Question closure: Why does a round last 6 seconds?

Question

I recently asked Why does a round last 6 seconds? on the main site.

To the best of my experience, this question is on-topic, specific, answerable, and reasonably scoped.

Nevertheless, it was closed as opinion-based in less than 10 minutes.

However, I disagree that it's opinion-based. Here are my arguments:

1. There may be an authoritative answer by the original creator: For example, if this rule was created by Gary Gygax (I assume it is), then maybe he has provided feedback (e.g., in an interview, book, etc.) as to why this number was chosen.
2. There may be an authoritative answer by one of the games that have adopted it: To my experience, the number 6 is very common (all the games I've played use it). Surely, someone (a creator, a publisher, etc.) must have addressed at some point it even remotely.

I believe that the people who voted to close the answer as opinion-based, did so because they themselves did not know the answer, which beats the purpose of asking questions. In other words, their opinion that the question is opinion-based is not based on objective reasoning. This argument becomes more clear when considering that the question was closed so quickly, i.e., there wasn't time to find out whether there's an authoritative answer.

Am I wrong? Is this question indeed opinion-based?

Answer 1

“Primarily opinion-based” is the wrong close reason, but the question should still be closed, in my opinion. Designer-intent questions have been ruled off-topic here, and that’s inevitably what this question is.

It might be salvageable if you reworked it to emphasize more the history as the thing you want to know—maybe asking about context, e.g. did D&D always use 6-second rounds? Did that come from Chainmail? Were there other games that Gygax and Arneson¹ would be familiar with that used that? Did either of them write about it?

The key thing is to convince the site as a whole that your question isn’t going to invite speculative answers—for instance, I could guess that it was chosen to make 1 minute equal 10 rounds for easy math, but I have absolutely no evidence to back that up. That would make a terrible answer, and as the question currently stands, I’m about 95% sure if we opened it up that’s the kind of answer we’re going to get. Probably repeatedly, because we’re going to delete the answers saying that and then someone else is going to come along and guess the same thing. And we’ll attach warnings and so on to the question, and they’ll be ignored, and it’ll just be a mess until we close it again. This is exactly what happens with most designer-intent questions, and why we ruled them off-topic.

1. _{Assuming 6s was the original choice and that these two would have been the ones most likely responsible, which I don’t know is a fair assumption.}

Answer 2

"Why 6 seconds and not... 2571241 Planck time Units?" is in its inception a designer intent question. Why did the designer choose this time length and not any other arbitrary measurement can only be answered by the designer. And because of that, it is a speculation for everybody else unless the game itself defines WHY it chooses that unit. Some games do specify why they choose something, most don't. So we can't answer for the designer, which is why designer intent is a banned type of questions.

But can it be salvaged? YES!

For example, if this was a question "Why do we have alternate turns in [insert game here]" it could be rephrased as "From where did the idea of taking turns come into Chainmail, which then was imported into D&D?" and the answer would be "Turns are established in many boardgames dating back to even before chess and had been an integral part of the very first wargame, Little Wars by HG Wells from 1913, which in turn was carried over to Chainmail" or something.

Though, maybe a better example would be Where and when did "the GM is always right" get codified first? - This one did start out in my head as "Why is there the saying 'The GM Is Always Right' [attached to D&D]?", and then turned into a history of gaming question after some thinking.

In your case, I would alter your question to something similar: "When was the 6-second per combat turn introduced to D&D?", which might offer insight into why it was chosen by identifying the edition it first appeared in and then taking into account the circumstantial evidence - such as interviews with designers and other games we know those designers were involved with - and the history of those - and maybe even an outlook onto other editions if you phrase it as "How did the length of combat rounds evolve over the different editions of D&D?"

Answer 3

You are not wrong. In fact, you are right.

The purpose of this place on the internet is for people to ask questions and receive answers from experts, answers that are corroborated by research.

Looking at the question I see no valid reason why it should be closed.

As you have articulated, a vote to close maybe a presupposition.

I have the answer to this question. Given the opportunity, I could answer it.