Words that don't belong in Cantr?

[goitre]

I wish to invite a discussion on what words are allowed in Cantr. For example, should a character know what these words mean?

Generic place descriptions - moon, barnyard, underground, volcano, hell, overseas
Events - eclipse, explosion, itch
Professions - actor, dentist, painter, mathematician
Government types - democracy, communism, monarchy

Should a character not know what a horse is until the character has seen one and it has been labelled a 'horse'. Or does a character know what a horse is from the very beginning?

Should a character know that a steel sabre is called a 'steel sabre' before someone informs that character?

Should my tailor character know that she needs a loom to make cotton cloth?

Should a newspawn know that it takes <blah> grams of small bones to make a bone knife?

[TatteredShoeLace]

Generic place descriptions -
moon-Cantr has a sun, so many can assume that there is a moon. Also, some people refer to their movements on the sea as 'tides', which is controlled by the moon.
barnyard-no domestic animals, so a bit sketchy
underground-potatoes grow underground, we bury bodies somewhere, legit
volcano-I don't see a problem RPing one, but a very hot arid location would be neat to really have. Maybe you lose a few health every few days
hell-some religions have similars
overseas-we have seas and people travel over them

Events -
eclipse-by the sun......probably not
explosion-things can explode, ie combustion vehicle engines
itch-cantrians got to know when to scratch:wink:

Professions -
actor-towns hold plays
dentist-possible to RP
painter-there have been painters
mathematician-we have scientists, and someone is figuring out the cantrian physics

Government types - all possible, name them what you want

[Agar]

I would have just linked this to the webzine, but it's down.

The point is, if you really want to argue about it, is: What would lead your characters to believe they couldn't eat sand? Eating, technically, is an out of character concept. Saying your hungry has the same impact as finishing a project or knocking on a door. It simply means: Something has happened. You use your out of character knowledge of what hunger is and can result in and impart that onto your character.

If everything had to be in game, well, the game would be insanely boring. You start off at 20 and know how to talk. Give yourself a little flexibility to role play with, within a degree of moderation.

Cantr Comics

The Sandeater

The day dawns {sorta} over a typical cantr day. Most people are running
about without decent clothing, weaving through the animals grazing in clusters
about town. A routine day that's about to be shattered, by "The eating tic"

You ate 90g of your rice.

A man in his twenties says: "Hey! Why am I hungry? I'm eating!"

A man in his twenties says: "I keep trying to eat but it won't let me!"

A man in his twenties says: "Is something broken? I don't want to starve! Why
won't any of you answer me?!?!"

Raga says: "Calm down. You may have just skipped a bite or something. you'll
eat when hungry as long as you have something to eat. Do you have something?"

A man in his twenties says: "Loads of it. I've been gathering it for a few days
though, and it keeps saying I'm hungry. I try to eat but I keep getting
errors."

Raga says: "Errors? Is that a type of digestive problem? I get a little
constipated sometimes, but a few meals of something else and I'm all good."

A man in his twenties says: "You have just defined too much information."

A man in his twenties says: "No, errors, like big red bar slams up, almost
expect it to come with a buzzer or someone to come yell at me. Errors."

Raga whispers to a man in his twenties: "OOC: we dont talk about the game
interface, if you have food and youre not eating, you might write the prog
dept"

Raga says: "No one is going to yell at you for not eating, we're all nice
people here."

A man in his twenties says: "I understand now. So I should eat my sand tomorrow
then?"

Raga says: "sand?"

A man in his twenties says: "Sand."

Raga says: "SAND??!"

A man in his twenties says: " Yup. I eat sand. What wrong with that?"

Raga says: "There's potatoes here, you can eat those. But not the mud, not the
stone, not the chromium, not the seaweed, the cod you have to cook, but you
CAN'T eat SAND!!!"

Janice says: "Actually, you can eat seaweed, you just need a lot of it and it's
a big pain to gather that much. You might as well not be eating if you're
eating seaweed. You can cook with it though. Not cook per say, but make a
better food using seaweed and some other things, but I'm not sure how far away
that all is ..."

Raga says: "Janice, you're right and all, thank you, but you're not helping."

A man in his twenties says: "Potatoes? All covered in dirt and hard like brown
rocks? You eat those? You should try eating sand. It's not all muddy like that,
you just have to rub a bunch together and all the dirt and stuff falls out."

You see a man in his twenties give Raga some sand.

Raga says: "*slaps his hand to his forehead and takes some deep breaths*"

Raga Says: "Sand is for stuff like glass. You make things out of sand. You
can't eat things that you make things out of, that's why you're hungry."

You see a man in his twenties point at Janice.

A man in his twenties says: "But she said you could eat seaweed and you could
make things out of seaweed. That's the same as making things out of sand and
eating it."

Raga says: "*Glares at Janice and grumbles some*"

Janice says: "I'm just trying to help Raga. I'll try some of your sand sir. I
actually use it myself from time to time. When I add some potatoes to is,
together they both taste great. Here, you can have some of mine."

You see Janice give some potatoes to a man in his twenties.

Raga says: "*throws his hands up and heads towards his home* I'm going to go
crush things!"

You see Raga leaving the central area of town, entering Raga's Retreat.

You see Raga entering the central area of town, coming from Raga's Retreat.

