Psychic characters

[Money]

So is this suggestion Rejected or accepted?

[SekoETC]

It's up to ProgD to decide, but clear sense should say that this doesn't belong into Cantr. You can already accomplish the same with having characters close to each other, and some people have even done that, but it's a CRB.

[witia1]

Cantr is a world without a magick ( or somethink like magick ) so it doesn't fit to this game.

[Pie]

ok here's the deal.

cantr's going down the hole. It's just not working. People are massing up great fortunes, and then sitting on them. And becaus travelling is so slow, communication in most places is so hard and unreliable, they just seem to pass away.

In real life, rich people are supposed to supply jobs to the poor people. and obviously that isn't happening in cantr for some reason, and that's a whole nother kettle of fish.

The kettle of fish were dealing with right now is culture. We don't have any sence of something "greater" in cantr, no past, no history, no religion, no superstition, not much of a sence of culture. The only reason the few places have any sort of distinction to them are the speciall, unique charracters that reside there. But what we need in cantr, what i've allways wanted to see, is some mystique. Some history, something tying the charracters in one location to something, some intiquety. Some culture.

And I believe that Religion, belief in the superstitious, is the first step to having some roots in the supernaturall. And when we have that, we might then take some steps in cantr to create sertain little culturall phenominons that we don't see in cantr right now. And that leads to cultural diversity. And that is what we want to see in cantr.

That's my reasoning behind it.

and again, I apologise for all misspellings.

[Sekar]

Just because Cantr has economic problems that involve the rich not creating jobs, doesn't mean that we need to add something like magic to the game. We can fix the economic problem in far more practical ways. I understand that religion in game can't form as well as it can in real life, because most people playing cantr can't take religion seriously enough to be a part of it(I am one of those people, so I understand!), but that doesn't mean we need to start implementing magic. We just need to fix the supply and demand problem cantr is facing by changing some usefulness of things already in game.

[Tiamo]

There is one element that does create diversity in Cantr, the different languages used. In my experience the different language groups don't really mix, and have their own way of treating each other, their own 'culture'.
In fact, wars have been fought between language groups.

It would be a beautiful development if a sense of history and local identity would enter the game. That, however, can only happen if the game mechanics (and contents) would allow for more diversity, so locations can develop some unique features.

Those features shouldn't be connected to any individuals, though, as they would disappear when the character disappears. Local identity should be developed by characters, but also be lasting, surviving the death or departure of a single character.
Giving the rare individual some extraordinary powers will not have this effect. On the contrary, the identity of a location will be tied even more to this individuals.

This is an interesting topic. Maybe a new topic could be made of it ("How to create history and culture into Cantr"), starting with Pie's last post.

[SekoETC]

If people could invent things and teach the manufacturing of those to other people then there wouldn't have to be a regional out of character memory bank, the information could be stored in the brains of characters and maybe on some special notes, since notes don't make much sense in the first place. That way there could be regional cultures. But it would require some guidelines, like what tools are required for which items, how much time and materials are required to create a certain level of quality and durability, and still most likely they would have to be reviewed by RD. Heh, and if it was clothes, there would most likely be months of fighting over the descriptions. The menus wouldn't get cluttered, though, because people would only get the entries for what their character has learned.

[Rossato]

Yes. I've managed to create some new recipes with RD (of course). All those was adopted as typical recipes in one of the cities I live, but it's a bit sad to know people can make this very recipe anywhere in the world at the same time.

I always said cities should be unique, with it's own foods and clothes. Indeed, I think there is only one city in all Portuguese Cantr with a real culture, a kind of spirit that everybody has.

[Juuustaaas]

but that doesn't mean we need to start implementing magic.

Yes, we can probably solve the lack of culture by other means, so we don't need magic. But what I'm suggesting is that adding magic is one way to stimulate culture. So what we really need to discuss is what is the best way to stimulate culture.

