Cantr II Discussion Forum

Ok, it's been some time in the making (either side of my holiday), but I finally have the basis of a comprehensive manufacturing list. But before I put it in note form and get bucet loads of complaints of CR breaching, I'm just going to double check...

I started this on the assumption that all the information directly available from the "manufacture" icon is known to the character (i.e: you don;t have to ask how much bone is req. to makje a bone knife - you can just go ahead and do it...)

I then made a list of all of the possible items to be made, and what was required to make them - materials and tools... I then went through and cross-referenced the tools to what items they're used to make...

I havn't used any OOC knowledge, anything extra he has gathered from notes on the ground or asking. But before he puts this in a note, and asks for additions (a large amount of it - what different machines do - is unknown) - I just wanted to check that this is all A-OK?

I have no offical say, but personally, I think it's a bad idea.

The majority of players, including myself, think that you should ROLE PLAY what you know. Sure, all the manufacturing information is right there for you, but that doesn't mean your -CHARACTER- knows about it. The character doesn't know that there's an activites page, does he/she? Or, an objects page? Is he even aware that you can unsubscribe and he'll die instantly? No.

From their perspective, they don't know all the things that can be built until it's seen, or they 'role play discovering' it.

...At least, that's what I think.

This has come up before in another thread when I first mentioned what I was planning to do... I was told at the time it might be a good idea...

I agree with RPing getting to know how to make things. But there's no option in Cantr to 'experiment' with making things. If my character wants to make, say, a hammer, I start the stone hammer project. The question is - does my character know it needs stone and wood, does he know how much? It seems that most people assume they do - you don't see every new character asking how to make a hammer...

One of my characters has almost made a soldering iron - should he have asked how to make one before going ahead? - If so, how long would it have taken before he found someone who had already made one and remembered exactly what was needed? And how did that character make theirs? Did they ask - there must have been someone that made the first ever soldering iron - how did they find out how to make one?

Unless experimentation is included as a part of Cantr, there seems to me to be no other way of going about things exept assuming that the info on the items in the manufacturing list, are somehow or other , common knowledge - anything beyond that (i.e: what the machines and tools do) is to be found out IC - by asking around, which is what my character is going to do...

Unlike Anthony I don't see no harm in it. As you said, the information is there anyway. Your list would just present it all in one table.
Be aware, though, that some details of the in-game manufcaturing list will probably change. Thus, your list might suddenly be outdated.

From an RP point of view, I guess it's up to the player to decide how they want to deal with it. For some it might be more fun to actually let their characters find out details about manufacturing things.

I know about the out of date - those damn bows agve me a bit of a headache...

Hopefully, to those who want it, it will become very useful one my character has asked around about how to use machines etc...

E.g: You spawn, you want to make a trowel to build a house - how do you make iron? You look around, and ask, no one knows. But wait! What's this here - ah ha!... etc... etc...

Dont mind Anthony, hallucinatingfarmer.... hes just mean
I think anything that any noob can learn by looking at his manufacture item page, is fair game. And if Thomas vouches for it, I am sure you wont get any trouble.

Anthony Roberts wrote:I have no offical say, but personally, I think it's a bad idea.
The majority of players, including myself, think that you should ROLE PLAY what you know. Sure, all the manufacturing information is right there for you, but that doesn't mean your -CHARACTER- knows about it.

Huh? Most of my characters have already graduated with MBAs before they turn 20 and have an IQ of at least 140. They also come equipped with a toolkit instruction manual which they can read. If you want to roleplay the village idiot, that's your affair.

Anthony Roberts wrote:The character doesn't know that there's an activites page, does he/she? Or, an objects page? Is he even aware that you can unsubscribe and he'll die instantly? No.

Jeepers Cripes! No they don't have "pages" but they look around and see activities going on, and examine unfinished ones, and they look around at objects on the ground and try out the machines. They even have a sort of ancestral memory which leads them to believe that ovens are used for cooking, and that looms might have something to do with clothing. None will ever try and build a loom in the hopes of baking bread. None has ever tried to eat sand.

Anthony Roberts wrote:From their perspective, they don't know all the things that can be built until it's seen, or they 'role play discovering' it.
...At least, that's what I think.

