A thread written from the perspective of someone in an ATL posing the question of what if history had gone as it in fact did go in OTL. Example: DBWI: What if the South had lost the Civil War?

Thread particpants are expected to act in-character, as if coming from the ATL world. The sense of the thread is revealing the ATL world by discussing how the A-ATL (that is, OTL) might look.

The phrase “DBWI” is sometimes used in a wider way to mean any sort of role-playing, including “Future Blind What If” to mean role-playing in a future setting. A contemporary use is expressed in Redem's celebrated The Many Nations of North America, aka “How did you live the war?”

Much less commonly used is “Triple Blind What If” which has various definitions - one is e.g. TBWI: What if the South had won the Civil War (rather than being defeated in 1861?) to introduce two new layers of role-playing.

Straha was infamous for hijacking DBWIs, and turning every DBWI-ATL into some post-ncuclear exchange dystopia. Such is generally considered bad form.