Cantr II Discussion Forum

I am here today writing this post in my very own newly created topic to make a makeshift apology. It is not as most people do in the TotD-thread an apology towards the players because of my lesser activity over the past few days, instead, it is more an admittance of guilt.

I always pride myself in being able to distance myself from my characters and view them as what they really are, a fragment of a game existing entirely out of zeros and ones. Although it is impossible to be completely distanced, meaning one feels no emotion at the events, I have recently had to calm myself slightly in order to stay 'in character', which was rather shocking. As I said, emotions can not be suppressed, only overrun by rationality, in which I always succeed, yet the happenings around my oldest character has lead me to believe I am slightly more sensitive to a certain suspicion that can be aroused by certain actions by characters, just like they would in real life. I will not say which it is, or why, but I will say that the recent events have caused me to think some things over. At the moment I have let the character go into a deep sleep, going on for days now, but I am seriously considering dropping the character due to the possible threat it poses to my other characters and, in fact, the game itself, including other players.

Therefor, this is my intriguing apology, for probably going to let one of my characters die slowly. Although the character was known by quite a few, it is currently not close to many chars, a few will be hurt, but so be it.

As to the players, I apologize.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this post seems to be an invitation for people to contact you off-forum, so that a large OOC gossip circle can begin over these cryptic events you describe, an OOC gossip circle that will come to it's own, possibly ill-informed conclusions and spread these conclusions to others, thereby creating a degree of OOC strife, which will lead to a massive influx of accusations to the PD as people believe they're being cheated against by one side of the gossip circle or another, leading to a further decrease in staff resources as they are diverted to deal with the sudden mess. No doubt, such a mess will be followed by several players unsubbing in protest when the PD can't find any evidence of impropriety, which will lead to the decline in activity around those characters, which will inevitably lead to several idle outs, causing a ripple effect across all of Cantr. Wonder why the player numbers keep dropping?

So, please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Wow... Nothing like that at all, yet I chuckled at the far-fetched yet still plausible conclusions...

I am apologizing for letting a character die, simple as that. I've never done it before and I wasn't planning on it. I feel somehow responsible for the players around that char, and I wanted to apologize to them.

It is COMPLETELY my own fault, there is no other person at all to be held even remotely responsible.

I just deal with that kind of crap on a weekly/monthly basis, and it's enough to drive someone to drink. (21 days to retirement...)

Retirement? But you're so young.

How very intriguing.

Apology accepted.... move on...
If it wasn't an invitation for people to scheme OOC... it is now..!

Based on the views you've expressed over time on emotions vs rationality, I would strongly recommend the book, "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer to you. Some of his arguments is that the idea that we are either predominately rational creatures, or emotional creatures, which would be better off if we could just quell our emotions and think more rationally, are outdated.

He explains some interesting research showing the values of emotion/intuition under the specific conditions that the research actually supports, without being obnoxiously sensationalist about it.

Not to spoil it too much, but the simple heuristic that leaps out of the book is that emotion is better for dealing with things which we are well experienced and have many different variables/factors involved, while our rationality is better for dealing with things which we are not well experienced, which have few important factors, or have factors which our emotional brains tend to weight disproportionately (such as the factors involved in buying a house: we consistently underestimate the value of a short commute, and consistently overestimate the value of an extra bedroom)

Although the different tongue is still impeding me in fully arguing such topics in English, I still have to say that since I have studied the subject of 'free will', which has branches extending deep into the emotion VS rationality conquest.
I've had a lot of different opinions, and shared many many thoughts... So to be honest, thank you for the recommendation but I hardly think it would be able to be more than 'just a fun idea' (naturally, this also has to do with myself and my 'openness' to different ideas).

Then I'd recommend "Free Will" by Sam Harris - bonus, it's cheap and short, lol, and the June 13th, 2010 episode of "For Good Reason" with [url="http://www.forgoodreason.org/tom_clark_skepticism_and_free_will"]Tom Clark[/url].

Of course, I'm mostly just having a little fun with you now, but those are both good articulations of my understanding of the nature of of "free will", and of the growing consensus view of neuroscience. It is interesting that it hasn't hit the public yet, because it presents a far greater issue for theism than evolution and it will be interesting (read: aggravating) to watch them deal with it when they finally take notice.

I suspect it is still being ignored for the time being (with the exception of within materialism vs dualism debates) because they have a large buffer of moderate and liberal believers that still find the concept of "free will" intuitively obvious, and have not yet really been pressed into providing a coherent definition of what the term even means.

Well the biggest problem is ALWAYS how to define free will... I can watch hours and hours of documentaries and read dozens of books and still I would be lost. Therefor I suggest people don't go watch documentaries and read books, but start with the basis. 'What is free will? And in what forms does it exist?'. Once that is figured out you can actually debate it, but no earlier.

Doug R. wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but this post seems to be an invitation for people to contact you off-forum, so that a large OOC gossip circle can begin over these cryptic events you describe, an OOC gossip circle that will come to it's own, possibly ill-informed conclusions and spread these conclusions to others, thereby creating a degree of OOC strife, which will lead to a massive influx of accusations to the PD as people believe they're being cheated against by one side of the gossip circle or another, leading to a further decrease in staff resources as they are diverted to deal with the sudden mess. No doubt, such a mess will be followed by several players unsubbing in protest when the PD can't find any evidence of impropriety, which will lead to the decline in activity around those characters, which will inevitably lead to several idle outs, causing a ripple effect across all of Cantr. Wonder why the player numbers keep dropping?

So, please, correct me if I'm wrong.

The things we do for our characters!

Doug R. wrote:I just deal with that kind of crap on a weekly/monthly basis, and it's enough to drive someone to drink. (21 days to retirement...)

