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"I pointed out that the idea that warhammer 40k has some sort of existence limited to the imagination of the players and its creators is false"

I guess I just don't see how this statement can work. While I whole heartedly agree that the objective fact of what the text really says is vastly more important than how people think it should work, my point is as follows:
A1: that the text describes a theoretical system. It conveys meaning, but is not itself the meaning, just as a painting of a woman describes the woman, not the paint.
A2: the system the text describes does not exist outside of it's own theoretical frame work. (Ie. we can not test our conclusions against reality, if say we want to know if Fzorgle will move a unit out of melee.)

Now, those two points lead me to the following sub-conclusions:
B1: The system described in the text can exist with contradictions. It doesn't have to work, but it does exist.
B2: A careful study of the text can produce the most valid concept of the meaning it wishes to convey, eg. the concept of the rules system in the minds of those who created them.

Now, combining those two concepts leaves me with the conclusion.

1) Any study of the text of the rules, no matter how rigorous, will not correct contradictions that exist in the rules. It will merely demonstrate they exist. (It will also fix a lot of confusion, however.)

In other words, even if the text transmits the meaning 100% (which is rare if not impossible), if the designers themselves irreconcilable left flaws in the system, no amount of analysis will fix them. It will merely demonstrate that there is a flaw.

If you want me to prove that the system can not be analyzed, well, of course it can. My point is that it won't necessarily bear fruit, since the issues seem to stem more from the design team not thinking through every interaction of the rules and possible actions of players than poorly understood text.

Wehrkind wrote:Now, combining those two concepts leaves me with the conclusion.

1) Any study of the text of the rules, no matter how rigorous, will not correct contradictions that exist in the rules. It will merely demonstrate they exist. (It will also fix a lot of confusion, however.)

In other words, even if the text transmits the meaning 100% (which is rare if not impossible), if the designers themselves irreconcilable left flaws in the system, no amount of analysis will fix them. It will merely demonstrate that there is a flaw.

And I agree on this point (which was put into words a lot better than I managed to do). I would also add my point to it - no matter how much you try or how often you say it you can attach no more authority to your attempt to sort out the flaws than 4 blokes in a pub drinking cheap Belgium lager despite the fact you may have bigger words in your explanation.

Wehrkind: I'll use your numbering system.

A1: The text conveys meaning and also its own mechanism. A painting of a woman doesn't simply describe a woman, it describes its own structure, the materials used in its assembly, the light required to see the woman, the context in which splotches of paint resemble a woman, and the rules, formal or otherwise, governing the concept (that of woman) that the painter is attempting to communicate.

A2: The system the text describes is a system of rules, rather than a system of physical objects such as might admit empirical investigation. Since systems of rules are theoretical constructs we have no need to test the system empirically, and doing so would be an exercise in futility. However the system does require formal investigation of its properties and fortunately the science of formal logic has a powerful tool-box for such investigation.

B1: The system described in the text does not exist, per se. There is no Warhammer 40k rule system that you can pick up, weight, touch, smell, etc. Whether employing that system leads to contradictions is a forgone conclusion, of course it will; all systems eventually derive contradictions if taken far enough. The question is knowing how far is far enough relative to our needs for the relatively small application to our games of toy soldiers.

B2: A methodical and logically rigorous (careful isn't good enough: being careful in the wrong way avails one nothing) analysis of the text, its layout, and attendant diagrams so that the analysis is semantically valid will state the meaning that the text does convey (textbooks don't wish things, they simply are) regardless of what anyone wants it to mean, or intended it to mean, or whatever other excuses explain errors in the construction of the text or its misapplication.

Essentially your conclusion is predicated on several errors. The first error is that a work only contains information about its subject. This is false. The second error is that we're conducting some kind of physics-style experiment, or that one can be conducted, by which we can test the rules against the thing they're supposed to describe. This is false. The third error is closely linked to the first and second, that 'meaning' has some sort of existence separate from the information encoding it. This is false. The fourth error is what one might call the misapprehension of what it means for something to be 'valid', but it might be more charitably be called miscommunication about a technical term in logic. In logic validity is a property to arguments that one can measure. However in measuring validity you either have valid or not valid; there is no 'most valid'. You seem to be using it in the appalling colloquial sense of the term meaning 'persuasive' or 'most likely to be right'. But this isn't about persuading people that an interpretation is right, this is about demonstrating a method of interpretation that when correctly done returns the same answer for everyone with the same mechanical efficiency we enjoy in arithmetic. Likewise this isn't about this method being the method most likely to be right, it has been proven by better logicians than myself to certify rightness rather than make a poke in the general direction and hope for luck.