Giving the rare individual some extraordinary powers will not have this effect. On the contrary, the identity of a location will be tied even more to this individuals.

...what makes you say that? That's not the case in real life at all, what makes you say it would be the case in Cantr? Jerusalem would be a good example, one man's work brought the location eternal fame. Just think if we had a holy city in Cantr.

The situation you describe, we have now. Dozens of locations are considered extraordinary because of the awakenness of their leaders; they make their towns run more efficiently, however there is no aura around them. They are traders and policemen, not royalty. So it's no surprise they are forgotten when they die and a new cop fills the gap.

If people could invent things and teach the manufacturing of those to other people then there wouldn't have to be a regional out of character memory bank, the information could be stored in the brains of characters and maybe on some special notes, since notes don't make much sense in the first place. That way there could be regional cultures.

I put it to you, that that will only serve one side of cultural diversity, the material side. That would be a limited diversity, because the needs of all the cultures would be essentially the same.

In my opinion, a more important diversity is mental (or quasi-mental in our case):
Every race should have its heroes. There are already conditions for these heroes to exist. However, they do not exist. We could wait even more, or we could try to stir things up artificially a little.

Right now none of the new age players behind the characters could accept a deity over them, because:
1. RL society is very rational nowadays, it affects the player
2. The characters see that those claiming divinity or knowledge about divinity, have no base for their claims.
I suggest we remove #2.

[Juuustaaas]

Cantr is a game, which means the players come seeking something extraordinary. Something different from real life. Why are there so many ships, why do so many horrible locations have notes along the lines of "empire being built here", why do people come to coastal towns, stay silent for a year and leave with their brand new longboats without a direction?

Because there's no fun in being submissive, the way things are now. If something like religion rose, it would contribute to uniting groups of people, just like it did in real life. I think belonging to a tight group would bring more fun to players than owning their own longboat.

[Juuustaaas]

As suggested above, it will create many claims of CRBs. We have already have had several chars belonging to cheating players revealing events elsewhere claiming they are psychic/dreaming them.

Simple, announce there is no such psychic power that would allow seeing events happening elsewhere.

[haggismcbean]

People would only get the entries for what their character has learned.

If regions became unique like this, it would possibly encourage trade between regions (unlikely in Cantr but it would happen in real life) and the secrets of these inventions would be kept secret and stuff, perhaps leading to more tension between locations and a possibility of war, back stabbing and all that stuff. Great fun!

[Pie]

unfortunately, Invention in game was allready suggested. It was rejected by some of the same fudgeheads who are against this suggestion. Or if not the same people, they are using the exact same reasons.

or at least that's how I remember it. Correct me if I'm wrong... It was rejected, right?

[Tiamo]

Instead of allowing inventions (which would indeed create LOTS of problems) specific fields of expertise could be created. This expertise would be necessary for making the more complex items, and would have to be learned. Learning can be by teaching, or by inventing (a study project with uncertain outcome).
Invented expertise would be unique and would define the quality of the objects made. Expertise obtained by learning would be a copy of the expertise of the teacher.

If a character doesnt have the necessary expertise the item simply doesn't show up on the list of possible projects. And project that need expertise should not be described in the wiki.

This way high-tech items could be made unique for a small area while at the same time the RD would have full control over their possible specifics.

Unfortunately this would be a huge programming project. It will not happen in the foreseeable future, even if this suggestion would be accepted. On the other hand, this would, in my opinion, be a huge improvement of the game.

Btw, parts of this suggestion already have been proposed in some form.

[trexdino]

All of you people saying that cities aren't unique, or that religion is hard to accept in some cities, and all of that stuff, have you heard of the Order of Donii? And what about the Macgregor? And the Stone Knights? And the New Blackrocks? I think if you take a look at the bigger picture, even areas on the same language area can be very different. For example, things that happen with the Order of Donii, they would be put to death in the Macgregor areas. Cantr has a culture, or am I the only person to see this?