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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darrin Drader" data-source="post: 4550867" data-attributes="member: 7394">I'm actually finishing up my degree right now after not having done so during my first attempt at college. Sad, I know. My major is English - Rhetoric/Professional Writing.If you were to ask a hundred different college professors what the definition of rhetoric is, you would get 100 different answers. Foss, Foss, and Trapp define rhetoric simply as "communication." One of my professors defines rhetoric as gaslighting. The generally accepted concept behind rhetoric is argument, or trying to persuade people to your way of thinking.There are three concepts that are central to rhetoric: logos, pathos, and ethos.Logos is when the rhetor makes an appeal to logic. I could get into deductive and inductive reasoning, but the nuances are really for those who actually want to study it. The point is that logos is the type of argument you make when you're trying to influence people using facts.Pathos is when the rhetor makes an appeal to emotion. This often has a negative connotation when speaking in the real world. The word "pathetic" is a derivative of pathos, and it is perfectly reasonable to describe an emotional argument as a "pathetic argument" in an academic sense without intending to denigrate it.Finally, ethos isn't an appeal, but refers to the speaker. A person who is accomplished is said to habe situated ethos. Someone who is knowledgable about a subject but isn't an authority can invent ethos. For example, people listen to Monte Cook when he speaks because he has something like 25 years in the RPG business, wrote the D&D 3.0 DMG, and has contributed or wrote some of the most notable gaming products for as long as I can remember.Now, the point of this is that most of my professors believe that most people form their opinions based on pathos, but they use logos to justify them and influence others. Sure, you can make as many logical arguments you want about something, but once you've made a decision, committed to that decision, and then start arguing about it, it's because there is something that resonated with you emotionally. It is admirable to want to examine things logically, and in fact, if you can't justify something from a logical point of view, you should probably take another look at why you hold to a certain belief, but a person should also not be ashamed to admit about something that it just doesn't work for them and they don't like it.Ultimately there is no objective way of determining a better game system from an inferior one, no matter how hard you try. In fact, the concept of an inferior game system in and of itself denies the notion that you don't have to have a better game system to have fun playing it. That is the reason why arguing strongly for or against this is ultimately emotional.</blockquote>

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