User:Shaudawn

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Not only a forum profile, but a character too! [deceased June 11, 2019]

—Shaudawn (talk) 04:43, 21 August 2014 (UTC)


I'm perhaps a little OCD when it comes to simulations, particularly social and building simulations, so Cantr is a guilty pleasure. As an advocate for knowledge sharing, I wholly endorse and contribute to to this wiki whenever I can. It may not always be accurate. But, I hope it helps and that with time it will help new and old players alike enhance their roleplay possibilities.

Leave me a note here or buzz me on Discord and I'll try to get to respond as time permits. However, I do ask for your patience. Lots of patience.  :P

— Shaudawn (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

TO DO List:

Feel free to add suggestions here. Just make sure you let me know that it needs doing.

Entries

Large, General Projects

some cleanup and adding notes regarding the boats that can be built on other ships and boats
maybe add tables?

Primitive Clothing Crafting Time Reductions (2021-08-24):

done

Pet Update, 2021

Announced on Day 7000 (2021-08-28), dogs and cats can now be domesticated. So I'll probably have to work that into animal domestication along with Elephants, which can now be saddled.

Plus, two more items:

Upcoming

Note: these will not be started in the wiki until actually implemented in-game. Some are still just at concept stage.

  • Chocolate
  • Peppers


Miscellaneous

I created a stub a while back. It could really use some spit and polish. Unless it's self-adhesive, then not so much spit.

Note Beautification

Though CSS may be outside of the scope of the game, the implementation of it in notes can be tricky, particularly since notes automatically get edited and will delete content if you don't now what you're doing, potentially breaking the note (for the creator). I believe that a tutorial or brief page showing how to create more beautiful notes and pages is in order.

Perhaps there can even be a mention about the CSS templates used in the game itself to modify the look of the game.

References

Cheating

No, not in the game! Never ever break the cardinal rule or you'll go to that very special hell reserved for parents who let their children get sugared up and tease dogs, people who look directly at you while talking on their cell phone, and door-to-door sales associates who keep talking after you told them you don't want their damn cleaning solvent! I'm talking about the handy little cheat sheet for editing wiki pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Cheatsheet

Templates

Templates on this wiki can be found at Category:Templates.

Style Guide

Policy guides

Player Rights

Historical Context

The topic of Player Rights was a statement bill of rights concerning the interaction between players and the moderators of the Players Department somewhere around April 2016. As put in the first version found here: "This is not to be taken as an opinion about staff behavior, and holds absolutely no authority (at this time) but is simply an investigation on the subject. Input is welcome as long as it is constructive and made in the spirit of greater game enjoyment." --Shaudawn (talk) 18:12, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

While much has changed regarding ownership and governance of the game, perhaps a version or rewrite of the Player Rights (perhaps call it the Player Bill of Rights and Responsibilities?) ought be maintained in order to remind ourselves (IMHO) why we play. I have separated a portion called Canonical Hierarchy, the Capital Paradox, and Character Knowledge to try to simplify the list. See the page history for earlier versions of the BoR

