The east wall
Two officers debate whether to fortify or abandon the east position. Alice, the military strategist, argues to fortify. Bob, the logistics officer, argues to abandon. Each presents an argument from their own expertise; we model the disagreement as a single scene with one weighted attack and watch the outcome shift as we move β — the scene's intensity dial.
A worked example for the encounter-argumentation bridge: a scene where both parties have a valid argument, the arguments attack each other, and the framework decides the outcome based on β.
Drag β to see the scene flip
Two arguments, one directed weighted attack. The attack weight is 0.4 — strong enough that Bob's logistics objection undermines Alice's strategic case at low β, but droppable once β reaches 0.4. The slider above runs the real argumentation engine compiled to WebAssembly — every drag recomputes credulous acceptance in your browser.
A pre-recorded scene trace at four discrete β
For comparison, the snapshots below come from running the full encounter bridge with MultiBeat resolution at four fixed β values, captured to JSON traces:
What's happening
At β = 0, every attack binds. Alice's argument has a live attacker, so it is not credulously accepted; her action is rejected. She falls back to a non-contentious action.
At β = 0.4, the 0.4-weight attack becomes droppable (the inclusive boundary — see β as scene intensity). Alice's argument becomes credulously accepted; the StateActionScorer boosts it; she picks it.
At β = 0.5 and β = 1.0, the dynamic is the same as at 0.4 for this fixture — no additional edges bind differently past the 0.4 threshold.
The trace
Each beat is recorded in the trace JSON (for example, /traces/east-wall-b05.json). You can read off the seeded arguments, the attack graph, the per-beat acceptance decision, and any errors latched by the bridge. Replayable and deterministic.
Reading the outcome
In this scene, the outcome is a function of β rather than a branching tree you hand-author. Turn β down for courtroom-sharp scenes where every objection lands; turn β up for war-room scenes where commanders let each other have a point even when the case isn't airtight.
Further reading
- The encounter integration concept — how the bridge composes with your scene engine.
- β as scene intensity — the mechanics of the dial.
- The first-scene guide — build your own version.