D&D 5E Arguing, ideating and solution-seeking on the D&D Enworld forum

[Umbran]

Maybe it wiser to pick one's battles carefully rather than create multiple fronts of conflict.

Indeed, perhaps thinking of it as a battle is part of the problem.

 

[Umbran]

My old communication instructor would disagree. Argument == discussion/debate of differing opinions, but most people mistake fighting (a desireto be right and hurt/anger the other person) as argument.

So, just to make an example here - I am the one who first made the distinction. Everyone else seems to be putting forth their own definitions, and defense of definitions (like this here - an appeal to authority of an instructor).

As far as I can see, nobody has asked me to elucidate on my distinction, or why I made it.

It might help to consider that, in light of the thread topic.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Responding to a particular piece of someone's argument doesn't somehow require the act of dissecting their entire post line-by-line into a wall of quotes that invariably devolves into a quoting battle. It only requires the person responds to that part of the prior poster's post that they are addressing. This can be done by highlighting the pertinent part in bold (or some other means), cutting out the rest of the post apart from the relevant portion, or clarifying what part they are responding to in their own reply.

But often they are addressing the whole post, so they can instead, just respond with a wall of text where the specific reference is unclear for any given part. You can argue this would be better handled breaking it out into separate posts, but then people get soggy about that, too.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So, just to make an example here - I am the one who first made the distinction. Everyone else seems to be putting forth their own definitions, and defense of definitions (like this here - an appeal to authority of an instructor).

As far as I can see, nobody has asked me to elucidate on my distinction, or why I made it.

It might help to consider that, in light of the thread topic.

This kind of discussion - not you in particular, Umbran, but the whole sub-thread you're replying to - is what I was complaining about earlier.

Every definition given is fine, and it would be way more productive to just accept someone's definitions and go from there. Part of what makes the threads turn into to arguments rather than discussions is that people won't accept a proffered definition and roll with it. "Yes, and..." should apply.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Then they do the same, and you do likewise in return. Then everyone else suffers from the inevitable breakdown in communication and the increasingly impenetrable wall of quote texts to read.

Maybe it wiser to pick one's battles carefully rather than create multiple fronts of conflict.

That only works until people take you to task for ignoring parts of their post that they consider was necessary for the context of the rest of it.

Like I said, I honestly a no-win.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ask yourself this question - is your opinion the one that actually matters here?

As in, you are in a discussion, and something is going awry - if you want to continue having a productive discussion, is your opinion of what you were doing really the thing for you to focus on?

As a purely practical matter, your opinion (I have now shifted to the generic you, not you, FrogReaver, specifically) of what's going on was part of what got you into the situation. There's evidence that it isn't working. Perhaps your opinion of the matter should be questioned.

This is legitimate, but it also comes down to "the person most concerned with communication continuing ends up essentially acceding to the poster they're in conflict with." That's sometimes likely the proper solution, but it only works until you hit people who argue in apparent bad faith.

(Admittedly the best solution to those is to ignore them either in the general sense or mechanically; I ended up doing that with the only two posters around here I'd seen that seemed to do so fairly consistently.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

This kind of discussion - not you in particular, Umbran, but the whole sub-thread you're replying to - is what I was complaining about earlier.

Every definition given is fine, and it would be way more productive to just accept someone's definitions and go from there. Part of what makes the threads turn into to arguments rather than discussions is that people won't accept a proffered definition and roll with it. "Yes, and..." should apply.

Well, I will point out that its not uncommon if you do that for it to make the discussion moot, either because it turns it into a different discussion than you were (as best you could determine) participating in, or makes the point of contention tautological.

 

[Umbran]

This kind of discussion - not you in particular, Umbran, but the whole sub-thread you're replying to - is what I was complaining about earlier.

Every definition given is fine, and it would be way more productive to just accept someone's definitions and go from there. Part of what makes the threads turn into to arguments rather than discussions is that people won't accept a proffered definition and roll with it. "Yes, and..." should apply.

Yes. The problem being that everyone wants the definition that best supports their own position to be dominant. It makes arguing their point easier.

 

[Umbran]

This is legitimate, but it also comes down to "the person most concerned with communication continuing ends up essentially acceding to the poster they're in conflict with." That's sometimes likely the proper solution, but it only works until you hit people who argue in apparent bad faith.

Yes, but I am also a proponent for conversation that avoids argument. Bad faith argument isn't a big deal if nobody's arguing.

 

[DarkMantle]

Yes, but I am also a proponent for conversation that avoids argument. Bad faith argument isn't a big deal if nobody's arguing.

Ya people have different priorities/goals.

Like say Person A dislikes something about D&D. Every time they feel triggered on this topic, they vent. Over and over and over... until due to some external circumstance, they're not triggered anymore.

And then Person B, to reference off your point, they'll have triggers too, but they care even more about Avoid Arguing. They won't wait for external circumstances, they'll self-adjust accordingly to reduce their contribution to arguments.

So it's just different priorities, and as much as one might want another person to change, they have their own set of priorities.

Edit: This is not to say that Person A or Person B are right or wrong about whatever is triggering them, simply that they have different internal strategies to deal with it.