The Player Bill of Rights and Responsibilities

  1. The Capital Rule serves the players. The players do not serve the Capital Rule.
    • The operative term players means the collective player base as a whole and not one individual.
       (Thus, for example, you cannot violate the rule on consensual adult roleplay simply because you, as a single player, want to.
       Nor does it mean that because your character is a creep that you, as a single player, can ignore that rule.)
  2. Reporting a player for Capital Rule breaches is at the discretion of the offended player and shall not be obligatory.
    (i.e. If it doesn't bother you, don't sweat it.)
    • If it bothers some other player whose character is directly involved, it is the right of that player to bring the complaint to the appropriate game authority. The players right to bring such a Capital Rule breach shall not be punishable.
    • Additional players have the right to remain uninvolved in the dispute if they wish.
    • Additional players may be questioned by the appropriate game authority to give evidence or opinion concerning the perceived violation, but are under no obligation to provide evidence or opinion.
      • Furthermore, any refusal to provide any information concerning Capital Rule breaches shall not be punishable.
  3. A player is assumed innocent of Capital Rule breaches until proven guilty.
    • The primary concern of this right is the perceived and Capital Rule violations in which character action, interaction, and knowledge are in dispute.
    • At the moment, the judging authority is solely the Players Department. However, if there should come a time when a jury or player input becomes implemented, the right to trial shall not be infringed.
    • A player can be warned, educated, enlightened, etc., but punishments such as player account suspension, player account deletion, or other access to the game cannot incur.
      • One possible exception might have to be in terms of consensual roleplay involving minors or nonconsensual acts of an adult nature due to legal obligations outside of the game.
  4. What a character says is not a Capital Rule Violation. What a character does may or may not be.
    • A character is not a player.
      Thus, for example, if a character says that they can create a coconut out of thin air using magic, that is not a rule violation against the use of magic in the game. The character may be crazy, lying, or delusional. But the claim itself cannot occur in the game due to the actual game mechanics. However, if the player indicates that an actual action is being performed by their character (in the english world, usually denoted with asterisks -- such as "Player says: *He hovered six inches off the ground and turned into a bat.*) then the action may be reported. Reading another character's mind or knowing something is said or occurs on another island (assuming no radio contact) is an action.
    • Likewise, a character's beliefs shall not be infringed. (i.e. whatever a character believes about the Cantr world shall not be considered a violation of the Capital Rule. The character may be wrong. The belief may even be contrary to the game mechanics. But when stated as a character that it is that character's belief to the contrary, it shall not be considered a violation.)
    • A player shall not be in violation if they speak a foreign language incorrectly after learning how to speak it through legal means (i.e. learned through role play). Nor if a dictionary is used shall it be considered a violation if the phrases or logically deduced phrases from such a guide are used, correctly or incorrectly.
    • A player that uses a word in the Cantr world may use that word despite being incongruent with game mechanics.
      (For example, characters that refer to other characters as "family" or by familial roles like "father", "mother", "brother", and "sister" shall not be considered in violation of the Capital Rule. This includes other words.)
  5. A player has the right (but not the obligation) to divulge basic information about their character out of character (OOC),
    including on Discord, the Cantr player forums, or any other extra-game venues provided that the Four Day Rule is observed.
    The responsibility of using that information from another character is up to you and not the divulging player.
    (e.g. If player Alice says she plays the character Agnes, player Bob cannot use his character Brad to act on the information player Bob is told/discovers. In other words, player Bob has the responsibility to keep OOC information out of character Brad's head; not player Alice.)
    1. The information divulged may include, but is not limited to:
      • What characters they play.
      • General character actions, including death.
    2. While it is wise to not divulge too much information OOC, it is kind of a spoiler. It may even be dumb. But it should not be punishable.
  6. A player has the right to name their character. This includes repeated names provided the following:
    • The name is not legally offensive (i.e. has a potential for legal problems outside the game which include racially offensive or sexually explicit names)
    • The character is not a reincarnation of the previous character with the same name.
    • Does not have the knowledge of any previous character
    • Does not literally impersonate the character of another player (have explicit knowledge of another character, though after enough role play may, as a character, choose to impersonate another character)
    • Likewise, a character has the right to a basic, general, and/or vague background story (I realize this is in direct contradiction to what is stated in the Rules) provided that it does not involve any already existing character, event or location.
    • Likewise, a character has a right to their own personality, motivation, physical description, and goals before spawning provided they do not come in direct conflict with game mechanics (e.g. saying that your body is build like a brick outhouse when, in fact, you are "very weak." Granted, people on steroids might actually be like that, but the lack of steroids in the game make that very difficult).
  7. Events that occur as a result of legitimate role play cannot be held against the player.
    (e.g. If another character steals your character's boyfriend that you really, really, wanted your character to date, you cannot contact the other player through PM/e-mail/Discord/etc. and tell them, "Back off; he's mine!" Bullying like that is wrong (and illegal in some places). Likewise, if some bloodthirsty pirate character shows up out of nowhere and kills your character without a word, the Players Department cannot automatically rule that a Capital Rule violation. It might be bad roleplay. It might make you angry, and you have that right to be angry, but it doesn't mean the other player has to be punished. You have a right to report it, but don't expect that the Players Department is obligated to sanction that person.)
  8. A player has the right to briefly use out of character (OOC) communication in-game to help other players play the game.
    • This right should be allowed (I recommend in whispers and with clear markings such as ((OOC: You press the 'Talk' button.)) ) since the other player may not wish to divulge their personal information through the forum or other non-game means. There may not be any other way to let game play proceed.
    • The term briefly is loosely defined on purpose and may depend on the collective tolerance of the other players whose characters are within communication range.
    • Yes, even with the existence of the training server known as Genesis.
  9. Having two characters in the same location does not automatically constitute a Capital Rule violation.
    • Due to the player base reaching historical lows, it becomes increasingly paradoxical to expect characters to never interact with one another in any way. The paradox becomes that the OOC knowledge of which characters are where comes into conflict. For example, say you have a character as part of a ship's crew and the captain (not yourself) chooses to dock at a location where another of your characters happens to live. It becomes unreasonable for one or both of them to "play dead" without any interaction. This kind of encounter begins to come under the conflict of the following Rules:
      • "If you cannot avoid having two of your characters meet, it is best that one 'sleeps'. If interaction is unavoidable, you must carefully play as if they were played by strangers. But keep in mind, that since you as a player are controlling when your characters are awake and what they know, there are some intrinsic advantages to their interaction that no kind of roleplay can mitigate and which are unfair to other players." and
      • "Some exceptions are occasionally made in new and developing regions to allow players to have multiple characters living together."
      • Since the player base remains at historic lows, nearly all locations should now be considered the same as "new and developing regions".
      • The operative word is automatically. Players should still be extremely careful and it is wise to avoid such contact, but neither shall it be a violation. Note that the rule is worded with the idea of other players in mind (see Right #1).
  10. A character has the right to inaction. OR, a player has the right to not play their character.
    Grudgingly, though I'd much rather people take up the challenge of doing their utmost best even if they have crappy skills or start off in a lousy location, since every good writer knows that drama comes from conflict and not being a Mary Sue, sometimes you just don't want to play. Real Life gets in the way, as it annoyingly does.
    • Likewise, a character has the right to die. OR, a player has the right to kill their character.


