Things that annoy or puzzle you about Cantr

[Marian]

I think it's perfectly understandable for people to get upset, but it is dangerous to jump from "that char killed my char" to the conclusion that "that player should be punished in real life". Actors who play villains in a movie or TV show are not that way off-set. It's no different with Cantr. We're all actors here.


Anyway, just a reminder that players are not their chars and please keep that separation in mind when venting.

They weren't even my characters actually, and I do agree with all that, but you IMO you can't and shouldn't completely separate the character from the player. Even when I'm really, really into an RP, I'm always mindful there's a real person on the other end of whoever I'm interacting with. Which is why we have a consent rule for certain things they may just not want to be a part of, and why I'd never kill a char without giving them a chance to respond...in NDS if nothing else. Not giving them a chance to take any part in the end of their character's story is just disrespectful and a slap in the face. With the way combat works in Cantr there's absolutely no reason to rush. 99.99% of the time, if you're in a position to kill another character, they're completely helpless to stop you and will be that way forever.

It doesn't matter what the char doing the killing is like, or what the victim is like...my question is always, why is one player knowingly and deliberately being a jerk to another?

I guess I just sort of view it like godmoding in freeform RP -- a huge breach of etiquette that should never, ever happen if you're playing at all in good faith, and rightfully makes others not to want to have anything to do with you anymore if you make a habit of it. Except in Cantr the effects are kind of tragically permanent.

[Friar Briar]

But how you determine bad roleplayer? I mean not all are great book writers and all and some are not even native english speakers Maybe it's lack of common language?

It's really about thought and intention, not language or writing. Good role-play is about paying attention to cues, others' choices, and having some active thought on how to contribute to group action and events. It's about being mindful of how to participate.

[computaertist]

1. The person simply doesn't know how much of an impact their actions have on the other player. Not everyone is involved on the forums. There are casual players, not just the intense players we see here.

2. They could just be avoiding the chance for the victim to fight back. It makes sense as a tactic. Attack and leave before the other has a chance to respond. I've seen this being used by some of the oldest players in this game. And I'd caution anyone trying to say negative things about them.

3. They might just not be as good of a roleplayer, so they don't receive as much of a benefit from roleplaying out a situation. The action to them might simply be more entertaining than dialogue or interacting. That doesn't make them.a bad person, simply a bad roleplayer.

1. For this reason I wouldn't want anyone punished in real life the first time, but I would like them forced to read their character's victim's player's reaction so they know what impact they had. I also wouldn't seriously want anyone punished in real life up to the umpteenth time because this is just a game in the end; if the community's gonna suck that bad then the hurt players can all just quit and leave the bad players to have the game for themselves. It would be nice, though, if after the second time reading their character's victim's player's reaction if they do it again they can't play anymore because by then they should know better.

2. This only makes sense until the victim is in NDS. Then it abruptly stops making sense. Also, I really wish the game mechanics could be changed so that it never made any sense.

3. I wish bad role players (by the definition of the ones that don't even attempt to role play with their victims, whatever language they speak) weren't allowed to play murderers, but of course that would be impossible to enforce except to stop the bad role players from playing at all which is way overkill unless they fall under number 1 above. They might be playing useful characters too.

[Kyriel]

Some people just play games to bring chaos to others. It's fun for them

Now, now. Causing chaos can be a lot of fun, especially when many people live in towns where the worst thing to happen in them for ages is that some newspawn stole something trivial. However, it's much more fun to roleplay said chaos.

Now, the most dramatic abduction+murder I was involved in (that wasn't just killing some sleeper that hadn't said anything in ages and didn't even respond to being attacked), many game-years ago, ohh, that was a mess. The whole thing had been sparked by his own behavior IC, and not just a spur-of-the-moment "hey let's abduct some random person". Well, instead of responding in-character to being abducted, he let out a huge OOC rant and then further whined on the forum. After... entirely too much of that, we pretty much told him to knock it off and respond IC. Which he did, very briefly, and promptly went to sleep. I hadn't even intended to kill him, as it would have been more entertaining to abduct him, even give him a chance at a better life, but we weren't going to go to the trouble of dragging him around and feeding him if he was just going to sleep.

So... yeah, it's not just the criminals who are terrible roleplayers sometimes.

[Axiom]

Some people just play games to bring chaos to others. It's fun for them

Yeah, but even so, you can be fun about it. If you're going to do something mean to someone, I think you have an obligation to be as entertaining as possible in the process. It's very unsportsmanlike to give other people a boring death.

I agree with Kyriel about poor victims, though. Obviously poor killers are worse, but it annoys me when I go to the effort of providing a novel and entertaining kidnapping only for the victim to not play along or give up without even trying to talk their way out of it. Even though odds are good I'll let them go if they entertain me. Sure, it's an antagonistic situation, but aren't we all ultimately on the same side of telling an interesting story? I really don't understand players who can't stand any kind of conflict or adversity, no matter how well executed. If you can't abide the notion of something bad happening to your character, why are you playing a game where it's possible?