You see Raga give Janice some sand.

Raga says "Eat up!"

You see Raga leaving the central area of town, entering Raga's Retreat.

[Mafia Salad]

I’d say if those sort of things weren’t allowed, the game would have never gotten off of the ground. Names like steel sabre and loom are part of the game mechanics, they are universally understood by everyone in that language group unless specific individuals play that they don’t know the meaning of the words. If each person or town came up with their own name for things then inter-town relationships would break down and new players would be even more overwhelmed then they are now, thus a lot more likely to give up. Not to mention that old players would have trouble keeping the different names to there respective characters. Anything written into the game by higher powers then the players should and does have a freebe into the vocabulary of most characters.

I’d say that your generic place descriptions, they are pick and choose for me. I’d let most of them pass for RP value (unless it’s horribly out of context) except for the volcano, because that would be something that should show on the map, but doesn’t.

Events: same thing, it comes down to context. *You’re whole city blows up in a big explosion* wouldn’t fly for me. While *He jumps back as a small explosion sends sparks out of the smelter* isn’t something you can confirm or deny through game mechanics, so I wouldn‘t criticize it.
The professions you gave don’t add or detract from the games social development, so let the player have their fun with them. At best they are incredibly entertaining and a lot of fun to watch, at worse they clutter up the events screen.

And government types help to accelerate & diversify social development, and make the game more interesting to observe overall and play. I fully support importing OOC governing ideas into the game, but I think it makes better play to have an IG catalyst spark the idea for your character.

Yeah I think the “confirm or deny through game mechanics” is the line for me, other then that, it is a game, let people have fun. Phrases like “grandfathered in” sometimes irk me, but I just look to the meaning behind it. Players shouldn’t have to keep a constant eye on whether their everyday figures of speech will fit into Cantr, though it can be really fun to make up Cantrian equivalents and see if anyone understands them.

[Phalynx]

I think the rules were changed a while ago about in game and out of game knowledge.

When I first played and got used to the game (not that long ago) I used to assume that my 20 year old character had spent the first 20 years of his life learning the wikki so knew what a steel sabre was even if he had never seen one.

Since then some of my characters are literally too stupid to know all that information, and there are situations where other chracters who I RP as knowledgable and clever (as much as they can be as an extension of me) still RP not knowing the answer because it seems incongruous that they would know EG how much wood goes to building different boats when they have never been near water..

There will be purists who will insist that characters should know no more than the materials and items in their immediate environment, or passed on by other characters, and pragmatists who will treat all the information in the wikki as fare game. I'm sure both have there merits but I prefer to sit in the middle...

[SekoETC]

The stupidest OOCness I've seen was a dude spawning in Omeo - a very primitive place at the time, with no buildings - and saying he feels like taking a shower. Like how?? Perhaps there might be some Pocahontas style waterfall-natural-shower but basically Cantrians shouldn't know what a shower is.

Oh I have a character who spawned babbling about her spaceship exploding and tried to put wet leaves in a firepit to create smoke signals, but that's different, she was meant to be "out of this world".

[Agar]

Oh I have a character who spawned babbling about her spaceship exploding and tried to put wet leaves in a firepit to create smoke signals, but that's different, she was meant to be "out of this world".

How's that working out for her? Still stranded on the mountian?

[SekoETC]

Nope, she decided to go find herself and has spent some time wandering on the desert. And found a new meaning for life in feeding lost travellers and innocent newspawns in this cruel environment. That should keep her busy for years. Maybe she sees herself as some sort of a saviour from above, sent to aid the poor savages.

[Nalaris]

I don't think any word with religious affiliation (so half of every swear word, and things like 'armageddon', though 'apocalypse' isn't religiously tied) shouldn't be in Cantr, since no living religion should directly translate to Cantr, i.e. no one should go around professing Christianity IG, even if they call themselves Christ (good luck making the miraculous healings work).

[Phalynx]

I don't think any word with religious affiliation (so half of every swear word, and things like 'armageddon', though 'apocalypse' isn't religiously tied) shouldn't be in Cantr, since no living religion should directly translate to Cantr, i.e. no one should go around professing Christianity IG, even if they call themselves Christ (good luck making the miraculous healings work).

Yeah but Jesus is a reat character,

0/10 for imagination in the names department,
11/10 for RPing a cool charracter that travels around doing good!

[Nalaris]

RPing a cool character? You don't need to steal a holy name to do that.

[Phalynx]

RPing a cool character? You don't need to steal a holy name to do that.

I think that was exactly what I was saying...

[Nalaris]

Yes, but you made it seem like it was okay to RP a cool character despite stealing a name. I made it sound the other way around. Tom-ay-to tom-ah-to.

[Phalynx]

[goitre]

Thanks for replying folks! It seems hard to say in general, in Cantr, what's in an what's out. What do you think of common phrases?

"Son of a bitch"
"He's a few cans short of a six-pack"
"Cool" (as in "That guy, yunno, with the small wooden shaft, yeah, like he's really cool")

Sometimes I slip and put things like "hehe" and "(:" in my text, from too much IRCing during my youth. I suspect that people don't like the smiley face, but what about "hehe"?

OT: Hey have emoticons been suggested in Cantr? Everything else has. I certanly wouldn't want them.