If that is the world you want, then you should instantly render all existing machines inactive, and rename the machines in the toolkit with names such as winglefabbit and grimplefarber.

If anyone disagrees with my approach, then by all means throw me out of here.
.

I dissagre with your approach. But I got crushed by the weight of Jos saying that the PD shouldn't take interest in people who dare to know the function of ovens. Given that regrettable outcome, I agree with you.

As long as the character isn't pulling info from more then 1 character I say its a wondeful idea. Just look at RL. We have books that say how to use machines and what they do. Cantr should have one too. It's a very good idea.

I had already thought about that. The best I can do is add a disclaimer to it, asking that any additions be knowledge that the character knows, not the player...

I'm just going to go ahead and relase this thing into the game, see what happens... As long as everyone abides by the rule of only using info that their character knows, there should be no prob...

The Sociologist wrote:

Anthony Roberts wrote:I have no offical say, but personally, I think it's a bad idea.
The majority of players, including myself, think that you should ROLE PLAY what you know. Sure, all the manufacturing information is right there for you, but that doesn't mean your -CHARACTER- knows about it.

Huh? Most of my characters have already graduated with MBAs before they turn 20 and have an IQ of at least 140. They also come equipped with a toolkit instruction manual which they can read. If you want to roleplay the village idiot, that's your affair.

Anthony Roberts wrote:The character doesn't know that there's an activites page, does he/she? Or, an objects page? Is he even aware that you can unsubscribe and he'll die instantly? No.

Jeepers Cripes! No they don't have "pages" but they look around and see activities going on, and examine unfinished ones, and they look around at objects on the ground and try out the machines. They even have a sort of ancestral memory which leads them to believe that ovens are used for cooking, and that looms might have something to do with clothing. None will ever try and build a loom in the hopes of baking bread. None has ever tried to eat sand.

Anthony Roberts wrote:From their perspective, they don't know all the things that can be built until it's seen, or they 'role play discovering' it.
...At least, that's what I think.

If that is the world you want, then you should instantly render all existing machines inactive, and rename the machines in the toolkit with names such as winglefabbit and grimplefarber.

If anyone disagrees with my approach, then by all means throw me out of here.
.

Acutally I disagree with your whole point. The only thing the activities page tells you is the name of said object and materials or parts needed to build said object. It doesn't tell you anywhere what the use it and it will never say such a thing.

So if you don't have an oven already in town or heard of one somewhere else (this is your character that I'm speaking of) then how does your character know what an oven does. He doesn't. So instead you are bringing in outside knowledge of the real world to figure out something in game which to me and many other players is using OOC knowledge for IC advancement.

You claim there is no way experiment. There is. Pick out a machine, build it and you can hit the use button and figure out what the machine is used for. Or you can ask other characters that are around who might know or have seen one in use somewhere else.

Now if such a machine is already in existant in the town you are in then you can probably simply figure out right then and there. But unless such a machine exists then you shouldn't know.

Give for example newer islands do not have any machines or anything on them until we start allwoing characters to spawn there. Should they know what an oven is or even more industrial machines like a smelter or glass oven is right away. You can'y use any ancestrial knowledge there because it simply doesn't exist.

Your characters don't have an MBA. They are new to the world when they are spawned so they do not know the history of the area, should not know everything about the world. Your characters can have an IQ of 140 but that still doesn't automatically mean they know what a machine does especially when no one has even built it yet (and there are some machines that haven't been built yet). You can't have knowledge when that knowledge doesn't even exist yet.

So I agree with Anthony on this. And I would rather suggest perhaps have a character experiment. So he builds the machine and finds out what it does and then he can credit himself for inventing the machine. Or he can go around and ask other people if they know which adds so much more to the game rather than simply looking up the machine using a search site like Yahoo! or looking in the dictionary.

I don;t plan on using any OOC knowledge. At the moment, for example, the spit, the use is marked as 'unknown'. Now, I, IRL, know that a spit is used to cook. My character doesn't, hence it is unknown, I am assuming he knows how to make one though, because the info is there. He WILL be experimenting. when he finds a spit, he'll try to use it, and add to the list how it is used....

