Cantr II

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Game rules
The following page contains all rules regarding actions in the game.
Capital Rule

Cantr’s mission is to foster creativity, learning, and communication in a world simulating the challenges of real life.

To accomplish this mission, the game of Cantr has one rule, the Capital Rule, which applies to all players of Cantr and is monitored by the Players Department, which consists of volunteer players.

The Capital Rule is that each character must be played subject to the limitations of its own perspective and the world in which it resides.

The following exceptions apply:

The following describes each part of the Capital Rule:

A Character’s Perspective

The World of Cantr

Exception: Core Knowledge of the Player

The diversity of perspectives and talents that different players bring from around the world is one aspect that makes Cantr appealing. Players’ perspectives manifest themselves in their characters. We encourage players to play character as different from themselves (the player) and especially different from their other characters, but we acknowledge that a character is dependent on their player as much as a car is dependent on the driving skills of the driver. See examples for Language, Philosophy, and Skilled Knowledge in the table below (“Capital Rule Examples”).

Exception: Intro World (Tutorial)

The Intro World of Cantr (https://intro.cantr.net) is a place for new players to become accustomed to the game and ask questions. As such, the Capital Rule is not enforced on the Intro World and characters may speak from a player’s complete perspective. However, we strongly encourage the use of roleplay and following the Capital Rule here in most cases in order to help new players learn and for an engaging roleplay experience on the Intro World.

Capital Rule Examples

Here are some examples, with “Acceptable” use of a player’s knowledge on the left, “Debatable” in the middle, and “Not Allowed” on the right. Items in “Debatable” are not restricted but some could later be changed to “Not Allowed” or be requested by the Players Department in specific circumstances (without this being counted against you as a warning).



Category

Acceptable

Debatable

Not Allowed

Language

General language

Idioms that don't make sense in Cantr.

Specific references to named persons, places, animals, or objects that a character has not seen or heard of.

 

Speaking with a dialect or accent based on real life.

References to things that don't exist in Cantr but that a character would reasonably be aware of on Earth (e.g. bugs).

Lyrics or quotes from real life or that the character has not heard or read.

Philosophy

Philosophies on life or society, such as that killing is bad and the concept of elections.

Using a near-exact copy of a real life constitution, document, or religion as basis for an organization in Cantr.

Direct references to religion or government outside of Cantr.

 

Understanding of family relationships, including marriage.

References to general political movements such as democracy and communism.

References to specific political parties except as general terms.

Skilled knowledge

Basic math skills, such as addition, fractions, and degrees (e.g. to navigate ships).

Acting as an expert on a mechanic of Cantr (like sailing ships or domesticating animals) without the character having any experience doing it.

Using very specialized real-world knowledge without justification (e.g. automatically knowing advanced chemistry or details about outer space).

 

The ability to read and write.

   
 

A player using a calculator or spreadsheet for what the character does by hand (characters have more time on their hands than their players).

   
 

A character learning a language much faster than the player.

Becoming fluent in a language after 2 Cantr years (40 days) have passed but with little to no effort practicing the language (through roleplay).

Near instantly becoming fluent in another language or speaking words one has not seen or heard before (before reasonable exposure to the language and at least 2 Cantr years).

Collaboration

Planning within the game through roleplay when or how to carry out an action, including attacks or stealing.

Using OOC messages within the game to plan actions or explain your schedule.

Planning outside of Cantr with another player to do something with their characters, or planning when to do something (including on the forum, Discord, email, or a phone conversation).

Pre-knowledge

Having a character spawn with a predetermined name or personality.

Spawning with a specific goal unlikely of someone who doesn't have knowledge about Cantr history or towns (e.g. start a multi-town organization, be a pirate).

Using specific information about history, towns, or other characters that the character did not learn themselves.

     

Attempting to spawn a character in a specific location, or go to a specific town or character right after spawning. This includes having characters intentionally die right after spawning (to spawn another character).

Character Description

Unusual body height, color, or disability that has existed in real life.

An extreme or rare deformity that exists in real life.

Different body form than is possible (e.g. wings, 6 limbs, tail).

Warnings

A Players Department (PD) member (volunteer staff member) may issue a player a warning under the following conditions:

Details:

When a warning is issued, the following procedure applies:

Safety Precautions

In order to avoid problems with the Capital Rule and to make it reasonable to enforce (it can be difficult to know the motivations of players), Cantr staff (the Players Department) enforce restrictions on some actions that do not necessarily break the Capital Rule. These restrictions are motivated by the following:

Note that players who live in the same household or who have the same IP address are treated as the same player in all of the following restrictions and for any other aspects of the Capital Rule (this does not apply to the total number of characters allowed).

The following restrictions apply regardless of the situation (doing these merit official warnings, and the code of the game may prevent some of these actions):

While having to change the behavior of your character to follow a precaution isn't necessarily an excuse, you may request permission from the Players Department for specific cases where following the safety precaution would be unreasonable, if it does not break Cantr's Terms of Use. The Players Department will decide this by vote.