Whether the text is a medium of communication is not the issue, and indeed part of the issue is getting away from dead-end theoretical frameworks wherein we presuppose some intelligent designer encoding information into the text with some possibly lossy algorythm. The issue is taking the text as an artifact not only about the game but about itself and retro-engineering it according to the design principles that it demonstrate. Whether any property of the rules is a flaw is determined by its relation to all of the other salient properties of the rules, rather than how so end-user decides to use (or mis-use) that property.

I'm not asking you to prove that the system cannot be analyzed, I'm asking you to prove that this method necessarily cannot bear fruit because people have proved that methods such as RAI and RAW necessarily cannot. When I say people I mean logicians and mathematicians from the 1930s (Godel, Tarski, Austin) to the present (Eczel, Schotch, Urquhart). I'm asking you to do this because it'll save time and effort on yet another semantically invalid method like RAI and RAW and we have enough bad methods already without giving people a new club to bludgeon each other with.

I find that disagreements about what the text says constitute a good 90% (to pull a number out of my colon) of the arguments and misunderstandings and misapplications of the rules (not including situations where players either don't care what exactly the rule says and play it however, which isn't the same as caring and playing it wrongly). Part of it seems to be people over-estimating their own reading comprehension, but also equal parts of it seem to be people talking past each other and people not taking the time to find a common basis from which to check each other's work. Which do you suppose has been at work during this thread conversation?

So... do you agree with these two points:
1) Analysis will only find inconsistencies and contradictions. It will not solve them, nor will it necessarily point out likely best corrections.
2) Analysis will clear up a good number of questions that are a function of poor comprehension of the text.

If you do, that's what I have been saying the entire time.

Otherwise, good luck! Thanks for reading.

Wehrkind: I've argued in favour of something like #2 and against #1 (that proper analysis of the rules will reveal inconsistencies and contradictions, and will also reveal information necessary for resolving these properties).

When I say something like #2 I mean that proper analysis of the rules will make the text clear and comprehensible; whether people make their own errors in comprehension will depend upon their own degree of skill and care in reading.

Right, back to business. We were looking at the rules for rapid fire weapons:

The Method
1. Find contextual information. This includes formatting, layout, and references.

2. Grammatical Analysis. This includes identifying the grammatical construction of the text in question. This step interacts somewhat with the formatting and layout mentioned in the first stage.

3. Term Analysis. This includes identifying the terms that are being used. Here's where we deal with amphiboly, homonyns, and the like. Note that some terms will be reiterated from text whose scope encapsulates the matter at hand, and some terms will be found in the formatting and layout rather than the text they inform.

4. Syntactic Analysis. Having laid out the terms and grammatical information arranging them into sentences, paragraphs, sections, etc, we take those terms referring to quantities, properties (aka qualities), objects, and logical operators and put them back together.

5. Semantic Analysis. Here we create a model of what specific object and property terms denote or refer to. Some terms will label parts of the text, some terms will label parts of the rules, and some terms will label the stuff that relates them.

So, page 29 of the rulebook ("Ignorance is Bliss").
o
Example
Stage 1.
The language is English (British). The rule in question is "Rapid Fire Weapons" under the heading of "Weapon Types" and that under "Weapons". The specific text will be the second two paragraphs.

Since "Rapid Fire Weapons" are one of four types of weapons the structure of the rules governing the other three types, Assault, Heavy, and Pistol weapons, will be relevant. The "Heavy Weapon" rules use the terms "shoot", "move", etc, but have no equivalent to "carrying". This is the problem at hand, that no "carrying" does not appear to designate a defined structure in the rules. However the "Pistol Weapon" rules do seem to use an equivalent term in the same way ("armed"), and uses the term "carry". Likewise the "Assault Weapon" rules use the term "carrying" to express themselves. The sentences using these terms will be the context (aka 'co-specific text'). We can identity and skim off the background pretty easily by looking at the parts that use the technical terminology of the rules rather than those discussing what that rule can be imagined as. That leaves us with three relevant sentences.

