Society and Culture and "Stuff"/Spawning

[Wolfsong]

Disclaimer: I'm a newbie.

That said...

I'm a bit disappointed that, thus far, I haven't found any societies in Cantr that seem perfectly suited to Cantr - example: newspawns "spawn" in a town at age 20, knowledgeable but not knowing.

Now, to my knowledge, children are not born and thus do not exist; you'd think sexual organs wouldn't exist, then, since the only (ultimate) purpose of sex is to procreate, but since these particular parts do indeed exist (at least according to clothing and convention) it's safe to say that, while at some point in time they were used for reproduction, they are not any longer used for reproduction but for pleasure purely. Animals, however, and plants do still breed/reproduce.

NOW - at least IMO - a society would/should have a better way to explain spawning than "I don't know". There would be extensive ritual (agricultural rites in more advanced societies, or animal imitation/sacrifice in cultures where animals are abundant) to explain the curious behavior of newspawns popping out of thin air. Or rituals of causation - John the Oldtimer high-fives George the Town Guard and suddenly a newspawn appears. If this happens often enough, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that high fiving causes newspawns to appear.

And from there, it wouldn't be that much more of a stretch to assign newspawns to individuals, couples, or small groups within that society: a family completes a series of rituals and a newspawn appears. That newspawn is then a part of their family. Or - every newspawn to appear during (arbitrary period of time) is assigned to X, and every after that to Y, and every before that to Q.

What about gender relations, patriarchal societies, matriarchal societies, and words like mother, father, son, brother, sister, etc. Would these concepts exist in a society without birth?

[Mack]

The basics is that spawning is when your first noticed. You could have been born in the woods and such. you just weren't in town. parent's you know them or you don't who knows. . . It's RP

[SumBum]

If it makes you feel any better, there are many many threads about spawning and its explanation, etc.

As for families - they do exist here and there. One of my first chars married into a family that had a lot of history. That char and his wife adopted a younger man as their son. A few other of my characters have run into families or similarly structured hierarchies. It can work.

[Wolfsong]

The basics is that spawning is when your first noticed. You could have been born in the woods and such. you just weren't in town. parent's you know them or you don't who knows. . . It's RP

That's what I thought at first, too, but I read a few topics here on the forum that say very distinctly that isn't the case at all... Let me try to find them.

Edit:

"This new character has no biography or personal background other then what you play in the sim. Nothing exists except what is explicitly in the game - no history, no other worlds, etc."
-Taken from http://forum.cantr.org/viewtopic.php?t=3391

Is that still relevant?

[SumBum]

This could turn into another "purist flame thread" but I think the general idea is that your characters shouldn't have too much of a background when they spawn. Most chars who start spouting stuff about their past the moment they spawn are picked apart in-game. Personality and physical traits are fine, but don't spawn talking about how your father used to take you fishing, etc.

[Mack]

I've had a char spawn and just said that they lived in the woods all their life with their family....a tragic accident (in the woods) took his family when he was 15...rp'd that they stayed away from towns, he was afraid of people ect...worked well

[Wolfsong]

Personality and physical traits are fine, but don't spawn talking about how your father used to take you fishing, etc.

Clarification requested - does this mean then that a character can have had a father and mother in the past, and have been born, lived fully fledged lives, etc., so long as these lives are essentially unspecific and that these parents/families are "done away with" at some point before spawning --- or does it mean that merely while personality and appearance are okay, history (father, mother, the day I skinned my knee riding my tricycle around in the house) isn't?

[Dudel]

The short answer to this is...

Do what you want just don't break the CR and/or be sad/scared/whatever when someone "yells" at you.

What you are looking for/wanting IS in game but is on the low end of things due to certain players and their... well as SumBum said.

Do what you want just don't break the CR and/or be sad/scared/whatever when someone "yells" at you.

[Snake_byte]

Disclaimer: I'm a newbie.


NOW - at least IMO - a society would/should have a better way to explain spawning than "I don't know". There would be extensive ritual (agricultural rites in more advanced societies, or animal imitation/sacrifice in cultures where animals are abundant) to explain the curious behavior of newspawns popping out of thin air. Or rituals of causation.

First of all welcome to Cantr.

Second the thing that's great about Cantr is the diversity in RP available. You can create exactly what you're talking about and a lot of people have. But like Dudel said, don't be surprised at some peoples reactions IG... People have proven to be quiet resistant to religion and and prophecy and such...

[catpurr]

These discussions happen again, I see 3 major explanations:

* New people come from the outer lands [where out of some strange reason you cannot return to]
* New people where kids in the town where they grow up and were just not worthy to mention until coming of age. [but what is a ship landing? Were the kids on the ship? couldn't they become of age there?]
* New People just apperate. [but how did they get any knowledge of the world?]

The reason I guess why people also don't want to put an ingame explanation in the game for this, is because its different for different players, and you hardly can override the roleplay of another.

[You know, my favorite alteration of the game would be "kindergarten buildings" that must be 20 years there, until adolescents can start popping out, but that idea is not much loved by the cantrians]

[toon]

Yes, welcome to Cantr. That's how I always saw it. Children are just ignored in Cantr until they get to the age of twenty and they are actually worth something.

[HFrance]

What's more, children ignore entirely the world around them (with the exception of technological theory and language) until they reach 20 years.

[Dudel]

Personally, I don't like the concept of children (or kindergartens) to explain spawns.

I honestly don't see why they can't just appear. I've a character that believes that's EXACTLY what happens. Cantrinians appear at 20 and there is nothing before this. His religious being is what grants the knowledge, etc, and some characters (mine specifically) can still learn from him.

This also gives me "leeway" when doing things in an OOC manner IC. Nothing rule breaking but more along the lines of project creation and game mechanic understandings.

A lot of, if not all, of my characters don't have anything before the 20 year. I personally don't see a point as it's not supported by game mechanics.

Once I implied that one of my characters was raised by toucans, but it was only for a small laugh and had no real RP to it and the one of religious speakings had a out-of-body experience seconds before spawning. If you imply things, no one cares... or notices.

I've said it before, "If you do things with a light touch, not only will other players play along with you but they will not realize they are doing it."

[Voltenion]

The explanation is not "I don't know". It's just left for the characters to find out in game. That's amazing, hundreds of different explanations for spawning have been theorized by hundred of character, thus creation religions our ideologies. The problem is, although many people try to create these ideologies and religions, few embark on this RP and just decide to stay in the "I don't believe in anything" or "I don't know, but it's not that, idiot!" so that their character look cool and the religious, since they are fighting against the game mechanics, stand in a very hard position to defend their beliefs. But, to allow diversity is a great thing. Some people come up with the most interesting stories about the creation of Cantr. It can be very motivating for the founder of the religion to have a conversation with someone who doesn't deny him immediately.

Resuming: It's good not to have a based spawning explanation. Great players try to make religions but bad players make fun of them in game. There are some slightly successful religions out there, though.

[HFrance]

Once I implied that one of my characters was raised by toucans (...)

This is more believable than a childhood ignorant of its people, its history and its culture.