Boy, you guys give me a lot to respond to.
Suji wrote:
The options that you present point to checkers, chess, go, reversi, and any other number of strategy games all of which are perfectly decent games. Just because you came to the rules of go from designing an abstract strategy game doesn't mean everyone will. In fact, some would say that since go has multiple different rule sets and chess has only one chess would then be the "perfect" game.
P.S. I'm taking the devil's advocate point of view here.
Chess and checkers actually violate rule 2, because having different piece types (or promotion to different piece types) are not necessary. I also made the mistake of leaving out
4. The game must be as equal for both players as possible, which may at least create difficulties for many of these games. By the way, the assertion that Chess has only one ruleset is wrong. There are many variant rulesets of Chess, and its rules have been changed many times, even if you aren't counting the many games more properly described as variants.
jts wrote:
But - I think what only you and a small coterie of like-minded individuals accept is that "no suicide" is an unnecessary rule whereas "suicide is allowed" is the obvious but implicit conclusion of the basic capture rule.
There is no other possible conclusion. Any move in go which is not expressly prohibited is allowed.
MarylandBill wrote:
nagano wrote:
The word
logic is in many cases meaningless apart from the goal it is applied to. Given a certain goal, there is a logically best way to proceed. In this case the goals are:
1. There must be no chance.
Well, assuming you mean no truly random element, then yes, this is true since this is one of the basic definitions of an abstract strategy game.
Correct.
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2. There must be no unnecessary rules.
The problem here is that people may not agree on the definition of unnecessary. The no suicide rule cuts both ways. At times it will benefit you and at times it will hurt you. The fact that most Go codes have the rule suggest that many believe it is a necessary rule.
More importantly, I would point out that "necessary" depends on the effect you are looking for in the game. Is the Queen's move necessary in chess? Not strictly since of course it is a relatively recent innovation to the game of chess. On the flip side, if you replace the Queen with a less powerful piece, the game changes considerably. Is either right or wrong?
If suicide is allowed, then one could use it to do all sorts of interesting things, like turning a group of dead stones into a seki position (At least I think this is possible, someone better versed in the game will have to address that). But perhaps that is not what the people who developed the current no suicide rule wanted to prevent.
Here I define necessary as no more than is required for the game to function. In Chess, you do not need multiple piece types for the game to function, so it is unnecessary. Suicide rarely causes any change to life and death, aside from ko threats and some capturing races. Besides, this should not be a factor in deciding whether or not suicide should be allowed.
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3. There must be no unresolvable situations.
I am not sure I entirely agree. I do agree that such situations should be rare, but there is, I think, a certain value in having certain conditions that can allow a draw to occur. While normal draws in chess are kind of boring, stalemate (particularly if the player stalemated looked like they were in a lost position), can be quite exciting.
A draw is not an unresolvable situation because the game has an outcome. Stalemate is an unnecessary rule (one that does not exist in Xiangqi, the Chinese Chess), but that is another issue.
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I think I would be careful of comparing game design with theoretical physics. Einstein was talking about modeling the Universe how it actually is.
The only difference between physics and game design is that in physics, you are trying to determine the rules the universe follows. In game design, you create the rules of the "universe".
Laman wrote:
if i imagine situations where it can be used, i think both allowing and disallowing suicide keeps the game equally fair, logical, consistent and strategic.
It is not logical to add rules that are unneeded, and decrease the amount of options in the game.
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given the two premises above, i would say that from a view of an ordinary player, it doesn't really matter if we (dis)allow suicide. then applying the law of inertia - most players are satisfied with current rules and adding suicide doesn't really improve quality of their game experience (= enjoyment, in my opinion the highest goal of any game), so i vote for staying in the current state
If your goal is what the players want, you can do anything you want. If your goal is to make a game with as few flaws as possible, then you should not create arbitrary rules.
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if there were no go and nagano were designing a completely new game, there would be no problem with allowing suicide
This statement shows that you are giving preference to tradition over game design considerations.
robinz wrote:
However, I don't think that it's the case that forbidding suicide is an additional rule, and that if it wasn't there then the other rules automatically allow it - which seems to be nagano's assumption.
This is not an assumption. The fact that we are even arguing about whether suicide should be allowed or not proves that it is a distinct concept that has to be defined as a rule. It may be possible to write a ruleset in such a way that capture is not a distinct rule, but this would require modification of the other rules.
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In fact, it can be argued that rule-sets which allow suicide are more complicated - then each turn is typically divided into three stages, namely playing a stone, removing any opposing stones with no liberties remaining, and finally removing any of your own stones with no liberties remaining. With suicide banned, only the first two stages remain, along with a note that one is not allowed to make a play which would leave any of one's one stones without liberties after first removing any opposing stones without any. Which of the two rulesets is "simpler" strikes me as a pretty arbitrary (and subjective) choice.
The process of play has no bearing on the complexity of the rules.
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The more important question is which leads to the better/most interesting game. I'm not a strong enough or experienced enough player to really know, but it seems that at the very least there is no concensus here, given the differences in the various rulesets in existence. I'm not even sure if it has ever really been discussed - but it is clear that, in most normal game situations, whether suicide is allowed or not makes no difference. (And those where it does will almost always be where suicide allows an extra ko threat.)
The goal should be to remove all flaws.
hyperpape wrote:
If 'logic' is meaningless outside of specifying a goal, then that tells against your usage. After all, John F. could walk into the thread and say the Japanese rules are the most logical because they best adhere to tradition, which is his goal (or one of his). And then the two of you could go back and forth, each saying his approach is logical, with no hope of rational discussion. Basically, if your claim is that from your goals, a certain approach logically follows, then that approach isn't so much supported by logic, as supported by your goals. And your goals are not logical (or illogical)--they're just your goals.
It may not be obvious, but logic actually has to follow from goals. Is it logical to want to live? This is not a question that logic can answer. But you can make use of it in order to survive. Even in science, if your goal is not to understand the way the world works, then the methodology is totally irrelevant. But I by no means intended to imply that this was the only application of logic (note the words "in many cases"). Yes, logic can and should be applied to the choice of
some goals. I think that we can easily say that tradition has no bearing on whether a game is good or not. That is based solely on the design of the game. But the primary goal has to be chosen. There is no way around this. But the goal must have some functional reason which is not wholly based on emotional preference. My primary goal is to create a game that is self-consistent, has no unnecessary rules, has a finite conclusion, and is as fair as possible to both players. The rules decisions that I make do follow logically from that premise.
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But also, you're wrong about the point of definition. The Merriam Webster definition 1a. is a pretty good stab at a definition of logic. It might not be crystal clear if you've never encountered the subject, but it's roughly on target. More or less, logic studies which sentences can be inferred from which other sentences.
It's no more a logical truth that some rules of Go are the best than it's a mathematical truth that this bottle of wine costs more than I should spend (though logic and math will be relevant to each bit of reasoning). If my brother buys the bottle of wine, I can't say "that's unmathematical!" though I can use math to explain to him that he will no longer be able to pay his rent.
Something tells me you are referring to
formal logic here, which I am not. Certainly one can make the argument that it is not logical, in an informal sense, to spend more money than you have.
I will end with another quote:
While the Baroque rules of Chess could only have been created by humans, the rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe they almost certainly play Go. - Edward Lasker
What do you think this means? Where did he get this idea? Do you agree with it?