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This Week in Wargaming Episode 35

I finally got an episode up early enough on sunday so people not on the west coast can download it for monday morning.

THIS WEEK IN WARGAMING EPISODE 35

Special Guest: John "Yakface" Regul of DakkaDakka.com


Gen Con Breaking News:

Adepticon announces Privateer Press and Flames of War tournaments and events to be held on site for next years Convention.

Privateer Press announces the "Next Big Thing" for Warmachine,
A "tactical action game where you play a warcaster controlling jacks". There will be online multiplayer support for XBox 360, PS3, and PC. It is still early in development. The developer is WhiteMoon Dream Studios whose employees have worked on the first two Fallout games and Medal of Honor.
No media links available yet.

Catalyst Game Labs Announces Release of Multi Part Plastic Mechs for Battletech
(Link down at TTGN)

Fantasy Flight Debuts several new games including

FFG Video Highlights
Warhammer Invasion Living Card Game
Battlestar Galactica Pegasus Board Game Expansion
Wahammer Fantasy roleplay 4th Edition
Rogue Trader 40k RPG
MiddleEarth Quest
Warhammer Chaos in the Old World


ONI faction Army Box previews include pics of first vehicles for AT-43 and Zombies!!!



COMPUTER GAMES

War in the Pacific Admirals Edition

Close Combat Modern Tactics

Movies and Media

Review: District 9 (Rotten Tomatoes Score 87%)

Preview: Inglorious Bastards(new trailer)

Interesting discussion about the FAQs, but why wasn't there any discussion about people's reasons for one opinion or another? Part of the problem with FAQs, including Yakface's INAT FAQ, is that they provide no underlying method or reasoning by which people can revise or expand them, and do so objectively.

Also, there was some weird sound-quality issues: sometimes like you weren't speaking into the microphone, or simply something to do with the recording.

Uhm...the Adepticon council are all members here and the Adeptus Windy City boards, and have always solicited feedback for the FAQ's at any time, and especially prior to events.

The INAT FAQ creation threads also have quite a bit of philosophy why certain choices are they way they are, and the FAQ itself lists if a rule is a clarification or rules change, so I'm not sure what else you are expecting?

I would expect a preface to the Adepticon FAQ detailing the methodology used in determining the answers to FAQs, and then each question showing not only the answer, but how the method was applied, and which sources were used to deduce the answer cited.

The FAQ is already over 90 pages long. GW does not explain how they come about creating rules. If you are that concerned about it then why not join their FAQ team?that would answer all your questions.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:The FAQ is already over 90 pages long. GW does not explain how they come about creating rules. If you are that concerned about it then why not join their FAQ team?that would answer all your questions.

G

Well said.

GBF proving every day that there is life after 50.

Green Blow Fly:

Exactly, the INAT FAQ is long precisely because it is ad hoc rather than a systematic approach. As for why I didn't join their FAQ team, I don't recall being invited, and I do recall objecting to their stated methodology. You do the math.

My point in this thread is that I would have liked to have seen at least some discussion about why people might come up with different opinions about what the rules mean, rather than just dismissing it with the notion that the rules are somehow vague or difficult to understand.

I mean, isn't it curious that otherwise intelligent and well-educated adults could disagree about the nature of rules that are otherwise not problematic? It seems like something that should have been covered, or at least addressed, rather than being glossed over with the usual platitudes about how no one really cares about what the rules say, and they just want to get on with the game.

Nurglitch wrote:Interesting discussion about the FAQs, but why wasn't there any discussion about people's reasons for one opinion or another? Part of the problem with FAQs, including Yakface's INAT FAQ, is that they provide no underlying method or reasoning by which people can revise or expand them, and do so objectively

Nurglitch wrote:Exactly, the INAT FAQ is long precisely because it is ad hoc rather than a systematic approach...and I do recall objecting to their stated methodology.

Wait, which is it? Did you see or didn't you see their methodology. You're contradicting yourself.

That fact of the matter is that all of your concerns have been addressed, and it ended up going in a way that you didn't agree, but you can't say that they didn't solicit feedback/community response.

