Aimless Wandering

[Sho]

In my experience, if you let a character sit quietly working in one place, either on his own or as an underling, he will come to some power within five Cantr years or so. Established organizations in particular are generally led by characters whose players can recognize an active and experienced player even if the character is mostly silent. RP will get you known, but the only way to get real power is to run a productive and efficient character, and RP is not central to that.

[deadboy]

the mark of a good character isn't being in some sort of power Sho... . Being efficient doesn't mean that character is better than others, that isn't the aim of the game. I have one character who I RP as forgetful and one I RP as pretty much useless and they are doing just fine.

Power isn't everything, a farmer can be a good character in this game, so long as he is interesting

[Sho]

I didn't say power was everything - certainly Cantr would be a less appealing place if it were filled with nothing but my type of character. But as Sociologist said, there really are too many wannabe heroes and not enough slow-and-steady characters. Besides, too many new players seem to have the misconception that the best way to get power is to talk about government reform or start a religion/clan/army, which can work, but more often fails.

[Marian]

To me its like there's two kinds of RP in Cantr, there's the kind that just anyone can do to help make day to day life more ineresting, and then there's the "higher level" stuff. I know Cantr doesn't have levels, but weapons and vehicles make your char more powerful and amount to the same thing. Hig h level chars get involved in politics and business deals and crime, while lower level chars farm carrots and hunt things with their bone knife and RP fun but mostly inconsequintual (sp?) stuff.

So just like in most RP games you sort of of have to be powerful to get access to the more involved stuff...IMHO pretending to play tag with someone or be crazy is only interesting for so long, it's more satisfying to do something that actually matters and effects other people like setting up a trade route for a hard to get resource or saving someone's life or changing a law.

Edit: And the thing is, powerful chars can RP "fun" stuff too, while at the same time being able to have a say in the important stuff, so all in all it's better to be powerful because you can do both.

[SekoETC]

In my experience, if you let a character sit quietly working in one place, either on his own or as an underling, he will come to some power within five Cantr years or so. Established organizations in particular are generally led by characters whose players can recognize an active and experienced player even if the character is mostly silent. RP will get you known, but the only way to get real power is to run a productive and efficient character, and RP is not central to that.

I play a town leader and there are a couple of dedicated workers in their thirties, who don't talk much. Even though they have proven to be active and trustworthy, they will still remain just workers, while younger ones who talk a lot and present a colourful personality are more likely to gain special rights and goodies.

[Phalynx]

while younger ones who talk a lot and present a colourful personality are more likely to gain special rights and goodies.

[The Sociologist]

I play a town leader and there are a couple of dedicated workers in their thirties, who don't talk much. Even though they have proven to be active and trustworthy, they will still remain just workers, while younger ones who talk a lot and present a colourful personality are more likely to gain special rights and goodies.

Maybe that depends on the town. There is a range of behavior from talking too little to talking too much. Talking too little would be not replying when spoken to or seeming to sleep for a week. Bad news. Talking too much would be when someone gives the impression that they are flighty or unsettled where they are, or else voted most likely to fall in love and elope....with the factory keys. Not good for business.

By the way, I found Marian's post very good. Sort of sums a lot of things up. You do need a lot of patience to play the game, and some dedication and quite a bit of luck to build a powerful character.