[Marian]

Some people just play games to bring chaos to others. It's fun for them

Yeah, but even so, you can be fun about it. If you're going to do something mean to someone, I think you have an obligation to be as entertaining as possible in the process. It's very unsportsmanlike to give other people a boring death.

I agree with Kyriel about poor victims, though. Obviously poor killers are worse, but it annoys me when I go to the effort of providing a novel and entertaining kidnapping only for the victim to not play along or give up without even trying to talk their way out of it. Even though odds are good I'll let them go if they entertain me. Sure, it's an antagonistic situation, but aren't we all ultimately on the same side of telling an interesting story? I really don't understand players who can't stand any kind of conflict or adversity, no matter how well executed. If you can't abide the notion of something bad happening to your character, why are you playing a game where it's possible?

Agreed 100%.

What we really need is some kind of dating service over the radio to set up prisoners with captors who match their personality and roleplay style.

[Marian]

^^^wait no I forgot that already happened, and it was awful

[Auryn]

1. The person simply doesn't know how much of an impact their actions have on the other player. Not everyone is involved on the forums. There are casual players, not just the intense players we see here.

2. They could just be avoiding the chance for the victim to fight back. It makes sense as a tactic. Attack and leave before the other has a chance to respond. I've seen this being used by some of the oldest players in this game. And I'd caution anyone trying to say negative things about them.

3. They might just not be as good of a roleplayer, so they don't receive as much of a benefit from roleplaying out a situation. The action to them might simply be more entertaining than dialogue or interacting. That doesn't make them.a bad person, simply a bad roleplayer.

1. For this reason I wouldn't want anyone punished in real life the first time, but I would like them forced to read their character's victim's player's reaction so they know what impact they had. I also wouldn't seriously want anyone punished in real life up to the umpteenth time because this is just a game in the end; if the community's gonna suck that bad then the hurt players can all just quit and leave the bad players to have the game for themselves. It would be nice, though, if after the second time reading their character's victim's player's reaction if they do it again they can't play anymore because by then they should know better.

2. This only makes sense until the victim is in NDS. Then it abruptly stops making sense. Also, I really wish the game mechanics could be changed so that it never made any sense.

3. I wish bad role players (by the definition of the ones that don't even attempt to role play with their victims, whatever language they speak) weren't allowed to play murderers, but of course that would be impossible to enforce except to stop the bad role players from playing at all which is way overkill unless they fall under number 1 above. They might be playing useful characters too.

You honestly want all of this to be regulated? Not only would that be an uncessesary strain on the PDS, it would be nearly impossible to determine what deserves "punishment" and what doesn't. And telling people whether or not they should play a specific role is OOC and completely contradicts the point of this game. It's not fair to other players to keep them from playing a certain way simply on the basis that you don't like it.

[computaertist]

No, I don't honestly want it to be regulated. I honestly just want the mechanics changed so it becomes a non-issue. The only thing I actively dislike about Cantr's mechanics is the "combat" mechanics, and certain play style compound how awful it is exponentially so I can't help but agree there seems to be something wrong with the players that make playing a miserable experience in those ways.

[Kyriel]

Instantly hitting someone for however much damage and then waiting another day to hit them again always struck to me to no end as bizarre. I get that they wanted some restriction to it, sure, but it's really quite far from the method I would have used. If the intent was to get people to roleplay combat while they were waiting to hit again, I think it pretty much utterly failed at that, and winds up straining suspension of disbelief in many cases. Characters can run out of a locked building or cabin, hit someone once, then hide inside again with no opportunity for retaliation beyond attempting to break the lock. There's no tactical considerations beyond that, little risk, and the outcome is weighted heavily toward the one who attacks first, provided they can do much damage at all. Is it any wonder that some have found this to be abuseable?

Still, whatever its flaws, it does seem to work and serve its purpose. Every combat system I've seen in a game has been flawed in some way, some of them ridiculously so. The usual problem, though, is the lack of opportunity to struggle or fight back. But whatever the system is, some people are going to work with it to create fun situations, and others are just going to be boring killers.

[Rebma]

Uhm, hey mods? Why was my post edited? It contained no names nor places nor ongoing IG information? I'd appreciate contact from the one who edited it since clearly I was so vague they only assumed I was talking about something recent? Idk.

I'm sure you'll edit tthis too, but of the two deaths they're both well over the four-day rule (two IG years is a bunch over, I'd say) and definitely not on-going. So...please put my post back?

[Marian]

Yeah I was wondering about that too. That post had no details at all, and just the fact that it was edited out at all gave away a whole lot more than what it contained in the first place. Some mod maybe had just a little bit too much of an itchy trigger finger there I think.

[Marian]

had a reply to Kyriel's post here, it got eaten, going to bed mad at a forum

[Axiom]

I admit I'm very curious as to what was in the post, although I gather Rebma had a character murdered without getting a chance to respond.

[Rebma]

Not at all! It was just a vague nameless dateless locationless comment regarding the sadness of knowing two players had been, inin the past, robbed the chance to rp an end chapter. And saying insta kills with NDS is shameful.