Board Game Arena

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:00

MarkSteere wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 04:47 Some of these guys have trouble distinguishing between subjective experience and objective reality.

Yeah, because the feelings of boredom and frustration that pro-conceders feel are not also, well, subjective feelings...

At least anti-conceders are trying to protect something that has value beyond their own experience, something of cultural importance. Your feelings of not wanting to be bothered when you want to concede are purely your feelings. They exist only in your head, so they are the further from objective reality.

Case in point. The bitter end position is valuable to you. Not to me. That's the definition of subjective. Any argument claiming an objective value for the bitter end position would be a delusional charade.

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:56 It is about a lot more than just winning though, otherwise we'd be fine with conceding.

That's what I've been asking in this thread. What are the players losing that's so tragic? What is the winner losing other than hurt feelings and what is the conceder losing? I know you think it's an art, but I don't think it is. Is there anything more you can point to to show something is being lost?

If not, then we just aren't going to get anywhere with this point. You haven't demonstrated why or how an instance of a board game is an art form and I don't believe that's even possible. It's just your opinion. The issue then becomes why does your opinion hold more value than mine if we were to present our case to an authority on the matter?

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:56 I don't understand what you are asking me when you say losing matters quite a lot.

Because you said you don't think losing matters all that much. Bringing the point of if we were presenting to an authority, do you think my position on losing and yours on winning hold equal weight? That's why I asked.

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:56 On this site, you aren't allowed to keep playing forever. At some point you'll get kicked out, or the game will automatically end. This is a limitation of freedom that I'm sure you understand why it exists.

Now, how does banning conceding stand on equal ground with a ban on games going on into perpetuity?

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:56 Dismissing the perspectives you don't share as silly doesn't serve to advance any debate in society. By this logic everyone should just do the things you think they should do, so a dictatorship led by you. This is pretty much a troll argument.

Okay then, I guess I should be receptive to Flat Earthers and creationists because, after all, I don't want them to feel alienated by my disregard of their arguments.

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:56 When someone tells you they are affected by something more than you personally would have thought, the normal reaction should be "oh, I see, I'll take it into consideration then". It shouldn't be "oh, so that gives me all the more reason to disregard your feelings". That's totally backwards.

It depends on what it is. If I lied to someone and they found out and they told me how that hurt them, then of course I'd take that into consideration. If someone told me that they were really upset with me that I got the last hit on a boss in Elden Ring and they didn't, I would find that to be ludicrous and petty. Something totally unworthy to be that emotionally distraught about.

I hold the "I'm upset someone conceded on me in a board game" in the latter category.

Archisian wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:11 I don't mind to have a discussion, but you came on here out of nowhere as well saying that I unnecessarily revived a thread that didn't have any posts for a couple of days and then went to say I had nothing of substance to say when I wasn't even talking to you. Basically, you just bashed me out of nowhere. And you expect me to react positively?

No, I suppose not. I’d hoped it would seem somewhat humorous (“Ack, this thread was finally done, but now it’s back and we’re all doomed!”), but evidently not, and for that I do apologize.

Archisian wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:11

BarnardsStar wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:53 I’m on record in this thread as saying that I think the whole “art” and “literally harming somebody” argument is off the wall, and that I have little desire to be lumped together with it. So I hear you. But I think it’s possible to counter-argue without maligning your opponent and putting words in their mouth. It’s called being the better person.

I'm not maligning you. I'm calling out the people who specifically argue the art and harm arguments. I'm not saying all anti-conceders are this way. If I did say that, then I apologize and meant it towards that subsection in particular. But looking back, to the post you quoted, I didn't say that. If I did in an earlier one, my apologies.

You didn’t say precisely that, but you did cast an awfully wide net:

Archisian wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 02:40 I think all these fluff arguments about "art" and stats is really masking the real reason: they want the euphoric feeling of winning as big as possible.

My recollection of earlier parts of this thread is that the stats aspect was cited by several people, and it is a completely separate issue from the “art” aspect. As far as I can tell, tbhp is alone on the “art/real harm” argument, and doesn’t care about stats, whereas the people who care about stats aren’t exactly chiming in with tbhp. And, well, I honestly can’t recall other arguments by anti-conceder though there probably were. But when you said that line above it seemed like you were putting everybody in the same bucket.