I think the reason there is so much misunderstanding is clearly that the rules are not written with clarity as the #1 priority because the designers always have the

"just d6 it" philosopy at heart.

For those to whom random decisions are not enough we have efforts of people trying to provide that clarity. My point in the show was to say that I appreciate all of the ( uncompensated) effort that goes into this. 90 pages of painstakingly detailed effort for not other reason that to make our tournament experience better.

I disagree with plenty of the rulings but like I said in the show I would much rather have rules that are clear that I disagree with than unclear rules I like.

Im sorry if you did not feel I was hard hitting enought, remember this is a small independant podcast, If I grill my guests im not likley to have many in the future. I am always greatful when anyone takes the time to spend with me and my listeners.

whitedragon:

No, I'm not contradicting myself: I'm pointing out that the INAT FAQ contains no statement of the methodology employed by the INAT FAQ authors, and that the explanations that I received when I posed questions on the forums were unsatisfactory to me.

Likewise I don't object to the INAT FAQ disagreeing with some of the conclusions I drew, since I may be wrong, or both opinions may be wrong. I objected, and still do, to the lack of a stated method for deriving the answers in an objective fashion. They didn't help me see what I might have gotten wrong.

The document provides no way of checking whether the answers given in response to FAQs are correct, whether they merely extend the rules or introduce new rules, whether they follow or break the design of the rules, and of revising answers when they are found to either shift the original problem into new terms, or to create new problems.

Hence my criticism of the INAT FAQ is exactly that my concerns were not addressed in a satisfactory manner, by the provision of either the statement of a universal method for debugging the document, or individual explanations for how answers were derived from the source materials. I just don't like the ad hoc and unsystematic way its development was handled, since it merely provides opinion rather than opinion and justification. I'd like to apologize to Yakface for putting this in terms that may be interpreted pejoratively, but that's what answers based on consensus and 'common sense' are. There's a reason why 'argumentum ad populum' is an intellectual fallacy.

The Podcast made no attempt to address the question of how reasonable people could disagree over interpretations of the rules, and that's basically at the root of why there needs to be FAQs at all, because somehow or other many players of this game seem to be either unwilling or incapable of the effort required for reasonable people to determine the correct interpretation of the rules. It's like talking about your landlord not providing pest-control when your room-mate leaves rotting food around your apartment: The problem with FAQs is a symptom, not the actual problem at source.

Now, it's kind of obvious why the Podcast would not address this question: because the producer believes that the rules are such that reasonable people can, somehow or other, disagree over the truth of their respective interpretations, as if the hallmark of reason was being able to disagree, rather than being able to resolve disagreements in an objective fashion.

[context]If you think that being reasonable is about being able to disagree, then you have no consistent reason to oppose the teaching of Creationism in science class, or the notion that pedophilia is just another sexual orientation, or that people of minority religions should be persecuted, because, after all, the assumption is that reasonable people can disagree. The fact is that disagreement has the following matrix: We're both right and need to find a way of commensurating our positions, we're both wrong and need to find the right position, one person is right and the other person is wrong and who is who needs to be determined. This isn't limited to groups of two people; it's how reasonable people deal with their own contradictory opinions.[/context]

The attitude that the Podcast's producer takes, as I read him, is that going through such an arduous process as determining the correct interpretation of a rule isn't worth the time and effort. That's in a game based around spending hours and hours painting tiny little models, designing and creating scale terrain, and then using a system of lists, points, and manuals to enact games of seven turns or less than take at least an hour. You'd think that Warhammer 40k fans would be the most patient and reasonable people in the world given their Hobby. Instead, the P rather just roll a D6 to see whose interpretation applies, or just pick an arbitrary interpretation, in order to move the game along.

Now, there's nothing wrong with moving the game along. Indeed, there's something good to be said for moving the game along in a Hobby that leaves many actually pressed for time. Not everyone has time to do even the simple research required to determine the correct interpretation of the rules, especially in the middle of a game, but also in the middle of a life also including work, family, other hobbies, and sleep.