Stage 2.
Text. Rapid Fire Weapons (C# indicates clauses)
C1: "Models carrying rapid fire weapons" the noun "Models" is the subject, the verb "carrying" is used with the object, which is the compounded noun "rapid fire weapons"
C2: "that wish to charge into close combat in the Assault phase"
C2:" Subject: the pronoun "that"
C2: Verb: "wish to charge" is a verb phrase used with the object
C3: Object: "combat" is a noun modified by the adjective "close" and linked to the definite compounded noun "the Assault phase" by the preposition "in"
C3: "may not fire in the Shooting phase"
C3: Verb: the auxiliary verb "may" and the adverb "not" combine in a verb phrase with the verb "fire"
C3: Object: the definite compounded noun "the Shooting phase" is linked to the verb phrase by the preposition "in"

Context 1. Pistol Weapons.
C1: "Models carrying pistol weapons" the noun "Models" is the subject, the verb "carrying" is used with the object, which is the compounded noun "pistol weapons"
C2: "can fire them once in the Shooting phase"
C2: The verb phase "fire...once" has its tense formed by the auxiliary verb "can" and refers to the object pronoun "them" linked with the preposition "in" to the prepositional phrase "the Shooting phase"
C3: "and still charge into close combat in the Assault phase," The conjunction "and" joins the third clause (like the comma does with the others). The verb "charge" is in a verb phrase with the adverb "still" joined to indirect object and adjective "in the Assault phase" the with the preposition "into"
C4: "but cannot charge if they remained stationary to fire twice." The conjunctions "but" and "if" join the verb phrase "cannot charge" (adverb/verb, respectively)

Context 2. Assault Weapons.
C1: "Models carrying assault weapons can fire them in the Shooting phase" As C1 in previous sentences.
C2: "and still charge into close combat in the Assault phase." as C3 in the previous sentence.

Stage 3.
Right, I cheated a bit by classifying terms as "Key Terms" and "Logical Terms" in stage 1, which is to say the terms describing the logical structure of the rapid fire weapons rule and the terms describing the content or references of that structure, so I've fixed it.

References include: (1) The Movement Phase, (2) The Shooting Phase, (3) The Assault Phase, (4) Models, (5) Targets, (6) Movement, (7) Maximum Range, (8) Firing weapons

Key terms include: "infantry model", "moved", "armed", "shoot", "fire", "carrying", "maximum range", "targets", "rapid fire weapons", "charge", "close combat"

Logical terms include: "with", "at", "up to", "away", "if", "it", "that", "instead", "once", "twice", "not", "may", "can", "in", "wish", "cannot".

This topic will never get a straight answer, because everyone will have their own method of play until the rules are totally perfect with no room for interpretation. No one can admit that the rules are flawless, because I can cite many forums based solely on listing the inconsistencies in various codex and the BGB. This reminds me of the two WD articles, both written by Dakka Dakka members with two very difference views on it. The first, Rules Lawyering in WD 315, promotes interpreting the rules based on cited inconsistencies in the rule's logic while the other, by Ed, which I dont know the WD number, was against it based on the notion that interpretation is based on nothing more than the belief that you are right. Both of these articles were very swaying in their points and arguments and could easily be right. Point is, this thread is flaming in nature and does nothing but show that the rules need some improvement in their clarification and that we all differ in logic. Who is right? Thats up to the individual's opinion, but opinions are like asses, everyone has one and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks.

DaBoss: This topic does have a straight (presumably meaning "objective") answer, I'm showing you how to get it. Both article you've mentioned were wrong, for reasons I've already addressed. If you want I can give you some bibliographical information if you feel like getting up to speed with some of the methods I'm employing here.

Call it flaming if you like, but that doesn't change what it is. That's the nice thing about the truth, it doesn't depend on what people's opinions are. It's only when you acknowledge this that you can learn the truth of things. That's the thing about opinions, they're revisable and they should be revised to conform to the truth.