For the record, I don’t really care about stats (I’m not nearly good enough at any game for that) but I do believe the people who say they get value from them. And, well, maybe I care a teensy bit; I do think it’s interesting to look and say “oh, winners at 7 Wonders put a lot more emphasis on the military than I do, that’s something to bear in mind.” I don’t know enough about analyzing the stats of one single game to say much about that, but again I do believe the people who say that they personally get something that isn’t rubbing the loser’s nose in the dirt.

But, yeah, I think you’re conflating two very different groups of people and doing at least one of those groups, possibly both, a disservice by doing so.

MarkSteere wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:11

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 05:00

MarkSteere wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 04:47 Some of these guys have trouble distinguishing between subjective experience and objective reality.

Yeah, because the feelings of boredom and frustration that pro-conceders feel are not also, well, subjective feelings...

At least anti-conceders are trying to protect something that has value beyond their own experience, something of cultural importance. Your feelings of not wanting to be bothered when you want to concede are purely your feelings. They exist only in your head, so they are the further from objective reality.

Case in point. The bitter end position is valuable to you. Not to me. That's the definition of subjective. Any argument claiming an objective value for the bitter end position would be a delusional charade.

I'm not saying it's not subjective. But if we discarded everything that is technically subjective, we wouldn't have much of a civilization.

The problem is that you happily defend the pro-conceding position even though it is subjective too, so I don't understand the part I initially quoted. You are guilty of the same thing.

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:39 The problem is that you happily defend the pro-conceding position even though it is subjective too, so I don't understand the part I initially quoted. You are guilty of the same thing.

No. The difference is that, unlike you, I readily admit that my argument is subjective. I'm not claiming that it's in any way objective. Nor am I claiming that my subjective experience is more important than yours.

I've said from the beginning, I'll do it my way and you do it your way, as long as we're both abiding by the rules.

But that's not good enough for you. It has to be your way, because you're creating "valuable works of art," which totally makes sense in some parallel universe.

MarkSteere wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 07:05

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:39 The problem is that you happily defend the pro-conceding position even though it is subjective too, so I don't understand the part I initially quoted. You are guilty of the same thing.

No. The difference is that, unlike you, I readily admit that my argument is subjective. I'm not claiming that it's in any way objective. Nor am I claiming that my subjective experience is more important than yours.

I've said from the beginning, I'll do it my way and you do it your way, as long as we're both abiding by the rules.

But that's not good enough for you. It has to be your way, because you're creating "valuable works of art," which totally makes sense in some parallel universe.

But agreeing that our experiences are subjective doesn't lead us anywhere. We still need to come to a conclusion as to whether conceding should be allowed or not.

Your position is to just let people do what they want, which makes no sense. It's as if someone said "If you want to shoot at people with a gun, that's okay. And if you want to run away when someone shoots at you with a gun, that's okay too".

Don't you see the problem here? The total freedom granted by the speaker here isn't the haven of morality that they seem to think it is.

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 07:12

MarkSteere wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 07:05

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:39 The problem is that you happily defend the pro-conceding position even though it is subjective too, so I don't understand the part I initially quoted. You are guilty of the same thing.

No. The difference is that, unlike you, I readily admit that my argument is subjective. I'm not claiming that it's in any way objective. Nor am I claiming that my subjective experience is more important than yours.

I've said from the beginning, I'll do it my way and you do it your way, as long as we're both abiding by the rules.

But that's not good enough for you. It has to be your way, because you're creating "valuable works of art," which totally makes sense in some parallel universe.

But agreeing that our experiences are subjective doesn't lead us anywhere. We still need to come to a conclusion as to whether conceding should be allowed or not.

Your position is to just let people do what they want, which makes no sense. It's as if someone said "If you want to shoot at people with a gun, that's okay. And if you want to run away when someone shoots at you with a gun, that's okay too".

Don't you see the problem here? We need to think about morality. We can't let people do everything just because they subjectively want it.

We are talking about the context of board games. This is in no way equivalent to a real life shooting. C'mon, man. Society isn't going into the pits if someone concedes in a board game.