But the nice thing about forums is that they are not the middle of a game, and thanks to their text-based communication, they are ideal places to hash out and log the correct interpretation of the rules so that disagreements about the truth of any particular interpretation of the rules doesn't need to come up in the first place. That's why I'm disappointed in the YMDC forum, and the INAT FAQ: as a community we actually have the time to go through the process of determining the correct interpretation, as well as correcting the answers we have previously determined to be correct, and amending and improving the methodology as we find it wanting.

Usually at about this time certain posters will raise the following point: "Well Nurglitch, where's this magic all-powerful method of which you speak that will determine for all time what the TRUTH of the matter is?" My answer would be: Verily, there is no absolute infallible method of finding the truth. Or, rather, there is a method, it's just not what people expect it to be.

What needs to be done is firstly a change in attitude: people need to approach the problem of there being disagreements about the rules as though there is a correct answer. Once you have assumed that there is a correct answer, you need to assume that you, as an opinion-holder, could be holding the wrong opinion. Given the assumptions that there is a correct answer and that one could be wrong about it, any applied method that could determine truth must be (1) Objective, and (2) Fallible.

Objectivity is, when you come right down to it, something called "inter-subjectivity", a way of integrating different perspectives into a system that compensates for differences in perspective and returns the same answer for everyone who applies it correctly.

Fallibility is the notion that while absolute Truth is impossible to state, we can approach that Truth as we would any asymptote, continually correcting as we expand a coherent model of what could be True. Fallibility is different from simply admitting you may be wrong, it is also about tracking what you were wrong about, and how. There's no point, after all, of repeating the same old mistakes.

This is rather like finding someone if you know they'll be in the last place you look. You take a map, cross off all the places you'd look first, and then go to the place where you would have looked last.

As my description infers, any reasonable method for determining truth must be systematic before it can be objective and fallible, otherwise The nice thing is that once you assume these attitudes, and apply them systematically in a consistent way, it doesn't really matter what the details of the system that you start with, you will both move towards truth and accomplish something constructive by compiling a ledger of mistakes for other people to learn from.

Troy,

Thanks for having me on, it was fun. And if you wanted to 'grill' me about the INAT FAQ, I'm always happy to answer any and all questions, even tough ones. . .I can even deal with people who hate the thing!



Nurglitch,

TWIW isn't (wasn't) about me talking about the FAQ, it was just supposed to be about discussing the news, although obviously we did talk about some things relating to me (as isn't uncommon on podcasts). I'm sure we could have talked more about the INAT FAQ, it just wasn't the plan. And besides, I did already do some talking about the process of coming up with the rulings for the INAT FAQ on 40K radio a month or two before the last Adepticon. Did you get to hear that?


But even if you do manage to find it and listen to it (or if you did hear it already), I'm fairly certain that you'd be disappointed with our process since it mainly involves taking the opinions of the council members involved on what their interpretation of a particular rules passage is and then weighing that against practical experiences of how we've experienced that situation played by others. Judging by what I know of you, I'm positive that you would consider this method highly lacking because it is so subjective. I know you believe that there is one correct answer for any issue that can be (theoretically) settled upon by everyone if they would only take the time to understand the logic behind the decision.

Unfortunately, I don't know how this ideal could be realistically accomplished. You are the only person I've ever encountered who believes in this (that there is one true answer that everyone can agree on). I know I'm certainly unable to follow many of your logical musings in YMTC, so I would guess the only 'solution' would be to have you make all the rulings to the questions in the INAT FAQ which you could then defend with your lengthy supporting arguments (perhaps in some dedicated online forum).

However, even if this was to be the case, I'm not entirely sure how that would help the FAQ to be more widely supported. Anyone who couldn't follow your logic (which seems like *most* people based on what I've encountered in YMTC) would still feel just as in the dark about why the ruling was made as if we told them the ruling was randomly selected from a hat. And then there are always those people who simply think they're right without wanting to consider any other viewpoints. Those people are going to find your rulings 'wrong' if they disagree with their own personal take on it, no matter what kind of logic you try to throw at them.