I'm certain that I'm not nearly experienced in the matter of this topic to understand the entirety of what this refers to as much as you do, Doug, but over the course of the few years that I've spent on Cantr, I have caught wind of a few things, mainly through the forums, but also through a series of what sometimes seems like really fishy in game events that could easily be chalked up to coincidence, so in light of what I have picked up on, I would like to say this:

I hate that these ill informed OOC conclusions cause so much strife for the PD and damages the whole of Cantr, and I wish that it didn't have to be that way, but I also believe that some of it is what causes a sort of unexplainable spark in the hearts of players. Of course I can only speak for myself, but in my opinion, regardless of whether or not there is anything to the mass paranoia that makes people believe that other players are out to get their characters for whatever reasons that individual might have (because, for the point I'm trying to make, the truth of it is irrelevant), the OOC element of it is enough to tie the virtual reality world of Cantr (and I'll always emphasize the reality part of that phrase in context of Cantr) to the reality of the real life world that we live in. And when that tie starts to be made, Cantr ceases to be solely acting or RPing or a form of entertainment. At that point it becomes all of that and more...I think each individual would have to define the 'more' for him or herself, but for me the 'more' makes Cantr become some type of three dimensional journal that can be shared with other people. So it's a place where people can be more honest with themselves than in real life because they don't have to feel as vulnerable as they do when being that open and honest - much like some let themselves be when they write in a journal - but unlike with a journal, Cantr gives people the opportunity to experience that honesty and vulnerability with diverse grouping of other people and shows them how different types of people might handle that version of themselves that they so desperately want to be and know that they can be but are just too scared to put into practice in real life at this point in time. Cantr either gives those people the confidence they need to start doing to the things their characters(or alter-egos as I sometimes like to call them) managed to do successfully, or if their characters are failing at things they're trying, it gives people to opportunity to finely tune that revised version of themselves that they're trying to build before releasing it into the real world. And I think for as long as one plays, it'll be an ongoing process for them too.

So for some, the OOC gossip circles are one reason to detach themselves from their characters and for an even smaller amount of those people, are the reason why they walk away from Cantr. It wouldn't be fair of me to say that those people that walk away don't have any need for Cantr, but the longer I play, the more I realize that the people that are still here at any given time are ones that should be here at the time. I think no matter how grim or pretty things might look a given point in time, people will always be leaving and people will always be coming back. But I'm nearly certain that as long as Cantr stays up, people will always be here. About the ones that stay, for some of them the OOC gossip circles might be exactly what is needed to break down the walls that are forcing them to be detached from their characters. Whether or not detachment is a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion. My personal position on the matter, if anyone really cares, is that it's essential for me NOT to detach from my characters because detachment would just shatter the soul mirrors that are my characters or alter egos. And if those mirrors are shattered, how can I pick the food out of the teeth of my soul? Of course, without detachment, there's the matter of slipping up and doing something slightly out of character when situations come up that hit a little too close to home for a player, but I feel like a good player will allow his or her fellow players a slip-up every once in a while because for the player of the character it happens with, the times that it happens are the times when it's most needed. And I do realize that by personally choosing to not detach myself, I'm setting myself up for a big heartache one day when I'll finally log in and see the message "[ekat's favorite character] has died". I'm sure I'll cry for hours and be depressed for days when I see it, but I've already decided that the little bit of pain of losing one of my characters is worth all the rewards I've gotten out of it. Some will probably call me naive for thinking that way, and that may very well be the case. As I get older, I'm starting to become okay with feeling naive in the areas where I'm still able to feel naivity. My thought on the matter is carpe diem. One day all of us in this life are going to die. Does that mean that we shouldn't try to feel everything worth feeling and experiencing every experience worth experiencing before going? Should we lay in bed all day today and tomorrow and the next day because we fear possibility of getting into a fatal car wreck? That's something else for the individual to decide.

Anyway, I'm not a very science-savvy person, but to me, OOC chatter about Cantr is the plane where the universe of Cantr meets the plane of our real life universe. For me, the planes crossing is a necessity. Undoubtedly, despite everything the capital and four-day rules do to try and help us avoid it, because we're humans, gossip is going to come from chatter. People can let that scare them if they want to, but I don't believe it should have to. I believe though, that a little bit of fear is just enough to cause animosity that displays itself in the form of character conflict. Those of us that use Cantr to help us figure ourselves out need that character conflict because going through the motions of finding a resolution to those conflicts is what causes us to slowly find ourselves.

Doug, I know that it seems like PD may have to take the fall for people's uncertainties because for some people there's no other obvious place to stick that blame when they feel the uncertainities, but please know that there are still a lot of us that appreciate all that the PD does for us and our characters. You mentioned something about retirement, and I'm fairly sure by that you're referring to your position on Cantr staff. If the position you hold affects you on a personal level as much as it came off as it does when you posted that bit about the drinking, then I think it means that you're doing the job right. Because of the amount of time you've served us (and served us well, it seems) you've more than earned the right to walk away. Thanks for protecting and caring for our characters in ways that we as players could never do. Some night in the near future when I sit down for a relaxing night of Cantring, I'll be pouring a drink in your name.

Wow... Very nicely said. I concur.

I am slightly confused with everything that is being said in this thread. Cantr is a role playing game . So if we compare cantr with rl and our chars with real people in rl all real people have to face trully really difficult situations from time to time. So other real people in order to get past those obstactles they may need to evolve their personalities and maybe even change their characters somewhat based oin their new experiences. Other people cannot overcome those obstacles and they choose to end their lifes. So from what you are saying about that char of yours you are role playing ultimately a suicidal character. So far so good no problem with that. You can role play anything in this game. So why the apology?

Henkie wrote:Although the character was known by quite a few, it is currently not close to many chars, a few will be hurt, but so be it.

It is my belief he was apologizing to the players it may affect.