You see there's an interesting debate going in amongst some logicians at the moment (about the last 100 years, actually, ever since Frege) about whether there are many logics or one logic. The interesting thing is that for any particular logic that you have, you can get the same results using traditional bivalent quantificational logic (aka "Classical Logic"). Some take this to mean that Classical Logic is the "one true logic", but others take this to mean merely that there's a handy method in proof theory that allows us to check whether a proposition is true.

That's why mathematics and logic are so unreasonably effective as a source of knowledge, because they show us that some opinions are better than others, and that it is not a matter of the opinions, but what those opinions are about.

The question of "Who is right" is essentially the problem because it encourages us to imagine that our opinions matter and that at least one of them is correct and that someone can 'win' the argument. This is misleading because the question is not "Who is right" but "Which proposition is true". When we abandon the infantile methodology of competitive debate and employ analytical rigour we notice that all of our opinions may be false and that we should proceed from the mature position of fallibility.

I mean it's certainly the case that some people's attempts to wield logic do 'stink'; they aren't good at it. Even experienced mathematicians and logicians have been known to make errors, Turing, Einstein, Godel, they were all (in)famous for it. However, the results that some people have been able to produce are better than those of others for a few simple reasons. They are:

1. Reproducible. A sure-fire way to tell if some tidbit of reasoning is stupid is for its employment to be irregular. That's what statistics is about, for example, the analysis of inductive argumentation via the accounting of error; some result obtained with a large margin of error will be inaccurate much of the time.

2. Demonstrable. Another sure-fire way to tell if some argument is stupid is if it cannot be demonstrated. If you cannot demonstrate that 2+2=4 it's only a matter of opinion. If you can demonstrate the truth of that proposition (as indeed everyone here should be capable of doing) then it's a matter of fact.

3. Mechanical. A final way to tell is some argument is stupid is if it only works for one person. Certainly arguments only work in such-and-such a framework of assumptions which are important to make known before moving ahead with an argument (all arguments are conditional). However that just means that given some conditions and given some sound argument, then its conclusion is the same. It means that anyone who posits the same conditions for the same argument will arrive at the same conclusion, rather than just the person determined to shout the loudest, or threaten people, and whatnot.

I mean we could just assume that everyone's opinion is equal and valid, but then that's pretty much throwing out all math, science, literacy, and so on out the window. That rejects numeracy, literacy, and reason. The fact is that there are plenty methods for determining which opinions stink, some of which are so simple we teach them to small children.

I see no problem with this unless you start chaining up rule strings of infinite length. lets not forget that when we get into the infinities this all breaks down (Godel, Turing, et all)

But if we can assume that (as i believe we can) that the warhammer rules do not have a self referential pit-hole and that we limit rules to be tested to no more than the combined size of the rulebook and all codex's then Mathematically Nuglitch is correct and the 40k rules can be analyzed formally and objectively truthful rulings can be made.

and even if there is some rule set in the Rule-book that boils down logically to the set of all sets that are not members of themselves or some other logical paradox there is still objective mathematical truth that can be found by analyzing the other segments of the rules.

Also the idea some of the critics have of a "perfect rule set" is fundamentally flawed. Godel proved that a ruleset (a calculus if you will) must either be complete or consistent and cannot be both.

Nothing wrong with strings of transfinite lengths, although I can't see how that would come up in an analysis of something like the Warhammer 40k rules. The Warhammer 40k system being finite doesn't exclude self-reference, however. But that's not a problem either.

You'll find that, going as far back as Godel, self-reference isn't a problem unless you're the sort of person that finds paradoxes an end-point rather than an opportunity (Russel's Barber, for example, prompted the axiomatic approach to set theory). Peter Aczel's work on non-wellfounded sets, for example, shows that a rigorous account of self-reference is not only possible but useful as well. Self-reference is only a "pit-hole" if you stick to a well-founded semantics (suck it Tarski). The funny thing being that Godel Numbering, for example, is an example of a self-referential method.

Similarly it's been shown that a paraconsistent approach to something like arithmetic overcomes the limitations that Godel's theorems entail for wholly consistent systems. Indeed, assuming perfect consistency for a set of rules as small and unsystematic as the Warhammer 40k rules is a non-starter.

Anyhow, that's all rather off-topic. What is on topic would be me (or some other enterprising soul) completing Stage 4 of the analysis.