To be perfectly honest with you, I'm more concerned with trying to make sure the INAT FAQ is as exhaustive as possible and that the questions and answers are written in a clear and concise manner (and therefore don't create further questions). While I certainly have my own opinions on what the answers to particular rules are at this point in my life I'm more concerned with making sure there is such a resource because I truly do believe that there is no one way to make rulings that would appease even close to everyone. I know you believe otherwise, but everything I've witnessed in my life tells me the opposite.

yakface:

You've explained to me how you and your friends came up with the INAT FAQ. I've explained to you how your approach is vague, subjective, and counter-productive to your goals. Okay.

But I don't feel you're quite representing my position well because I don't believe that "that there is one true answer that everyone can agree on", I believe that there is a correct answer that reasonable people should agree on, which is very different.

That's one of my objections to your approach to the INAT FAQ, that mere agreement, in conjunction with some vague 'weighing' and so on, does not truth make. You phrase my position as though I thought that truth was a matter of agreement. People's opinions should agree with the truth, certainly, but whether they can, whether they have the capability to make it so is another matter entirely.

I also feel that you're misrepresenting the methods I employ to derive answers to questions about the rules, or to solve rules disputes. It isn't "my logic" anymore than English is "your language". That you find them difficult to follow is irrelevant: I've never met anyone in all my years of tutoring that I couldn't teach in less than an hour - to be honest, from the perspective of someone who used tutoring to supplement income, I would have preferred to tutor a more difficult subject than symbolic logic because it's so easy. The difference between you (and everyone else on these boards) and my students is that they were motivated to learn, and you aren't.

Likewise, that you characterize such short and simple explanations as "lengthy" makes me wonder whether it's just the medium or your attention-span, although surely it's the medium considering most forum posts are the verbal equivalents of grunts.

The fact is that most of the problems that people have with the rules are problems that people themselves bring to the table: we are faced with a bootstrapping problem, essentially: How do you clarify something for somebody when they failed to comprehend it in the first place?

There's no point in appeasing everyone, and I think that if you (as in 'you in general', it's a pity English is so clumsy when it comes to singular and plural second person pronouns) need a document like the INAT FAQ to get through a game of Warhammer 40k above and beyond a copy of the rulebook and relevant codices, then maybe Warhammer 40k isn't really your speed.

That's why I've considered writing my own FAQ and decided against because, really, what's the point? I don't need one, and I don't care about the people that do.

Most people in the YMDC forums don't need an FAQ; they need an adult literacy program. It's an unpleasant thing to state, but the fact is that even highly intelligent and "educated" people will consistently make reading-comprehension errors unless they engage in the kind of close reading that scholarship requires, and as you correctly point out nobody else in the Hobby has any interest in putting that kind of effort in: if they did then they wouldn't need an FAQ.

That's something that I think the original poster could have addressed in his Podcast. Maybe that wasn't the plan, but maybe you can accept my feedback for what it is, a suggestion about what you might want to talk about next time, and include it in a future podcast or not.

Still, thank you for giving me the opportunity to write on the subject.

Cool beans on the episode. *runs to go see District 9*

Tacobake wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:The FAQ is already over 90 pages long. GW does not explain how they come about creating rules. If you are that concerned about it then why not join their FAQ team?that would answer all your questions.

G

Well said.

GBF proving every day that there is life after 150.

Corrected your typo

Will listen tomorrow morning before work.

Nurglich

You wrote :

I don't believe that "that there is one true answer that everyone can agree on", I believe that there is a correct answer that reasonable people should agree on, which is very different.

I think thats really the key in that this will simply never happen, especially when in many cases the rules are written in such a way that there are multiple perfectly reasonable interpretations or create scenarios that are simply not mentioned in the rules at all. When you have a company that has stated, in numerous instances that THEY dont agree on the rules they write and put "just roll a d6 to figure it out" in the rule book.

