Human Emotion

[oddedd]

So, as we've always known, characters in the game must be human, in description and in role-play. For example we couldn't write in a description that a character had purple fur or three eyes on their head anymore than we could role-play a man levitating or breathing fire.

But for some reason seeing the did you know made me think about it. Why then should It be any different for behavior and emotion? If the character is not feasibly human in this regard, most notably in their response to pain and fear, is this not as much as a breach as a purple haired fire breathing Cyclops?

If you haven't guessed it, my point is that more of an emphasis should be put on the necessity of fear rp. That is, the fear a character should have for their own life. We've all come across suicidal new spawn thieves, and while chancing it is entirely human, when the chips fall and you have been hit by a sabre and carry on, oblivious to fear, unless you have rp'd sociopathic, psychopathic or depression development, all characters should come out the box with the fear of death.


As for implementation, could staff advise if it would be considered time wasting if we reported these incidents, and could the culprits be spoken to regarding appropriate rp of fear? Also could something be added to the wiki and did you know that the role play of fear is expected under the, "Characters must be human" Paradigm.

[saztronic]

I think this is impossible to define, police or enforce.

There are actually varying degrees of fear and the ability to cope with it amongst the real world human population. even where death is concerned. Some people like to do things, like sky diving or extreme mountain climbing or mercenary solidiering or space exploration, in which their chance of dying is far greater than if they did not participate in these activities. Yet they are not 'afraid' exactly. They're exhilirated.

Some people, in combat, may be afraid but show no sign of it, indeed and to the contrary, actually evince tremendous valor and bravery under ridciulously dangerous conditions. Others can't step outside the doors of their houses without having a panic attack.

There's a continuum of fear. Who sets the standard for what's an appropirately RP'd fear level? Or, for that matter, what's an appropriately RP'd level of any emotion? And even if you could set the standard, who in their right mind would want to sit around adjudicating it?

[Doug R.]

The PD would have to be mind-readers to enforce this, which would make it impossible.

[oddedd]

See I don't believe the culprits need to be policed or this needs to be enforced, that's much more totalitarian than my imagining. I am simply suggesting education in that if the point that we should be thinking about fear rp (through wiki and did you know), and when a game disrupting performance is witnessed and reported, (See suicidal new spawn) they are spoken to, and asked if they had considered fear rp, and be asked to in future if they haven't, then we may all think about it a bit more, and give better performances.

[Marian]

But Cantrians are spawned, not born, and no one really understands how it works. Often something goes wrong with this mysterious spawning process and the newspawn never wakes up, or wanders off in a daze, or behaves extremely erratically. In the latter cases they sometimes have to be put down for the good of the community. It's very sad but it's a fact of existence that Cantrians have gotten used to, just like all the other weird things they experience every day and don't give a second thought to.

[SekoETC]

In real life it always takes time to heal, while in Cantr, anybody can heal even 99% by swallowing several kilos of healing food. Should that mean that the pain instantly ends as the damage goes away? If so, why would characters fear pain when it can be wiped away in an instant?

[oddedd]

But if they don't have access to this elixir, they should still fear? Plus, isn't there a suggestion in for delayed healing?

[saztronic]

With apologies to anyone who was in this town when it happened...

I tried to create a new character recently (it was quite a while ago already, but not more than 3 months ago). She spawned on Treefeather, where I already have 2 characters... so that gets complicated and not so appealing necessarily. So I played her essentially mute and a bit daft, but didn't give up on her right away. She went for the water buffalo and tried to tame one, stealing some hay to do it. Turns out she's an expert at animal husbandry. So she tries to tame it, fails, gets gored, tries again, fails, gets gored, gets gored again, tries to tame a third time, fails, gets gored again. So I tried, but again, I don't really need another character on that friggin' island and she couldn't understand why the animals she was drawn to, and apparently had some inborn skill at handling, kept spurning her and attacking her.

So in despair, I sent her out on a road with no food and she starved to death.

By your reasoning, should she rather have, as a human wth human emotions:

- instinctively demonstrated more fear of large, pointy-horned animals than she did when she spawned?
- come to fear them more after she was attacked repeatedly, and stopped trying to tame one?
- stayed in town once her domestications failed, and gotten some food, and lived, because of some innate fear of death?