Speaking of completing Stage 4, I haven't completed Stage 2 yet. Fortunately they are essentially concurrent rather than ordered. Reviewing the rules for the Assault phase in preparation for completing Stage 4 I stumbled on a rather relevant section on the first page of the Assault phase rules entitled: "Shooting and Assaulting". In this section there is a very important sentence, relevance-wise. It goes:

"An infantry unit that fired twice with pistols or which shot with rapid fire weapons or remained stationary to fire heavy weapons may not charge at all in the Assault phase."

So...

C1. "An infantry unit that fired twice with pistols"
So the subject, "an infantry unit" did something in the past-test indicated by the verb phrase of the auxiliary "that", the adverb "twice" and the verb "fire" and linked to the indirect object "pistols" via the preposition "with"

C2. "or which shot with rapid fire weapons"
This clause is joined by the conjunction "or", although a comma would have helped, which the subject is indicated by the pronoun "which", the past tense verb is "shot" and again the indirect object is the compounded noun "rapid fire weapons" connected via the preposition "with"

C3. "or remained stationary to fire heavy weapons"
This clause is also joined by the conjunction "or", where the subject is indicated by the adjective/noun "stationary" and the intransitive verb "remained" refers to the subject because the infinitive verb "to fire" refers to the indirect object "heavy weapons" (compounded noun).

C4. "may not charge at all in the Assault phase"
This clause lacks a connective to make it explicit, but them's the breaks. The auxiliary verbs "may" and the adverb "not" combine with the present verb "charge" in a verb phrase qualified with the idiom "at all" (meaning: "for any reason") and linked via the preposition "in" with the object of the prepositional phrase "the Assault phase" (compound noun).

This is basically what I've been looking for in order to complete stage 3 where certain terms like "fire" and "shoot" are shown to be synonymous, and terms like "armed" and "carrying" are shown to be irrelevant to the logical structure being expressed. In a sense they merely make explicit the relation between a model and its weapons.

So, back to Stage 3 armed with new information provided by attention to the Reference Terms.

References include: (1) The Movement Phase, (2) The Shooting Phase, (3) The Assault Phase, (4) Models, (5) Targets, (6) Movement, (7) Maximum Range, (8) Firing weapons

So, the key terms would need to be 'un-packed' at it were by the specific structures elsewhere in the rules that they label. For our purposes here it will be useful to differentiate between the terms that indicate properties or relations, and the terms that indicate things or objects. This is easy. All pronouns, nouns, and whatnot are things or objects. All adjectives, adverbs, and so on indicate relations and properties (relations are polyadic properties, by the by). The terms "fire" and "shoot", for example, are used interchangeably to refer to the same thing. Hence:

Key Terms:
Objects: "infantry model", "targets", "rapid fire weapons", "that", "it", "them"
Properties: "moved", "armed", "shoot", "fire", "carrying", "maximum range", "charge", "close combat", "in", "at", "up to", "12" away"

Now we can reduce the list of objects by replacing the pronouns with the subjects and objects they denote. Symbolically we'd use capital letters to refer to properties, while using lower case letters to refer to objects.

The logical terms do not need unpacking, but they do need fixing, by which I mean attaching some logical structures in which which they act. Ordinarily I'd suggest a classical quantificational logic buttressed with a modal logic, for reasons already explained, but it might be something to also check fix an intuitionistic logic buttressed with a model logic just to check. I'll provide the classical logic in a language of natural deduction, and if anyone else wants to do the intuitionistic logic then please do. Also like the key terms or "semantic" terms we can reduce the list of terms by identifying which terms are identical (Iab, or a = b, for example).

Logical terms include: "with", "if", "instead", "once", "twice", "not", "may", "can", "wish", "cannot", "an/a", "the".

All of the terms "once", "the", "an/a" quantify a single thing which is rightly the existential quantity - a fancy name of the quantity of 'some' or 'at least one'. The term "twice" is thus the sum of two minimally existential quantities and we can treat it as such.