You are trying to impose a legalistic standard of debate on a ruleset that was never designed for that level of specificity. Even if it was it is simple human nature to see things differently.

As an interesting thought experiment, since you feel that there is one true answer that reasonable people should agree on, head down to your local high school and try to get their model united nations to agree unanimously on something, anything. Even better grab a muslim, an baptist, a jew and a Hindu and get them to agree on the origin of god and the universe.

You will be at that one for a few thousand years at least.

FAQs are necessary because we live in a world with people, and people disagree, thats called being human.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ YAK,

My pleasure to be sure, I will love to have you back but it wont be to interrogate you on the INAT FAQ, Im sure we can find some much more interesting stuff to talk about.

bigtmac68 wrote:Nurglich

You wrote :

I don't believe that "that there is one true answer that everyone can agree on", I believe that there is a correct answer that reasonable people should agree on, which is very different.

I think thats really the key in that this will simply never happen, especially when in many cases the rules are written in such a way that there are multiple perfectly reasonable interpretations or create scenarios that are simply not mentioned in the rules at all. When you have a company that has stated, in numerous instances that THEY dont agree on the rules they write and put "just roll a d6 to figure it out" in the rule book.

Thats not legalistic either. The finest legal code still is subject to interpretation and good faith dispute. Thats part of what the legal profession does. Never mind the vagaries of English common law, GW is truly not up to that standard.

In many disputes, the further you drill, the less of a "correct answer."

Nurglitch wrote:yakface:


That's one of my objections to your approach to the INAT FAQ, that mere agreement, in conjunction with some vague 'weighing' and so on, does not truth make.

The INAT folk never claimed they had arrived at the Truth. Rather, they just said, this is the way we are going to play it.

bigtmac68:

There's the problem in a nutshell: you do not believe that the rules are clearly written. I believe otherwise. If you approach the rules as though they are somehow ambiguous, all you're going to find is ambiguity. Similarly, if you take the approach that the rules somehow have "multiple perfectly reasonable interpretations", then you have failed to approach the rules in a way that there can be any reasonable interpretations, perfect or otherwise, because as I've pointed out reason is in large part consistency.

I'm certainly not trying to impose a legalistic standard on the debate, as I've explained to you before. What I am doing is pointing out that a scholarly approach is both useful and appropriate to the subject matter, since I quite obviously can neither impose the approach on others, nor even make myself and my opinions understood.

Your thought experiment is irrelevant, because it has nothing useful or insightful to contribute to the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that there are people out there right now who are working on learning more about things, logging their results, and increasing human knowledge. They're called scholars, and whatever differences you can draw between their respective disciplines, the methods of constructive scholarship are the same. Trying to liken scholarship to a religious squabble is intellectually disingenuous.

Olympia:

Yes, and that is precisely why I don't like the INAT FAQ. If they're just going to declare a way that they are going to play things, ostensibly for the sake of convenience, then the answers given in the FAQ are no more relevant that anyone's opinion. It's not even useful as an off-the-shelf tool for running tournaments, as it's no more clearly written that the rules they purport to clarify. The fact is that if you're going to write an FAQ, the answers it gives should be truthful, rather than merely conventional and arbitrary.

There's the problem in a nutshell: you do not believe that the rules are clearly written. I believe otherwise.

Even if clearly written there would be vagaries, areas of grey. Rule writing utilizing the English language is all about grey. If you believe there's mathmatical and logical certainty in either rules making or English, your faith is misplaced.

But I dispute the premise of the argument in its entirety. There is little that is clearly written from GW.

There is a reason that the supreme court almost never has a unanimous ruling.

All im trying to say is that to think that something like GW rules, ( do terminators have terminator armor?, Can Death Rollas tank shock, Does the Valkyrie Flying base count as a "clear skimmer stand" ... and on and on.) will always cause arguments.

You can be as scholarly as you want, but at some point somone needs to make a call or the arguments go on forever. How many YMDC threads end in a unanimous agreement to how a rule is handled.

I cant remember any.

So in concept sure, everyone SHOULD be able to, but the dont and they never will.