No thanks. I played her how I thought she should be played, even though I knew she was more likely headed for for a quick death than to survive.

Suicidal newspawns are just part of the game. It's not the greatest, but it just is. When I first started playing years and years ago, I had 4 of my first 5 players spawn on Noniwrok island. That is just not going to work. I'm sure one of them grabbed the first weapon he could find and started attacking people, to get the death over with as quickly as possible. Put whatever you want on the wiki, report it to the PD, I'd be happy to chat with them about it, but I wouldn't have changed a thing about how I played it and would do it again...

[Black Canyon]

I've never purposely sought out the death of any of my characters, but I have no real problem with what you did with that one. As long as you allowed for the possibility of survival. (understand that that's my own little rule and I don't really expect anyone else to follow it). I certainly prefer what you did with that character to the frequent newspawns who never say one word or move a muscle. I admit that I dislike those who spawn and are active initially but then never speak again after that first day. But whatever.

I've had characters spawn near or practically on top of other characters and I admit that my first course of action is high-tailing it out of there and preferably off the island. Clearly that's an OOC influence on that character's life but... meh.

[bnlphan]

I recently lodged a similar complaint to the OP but I digressed a bit since. Several reasons come up where you have to kill a charrie. I do think there should be more fear of death but even I recently killed on off by filling his inventory with nonedibles and watched him starve because I didn't want to play him any longer. Don't want to hijack but it would be nice if we had better ways to kill charries off.
Saztronic btw 3 charries on treefeather isn't that hard. I had 9 at one time. Have to get creative at times though to keep them separate lol. Was a bit much I'm trying to spread them out some. I understand your point though and not criticising. Everyone h should play how they feel comfortable.

[Chris]

Some people throw away their lives in the real world. It seems stupid and senseless to the rest of us, but it happens, more often than we like. Google "suicide by cop" for examples. Often, such incidents take people by surprise. Reporters will interview neighbors, family, classmates, coworkers, and so on, and they often say they had no idea the person was capable of such an extreme act. Emotions can be hidden and often are.

[SumBum]

I agree with what others have posted regarding how fear isn't always obvious nor standard across the board. You can't say "you didn't ACT fearful in X situation so you're not playing right." when the char may have been trembling on the inside but cool as a cucumber on the outside. A lot of times people will force themselves to not show fear...out of fear! Fear that showing any weakness will make the situation worse.

Should chars start showing more grief over every death? Cantrians are desensitized to a lot of things. Psychotic suicidal newspawns, violence, butchering animals, death.... Almost every char in Cantr carries a weapon of some kind, even if it's nothing more than the humble bone spear. Chars hunt/kill animals on a daily basis. Chars around them die fairly often for various reasons. Many chars spar openly and practice violence. The fact that chars don't show a lot of trauma, grief, fear, etc isn't all that surprising to me.

[hyrle]

My characters only grieve when someone they consider a friend dies... or if they are separated from them for a while. And the deeper the connection, the deeper the grief. I feel that's a natural reaction. Strangers dying isn't that big of a deal to most of my characters, just because so many do.

As far as fear, many of mine border on paranoia, even though most of them live rather safe lives. It is still fun to play out that aspect.

[SumBum]

My characters only grieve when someone they consider a friend dies... or if they are separated from them for a while. And the deeper the connection, the deeper the grief. I feel that's a natural reaction. Strangers dying isn't that big of a deal to most of my characters, just because so many do.

Totally understandable. Then again, most of us in real life don't see people collapse and die in front of us on a common basis, shrug and carry on their convo with others while digging a hole, without another thought - stranger or not. That's the sort of desensitization I'm talking about. Maybe those in the medical/emergency fields wouldn't give as much thought to it, but again, they're desensitized because it happens often in their line of work. Most people in the real world are far more shaken when death occurs right in front of them, even a stranger's death. Cantrians, not so much....and there's nothing wrong with that. I'd hate having to play the RL emotions and actions that occur (shock, thinking about your own mortality, panicked attempts to resuscitate, etc) every single time any char collapsed in front of mine.

[Swingerzetta]

I'd say that since people in Cantr spawn at the age of twenty, often with their psychology, personality, and values already pre-programed, it's not too hard to imagine that some of these would start off with mental programs that just don't work right. They've had twenty years for their fear and their will to live to break down.