Cantr II Discussion Forum

Metaphors are like compost heaps, they always break down at some point. Metaphors don’t smell like cabbage and dog poo, metaphors don’t fertilize your tomatoes. If you’re trying to draw those conclusions then the metaphor has broken down. The best metaphors will draw dozens of parallels between ideas to help you understand one or both better, but there will always be a point where different things are, well, different, and the metaphor breaks down.

The same is true with simulation. Cantr isn’t society. Cantr is letter on a green screen, it’s code written by volunteers in their spare time, it’s far far far simpler than any society has ever been. Even the most complex part of Cantr, the players behind the characters, are very limited in what they can do. But there are still striking and sometimes unexpected ways that life in Cantr and life on Earth are really similar.

Of course there will be places where Cantr fails to emulate society in any meaningful way, and there will be times where the mechanics of the game force people to behave in ways unlike real life. I’m ok with that. The metaphorical metaphor (I’m talking about Cantr) will break down and fail to resemble the metaphorical compost heap (real life, you can draw additional parallels between life and rotting vegetables if you wish.) If it didn't it would just be life and not a simulator and I have enough life as it is.

I want to highlight some of the ways I think Cantr has been an incredible success in simulating society.

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Families – Despite being born or spawned fully functional, often knowledgeable, and generally capable of surviving on their own, Cantrians usually join a family. We usually call them towns and sometimes clans, tribes, companies, communes, armies or various other things; but when it comes down to it these groups of people more closely resemble a family than anything else in our world. If the groups were larger and more impersonal (if they were larger than 100 or so people they would necessarily be impersonal) you could call it communistic or fascistic, but they are much more relationship and trust centered than ideologically centered, so I think that families are the closest parallel.

I’m not necessary thinking of the core family, parents and children living in one house. That really a modern western understanding of family that exists only in rich cultures. But the broader kinfolk type of family that include cousins and second cousins who just view each other as family without wondering exactly how they are related. Usually this family is dominated by a patriarch or matriarch. Tribalism of sorts, but I think even tribes are often bigger and more complex than what we have seen in Cantr.

I think it is interesting that so many of the biggest, longest lived, and most successful groups in the history of Cantr change the name of the people who join them. They make them family. Either by adding a title (Stone Knight, Comrade) or adding a last name (McGregor, Blackrock) It makes family, even distant family from different towns and generations instantly recognizable to each other at introduction. Because the other person is family, they will help and even risk their lives for each other, knowing nothing more than the other person name. I think this has a lot more to do with familial bonds than it does with the oaths or commitments of the organization.

I’ll add more ideas as I hash the out in my own head. (plus dumping them all at the same time makes for a mighty jumbled discussion) And of course a forum wouldn’t be a forum if you didn’t feel free to add some thoughts of your own.

I would add that the instances of language contact I have witnessed have all been very reminiscent of real life situations.


Sometimes you're travelling and you end up in a foreign port with nobody who speaks both languages, either in your crew or the town. There's some distrust initially perhaps, but usually it all goes okay. You might be able to trade some things and then you're off on your way, but you surely wouldn't try to stay long and make your home there.


I've seen a few towns though where bilingualism was, if only briefly, the norm. Two language groups would both settle in the same place and shared the resource slots, divided up buildings, and generally got along okay. Usually one of the two cultures was the dominant one that actually had political authority of the town and the minority culture was something like an ethnic quarter of town. Or a ghetto. In my experience, however, this situation usually doesn't last long because of the way spawning works, and also the general decline of the player population has left many of these places ghost towns. But you still see the evidence of them everywhere if you know where to look, certain coasts where every other town has half the buildings in one language and the other half in another, sometimes even three or more languages. It does give a very interesting feeling when exploring these old ruins. Even with a character who doesn't know any of them, you can tell at a glance that these were distinct cultures and you wonder if they all lived together at the same time, how they got along, etc.


I've also seen lots and lots of bloodshed. Sometimes a very simple misunderstanding leads to genocide because nobody can explain, imprisonment is pointless because you can't trust somebody you can't communicate with so you might as well just kill them, and it's difficult to deescalate a conflict when you can't translate anything more than "I'll give you X for Y, deal?".

That really interesting about the languages. I've had very little interaction with other language groups in Cantr, and (living in America) most of the tourists and immigrants I talk to speak English well enough to be understood, so it's so far removed from my experience that it never crossed my mind.

Another way I've noticed that Cantr is like real life is the way wealth and power has concentrate into relitivly few hands. I don't know if the desparity is as radical as it is in real life (I haven't seen behind those locked doors so maybe it is) but Cantr hasn't been around as long as human civilization for wealth to be concentrated.

It makes me wonder if it can be data mined to find out. Maybe use keys as the measure...

I find it interesting the way the wealth is used. it's generally not hoarded and flaunted, but invested in town needs, characters, and dreams the keyholder deems worthy. In a lot of ways that is a lot like real life where most wealth is in corporations, creating jobs, products and opportunities that the shareholders deem worthy of their investment.

In addition to productive investment, there is also benevolent donation from the wealthier few in both Cantr and real life that no return is expected from. But like in real life the benevolent charity is a much smaller portion of the wealth given out than the profitable investing or is a decision made near the end of ones life.

I'd disagree. Resources are definitely hoarded.

Yes and no. They aren't just given away without reason, but almost all of my characters who have asked for a tool/shield/weapon/use of a machine/building or in one case a vehicle have been given it. (one is working for his stuff, but hes both bland and kinda a jerk) If the wealthy town patron likes you or your idea they're more than happy to share their wealth. If they don't then enjoy picking potatoes by hand, sucker.

Wealth is the easiest to wield form of power, so most town leaders will want to keep more than they give, or else they aren't the town leader anymore. I've found them to be surprisingly generous still the same.

So I drove a truck over the road for a while, and most long haul truck drivers and many local ones have CB (Citizens band) radios in their trucks, At least in the States and Canada. Regardless of where you are in the country, everyone will have their CB set to channel 19.

There are 39 channels that most CB's can access and yet 99% of the use is on the same channel. If a few buddies are running in a convoy or a small company is running a load that requires multiple trucks they might have their radios switched to another channel, also law enforcement monitor one channel (16?) so you can go to the radio if that's faster than 911, but for the most part it's all channel 19. News, dirty jokes, gossip, traffic reports, and lots of anonymous racist rants all on one public forum. So a lot like the radio in Cantr.