The term "cannot" is simply an aggregate for the terms "can" and "not", the negation of the modal operator for possibility (the complement of necessity). The term "may" also indicates the model operator for possibility and is interchangeable with "can" in this case. In a verb phrase "wish" indicates a possibility actualizing under a temporal condition. This is important because it means that there may be at least two conditionals at work: material implication and temporal implication. Material implication means that if something is there then something else is there, while temporal implication means that if something is there at Tn then something is there (maybe something else) at Tn+1. The term "with" indicates conjunction, while the term "instead" indicates exclusive disjunction, and another part of an exclusive disjunct at that. The term "not" is the negation.

For the model operators [] is necessity while <> is possibility, a square and a diamond respectively.
For the quantifiers I like to use A and E, although traditionally the A is upside down and the E is backwards. The natural numbers represent more definite quantities.
~ is negation, & is conjunction, v is disjunction, -> is material implication, and temporal implication can be represented by the steps in an argument (usually they represent the conjunction of premises and their material implication). The string: (A v B) & ~(A & B) would be exclusive disjunction.

Stage 4. Syntactic Analysis. Having laid out the terms and grammatical information arranging them into sentences, paragraphs, sections, etc, we take those terms referring to quantities, properties (aka qualities), objects, and logical operators and put them back together. To denote the structure of the rules we're just going to use meaningless letter symbols to form the spaces where the terms would be, and these will be arranged via infix notation for relations because people are familiar with it from such expressions as "x = y" and prefix notation for properties because it fits nicely with the usual adjective-noun arrange we're all familiar with (incidentally the prefix notation of x = y could be Ixy where the I stands for the relation of identity).

m = models
f = rapid fire weapons
p = pistol weapons
a = assault weapons
C = Carrying
A = Charge into close combat [in the Assault Phase]
S = Fire/Shoot/etc [in the Shooting Phase]

Text: Rapid Fire Weapons
[](fCm & <>Am) -> ~<>fSm

Context 1: Pistol Weapons
[]pCm -> (<>pSm & <>Am) & ~((2)(<>pSm) & <>Am)

Context 2: Assault Weapons.
[]aCm -> <>(aSm & Am)

Context 3: Shooting and Assault
[](aFm v (2)(pFm)) -> ~<>Gm

Notice that I left out the clause about the heavy weapons in Context 3. It's irrelevant since it does not contain information also contained in the Text and Contexts 1 & 2.

Now, we can see that the relation of carrying some weapon if not a condition for shooting and assaulting from Context 3. This is also obvious from Contexts 1 & 2 since the carrying relation is merely a condition for the possibility of the firing relation, rather than for the actuality of the charging relation. However the Text itself is not so obvious in the form that it is given. However notice that the Text, which used the verb phrase "wish to charge" to indicate a possibility actualizing under a temporal condition. This means that we can write a logically valid equivalent using the replacement rules of material implication, De Morgan's theorems, association, and distribution:

Assumption: [](fCm & <>Am) -> ~<>fSm
Deriv. 1: ~[](fCm & <>Am) v ~<>fSm by Material Implication [(x -> ~y) <=> (~x v ~y)]
Deriv. 2: ~([](fCm & <>Am) & <>fSm) by De Morgan's Theorems [(~x v ~y) <=> ~(x & y)]
Deriv. 3: ~([]fCm & ([]<>Am & <>fSm) by Association [x & (y & z) <=> (x & y) & z]
Deriv. 4: ~([]fCm & <>([]Am & fSm) by Distribution [([]x & []y) <=> [](x & y)]

Notice that under one interpretation (the model of which will be given in Stage 5) Deriv 4. sez in part that it is not possible for a model to shoot with that rapid fire and charge in the Assault phase. Notice that we can drop the clause about the model carrying a rapid fire weapon because carrying a rapid fire weapon (like any weapon) it is not a condition for whether a model can charge in the Assault phase. As Contexts 1 & 2 & 3 all show, carrying a weapon is a condition for a model shooting that weapon, while the actuality of shooting that weapon is the condition for a model charging in the Assault Phase.

Right, all that's left now is to provide the requisite semantic model by which it can be proven that Stages 2, 3, and 4 hang together under Stage 1. Now, interestingly if this cannot be provided then this means that Stage one is either missing information, or an artifact has been imported along with the relevant Text and Contexts.