What I meant was that there was no way to experiment initially - i.e: You can't experiement with making a stone hammer, you just have to make it.

Which is why I disagree with asking about how to make all things. Someone would have had to have made the first, and they wouldn't have done it by asking around. Also, would you send your characters on a trip around Cantr to find a stone table, to then return from whence you came to make it? No? - Neither would I.

This project assumes that all of the info DIRECTLY available from the manufacturing list can be known to all characters. If you wish to role-play someone who doens't know this info - fair enough, it could be interesting, but I doubt that all of your characters have asked how to make a hammer before they made it?

What my character plans to do, is through trying to use machines, or by asking for information, is to compile a list of what the machines do once they're made, thourgh experimentation and inquiry. My character believes this would be useful, and I'm sure others would agree. If you don't, don;t look at the note.

I don't see that I'm breaching any rules? At the end of the day, it's personal choice wheteher you read the note or not...

Give for example newer islands do not have any machines or anything on them until we start allwoing characters to spawn there. Should they know what an oven is or even more industrial machines like a smelter or glass oven is right away. You can'y use any ancestrial knowledge there because it simply doesn't exist.

I agree with you - i think I'm just misunderstood. I'm not using any OOC knowledge at all. You spawn in an undeveloped area. Lots of trees. You want to make an axe. You need steel...

Character1: Let's make an axe
Character2: Ok but we'll need steel
Character1: Hmm *thinks* how do we make steel?
Character2: I;m not sure, I'll travel and see if I can find it somewhere...

2 years later

Character2: I'm back
Character1: Hi
Character2: Couldn't find any steel
Character1: Hmm, maybe it needs to be made with a machine
Character2: Ok, let's try making some

More years later

Character1: Ok, so we've made a cotton jig, a string jig, a spit, a stone table, a mudhole etc etc (just some random examples) but none of them make steel
Character3: Hi, I'm new to town
Character2: Hi, do you know how to make steel?
Character3: I've heard you need iron first
Character1: Do you know where we get iron?
Character3: I think you need to crush hematite to get the ore...

Another year

Character2: I have some hematite
Character1: I tried using that stone table, it crushes hematite, but needs a sledgehammer, so I made one...
Character2: Ok, so let's crush this

A few days later...

Character1: Ok, now we have some ore...
Character2: Now what?
Character1: Maybe we need a machine?

Etc... etc... Until they randomly made a smelter...

Not what I would call progressive...

New scenario:

Character1: This area looks empty
Character2: But there's lots of wood and stone, and this hematite stuff, let's see what we can do, maybe we can make something
Character1: What's this?
Character1 picks up note
Character1: Says here we need to crush the hematite for iron ore, refine it using this machine, then it can be made into all this stuff...
character2: Wow! Let's build the right things then...

Only a year or so later - not 10 or more...

Character1: look, I've got an axe
Character2: Me too
Together: Hurrah!

Get my point?

Ok - need some more advice.

Just finishing the details. And have a few questions

1) Does my character know the meaning of 'shield' - i.e: he knows what a shield does (it ebing under 'protection' and all...)

2) My character can see a carrot harvester and knows what it does - he knows of potatoes as they're around him - can he use a little bit of logic to assume that a potato harvester gathers potatoes like a carrot harvester (or does he have to leave it as 'unknown' until he sees one)

3) Does my charcter know that vehicles are for transport?

Bearing in mind my charcter is 20 - I'm sure he has this simple knowledge - but just wanted to check...

1) Cantr has no dictionary, so I think you can assume that the language that you're playing under is developed to the level that it is today. Ie: "Yo'" means "Hello", and "xenophobia" is "fear of people" - In other words, everything English speaking knows of the English language as a whole, excelt if you RP that they don't. If there were restrictions on words, it wouldn't make sense to the players. So, essentially, since your character has all the language knowledge that you do, they should know the meaning of shield - Unless you want to RP that they don't.

2) Essentially the same as #1. You RP the intelligence level of your character. You can have them stupid, so they can't piece together common sense things, or they can be smart, and able to piece together the simplistic logic of the machines.

3) That's really for you to decide. If you see it move, well, then it's obvious. If you start making one, well, why would you put things together for the hell of it?