How a debate
becomes a number
The most emotional screen in moggle is a scoreline. So we built the scoring to be something rare for AI: deterministic and auditable. The same debate always produces the same score, and every single point traces back to a line you can read.
The one idea
The code decides, the AI only perceives
The scoring engine is built on one split. The AI model is only ever asked small, checkable questions about a piece of text: “Is this a claim or a rebuttal?” “Did this response meet that objection, did it hold, dent, or break?” It never assigns a score and never says who is winning.
Everything that decides the numberis plain arithmetic, with no model and no randomness. That's what makes the result reproducible and fair.
The pipeline
From six speeches to a scoreline
- 1
Read the speeches
The judge splits each speech into moves: new claims, rebuttals (attacks on the other side's claims), and defenses (answers to attacks on your own). - 2
Build the argument graph
Those moves become a map. Claims are points on the board, attacks and defenses are the lines between them. From here on, only the graph is scored, never the raw transcript. - 3
Weigh each claim
Every claim is tagged Framing (it reframes the whole motion) or Substantive (a single supporting argument). - 4
Resolve the clashes
Where a claim was attacked and answered, the judge decides whether the defense Held, was Dented, or Broke. A claim that's attacked and never answered counts as dropped, but only after a second check confirms nothing later in the debate quietly answered it. - 5
Do the math
Pure arithmetic turns the finished graph into points, a winner, and the 0 to 100 scoreline.
Fate
What happens to a claim
Every claim ends in exactly one fate, and that fate decides how much of its value it keeps:
| What happened | Fate | Keeps |
|---|---|---|
| Never attacked | Uncontested | 100% |
| Attacked, defense held | Survived | 60% |
| Attacked, defense dented | Weakened | 30% |
| Attacked and dropped or broken | Defeated | 25% |
The scoring table
What a claim is worth
A claim's points are its base weight(how much it's worth at full strength) times its survival (how much it kept). A framing claim is worth more than any single argument, because it reshapes the whole debate.
Base weight
Survival kept
Put together, those are the actual point values:
| Fate | Substantive | Framing |
|---|---|---|
| Uncontested | 20 | 30 |
| Survived | 12 | 18 |
| Weakened | 6 | 9 |
| Defeated | 5 | 8 |
Rebuttal credit
Attacking well is worth points too
Points come from claims. So a side that argues almost entirely by rebutting, picking apart the opponent's case, would score nothing no matter how well they did it. That isn't fair, so it isn't how moggle works.
A rebuttal earns its side a share of the damage it did. The harder the target fell, the more it's worth, and even forcing your opponent to spend a defense earns a little:
| Your rebuttal… | Earns (vs a substantive claim) |
|---|---|
| Broke the claim | 8 |
| Dented the claim | 7 |
| Was answered, but forced a defense | 4 |
The headline
From raw points to 0 to 100
Each side's points add up to a raw total. The headline scoreline is simply each side's share of the total, scaled to 100:
| Raw points | Scoreline |
|---|---|
| 12 to 4 | 75-25 |
| 15 to 57 | 21-79 |
| nobody scored | 50-50 |
The ledgerstays in raw points, which is the checkable breakdown, while the headline is the share. They don't add up to the same number on purpose, the same way a final score and a point-by-point card are two different views of one game.
The call
Winner, too close, and stable
The winner is decided on raw totals, so the headline can never disagree with who won. A verdict is flagged too close when the two sides land within 6 points of each other on the 0 to 100 scale, and stable when the margin is comfortable.
The chart
Debate shape & the key moment
The momentum chart replays the debate one speech at a time and plots who was ahead after each, so you can see exactly where the match turned.
The key momentis the single biggest swing on that line, usually the rebuttal that moved it the most. It's pulled out on your result screen with the exact line that did it.
Fairness
The rules we protect
Deterministic
Auditable
Blind resolution
The model never scores
Engagement is never zero
Curious what the format itself looks like? Start with what a match is →