Gak! My brain is full...................
Main Entry: se·man·tics
Pronunciation: \si-ˈman-tiks\
Function: noun plural but singular or plural in construction
Date: 1893
1: the study of meanings: a: the historical and psychological study and the classification of changes in the signification of words or forms viewed as factors in linguistic development b (1): semiotic (2): a branch of semiotic dealing with the relations between signs and what they refer to and including theories of denotation, extension, naming, and truth
2: general semantics
3 a: the meaning or relationship of meanings of a sign or set of signs; especially : connotative meaning b: the language used (as in advertising or political propaganda) to achieve a desired effect on an audience especially through the use of words with novel or dual meanings.

Me no like. Me hit head with shovel. Me am dum.

Holy Emperors turd!

I just want to know what law school y'all graduated from, cause you would all make great litigators.

And I mean that sincerely. I haven't seen a disection like this since the last time I testified in court.

Laserbait: This isn't law. Stages 3 and 4 are basic logic, a degree simpler than arithmetic. Stage 1 and 2 are basic English like you were supposed to learn in secondary school. If you've taken a first year course in introductory logic at your local post-secondary, then you'll find this on the inside of the dust cover (which is annoying considering how much those damned books cost).

True story: Back in the day when I tutored people in beginner logic I could usually only squeeze a couple of hours out of them before they inevitably (all twenty two of them) said: "Is that it?" That was what I said half-way through my first term when panic started to set in at the lack of comprehension. If I was lucky I'd be tutoring a varsity athlete and they'd keep me on an extra hour to watch them do exercises because the school paid their tutoring costs.

If you think of it like carefully unfolding a piece of origami while keeping a ledger of the folds and then using that ledger to see what other shapes it folds into, then you can't go far wrong.

It takes more intelligence and patience to paint miniatures, in my opinion.

Nurglitch opined/stated

Laserbait: This isn't law. Stages 3 and 4 are basic logic, a degree simpler than arithmetic. Stage 1 and 2 are basic English like you were supposed to learn in secondary school. If you've taken a first year course in introductory logic at your local post-secondary, then you'll find this on the inside of the dust cover (which is annoying considering how much those damned books cost).

True story: Back in the day when I tutored people in beginner logic I could usually only squeeze a couple of hours out of them before they inevitably (all twenty two of them) said: "Is that it?" That was what I said half-way through my first term when panic started to set in at the lack of comprehension. If I was lucky I'd be tutoring a varsity athlete and they'd keep me on an extra hour to watch them do exercises because the school paid their tutoring costs.

If you think of it like carefully unfolding a piece of origami while keeping a ledger of the folds and then using that ledger to see what other shapes it folds into, then you can't go far wrong.

It takes more intelligence and patience to paint miniatures, in my opinion.

Logarithmically speaking, you are correct, but the last line is pure Gold.

Remember that a logarithm displays a function as linear when in reality it is exponential.

- G

Nurglitch- I have yet to find any rules that are genuinely ambiguous or have loopholes that are not the result of 'creative' reading. -stolen, and out of context to another thread, sry

Maaaate, there is going to be alot of backlash over that call.

I will have to do some research to validate my statement, so I will add later, sorry.

I don't see why there should. It's not like I've comprehensively reviewed the Warhammer 40k rulebooks and found them sparkling. I said:

Nurglitch wrote:Actually the more I actually sit down and actually apply the method I was taught (and indeed teach) to the Warhammer 40k rules the better and better they look. Certainly their expression and layout could do with work (not enough redundancy, although as previously mentioned recent codicies seem to correct for this problem somewhat), but the actual rules I've checked are technically clear. I have yet to find any rules that are genuinely ambiguous or have loopholes that are not the result of 'creative' reading.

I've read quite a bit of this, but not all...but this needs to be said before I go on reading.

Nurglitch....I love you. Are you female? Cause I'll marry you if you are. If not, thinking of changing genders? Your thoughts mirror mine in so many ways but are much MUCH more elegantly portrayed then I could ever.

I've just concluded a massive RAW-RAI battle at warhammer40k.com which resulted in the one mod locking the thread due to 'Caedesis just wont get off his opinion and he's wrong'. Regardless of who was wrong or right, its never cool to stop a discussion of other people just because you disagree strongly.

SO...please, keep on doing what you're doing kind sir, and I'll add where and when I can whenever possible.

Caedesis-

I've read quite a bit of this, but not all...but this needs to be said before I go on reading.