Unless it interferes with the internal mechanisms of a board game (i.e. moving a pawn anywhere you want instead of how it actually moves on a chessboard) or if someone acts so offensively that it cannot be tolerated (hurling slurs, offensive insults, violence, etc.), then I see no clear reason to ban some like conceding. It is something that doesn't affect the game's internal mechanics and hasn't been demonstrated to be offensive to point of intolerance. All it does is determine a winner and loser at a specific point of the game.

Archisian wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 07:26

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 07:12

MarkSteere wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 07:05
No. The difference is that, unlike you, I readily admit that my argument is subjective. I'm not claiming that it's in any way objective. Nor am I claiming that my subjective experience is more important than yours.

I've said from the beginning, I'll do it my way and you do it your way, as long as we're both abiding by the rules.

But that's not good enough for you. It has to be your way, because you're creating "valuable works of art," which totally makes sense in some parallel universe.

But agreeing that our experiences are subjective doesn't lead us anywhere. We still need to come to a conclusion as to whether conceding should be allowed or not.

Your position is to just let people do what they want, which makes no sense. It's as if someone said "If you want to shoot at people with a gun, that's okay. And if you want to run away when someone shoots at you with a gun, that's okay too".

Don't you see the problem here? We need to think about morality. We can't let people do everything just because they subjectively want it.

We are talking about the context of board games. This is in no way equivalent to a real life shooting. C'mon, man. Society isn't going into the pits if someone concedes in a board game.

The example was to disprove MarkSteere's idea that "just let everyone do what they want" is a fine moral framework. If they can see the logic is ludicrous in this extreme example, then they should understand that they need to bring more arguments than just "letting people do what they want is okay".

BarnardsStar wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:37 No, I suppose not. I’d hoped it would seem somewhat humorous (“Ack, this thread was finally done, but now it’s back and we’re all doomed!”), but evidently not, and for that I do apologize.

It's all good. Hard to tell intentions and nuance on the internet. I can only take what I see.

BarnardsStar wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 06:37 My recollection of earlier parts of this thread is that the stats aspect was cited by several people, and it is a completely separate issue from the “art” aspect. As far as I can tell, tbhp is alone on the “art/real harm” argument, and doesn’t care about stats, whereas the people who care about stats aren’t exactly chiming in with tbhp. And, well, I honestly can’t recall other arguments by anti-conceder though there probably were. But when you said that line above it seemed like you were putting everybody in the same bucket.

For the record, I don’t really care about stats (I’m not nearly good enough at any game for that) but I do believe the people who say they get value from them. And, well, maybe I care a teensy bit; I do think it’s interesting to look and say “oh, winners at 7 Wonders put a lot more emphasis on the military than I do, that’s something to bear in mind.” I don’t know enough about analyzing the stats of one single game to say much about that, but again I do believe the people who say that they personally get something that isn’t rubbing the loser’s nose in the dirt.

But, yeah, I think you’re conflating two very different groups of people and doing at least one of those groups, possibly both, a disservice by doing so.

Ah, okay I see what you mean. I read back on the pages I missed (like 15+ pages, last I read and commented was like in the middle of January last I recall). Since it was mostly FrankJones and tbhp talking and they agree with each other, I had unfairly lumped them together. Wasn't my intention to say all people against conceding think along these lines. My mistake for not being more careful with my words.

tbhp wrote: ↑05 February 2026, 07:32 The example was to disprove MarkSteere's idea that "just let everyone do what they want" is a fine moral framework. If they can see the logic is ludicrous in this extreme example, then they should understand that they need to bring more arguments than just "letting people do what they want is okay".

You don't know if that's his moral framework on everything in life. He's only talking about in the context of board games. We aren't even talking about morality. This isn't a debate akin to whether the Christian moral framework is superior to a secular humanist one. This is simply whether or not conceding a board game is in poor taste or not. You are making this a moral issue where I, and I would guess MarkSteere, are saying this is merely a difference of opinion. I make no qualm that my position on conceding in a board game is entirely subjective. I believe your position is subjective too. The question we are asking is why should your opinion be seen as an objective statute that all must follow and ours just an opinion when you have just as much evidence on your side as we do. Actually, in fact, you have less evidence than we do. But we aren't trying to impose a rule onto everyone here.