bullet was a dud.}}
** Which is odd as {{spoiler|the bullet Ocelot keeps around his neck the whole game '''is''' a blank; you can notice that if you zoom in on it.}}
* In the FMV game ''Terror T.R.A.X. - Track of the Vampire'' (played by [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20130810013422/http://spoonyexperiment.com/2009/10/23/terror-t-r-a-x-track-of-the-vampire-pc-the-whole-bloody-affair/ here], one of the Bad Ending paths has one of your agents getting captured by a [[Mad Scientist]] vampire. When the second agent finds the first, [[Mission Control]] orders her to shoot him preemptively. If you don't, he springs up as a vampire and kills the other agent. If you do, the vampire calls to taunt you with the fact that the agent was still human so you killed him needlessly.
* Done several times in ''[[Portal 2]]'', with an actual gun. With some of the puzzles, the player needs to fire the portal gun quickly [[Press X to Not Die|to not die]], but if they fire the wrong portal, they end up dying anyway. To fix this, the programmers fixed it so that whichever portal you fire is the right one and it retroactively changes the portal you had already placed.
* In [[XIII]], the player must enter a locked cabin to obtain a fuse. There are several guards in the area, but the last one who gets killed is always the one holding the key.
* In ''[[Dragon Quest V]]'', it doesn't matter whether you decide to marry Bianca or Nera, either one will turn out to be {{spoiler|descended from Zenithian blood, and will give birth to the legendary hero}}. The original game plays this straight, but the [[Video Game Remake|remake]] justifies it a little. The new character Debora is Nera's sister, so they share the same fate, {{spoiler|and it's hinted that all three girls are secretly related anyway}}.
* In ''[[Catherine]]'', the differences between the [[Multiple Endings|"Bad", "Good", and "True" version of each ending]] are supposedly determined by how well the girl can sense your feelings (that is, your position on the [[Karma Meter]]), but other events happen differently seemingly independently of your feelings about relationships. {{spoiler|If you choose Katherine, Jonny, Orlando, and Boss don't show up to corroborate your story in the Bad ending. If you choose Catherine, her father doesn't show up in the Bad ending. And the difference between the Good and True freedom endings is whether or not Feather wins the wrestling tournament, which Vincent should have no way of influencing.}}
* ''[[Deus Ex:
* ''[[
* Used extensively by ''[[Silent Hill: Shattered Memories]]'', primarily for purposes of [[Mind Screw]].
* In ''[[Fear Effect]]'', two of the player characters continuously are at odds over whether or not a girl they are helping is a legitimate damsel in distress or secretly the [[Big Bad]] playing a [[Xanatos Gambit]]. Right before the final battle the player must decide who is correct and that choice will determine the final scene of the game. If the player decides innocent it will turn out she is innocent, if the player decides she is lying it will turn out she has been lying throughout the whole game. So in essence the girl is paradoxically telling the truth AND lying throughout the story until the scene when the player makes their decision.
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* ''[[Brain Lord]]'': In the first town, there's a small sidequest you can do involving rescuing a pair of kids who wander down into a cave below the city. However, they only get lost in the cave if you actually talk to them - ignoring them or simply not talking to them will mean you don't need to rescue them.
* ''[[Escape Velocity]] Nova'' has a few - mainly, the fact that you with little doubt is the universe incarnate in two of the storylines, certainly ''isn't'' in one of the storylines, and has some question-marks regarding that status in the remaining three storylines. Other than that, {{spoiler|Frandall}} either set up {{spoiler|the Rebellion as a trap}} or is {{spoiler|genuinely, if for selfish reasons, opposed to the Bureau}}, and someone shows up in the Auroran storyline that has what would have been ''your'' role and backstory in the Pirate storyline.
* In ''[[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire|Pokemon Emerald]]'', in the post-game content, a TV reports on a flying Pokemon. Your character is asked what color the Pokemon is. The response you make your character give determines whether it's Latios (blue) or Latias (red).
==
* The idea is brought up in [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1944.html this] ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' strip. Fittingly enough, the characters are players in a [[Deep-Immersion Gaming]] RPG, and they actually mention Schrödinger.
** Not only does the trope appear in that particular strip, but also in the writing process behind the strip. In the earlier draft of the comic, David Morgan-Mar kept flip-flopping on whether the punchline should reference Heisenberg or Schrödinger. He decided on Heisenberg and wrote [[The Rant|a long note below the comic]], explaining Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle, before realizing that Schrödinger worked better as a punchline and changing it. He left the note below mostly unchanged, presumably as a record of the uncertainty in the writing process.
* Also appears in ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' by the same creator, starting [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0179.html here]. It also appears in a more amusing variation, Schrodinger's Bodyguard, seen [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0211.html here].
* In [[Chainmail Bikini (webcomic)|"Chainmail Bikini: The Nightmarish Legend of Deuse Baaj"]], the players are sent to retrieve a farmer's pigs in return for a sword. Instead of fighting the goblins that have stolen the pigs, they set a siege and wait until the goblins have run out of food and surrender, thus totally ruining the adventure the [[Game Master|GM]] had written. (And then they go and slaughter the goblins anyway.) The GM gets back at them by having the farmer's village been attacked and razed by the minions of the [[Big Bad]] [[Diabolical Mastermind]] by the time the characters return.