So what do we do know?

Break out the dueling pistols?

I always assumed nurglitch was a bit of a crank, but now I'm happy to see that I was right. Any interpretation of a document that assumes that there is only one proper way to interpret it isn't just wrong, it's bizarre.

bigtmac68:

There are no YMDC threads that are handled in a scholarly way, that's why they inevitably degenerate into personal nastiness. 99% of the content of YMDC is an example of how not to discuss rules.

And no, you don't do something as stupid as "break out the dueling pistols". You log the conclusions, their reasons, research, and so on, so that it's there if they are called into question so you can check them, correct, and improve them.

I think what you people don't seem to get about my point is that it's about building a body of knowledge and scholarship. If you think it's about some fantasy where we can magically arrive at the final Truth, then you should pull your head out of your anus.

The whole point is that since there is only one correct interpretation, the truth of the matter, what we're left with is a slow and painstaking process of eliminating all the wrong interpretations.

Speaking of which...

Polonius:

I think you misunderstand me. You seem to have completely ignored the parts of my post where I explained how we don't have access to this complete and final truth, and how we're left closing the gap with increasingly less wrong conclusions.

I've actually got a serious question for Yakface.

If the Adepticon crew ran the Tournament side of GW how would you set it up?

Hollismason wrote:I've actually got a serious question for Yakface.

If the Adepticon crew ran the Tournament side of GW how would you set it up?

Hmmm, that's kind of a strange question. Are you asking, if GW suddenly decided to employ the people who run Adepticon to head up their community events department how would they go about running Grand Tournaments (assuming that the company greenlights them to do so)?

If that's your question, I'm really not the person to answer that. I've never actually run a tournament at Adepticon, I've only helped out by writing and editing the FAQ for them, giving advice on how to clean up wording for some of their tournament rules, and last Adepticon I was one of the rules judges for the Gladiator.

Really, you'd want to have that question answered by someone like Hank Edley (Muwhe on Dakka), as he generally runs the whole Adepticon event or by one of the many tournament organizers who actually run the individual tournaments at Adepticon.

And even then, there are really too many variables to guess at to give any kind of realistic answer. The events department at GW obviously has all sorts of budgetary and other restrictions that we can only speculate about, so its kind of hard to say what kind of tournament you could put on without knowing what you actually would have to work with.

Nurglitch wrote:The whole point is that since there is only one correct interpretation, the truth of the matter, what we're left with is a slow and painstaking process of eliminating all the wrong interpretations.

Yea...right...

Nurglitch, you are supremely condescending. It's sort of awe inspiring.

Truth is the accepted interpretation of the majority viewing. Take the thricedamned deffroller discussion, it has two obvious interpretations (and probably many minor ones) the two ideas have been mulled over, talked about and finally a verdict was reached for the adepticon FAQ, it wasn't the one I agreed with, but if I want to go to the adepticon and play, that is the version of truth that has been agreed to abide by. There is no 'truth' in the deffroller question, no actual answer that produces the hidden meaning as it was meant to be, GW can release an official answer and that would still be the same as what adepticon FAQs did, being presented with the question and coming to a conclusion that they believe will be a better one for the game (or in GWs case, most advantageous to the newest army).

There is never only one correct interpretation, in anything, ever...Or is there...wait...?

Nurglitch wrote:bigtmac68:

There are no YMDC threads that are handled in a scholarly way, that's why they inevitably degenerate into personal nastiness. 99% of the content of YMDC is an example of how not to discuss rules.

And no, you don't do something as stupid as "break out the dueling pistols". You log the conclusions, their reasons, research, and so on, so that it's there if they are called into question so you can check them, correct, and improve them.

I think what you people don't seem to get about my point is that it's about building a body of knowledge and scholarship. If you think it's about some fantasy where we can magically arrive at the final Truth, then you should pull your head out of your anus.

The whole point is that since there is only one correct interpretation, the truth of the matter, what we're left with is a slow and painstaking process of eliminating all the wrong interpretations.

