Jump to content
  • entries
    36
  • comments
    80
  • views
    14,585

In Character vs. Out of Character


Ferrous

364 views

Ladies and Gentlemen, Karl Marx, the famous philosopher who criticized classical economics and conceived of the notion of workers throwing off their chains to overthrow the bourgeois has not existed in the Cyberverse or Planet Bob. Yes, there was a player named KarlMarx, but that's not the same thing. There has been no Jesus Christ, no five books of Moses, no prophet of Muhammed, no Trotsky, no Adam Smith, no Thomas Hobbes or John Locke, no Germany, no Athens, Sparta, Ares, or any number of themes taken from outside of Planet Bob. These are people and concepts that exist in a world that is simply out of character, and they do not belong in Cybernations. Period.

By overtly using out of character references, the player takes away from the spirit of role playing for a number of reasons. The first is that the philosophies and references used are not original. They are not created by the players, or can be argued by the players unless someone else who also has a background in studying those concepts can argue a point. The concepts are taken from a world where communism and other ideas have a history and a context, and suddenly uprooted and placed into Cybernations. Yes, there are two major ways of organizing an alliance, "Meritocracies" and "Democracies", and granted, they are both concepts that date back to early Greece, they are English words describing how a government is run. A philosophy is different. They are invented by guys who studied this stuff for years, criticized other models, came up with something original that applied to the Real World. This is not the real world. This is the Cyberverse. Our history dates back to the year 2005. That's it. If you want to make up your own philosophy about how the cyberverse works, fine. Go with it. Run with it. Publish your ideas in a well-written article. Hell, even if you want to borrow ideas heavily from Real World philosophers and call it something different (i.e. Francoism), that's fine. At least it's somewhat original, and can be placed within the context of Cybernations. But please, don't come in to the game and spout your rhetoric to other players about how great some philosopher or Real World country is. It's an out of context reference. It does not belong in here. Save it for the water cooler or the boiler room.

With that said, even though I disapprove of out of character references, I am not advocating for censorship. I'm just hoping that players will be more careful about what they say and what references they use.

8 Comments


Recommended Comments

If you don't draw from RL, then what do you have? Not much. Am I incorrect?

Cyber Nations has real world countries (on the map anyways). Maybe that can be a basis for the incorporation of RL ideas, especially places like Germany or Athens?

Link to comment
If you don't draw from RL, then what do you have? Not much. Am I incorrect?

Cyber Nations has real world countries (on the map anyways). Maybe that can be a basis for the incorporation of RL ideas, especially places like Germany or Athens?

As I think I state in the blog itself, I have no problem from drawing from RL, as long as it isn't RL. And to some extent, I think you're right, drawing on geographic locations can be one way of doing it, but Greek culture is a lot more than just a place on a map.

Link to comment
Where do you draw the line between getting inspiration from RL and flat out copying RL institutions?

Personally, I draw the line at using the names. Using the same concept but calling it something different is okay with me. But it's really up to the player to make the game more original. It's not so much about drawing a line of "this is okay" and "this is not," but rather, constantly striving to add more originality to the game, and go in one direction and not the other.

Link to comment

It's not so important now (as CN has a history of its own), but earlier it was important to have Earth history to start from. Sure, Francoism is great for the IC flavour, but you can't expect everyone to invent a fully fledged and complex philosophical system. I don't see anything wrong with appropriating Marxism and calling it such.

Link to comment
It's not so important now (as CN has a history of its own), but earlier it was important to have Earth history to start from. Sure, Francoism is great for the IC flavour, but you can't expect everyone to invent a fully fledged and complex philosophical system. I don't see anything wrong with appropriating Marxism and calling it such.

To be fair, Francoism, as Vladimir and his colleagues write it, is not completely original. It's largely based on the real life philosopher of Thomas Hobbes, and modified for the purposes of Cybernations.

Link to comment
It's not so important now (as CN has a history of its own), but earlier it was important to have Earth history to start from. Sure, Francoism is great for the IC flavour, but you can't expect everyone to invent a fully fledged and complex philosophical system. I don't see anything wrong with appropriating Marxism and calling it such.

To be fair, Francoism, as Vladimir and his colleagues write it, is not completely original. It's largely based on the real life philosopher of Thomas Hobbes, and modified for the purposes of Cybernations.

Francoism isn't merely Hobbes' Leviathan edited with references to tech deals. It actually appropriates heavily from Nietzchean philosophy and Rousseau's Du Contrat Social. There are very few alliances that practice realpolitik in its purest form (much to my dismay ;) )

Also, Marxism cannot realistically exist on Cybernations, since a Marxist approach would require the hands of the production to rest in the proletariat. Since there are no property rights on CN, only the basic "distribution of wealth" would occur (which would be insanely hard to gauge - everyone would have to be held to an honor system for that to happen!)

Link to comment
Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...