** Not to mention, a player thoughtlessly wonders why the starving goblins didn't simply eat the stolen pigs; at which point the rescued pigs suddenly transform into a pile of bones as the gamemaster quickly [[
** In the sort-of prequel ''[[DM of the Rings]]'', during a dice roll for an enemy attack, the dice accidentally drops beneath the table to an inconvenient spot. The player who the attack was targeted towards then calls himself an "Uncertainty Lich" between life and death (though the issue is quickly cleared up).
* Hilariously occurred in ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]] Tangent''. The comic had a forum right beneath it, where people often speculated. One person yelled out, without spoiler tags. "Ooh! That one guy we saw taking a bath is going to swoop in and pull a [[Big Damn Heroes]], making him a Chekhov's gun!" The artist's response? "Great, now I need a new way to bail them out!" He figured it out.
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* Tim points out that Steve is using this technique in [http://www.rdinn.com/comic.php?comicid=179 chapter two] of ''Loaded Dice''.
* In ''[[Questionable Content]]'', Faye once [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=647 found a box of condoms in the couch]. Marten says it's Pintsize's, and Pintsize says it's not his. The author's notes at the bottom read: "So who does the box in question belong to? [...] I haven't decided yet."
* Used in [https://web.archive.org/web/20140317080118/http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp10182011.shtml this] ''[[Something
==
* In [[The Spoony Experiment]]'s [[Let's Play]] of the FMV game ''Phantasmagoria2'', Spoony mocks how the game tries to get around
▲* In [[The Spoony Experiment]]'s [[Let's Play]] of the FMV game ''Phantasmagoria2'', Spoony mocks how the game tries to get around this--that the protagonist Curtis could experience the various supernatural death threats in a different order--by having him seem newly surprised in each clip, as though every one was the first (which it could be, depending on what the player does). In the finale of the [[Let's Play]], {{spoiler|Spoony is trapped in a similar setting and actually gets '''more''' exaggeratedly shocked every time something supernatural happens}}.
== Western Animation ==▼
* The Season Two premiere of ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' is a veritable Schrodinger's ''machine gun''. The writers deliberately took all the fan speculation about how the cliffhanger at the end of the Season One finale would be resolved, and ''made it all true''. A partial list follows.
** {{spoiler|With Hank and Dean dead, the title would now refer to brothers Rusty and Jonas Junior -- as seen in the episode's opening credits.}}
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** {{spoiler|It would be revealed that the boys were ''always'' clones.}}
* ''[[Total Drama]]'' has an alternate ending each season where the runner-up (in slightly different circumstances) actually won the prize. In fact, for the second season, it was declared that both endings ''were'' the possible "real ending", since each country voted differently on which of that final two they wanted to win. Unfortunately, the first and third season endings ended up very contrived by comparison.
* [[My Little Pony:
== Real Life ==▼
* Many of a stage magician's illusions rely on some form of this. [[The Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:Equivocation (magic)|has more details]].
* Politicians facing elections usually have their victory ''and'' concession speeches prepared well in advance. Similarly, newspapers pre-write articles and obituaries. [[Hilarity Ensues]] if they jump the gun and [[
** ''[[The West Wing]],'' being a show about politicians and elections, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rigI3FkwE mentioned this.]
* Similarly, Nixon had a speech ready in case something happened to Neil Armstrong and crew during their lunar soujourn.
** This, too, was the case for the Gagarin flight and Soviet Informburo.
* The items (from newspapers with banner headlines to caps and T-shirts) that get waved around during post-game celebrations at the Super Bowl, World Series, and other championship sports events featuring the team that was just victorious seconds earlier were also prepared in advance in versions for both teams. The merchandise items proclaiming victory for the losing team are often sold to third-world countries that don't care who really won as long as they get proper clothing.
* To avoid a portrait subject having to spend weeks sitting still, portrait painters used to do a subject's body, clothing, and furniture before the customer actually paid for a picture. Then they'd just add on the appropriate head (which is why some portrait figures have oddly long necks).
* The creators of ''[[South Park]]'' create each episode within six days in order to keep turnaround times for major events and trends quick and stay as current as possible. In fact, during the 2008 Presidential Election they were able to air an episode featuring {{spoiler|President Obama winning the election}} because they had actually prepared an episode for either eventuality.
** Not quite true. This their original intent, but as time wound down, they found that storyboarding, writing, and animating both possibilities and have it play coherently was too much of a pain, so they said, "to hell with this," and animated the episode shown, {{spoiler|before Obama's victory speech was delivered. The plan was to include the victor's own speech, but the animation had to be made before they knew its content, so they came up with plausible filler text. Even they were surprised to find how closely their filler matched up with what was actually said.}}
* Reportedly, General [[Dwight Eisenhower|Eisenhower]]
* The November 5, 1996 (US election day) ''[[New York Times]]'' crossword puzzle had two seven-letter words with the clue "Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper (!)" - which could be answered with ''either'' "CLINTON ELECTED" or "BOBDOLE ELECTED." The seven down words crossing the first word worked with either set of letters; for example, the clue for the word crossing the first letter was "Black Halloween animal," which could be either BAT or CAT. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130826220944/http://barelybad.com/xwdthemes_110596.htm More details.]
▲* A musical based on ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood'' stops the action at the point where [[Charles Dickens]]' death left the novel unfinished and then uses audience votes to determine the villain, lovers and true identity of Dick Datchery.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]▼
[[Category:Tabletop Game Tropes]]
[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
▲[[Category:Creator Speak]]
▲[[Category:Tabletop Games]]
[[Category:Useful Notes/Schrodinger's Cat]]
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