Plancentrism

Plancentrism is a framework for interpreting the resolution that centers around the Affirmative's plan. It argues that the judge votes for or against the Affirmative plan, not the whole resolution (as in rezcentrism); the resolution serves only to establish topicality limits for the Affirmative.

Plancentrism allows the Negative to legitimately run arguments that would otherwise affirm the resolution, such as topical counterplans. However, pure plancentrism is rare in the NCFCA and Stoa; the majority of debaters attempting to run such arguments use parametrics (a related resolutional framework) instead.

Arguments based on topical counterplans
Most proponents start by arguing that topical counterplans are necessary (for various theoretical and intuitive reasons), and then advocate plancentrism as the simplest way to theoretically justify them. For an in-depth discussion of arguments relating to topical counterplans, see the topical counterplans page.

Resolutional wording
Most opponents argue that the resolution is clearly intended to be a statement that can be affirmed or denied. The traditional phrasing "Resolved: That (some agency) should..." explicitly creates a true/false statement (and recalls the traditional phrasing of a parliamentary bill.) If the resolution were truly just a statement of topic, this phrasing would not be necessary. Certainly, since the earliest days of debating societies, resolutions have been worded in this manner and debated in a rezcentrist manner.

Proponents argue that this simply doesn't matter; i.e., there is no inherent reason to treat the wording of the resolution as anything more than tradition.

Loss of framework
Opponents argue that, because the resolution forms the basis for so much debate theory, plancentrism leaves debaters without a coherent explanation for even simple concepts. Concepts that were originally logical outcomes of the resolution become, essentially, arbitrary rules invented to make debate work: the duties of the Affirmative and Negative teams, fiat, topicality, presumption, prima facie, etc. Rezcentrism is inherently superior, they argue, because it provides a unified logical basis for these rules: it ensures that there is a "right answer", instead of just subjective opinion.

Proponents generally do not consider this a serious problem, and argue that other "core rules" (like the implicit duty of the Negative team to negate the Affirmative plan) can provide a partial theoretical basis for the concepts in question.