Canonical Hierarchy, the Capital Paradox, and Character Knowledge

Background

Over time, there became some confusion between the Capital Rule and the roleplayed use of Earth knowledge. This often lead to enforcement from the Players Department regarding the usage of terms used during roleplay that another player deemed a violation. For example, if a character had learned another language using the guidelines of roleplaying it for a few years of interaction with another native speaker, but who would, in the course of speaking with a different character, would use incorrect grammar or vocabulary that the offended party didn't believe the other player ought to know, the offender was often reported and potentially punished.

This, in my mind, lead to a paradox which I coined the Capital Paradox in which the arbitrary nature of what "should" and "should not" be said/done/spoken started to overshadow the actual intent of the Capital Rule, which was to maintain a balance of play, not to dictate how another character ought or ought not roleplay.

I've broken the previous list (formerly part of the Player Rights) into a few general categories:

The Capital Paradox

The essence of the paradox is as follows:
It is/was explicitly stated in the Game Rules that every character must be played as human (and not centaur, robot, etc.) and that there is no magic in this world. (i.e. every character is expected to behave and operate as a "normal" human being, obey the laws of biology and physics, etc.)
However, this is impossible to do for the following reasons:

  • At the very least, this is both a game and a simulation. Not exclusively one or the other.
  • In reality this is neither a game (i.e. no winnable objective) nor a simulation (because the fundamental definitions, constructs, and conditions of what Cantr is to simulate cannot be fixed without starting from scratch).
  • Cantr life is canonically both real and not real. (see Canonical Hierarchy below)

And because of this conflict, the potential for arbitrary judgment exists. Those who have the power to execute these judgments will inevitably act arbitrarily despite any pretense of objective and fair play.

The Paradox and Player Rights

These are a few declarations of player rights as a result of the Capital Paradox:

  • Anything not mentioned in a canonical source can be roleplayed without being deemed a Captial Rule breech.
    (e.g. the "Do bees exist in Cantr?" question. While a beehive is an in-game machine and produce honey when you apply various flowers or beeswax when you apply honey, bees themselves are not part of the game mechanic. Some people argue that roleplaying getting stung while nearing a beehive is a Capital Rule breech. Likewise, any mention of the sun, day or night, oxygenated air, etc. Since there is no explicit rule stating that bees absolutely do not exist in Cantr, it is reasonable to assume they do exist and can be legally roleplayed as such and should not be considered a Capital Rule violation. Likewise with other reasonable entities.)
  • Note aesthetics is not a Capital Rule Breach! Just because a person uses the same font, icons, formatting, CSS styles or aesthetic background does not make it a breach of the rules. Aesthetics is not content.


Canonical Hierarchy

(proposed)

  1. Jos Elkink [Jos resigned 2019-04-26], speaking in the capacity as Word of God.
    (His game, his rules. Jos as a player...that's different and not even the Almighty incarnated should be allowed special privilege (in my humble opinion).)
  2. The Current Owner of Cantr
  3. The game mechanic (only insofar as that the function is maintained devoid of perceived meaning)
  4. The Capital Rule
  5. CantrWiki (as it pertains directly to game mechanics)
    1. Posts explicitly declared authoritative by current, sanctioned members of their respective Departments
  6. Physics, human biology, animal biology and behavior
    Note: this is why Cantr cannot ever be considered a full simulation—because in a true simulation, physics, human biology and behavior are the mechanic and are primary over the wills and whims of any staff, the owner, and even the creator.
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