Nurglitch....I love you. Are you female? Cause I'll marry you if you are. If not, thinking of changing genders? Your thoughts mirror mine in so many ways but are much MUCH more elegantly portrayed then I could ever.

I am really scared now................

In my experience debating rules in this game, the huge majority of disagreements occur from the following misunderstanding:

How and when specific/unique rules override or interact with the main body of the rules.

This is often compounded by the natural reluctance to accept a rule, as it's written, that "flies in the face of reason." An example being fleeting Eldar Jetbikes.

In these cases, an appeal from reason (what's written) is doomed to fail from the start, since the majority of the gaming community (and the rest of the population at large) see argument from feeling, emotion, or "common sense" to be more worthy than argument from logic and reason. The issue that this raises, as already mentioned by another poster in this thread, is that neither "side" will ever give ground, because for some reason arguments from "feeling" are given exception to logic and fact.

This problem is exacerbated to a greater degree in the game of Warhammer 40k because the rules often fall short of consistency, so arguing from shades of meaning or presumption becomes all the more valid. Additionally, it's a game of "enjoyment," so people are apt to ask "well, if it's more fun and irks me less to play it this way rather than that way, that's just as valid as arguing from what the rules say."

Ultimately it's impossible to get the entire gaming community to agree to play by the "less advantageous interpretation of ambiguity" or the "permissive rules set" heuristics, and so argument can continue ad nauseam. Ultimately, the ambiguous portions of the rules absolutely require that some sort of "other" standard be applied to the rule set, as the system is not self-contained.

With 40K I'd have to agree, it IS difficult to get everyone to play under a unified system when that same system has so many 'flaws' between RAW and RAI (sometimes known as 'common sense ruling') BUT...I'd point out that Magic: The Gathering has been VERY successful with its ability to manage a very complicated system of rules yet still expanding and making changes within them. Sure its had ~15 years to do it in, and probably has had more 'rules lawyers' inspecting it over the years, but I'm of the strong opinion that any gaming system that has progressed to the point that its popular enough to have tournaments giving prizes in excess of its own product (aka you're not just wining more models, its money or other rewards) then it better damn well have its rules together. There is no accounting for the level of gamesmanship when the money is on the line. Why do you think Poker has such strict rules about how betting is accomplished properly? Ever hear of string betting? Casual games will still far outweigh these kinds of situations and that for me is enough for now. But it is also precisely why I'll never be entering in any competitive 40K tournament. I have no confidence in calling someone over and having them 'rule' in favor of RAW instead of RAI in a timely fashion, and I'm not enough of a douche to make or break my own fun and that of other players over that. Even with Prize involved.

There is another problem when discussing RAW. The 40K rules are published in multiple languages - and sometimes there are vast differences in the exact same rules across these languages.

The best example that comes to mind is the new Ork Kustom Force Field. In the English version, all Ork units within 6" get the saving throw. In the German version, all Ork models within 6" get the saving throw.

So what do I do when I'm playing against my German-speaking friends? We both have a set of rules that say something different!

Truth be told...the German-language version of the game has always seemed to be better and more consistent than the English. Limitations on powers are far more explicit and there are fewer ambiguities in many things that seem downright cryptic in the English rulebooks. So when things fall apart and we start to look for RAI - consulting the German books is often very helpful.

I suggest all of us here that really want to get a broader view of the 40K rules learn at least one extra language that the game is published in. Then we can compare notes on the full spectrum of this game and maybe...just maybe...understand things a bit better.

If the errata up on the German site is any indication the German version of the book is wrong as well. It's all units with a model within 6".

The Kustom Force Field is a very good example of why this method I've been expounding is so useful. In another thread I used it to determine that the text in the English version did not express what people wanted it to, that it referred to the unit being within range rather than at least one model in the unit being within range.

Of course, people confused what the text meant with what they wanted it to mean, what they supposed the writers had intended, and so on. You can imagine my complete lack of surprise them when I see an errata that identifies that and all the other typos in the book (and a few extra special to the German book) as expected. Unfortunately it came before we could get to the bug-checking part of the method.

One of the assets of this method is it allows you to test whether two texts are expressing the same rules, even if they employ different languages as well as different expressions within those languages.