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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3047494" data-attributes="member: 18280">Someone, since I can state my criteria for tall (over X inches, for example), please state your criteria for fair.ThirdWizard, nowhere did I say "there's no such thing as unfairness. The DM is God and all he does cannot be wrong."  As a statement of fact, I agreed that the trap/encounter would be unfair if three conditions were met, and then determined that the wording of the OP supported reasonable assumptions that met at least two of those three conditions.You use a scientist making a hypothesis in your example.  As you know, within the sciences no hypothesis is valuable unless it can be disproven.  "Frogs can move mountains, but choose not to" is not a scientific hypothesis because it is a hypothesis that cannot be disproven.  There is no way to supply evidence against."This scenario is unfair even if we cannot say why" is similarly flawed.  If the scenario is unfair, you ought to be able to say why.  Then your reasoning ought to be subject to analysis.  If the analysis shows that your reasoning is flawed, it does not automatically mean that your conclusion is wrong, but it does mean that your conclusion is not correct for the reasons given, and ought to be re-examined.(As an example, you could say "Because herring are fish, the sky is blue."  Even though the reasoning is wrong, the conclusion is not.  Still, the entire argument must be re-examined at that point if one desires to claim rationality.)Presumably, when we are talking about fairness we mean (from dictionary.com):1. free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice: a fair decision; a fair judge.  2. legitimately sought, pursued, done, given, etc.; proper under the rules: a fair fight.Of these definitions, (2) is granted by the Core Rules.  You could have a social contract within your own gaming group that alters the Core Rules (i.e., would this be fair in my game), and in that way fairness is like fun.  Not everything would be fair in every game, nor would everything be fun in every game.  However, this is an "A (event) + B (special case social contract) = unfair" situation, where neither A nor B are unfair alone.As far as bias, dishonesty, and injustice -- surely if we are claiming any of these we can make a supportable, rational argument?  In this way the question of fairness is exactly like that of innocence.  A condition (guilt, bias, dishonesty, and/or injustice) is claimed to exist.  Placing the burden of proof on the accused (prove that this condition does not exist) is bad reasoning, poor logic (it is actually a specific logical fallacy called shifting the burden) and grossly unfair.BTW, argumentum ad numerum certainly is a fallacy.  Research it if you don't believe me.  So is attempting to conflate one position (a claim of unfairness must be rationally supported to be considered true) with another, easily refuted position not taken by the person you claim (you're trying to prove what is objectively fun).  That fallacy is called "the straw man".RC</blockquote>

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