Doug R. wrote:The show Lost reminded me a lot of Cantr, specifically the dynamics of the various groups and the character drama. There's a lot of other things in common also if you stretch your imagination a bit. The plane crash was like spawning. Hell, they even both have
Blackrocks. The Others are like Alyssa Moore, coming and dragging you off in your sleep, and I can't tell you how many Ben Linus-like characters I've met in Cantr. I've played one. Pretty much every Lost character can be found in Cantr somewhere. Oh, yea, and all the weird unexplainable stuff on the island = bugs in Cantr.
and the Locke connection there too, but that came after Cantr's
EchoMan wrote:Marian wrote:Of course Thomas Hobbes was a real historical person so I'm not sure that counts...
...I did hear there was some hack named R.A. Salvatore totally ripping off the DoUrdens though.
As I wrote "Cantr related things seen IRL". I saw a character in a show named Thomas Hobbes, and I know the name mostly from Cantr. So it applies. What you yourself refer to is IRL things seen in Cantr, which is, if not a CRB, at least bad taste. (Naming the char Thomas Hobbes, if in fact that is some famous historical person, could have been a case of bad taste too).

This has arisen before in the forums, and
Master and Commander: Issue 7 of the Webzine wrote:However, by this time, nearly a decade after first spawning in Naron, Thomas was faced with critical and serious issues in his personal career. Unknowingly, at the time, he was about to make the most fateful decision any character of mine has since had to make, and that was to desert all he had worked for. The town of Naron, his inspiration, and perhaps, his infatuation, was dropped after a lengthy deliberation. He had earned the rank of Captain, Commander of Naron, since his appointment by General Sestar Gartaff, the epitome of his worldly aspirations up until that time. Finally, just before daybreak of 795, he said goodbye to Naron, and greeted his new occupation, the Hobbes Encyclopedia.
To sidestep my character's conviction for the moment and to look at my own, out-of-character state of mind, I could say that I was excited. Nothing to this degree had ever unraveled in Cantr before, so the idea was completely novel to me. The name Thomas Hobbes comes from the English political philosopher who wrote the Leviathan. The real life persona's political beliefs centered on people being essentially evil; they required strict authoritative measures to keep them under control. The other pole would be represented by John Locke, another English philosopher, who believed people were created with a tabula rasa, or blank slate, and so were born free and good. Since I have had characters by both names, chosen by the misleading description of the game, I asked myself at the time if I would play them due to these out-of-character influences. I said no, I wouldn't, I would base their characters on their environments.
The Lad Empire was always criticized in the Forums for being dark, evil, and oppressive, not unlike the government that the real life Thomas Hobbes probably believed was essential to rule the brutish element of society, the people. Locke, on the other hand, was raised in the Mid-North Union, and born into Drojf, where the Nosse sung gleeful songs, having faith in the populace in general. This coincidence continues to irk me to some degree, since it seems the in game conditions have provided for correlation between the in character and out of character personas.
The Zine is currently down but there's a cached page when you google for it. I would also add that it wasn't unusual for the game to find characters with OOC-inspirations, though I think this one was less distracting than others, since as you said this was what led you to the actual philosophers.