Re: [s-b] [Oracle] CFI 126

[Justin Ahmann <quesmarktion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
________________________________
>From: James Baxter <jebaxter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: spoon-business@xxxxxxxxx
>Sent: Sun, August 8, 2010 9:45:53 AM
>Subject: [s-b] [Oracle] CFI 126
>>
>
>> Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 00:24:08 -0400
>> From: teucer@xxxxxxxxx
>> To: spoon-business@xxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [s-b] Failure
>> 
>> I gain one point of Failure.
>> 
>> I CFI: The above announcement [["I gain one point of Failure"]] was 
effective.
>> 
>> Arguments: As Phases are currently defined, I did not change Location
>> (I had none and stayed there) during the last one. However, there was
>> no such thing as a Phase before the one we're in right now, so there
>> was no Phase in which my nonexistent Location stayed constantly
>> nonexistent.
>> 
>> The intent of the proposal was not to make starting Failure be 1d8+1,
>> but I think it clearly unintentionally is for newcomers who know to
>> ask for their free Failure - but for established players, I'm not
>> clear on what it is.
>> 
>> [[I'm also noting that I seem to have lost the thing about newbies
>> having somewhere they land, location-wise; as far as I can tell they
>> don't currently get a location until somebody kills the Victim. This
>> should be fixed.]]
>
>
>This is CFI 126. I assign CFI 126 to Judge Codae.
>
>Gratuitous arguments:
>If there is no previous phase then there cannot be any movement during the 
>previous phase so Failure can be gained.                         
>
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I answer CFI 126 TRUE.

{{
__Arguments__

The primary relevant passage under consideration is from Rule 49:
{{
A player whose Location did not change during the previous Phase may gain one 
Failure point by announcement;
}}
There are (at least) two possible readings of this.  Either it describes a 
player whose Location did not (change during the previous Phase), or it 
references a player whose Location (did not change) during the previous Phase.

In the first case, the answer is clearly TRUE.  There was no way for teucer's 
Location to (change during the previous Phase), there being no previous Phase 
(Rule 3/1 could not retroactively start one last Zarpint or earlier, by Rule 51, 
"Thou Shalt Not Screw With Time").

In the second case, it is a bit thornier.  Since the previous Phase is 
nonexistent, as outlined above, nothing could happen during it--including a 
Location not changing.  As an illustration, consider the (nonexistent) country 
of Glarkia.  If you ask me "Is the height of the tallest person in Glarkia 
greater than yours?" I would, honestly, have to answer "No."  However, if you 
ask me "Is the height of the tallest person in Glarkia less than or equal to 
yours?" my answer is, again, "No."  This is despite the fact that the two 
propositions are complementary--if there actually were a tallest person in 
Glarkia, one or the other would be true.

So the second case comes down to two possible readings as well: (did not) change 
versus did (not change).  The former seems more natural, as is borne out by a 
quote from a certain website:
"do, which adds little to the meaning of the negative phrase, but serves as a 
place to attach the negative particles not"
and thus, since it is false that teucer's Location changed during the previous 
Phase, the answer is TRUE.

}}

Codae
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