I start to think people rather have chosen dictators

[Peter]

To understand Cantr, one needs to understand humans. And although I think I am one, I do not understand humans at all. (Yes, that includes myself.)

I'm starting to get the feeling people rather choose a dictator than do things on their own. And frankly, I don't understand that at all. Anyone care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Peter

[Piscator]

Well, in the game world it's become harder and harder to find a goal for yourself, so I assume people are actually happy if someone comes along and tells them what to do.

Or does your question refer to real life dictators?

[Eleiris]

I agree with the fact that people depend on others to think for them, most of the time.
With the way we are 'educated', we tend to think that everything is pre-established, and that nothing needs questioning. There's few of us that can think independently in this climate, and even if we have those moments of "enlightenment", it cannot happen all the time. So there's much we take for granted, and don't stop to think about.
In my case, I think have an anarchist personality, I realised this when I studied about Argentine anarchists of the XXth century. So I don't include myself in the dictator loving mob .

I could be wrong, though. Very wrong. About everything.
Please disregard this post.

[Chris]

Democracies don't work well in Cantr. Many forms can work, but one way or another, it has to be rule by the active characters in order to be a success.

[RedQueen.exe]

Democracies don't work well in Cantr. Many forms can work, but one way or another, it has to be rule by the active characters in order to be a success.

Exactly. Basically in cantr it seems dictatorships either work amazingly well or incredibly poor. Democracies wind up being a disorganized crap pile of confusion and bickering 100% of the time.

Addition: I'm convinced that the only reason the character of any older player keeps pushing for these democratic systems are purely for RP reasons. Nobody can really be that naive to think its actually going to work -this- time.

[Alladinsane]

Cantr is like the wild west, but worse. You can't have a democracy for the reasons Gimpy mentioned plus the fact that might makes right. If someone is a threat to you, you drag them into a building and kill them. There are laws against murder in some towns, but the leaders of most of these towns are above those laws and the only way to handle a perceived threat is to lock them up, usually till they starve, or to lock them up and strike them every day till they expire. Often this is done covertly so that nobody knows what happened to the missing character...no windows, no stinky bodies, no investigations etc. The power of the sword is so dominant that people who get weak strength or awkward charries turn them into suicidal newspawns or sleep spawns. This isn't going to change, the new combat system will not change it, just the order of operations. That combined with the general sleepiness and possibilities of immortality for careful characters brings about a static state and the longer term players will tend to dominate in what is becoming increasingly isolated clusters.

I am not saying it should be changed, or even that it can. The combat change will be different until ways to exploit it are arrived at, one of them is already pretty obvious. (by exploit, I dont mean cheat, just using it to its best advantage) and a senior member of the staff has already openly told us (s)he would quit if there was an old age limitation. I don't know the answers nor do I know of a better or more fun system, so we persevere with what we have and those who have the seniority will dictate to a degree, but its a big world and there are places that can be occupied if the newbs want their separation. But we are going to have our Mubarek like leaders that may only end up being ousted by player disinterest or a very organized coup of determined people who are willing to likely break several locks to get to the leader.

Then? Well if they persist they will probably kill him/her and the cycle will refeed itself.

Nope, not completely like RL, but there are some dark places where the fastest gun or claymore rules tha town.
Take 10 paces and draw!

[mojomuppet]

Democracies do not work, fair leaders do. I have seen more BS go down over a vote than anything else in Cantr.

I have a leader that cant fight her way out of a wet paper bag but can annoy you into drug addition. Likely cant kill her so your better to leave her alone. For me she is my most boring char.

I also have leaders that are so overly generous I hear I don't care your good to me tell me where to go and Im there....its all in your ability to sell you chars idea.

On the other hand....I have chars that rarely ask for anything, do what they are told, and unless you are stepping on their neck and boring me to death they do it.

I have even tried to introduce an age that you are legal to hold a leading position, that went over like a fart in church. It so made sense to me. No you cant tell my 40 year old char what to do or not do because for now you are loving the game at 23. Pffft! Take over some small town and make it better, wait for your people to spawn and convince them to stand behind you....that's right, that right there is the best experience you can ever have, and if you fail you arent hurting rich towns or well spawned town) by just giving up.

[viktor]

my experience in game is... in agreement with this.
in numerous areas i found that, sucession or grasp of power leads to larger longer lived more successful nations.
democracies in game come in a few forms, periodic voting, or life term voting. and i found a serious lack of interest in voting, so it's more like the elected ruler is the chairman of an oligarchy because only 10% of the people actually vote.
a democracy could work if people weren't trying sadistic moves on these places in vulnerable stages, or if there was more population activly trying to get the societies to work.
i found that in the first month of ruling any term position rulers i have are likely to experience an attempted assasination whereas my dictators could sit around unarmed unshielded and unshelterd without concern.
the republic of oni created during the time of the tutonic knights, was a democracy of member cities but it faded, the nation of shortinazy founded under a dictator of mine Prage around the same time is still flourishing today, go figure. and my heads of both died around the same season too.
i think the only 'democracy' that really has stood the test of time is the leaderless democracy of the stone knight clan.. more of a mob but that's beside the point

[Peter]

The Stone Knights... democracy goes as far as the mood of the players. I guess mob is a good definition indeed.

