By Andrew Lee and Jason Luo
Plans are simply how the AFF team specifies how they see the resolution enacted. Originating in Policy debate, Plans were a must since the year-long resolutions were oftentimes pretty open ended and vague (for example, “The USFG (US Federal Government) should substantially increase military spending”). However, in PF, most resolutions are pretty specific which makes plans oftentimes unnecessary. However, there are still resolutions where it may be strategic to run a plan, such as on the 2019 January topic which was pretty vague and open ended.
Plans are traditionally presented in a “plan text”, or just a statement that specifies what is done before listing the advantages of the plan (contentions). For example, if the topic is the aforementioned military spending topic, then a plan text could say that to substantially increase military spending is to expand the air force or coast guard or something like that. If the topic is the current 2020 January Topic, a plan could specify ending oil or gold sanctions on Venezuela.
Plans can be very strategic. Specifying the debate allows you to focus the resolution on what you’re good at debating and also gives you access to more arguments while also potentially invalidating a lot of NEG prep/ground.
However, in PF, plans are not very prevalent for three main reasons:
However, this does not mean that judges will always disregard plans. Many more technical (typically LD and CX judges) will disregard the NSDA rules here, so be ready to at least respond. NEG teams typically interact with plans in three ways:
Plans are traditionally presented in a “plan text”, or just a statement that specifies what is done before listing the advantages of the plan (contentions). For example, if the topic is the aforementioned military spending topic, then a plan text could say that to substantially increase military spending is to expand the air force or coast guard or something like that. If the topic is the current 2020 January Topic, a plan could specify ending oil or gold sanctions on Venezuela.
Plans can be very strategic. Specifying the debate allows you to focus the resolution on what you’re good at debating and also gives you access to more arguments while also potentially invalidating a lot of NEG prep/ground.
However, in PF, plans are not very prevalent for three main reasons:
- Many (but not all) topics like the 2019 Septober and February Topic leave almost no ambiguity since its just ending all arms sales to Saudi Arabia or joining UNCLOS without reservations. This is intentionally done by the NSDA topic committee to differentiate PF from CX and LD.
- The NSDA official rule book has a section that states that “Neither the pro or con side is permitted to offer a plan or counterplan; rather, they should offer reasoning to support a position of advocacy”.
- In policy, because the AFF always speaks first, the AFF can present a plan in the 1AC (first affirmative constructive) and then the NEG can read Disadvantages (reasons why the plan is bad) to the plan in the 1NC (first negative constructive) directly afterward. However, in PF, because the NEG can potentially go first unless the tournament is sidelocked, the AFF reading a plan in 2nd constructive could potentially invalidate all offense read by the NEG in 1st constructive which is very unfair.
However, this does not mean that judges will always disregard plans. Many more technical (typically LD and CX judges) will disregard the NSDA rules here, so be ready to at least respond. NEG teams typically interact with plans in three ways:
- They read normal responses like specific disadvantages to the plan (why the plan is bad), turns, or defensive responses. This one is what PFers are most familiar with, but it’s also hard to prep out responses specific to every plan so it’s not always practical.
- They read topicality, often abbreviated as T, or reasons why the plan is not topical to the resolution. For example, if the AFF ran a plan that stated that increasing military spending meant spending more on diplomatic envoys, the NEG could read topicality that claims that diplomatic envoys do not count as military spending.
- They read theory about why plans are uniquely bad in PF. This is especially applicable if you are the NEG and speaking first, but there are also many other legitimate reasons why plans in PF aren’t fair.
Counterplans
Counterplans are counter-advocacies made by the negative. They advocate for a world that is both distinct from the affirmative world, but also distinct from the status quo. There are two main parts of plans:
There are a few different types of counterplans:
Counterplans are not common in PF. However, they still can be done and thus one should know at least the basics of how to respond to counterplans:
- Counterplan text - a text stating what the counterplan does. Just like a plantext.
- Competition: This is a reason for why the aff can’t simply say “Perm - do both” (refer to the perms section under Ks to learn what perms are). They are either:
- Mutual exclusivity - you literally cannot do the plan and the counterplan at the same time - there is no world in which it is possible to do both
- Net benefits - although you could do both, it’d be better to just do the counterplan.
There are a few different types of counterplans:
- Advantage Counterplans - these are counterplans that solve an advantage of the affirmative. For example, if the aff says that their plan solves global warming, an advantage counterplan could be “The United States ought to fund the creation of artificial trees” with an advantage of solving global warming. Advantage counterplans compete through net benefits, usually as a disadvantage to the affirmative that the counterplan avoids. Since they have the same advantage, if there is a disadvantage to doing the aff, then it is preferable to just do the advantage CP.
- PICs - PIC stands for Plan-Inclusive Counterplan, and it’s a counterplan that includes all of the affirmative except for one part. For example, if the aff plan was “The 50 states and all sub-territories of the US ought to increase military spending,” a PIC could say “the 50 states and all sub-territories of the US except Guam ought to increase military spending.” There are two types of PICs we will discuss:
- Consult - these are counterplans stating that the affirmative actor (the person or entity doing the aff) should consult an external agent before enacting the action they want to take. Since the affirmative must happen immediately without any conditions, Consult CPs are distinct from the affirmative. These aren’t read very often in PF and are pretty unfair.
- Agent - Agent CPs do the aff action but with a different agent. A common agent counterplan is the 50 states counterplan, which says that the 50 states and sub-territories of the US ought to do the plan instead of the US Federal Government. These compete through net benefits, usually with reasons why the affirmative actor taking the affirmative action is bad and why a different actor taking the same action is better.
- Uniqueness - Uniqueness counterplans “counterplan in” uniqueness for a disad. In order for there to be a disadvantage to the affirmative, there first has to be a unique harm that the affirmative causes, i.e. the economy is high now and the aff crashes it by spending a ton of money on the plan. However, if the economy is declining in the status quo due to high military spending, then there is no uniqueness for the disad since the economy is already crashing because of military spending. Thus, teams can read a counterplan such as “the US ought to defund the military,” which is competitive because the affirmative is spending money on the plan which is bad and would trigger the link to the disad while the counterplan alone would not. These are extremely rare and many people in LD/Policy don’t even know what they are, so it’s very improbable that you’ll ever see one of these in PF.
Counterplans are not common in PF. However, they still can be done and thus one should know at least the basics of how to respond to counterplans:
- They read normal responses like specific disadvantages to the counterplan (why the counterplan is bad), turns, or defensive responses. This one is what PFers are most familiar with, but it’s also hard to prep out responses specific to every counterplan so it’s not always practical (noticing a trend here?).
- They read competition responses, or reasons why the counterplan is not exclusive to a world without a plan. For example, if the AFF ran a plan that stated that increasing military spending meant spending more on tanks, and the NEG ran a counterplan that stated that the not increasing military spending meant we could increase welfare spending, a competition response could say that the US has the budget to do both.
- They read theory about why counterplans are uniquely bad in PF. Many warrants applicable to why plans are bad can also be applied to counterplans, but there are also many other legitimate reasons why counterplans in PF aren’t fair or educational.