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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felix" data-source="post: 3225469" data-attributes="member: 3929">Nor does authority in grevious error stop it from being authoritative. So why accept something as true simply because it is authoritative?Strange, I thought they were fairly accurate in their description of the racial benefits of halflings. Or should I have looked to the FAQ for that?Nor was it irrational to accept what the church said about the sun because it relieved the individual from the burden of thinking.If you have no time for thinking, such as when you're playing a convention game with people who don't know each other; if you're attempting to establish a standard where concensus is impossible, as it is in Living games, then ex cathedra authority makes perfect sense because it facilitates play; there is no ambiguity in its "yes" and "no" answers.If, however, you do have the time or the inclination, you can see how the FAQ fails in being consistently accurate; its virtue of providing a clear "yes" or "no" answer in is tarnished by the fact that the answer it provides does not always follow from a reading of the rules, which it purports to clarify.So why would you argue that here on the internet, the resting place of millions of hours of thought, there is not enough time for us to decide for our individual selves what is wrong and what is right? Why would you appeal to authority when an appeal to the rules and an application of thought renders convincing arguments instead of authoritative ones, unless you lacked the time or the inclination to do so?The original poster ranted against an outright dismissal of the FAQ; a thourough examination of the rules should lead you to the conclusion in the FAQ. That is, the FAQ should be an accurate representation of what the rules say. As it happens, this is not the case. So why, here, where we are propounding rules arguments and not trying to facilitate play, would you be disinterested in the arguments that support or detract from the conclusions in the FAQ?Put simply, the FAQ offers conclusions. To those interested in expediency, it is a great store of value. But to those who wish to know the arguments and premises regarding a peculiarity of the rules, offering a conclusion in the form of the FAQ ruling does not help.</blockquote>

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