[Torg] Possibility Spending

[Benjamin Grant]

>>> >>"When attempting an action, you may spend one Possibility
>>> and roll the
>>> >>die
>>> >>again, adding the number rolled to the final die roll. No
>>> more than one
>>> >>Possibility may be spent on any one action." This passage
>>> would seem to
>>> >>indicate that a Possibility spent in this manner is spent on the
>>> >>action. If
>>> >>it isn't, of course, then this expenditure may be repeated
>>> as much as a
>>> >>player desires on the one action. You obviously disagree with that.
>>>
>>> Yep, I do disagree.  The passage seems to indicate that the
>>> possibility is spent attempting the action, NOT that the
>>> possibility is spent ON the action.
>>
>>Right... So your argument is that one sentence uses the word
>>"attempting"
>>while the other uses the word "on", so clearly they can't be referring
>>to
>>the same concept? This despite the fact that the context in which the
>>word
>>"attempting" is used is an indication of timing? "*When* attempting an
>>action[...]" Despite that "spent attempting an action" is a phrasing
>>that
>>only you have used, not the rules?

The rules clearly say that "No more than one Possibility may be spent on any
one action".  Not only does that clearly in black and white rules as written
directly say to me that only possibilities spent ON the action count, after
checking with other people I know, both gamers and non, every person I asked
read it the exact same way - that unless the possibility that is spent is
permitted to generated a dice roll, it is not being spent ON the action.

That's because that is simply what it says.  

>>
>>You're reaching. More, I say your reaching is clearly unjustified. Your
>>arguments, here, fail even to reach the level of the semantic, for
>>semantics
>>is the study of meaning in communication, and you examine only words
>>without
>>taking into account the meaning which they, as a whole, indicate.

And I would not only say that your charge applies much more clearly to
*your* interpretation, my quick poll would seem to back that up.

>>
>>> It does not
>>> appear to me that either of us has offered anything that
>>> seems to be chaning the other person's mind on this.
>>
>>You hold too high an opinion of yourself, that you assume I care
>>whether
>>your mind is changed.
>>
>>Travis Hall

Where and when did I state that you did?  That is just another groundless
assumption you are making, another personal inference not actually in the
provided text.  What I *did* ask was the point of the two of us continuing
this discussion past the point where either of us is saying anything new.
So shall we keep tossing this verbal ball back and forth, do you have
anything new to say, or shall we admit that a meeting of the minds on this
subject between the two of us is unlikely?

It would also probably be for the best if you didn't take the discussion so
personally.

I would further wonder what it matters, whether or not the rules as written
say one thing or the other.  People who want to play the game one way can,
and people who want to play the game another also can.  If we can agree to
lift the debate out of the mud it is stuck in, we can probably admit that at
the end of the day it is utterly irrelevant which of them gets to say that
they are the ones interpreting the written rules correctly, as the only
relevant truth that matters in this case is that each gamer and gaming group
be playing Torg in the way that works best for them.

I mean, I can continue to write about how I cannot understand how anyone can
fail to read what is actually written in the rule text - and you can write
the exact same thing with the opposite implication - but where is this
discussion actually going at this point without fresh and new points?  It
would see that it becomes nothing more than each of us denouncing the
other's viewpoint because we *know* that we ourselves are clearly right, and
supported by both the text and a basic and reasonable understanding of the
English language.

Nevertheless, thanks for discussing the subject and at the very least
demonstrating that the rules can be read the way you do - something I
wouldn't have imagined before this conversation.

-Benn Grant
eFix Computer Consulting
benn at 4eFix.com
603.283.6601