The following actions always break the Capital Rule (and merit a warning):

Restrictions or actions that the Players Department may require in specific cases, without the player having broken a rule and without warning (but with a provided reason and the same voting requirements as warnings)

The PD may or may not put a time limit on these restrictions.

Restrictions or punishments that the PD may require only after a player is warned for something which relates to the restriction

These restrictions are limited to 6 months the first time the player receives a punishment, and to one year the second time.

The following also require a vote by the GAB

Account Locks

A “lock” or “locking” is a temporary ban from using any of one’s characters.

In emergency situations, a member of PD may temporarily lock a player’s account with agreement from at least one other member of PD or GAB, or a majority vote if there are any dissenting opinions. The player must receive an explanation for the lock. An emergency lock must be removed after 14 days or less, unless the player satisfies the requirements for banning and the GAB votes to do so before the 14 days pass. After a player has been locked for 14 days within a 3 months period, GAB may vote to extend the lock by up to 14 days (or ban the player); otherwise, the player must be unlocked. GAB may choose to extend a lock multiple times, but the vote must end after the previous lock period began.

Banning

A player may be banned (locked from creating or playing any characters) if they satisfy the following requirements:

A player may not be banned for more than 6 months the first time. If after playing again (for any amount of time) they merit two warnings within 6 months, they may be banned for one year.

The following cases merit permanent banning from the game as well as from staff (a permanent ban requires a GAB vote to remove):

In order to be unbanned, the banned player must do the following:

Capital Rule Cheat Sheet

The following are the types of infractions for which a player may receive a warning (players will be informed of the type they committed):

Valid reasons for a character to speak out of character (OOC):

What is considered ERP?

What is considered graphic violence or obscene content?

What is not permitted even with consent?

The Four-day Rule
It is not allowed to discuss events Out Of Character with other players that might influence any ongoing action.
Concluded events such as character deaths may not be discussed OOC in the forums, Discord, or private communications for a minimum of four days.
The Non-Consensual Sex Rule (NCS Rule)

Cantr is open to players of age 13 and above. Before engaging in any sexual, obscene, or graphically violent roleplay, or sharing such content, you must first secure OOC consent from an adult player (18 or older). There may be only one other character present in the location (the one who gave consent), and the graphic content may not be recorded in notes.

Consent may be stated through one’s character in parenthesis or prefaced by “OOC:” (out of character).

Whispering does not waive the requirement of only one character in the same location, nor is it permitted where there are two or more other characters who's players gave consent.

You are allowed to ask for confirmation of the player's age from the Players Department in private, but it is your responsibility to obtain consent.

What is considered ERP?

What is considered graphic violence?
Where there is no consent by both players, or where there are more than two characters present:

  1. No sadistic or masochistic (pleasurable) harm to someone's body.
  2. Nothing that wouldn't be permitted in any film not requiring parental consent (e.g. PG-13).
  3. Any sort of abuse or roleplayed violence against one's own character that the player isn't comfortable with.
  4. Where something else bothers other players present, the Players Department can decide by vote.
Players Department - rights and responsibilities
The Players Department (PD) is responsible for guiding players, investigating suspected rule breaches (especially the Capital Rule) and imposing sanctions.
Sanctions on player for breaking the rules or causing disruptions for other players (by spam or unjustified use of OOC communication) is based on the significance of the breach, its impact on the game, the player's case history, prior decisions in similar cases and the player's will to cooperate.

The Player is obliged to: The Player has the right to:
One language rule
This is an implication of the Capital Rule.

Each character spawns knowing only one language, no matter how many you as a player know.

Your characters may travel or meet characters from other language zones and learn new languages in game. But, even if you as a player have knowledge of a second language OOC, you must roleplay for each character a language-learning process for a minimum of forty (40) days.
You are allowed during this process to describe the actions of your character using any common language, though your character may only speak words learned in game.
It's understood that characters will learn grammar from experience, but some attempt should be made to explore it. Furthermore, machine translation such as Google Translate may aid in the language-learning process, but it is not sufficient on its own.

While we encourage using Cantr to learn languages, you are not allowed to spawn a character in a language in which you have no working knowledge.

Guidelines for Character Descriptions

The character custom description box is provided as a convenient means for players to relay character information to other characters in their location. Use of this box is a privilege, and can be revoked by the Players Department if abused. Click here to see an extensive list of examples.

Allowable information:

Information/behavior that is not allowed:

Grey areas:

Please exercise good judgment and common sense when using this feature. As summarized by Natso and Piscator on our forum: Describe the physical, and perhaps habitual, details of your character, as though being viewed by an unbiased stranger. As a rule of thumb, don`t put anything in there you wouldn`t emote.

You can report descriptions in violation of these guidelines with the button provided.

Object descriptions guidelines