Hibernation/Torpor

[Doug R.]

Cantrians, like vampires, are immortal. Torpor is a pretty prevalent concept in vampire lore. Essentially, when you can live forever, there comes a time when you just want to slip away into sleep. We all know that this happens all the time in Cantr too. The main difference is that when vampires do it, it's really cool. Ann Rice's vampire queen had a neat throne room, and the Underworld vampire Elders sleep in cool mechanical boxes. There are ceremonies. People pay homage to their sleeping forms. In Cantr, it's extremely uncool. People just go to sleep, irritating everyone around them. Some poor schmuck ends up spending a decade of their life feeding them, just to watch them drop dead of a heart attack anyway.

Can we please take this very negative social phenomenon and turn it around into something cool and interesting? If nothing else, preparing a decent torpor chamber would give oldbies something to do, and if it caught on and became fashionable, maybe players would put their characters to sleep before they became irrevocably bored with them.

Please take this suggestion and tuck it into the back of your mind, so that when you decide you're getting bored with a charrie, this idea will be germinating back there. Hopefully we can give Cantr more culture, remove one of Cantr's largest negative aspects, and save some interesting characters all in one swoop.

[tiddy ogg]

Are you saying they won't need feeding? If so, that ain't fair. If not, then what's the difference with leaving them outside - at least then they're more likely to find something sparking their interest.
Anyway, it'll mean waking them up to do the job.
What was it that Loki Firesmythe used to call sleepers? He had a solution.

[Dudel]

Outside sleepers annoy everyone, as Doug said. Depending on the location, some people use them as target practice.

I like this idea Doug but doesn't someone still have to take care of them? It sounds like something that would have to have some random religion implied on it. Which most Cantrinians aren't too kind on. You'd need a guy to recruit to the religion just to feed all the "great sleepers".

OH and only a certain age or types of Cantrinian's would be allowed to even APPLY to be housed in the "Torpor Chamber".

Great leaders that don't need to leader NOW, such as military commanders etc.

The creater of the religion you follow.

It couldn't be just EVERYONE/Anyone...

[Genie]

I don't think Cantr needs such a thing.Cantr is perfect for me now:)

[Doug R.]

15000g of roasted carrots can keep someone fed for 300 days, so the the need for intervention from the outside isn't strictly necessary.

[Elros]

I see what you mean Doug and I agree. Cantr is a roleplaying game, and thus every aspect should be rp'ed if possible. People a lot of times get to tied up with the technical aspects of things like some of the others commented on such as who would feed them, and what the qualifications were, but if I understood your original post, you were simply saying that if someone is going to let their character sleep for a while they should at least rp it in some fashion.

I agree with you and will keep this in mind.

[chase02]

15000g of roasted carrots can keep someone fed for 300 days, so the the need for intervention from the outside isn't strictly necessary.

I think this is more of the problem. Lower the effectiveness of foods and people are forced to either play more regularly or lose their characters.

[SekoETC]

I doubt anyone would have 15 kilos of food anyway, since then they wouldn't have room for their iron shield and their crowbar and their battle axe and their private collection of all the essential tools. People rarely plan ahead that they're going to start sleeping (unless the player is going somewhere without an Internet connection). They simply stop checking because there are no events. Or then they might stop logging in altogether and miss the events. Vacation mode has limited duration.

It would be interesting if starvation caused loss of strength that could only be regained through hunting and fighting. And you know how hard it is to improve your strength and fighting skill. So forgotten characters would eventually grow weak and the effects were visible even after the person got food again.

As for making food heavier, it has been done in the past but having to constantly pick up more food is kinda annoying. Also it doesn't make much sense that a person can eat 2000 g or more in one sitting. I'd rather have it so that if you eat heavy food, you only eat your fill but it won't heal earlier starvation. If you ate every day, it wouldn't matter but if you went hungry in some point, you would keep that hunger level until you get some better food.

[Elros]

I definetly do not think we should mess with the skills. They are already near impossible to improve... lol

[NaruShadow]

I actually quite like this idea, and it's given me some great ideas for RP, especially since I have a vampire character. Thanks Doug

[Doug R.]

I actually quite like this idea, and it's given me some great ideas for RP, especially since I have a vampire character. Thanks Doug

Thanks! I'm glad that at least a few people got what I was talking about.

[El_Skwidd]

I have a few characters that would definitely do this, if for no other reason than to satisfy their own egos. Great idea.

I also like the idea Dudel brought up about institutionalizing it into something religious or spiritual. I only have one religious character who wouldn't agree with that kind of willful torpor, so I can't really do it myself.

Although... I do have 4 available character slots...

[BlueNine]

I like the idea...no need to mess around with food weights or anything, its purely RP. If i start to get bored with my chars I'm going to have them dig a whole mess of food, tell everyone they're hibernating (or similar) and settle down in a nice locked room.

Wish I'd done that last time I "gave up" cantr

[Drael]

Or even better, go into a private room, write a sucide note, and hit yourself with a weapon till you die!

[SekoETC]

Nah, do it with style. Go to a locked room, preferably one that's deep behind a chain of rooms, build in a stone table and crush all the keys. Then just wait for death. Better yet, build in a radio transmitter and when you start regretting it, you can send out messages and cause distress to anyone who hears. Or drag in an innocent person who doesn't want to die and let them shout to the radio while you smash the keys.