But I think the only way something like that could possibly have any sort of widespread use would be for every single gamer to participate and agree with this quest for knowledge and truth.

When you attend a tournament you have no way of knowing what level of rules understanding any individual has and if someone disagrees with your assessment of the rules you just don't have time in a tournament to have a debate about the rules. Unless one person is willing to bend (which often doesn't happen when both people believe they are correct) then a judge has to be called over. And when a judge is called over would you rather have absolutely no idea which way he is going to rule on the issue, or would you rather have a FAQ that lets you know ahead of time which way he is going to rule?

That is the goal of a tournament FAQ. Not necessarily to find the ultimate truth, but rather to at least have the players attending the tournament know how a judge will make a ruling.

Nurglitch wrote:
Polonius:

I think you misunderstand me. You seem to have completely ignored the parts of my post where I explained how we don't have access to this complete and final truth, and how we're left closing the gap with increasingly less wrong conclusions.

No, I got that part. That part just makes your main theory even less appealing. So there's a single inherent truth to a document, but we also can't even read it?

I'll be honest, I've never understood any of your critiques or criticisms, and I gave up trying a long time ago.

yakface:

Widespread use would follow as people use the document in tournaments, and have the opportunityt to discover its utility. We wouldn't need every gamer everywhere coming together to agree on anything; the idea is precisely that only a few people need to do the scholarship and prepare the initial findings and present them as an FAQ document.

Take MeanGreenStompa's assessment of the controversy surrounding the Deff Rolla. Part of answering the Frequently Asked Question of whether the Deff Rolla can ram vehicles would be citing the various interpretations and their justifications. Once these interpretations are cited, the authors rank them from least to most wrong according to some set of values such as consistency, validity, etc. That way, if someone finds an error, it can be easily noted and corrected. And if some problem arises that the conventional methodology cannot solve, we have a body of information ready that any adjusted methodology must solve in addition to the new problem.

When I last attended a tournament, I assumed that everyone else knew the rules, and perhaps surprisingly in retrospect I had absolutely no problems with rules in any of my games. But having been in situations where people have disagreed, particularly about particularly foundational issues, having a third party judge come in, eyeball the problem, and rule, is a clumsy kludge - we've all seen the complaints about judging posted on these forums.

However, if both players know that there is a method for resolving disagreements, know what that method involves, and have some motivation to use it, then resolving disagreements, then many of these disagreements don't turn up in the first place because players have anticipated how to solve them before play even takes place.

Having an FAQ with both a stated method, and a body of cases where the method is implemented, is better than an FAQ that is an ad hoc set of agreements between the authors because players will know how to deal with novel cases that are not directly cited in the FAQ, and have that common ground for solving problems already established. That common ground is what's important, because disagreements cannot be solved if the parties do not share consistent frames of reference. An FAQ using a stated method to establish this common frame of reference does not run into the problem of 'buck-passing' where arguments about the rules simply become arguments about the statements made by the FAQ.

Polonius:

No, there's a single true interpretation of a document with a fixed semantic referent like Warhammer 40k, and we approach it asymptotically. We cannot say we have reached this final truth since we must maintain an attitude of fallibility, lest we acclaim a false interpretation as the final truth, so in the meantime we settle on tentative truths as 'true-so-far'.

The basic concept here is 'reasonable doubt', though not in the legal sense I should hasten to add. Basically if one interpretation is more consistent in various ways than another, then we have reason to doubt one and not the other, and we're left with the other one as tentatively true. This remaining interpretation may not be the final truth though, so if another interpretation comes up that is more reasonable, then we have found reason to doubt the previous tentative truth. We don't do unreasonable doubt, or doubting everything, nor do we do the unreasonable acceptance of everything, we go with the interpretation we have least reason to doubt.

On a personal note, though, I'm upset that you've given up on trying to understand what I'm pointing to because you are one of the few people on these forums whose opinion matters to me, so it's dispiriting when I can't even get through to you.

Edit: Some NSFW comedy that reflects some ideas I've tried to get across here.