The nation of Shortinazy has been down the drain for a long time, caused by sleeping leaders. Now the leaders are friendly and soft. Seperate cities. Then again, I never knew Prage.

I don't know your other leaders, or the places you spoke about.

Is there a town around that was built upon economical structures, like different companies that take care of their own businesses settled in one town and fullfilling each others needs?

[Joshuamonkey]

the nation of shortinazy founded under a dictator of mine Prage around the same time is still flourishing today, go figure. and my heads of both died around the same season too.

It hasn't all been happy times from what I've seen, but at least it's still in existence as far as I know.
Brian Gilbert (my character) was murdered not long after Prage died due to an ambitious character who ended up getting killed himself later on. Good job, though. I liked Prage.

I stopped preferring democracy in Cantr a long time ago, but it can be hard to change a democracy. Sometimes it can work, if those elected can do what they want, like Kwor. The Imperial Republic also worked fine as a democracy I believe, before it died out from a war and the sleeping sickness, but that's not really related.

Doryiskom's very limiting democracy was frustrating at times, but it was interesting at least. I'm not so sure that a dictatorship would have worked much better.
My philosophy is basically that, if my character has absolute power, then it's okay. Otherwise, not so much.

[Cwalen]

I believe the reason why more representative systems of governance aren't working is that there is no real need for people. It's a big problem that is being worked on.

Imagine yourself as a town leader. You have the keys to ten buildings and twenty vehicles, you have good strength, weapon skills and equipment. You have a huge pile of healing food locked away, along with piles of equipment, food and resources.

A years work will feed you for 30, you already have access to two of anything that you need.

Apart from a driven packrat mentality to acquire one of everything, what else can you want?

Why would you bother? if not for a love of Cantr, interacting with other people on anything other than "if you please me you may have some scraps from the table"? You need a cohort or two, perhaps a loyal guard or two. That and a radio with access to a few others and you don't need to fear anything, don't require anything.

Trouble makers can be driven off or frozen out, newspawns exploited, zombies fed to keep them alive and increase the chance of more newspawns. There is absolutely no reason to even considering respecting anyone else.

[Addicted]

Awww. Move towns. Come to one of mine. Build an empire, conquor, wage war?

[Cwalen]

Oh believe me, any charter of mine that has not seen a future in a year or two, or at least a reason to believe in a future has moved on.

Not only am I big and bold and I am old and jaded besides.

The ranting that I am doing here is based round more a perception of what would it be like for someone who just joined the game and spawned in three of the most boring/repressive places that I have seen. I am not wondering why new players are leaving as fast as they arrive, I am struck by wonder that any stick at all.

Of course apparently not many do. I think we as players can work on that.

Cantr is a player driven game, as much as the wizards who work on the wiring under the board are doing all they can I am going to spend a few months campaigning to all who will listen to do their part as well.

[RedQueen.exe]

Wait, are we talking about dictatorships or boring repressive places now? Because I don't think they're the same thing, and in fact, I've probably seen a greater percentage of boring repressive democracies in cantr than dictatorships.

As important as it is to give new players some stuff: it shows you trust them, and that their efforts here will not be wasted, its probably more important to give them responsibility. A role to play, so they feel like they matter.

And a lot of the dictators that you're talking about fall into the same trap I did when I first started playing. They care more about having stuff than actually building a world.

I think an additional problem within the game is that we have almost no well-played evil people. Characters that are "evil" usually are just the type that take an opportunity to kill someone for their stuff if they get the chance and that's it. They don't plot, don't build up a force of loyal minions... heck, there are too few loyal minions to be had. The lack of any real danger or threat in this world has turned it into one big RP chat room, that includes the need to occasionally click on "start harvesting potatoes"

[Chris]

I think an additional problem within the game is that we have almost no well-played evil people. Characters that are "evil" usually are just the type that take an opportunity to kill someone for their stuff if they get the chance and that's it. They don't plot, don't build up a force of loyal minions... heck, there are too few loyal minions to be had. The lack of any real danger or threat in this world has turned it into one big RP chat room, that includes the need to occasionally click on "start harvesting potatoes"

That's the problem when you leave stories 100% in the hands of players. A few will be talented in creating interesting conflict with depth, but most of us just muddle along based on the game's incentives. I doubt that will ever change because it's considered a good thing, not a problem, by most.