Suspense in RPGs

[Lanefan]

You didn't make an assertion though. Sides can have all sorts of views.

The individual assertions are
1. 4e was good.
If you think 4e was bad or your neutral then for you the above is false.
2. 3e was good
Same as for 4e.

I said a logical assertion. It has to be stated as a truth statement. Thus it's always yes or no. (true or false)

That's just binary logic, which almost never applies to real-world debates particularly if more than two people are involved and even more particularly when there is more than one binary variable (in this case good-bad) and-or that variable isn't in fact binary at all. With the 3e-4e debate we have both these complications: more than two people, and more than one beyond-binary variable.

I can hyopthetically make an assertion that 4e was good. You can claim this is false as for you it is neither good nor bad e.g. maybe you've never heard of it, or you have no opinion. A third person could claim both our assertions are false and that 4e was bad. Already we've gone beyond simple binary as just this one variable in fact has three states: good-bad-neutral.

Add in other variables (was 3e good or bad or neutral; were both 3e and 4e good; were both 3e and 4e bad) and any usefulness binary logic might have once had has long since been left dying by the trail.

Lanefan

 

[Emerikol]

That's just binary logic, which almost never applies to real-world debates particularly if more than two people are involved and even more particularly when there is more than one binary variable (in this case good-bad) and-or that variable isn't in fact binary at all. With the 3e-4e debate we have both these complications: more than two people, and more than one beyond-binary variable.

I can hyopthetically make an assertion that 4e was good. You can claim this is false as for you it is neither good nor bad e.g. maybe you've never heard of it, or you have no opinion. A third person could claim both our assertions are false and that 4e was bad. Already we've gone beyond simple binary as just this one variable in fact has three states: good-bad-neutral.

Add in other variables (was 3e good or bad or neutral; were both 3e and 4e good; were both 3e and 4e bad) and any usefulness binary logic might have once had has long since been left dying by the trail.

Lanefan

Not at all. Debate has to involve binary assertions at some point. Yes in a discussion about the various merits of some game we may engage in many small logical debates. The only way we can make a valid argument is one that ends in a truth statement. You, me, and someone else could all argue about a game and come to three different evalutations. Each one is a truth statement. An argument against one statement may not be valid against another.

So complex arguments are just a series of smaller logical assertions that are either valid or not. Naturally some things like taste are by definition undeniable. So if I say "I liked 4e" that cannot be disputed. If I say "4e is a great game" that could be disputed. We'd have though to agree on what a great game is in general and I suspect it would end up devolving back to matters of taste.

 

[Lanefan]

Not at all. Debate has to involve binary assertions at some point.

Even here I disagree, in that a true binary - only one 'yes' option and only one 'no' option - is very rare indeed outside of spaces like arithmetic. Take something as simple as the colour of a clear sky:

"The sky is blue"
"The sky is pink"
"The sky is gray"

These can all be truthfully said simultaneously by three people standing side by side, giving a three-way (trinary?) condition.

The person who says the sky is blue is looking straight up.
The person who says the sky is pink is looking west at the sunset
The person who says the sky is gray is colour-blind

Yes in a discussion about the various merits of some game we may engage in many small logical debates. The only way we can make a valid argument is one that ends in a truth statement. You, me, and someone else could all argue about a game and come to three different evalutations. Each one is a truth statement. An argument against one statement may not be valid against another.

But as soon as you hit three evaluations (or conditions) you're no longer binary. Each evaluation has two "no" conditions (those being the other two evaluations); and in this example there has to be a fourth option: "none of these are true".

Contrast that with a true binary: the electric light is either on or off; in either state one statement about its condition is true and the other is false.