Knowledge of Tools

[Money]

I know a long time ago it was required to see something produced or to learn how something is made before you could produce it yourself. I'm wondering why that system was scrapped, seems like it would be a great source of RP and discovery.

[Draco]

I can't speak for everyone here, but the "knowledge about stuff" is something I add to my characters. They are born with little to no knowledge, and they learn as they go and interact with the rest of the characters, especially the craftsmen or any person specialized in a particular subject.
I can understand if a character figures out on his/her own that he/she can sharpen a flint to make a stone cleaver, make a bone knife or even collect some logs and build a raft without seeing somebody else doing it, but not more complex tasks like making jewellery (Unless it's made of bone), refining steel and making weapons, or building a raker from scratch without even seeing one (Even if I had access to all the required materials and tools).

Of course, as a character starts progressing on a specifical path, I can understand if he/she figures out more complex things. As a hypotetical example, I have a character who likes cooking, and he discovers that he can grind wheat in order to make flour and cook bread. If I get my hands into some sorghum, I'd (As a character, of course) think "Hey, maybe I can try grinding these grains and make bread out of this, just like wheat". But a character who has some kind of "revelation" and suddenly knows how to make bread without at least seeing or being told about the process sounds a bit like a scene from The Matrix:

Neo: "Can you fly this helicopter?"
Trinity: "Not yet. Morpheus, I need information on how to fly a blahblah chopper..."
(Morpheus uploads the info)
Trinity: "Now I can, let's go"

And now for a real example, one of my (old) characters left his hometown to wander the roads at a very young age, and while he was there he learned pretty much nothing. While travelling, he arrived to a desolated town, and found a half-made fur undershirt made of furs stitched with sinew. Besides discovering that he could complete the fur shirt (He had the materials), he reverse-engineered the concept and made a pair of trousers, mocassins and a hat with the same materials and methods. Another example could be the making of a shield. He had seen the shields and why people used them but never made one, so he used bones to make a imitation of an animal ribcage, which he had seen when skinning the animals he hunted.

In essence, there's no need for a system like that, the only need is some common sense when you roleplay (In my opinion at least )

[freiana]

Neo: "Can you fly this helicopter?"
Trinity: "Not yet. Morpheus, I need information on how to fly a blahblah chopper..."
(Morpheus uploads the info)
Trinity: "Now I can, let's go"

Can't...resist...correcting! That wasn't Morpheus, it was Tank, their operator!

No other comments xD

[Doug R.]

I know a long time ago it was required to see something produced or to learn how something is made before you could produce it yourself. I'm wondering why that system was scrapped, seems like it would be a great source of RP and discovery.

Seriously? That must have been a REALLY long time ago, because even I don't remember that.

[Greek]

Was there? I didn't find any reference of it in the code.
Such system works in haven and hearth and is quite nice, but I don't see possibility of having something like that imposed by Cantr mechanics with current state of affairs.

[wichita]

I know a long time ago it was required to see something produced or to learn how something is made before you could produce it yourself. I'm wondering why that system was scrapped, seems like it would be a great source of RP and discovery.

Yeah, you know incorrectly. It was just that we had no wiki so characters wrote them in game. The lack of wiki encouraged that RP. But then people complained here on the forums that the old-timers had too much IC advantage with OOC experience and demanded the wiki. Now we have a wiki, which facilitates munchkininity. So the old "system" was scrapped by democracy, which screwed up the discovery aspects of the game just like it screws up pretty much everything.

[Mr. Bones]

Now we have a wiki, which facilitates munchkininity.

Munchkininity? lol

[Oasis]

I remember those days! Where every question was met with..."Find out in game!"

Now, with the wikki, players and thus characters have the choice whether to automatically 'know' or not. Lot's play they don't know, and some play they do. Those that do become the leaders, more often. I wish I could let my characters not know, but I get too frustrated too easily when no one else knows.

[Money]

Thanks for the responses, guess I was just misinformed.

[EchoMan]

My characters mostly inspect an available machine, and set up a project and try to figure out how things work. Even though I use (and edit) the wiki a lot I tend to forget details, so most of my chars have the same memory issues.

[Chroma Key]

Your characters' and your memory issues are something I'll never forget, EchoMan.
OnT: For me, this depends on the personality of my characters and the environment they are in. A few of mine are really curious and the discovery is important to them. Some are impatient, some wiser than others and can figure out stuff.... and some are simply (and sadly) the eldest around and are expected to know things. I enjoy both approaches but notice that even my know-it-alls (very few) tend to analyse and process information in some way to reach the outcome.

[Marian]

Most of my characters don't know how to make the more advanced items (such as radios) unless they spend some time thinking and planning on it, or sometimes they ask another character, but, assuming they didn't spawn in some absolutely little primitive place out in the middle of nowhere they have a basic understanding of most tools, and of ships and the basics of how they work if they spawned on the coast and have tons of them around all the time. Anything they're exposed to in the first few days of spawning I have them pretty much take for granted, really, especially if it turns out they're an expert at working with it.