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

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:

• Characters are affected by the core or implicit knowledge of the player, including, to a limited extent, the language, philosophy, and personality of the player.
• The Capital Rule doesn’t apply to the Intro or Tutorial World of Cantr (https://intro.cantr.net).

The following describes each part of the Capital Rule:

A Character’s Perspective

• Knowledge is power, and obtaining knowledge is one challenge a character must overcome through its own experiences in the game. One character does not automatically know anything that another character knows, including previous characters.
• A character’s perspective also includes its motives, desires, and even emotions. For example, a character’s goals and decisions should not be affected by what happens to other characters of the same player.

The World of Cantr

• While a character can believe, think, or say things that are not true about the world, roleplayed actions or events (often within *asterisks*) should reflect what is possible or reality in the world of Cantr.
• Cantr, or the world in which characters live, is intended to represent real life. The mechanics of Cantr, including materials, construction, and travel, were implemented with this in mind, but do not necessarily reflect real life, due to technical limitations or for Cantr to be a persistent and slow-paced game (not requiring quick responses by players). Limits on the frequency in which one can attack other characters is an example of this.
• The mechanics of Cantr continue to evolve as additions and improvements are made (see the Discord chat channels to participate in changes to the game).
• The implemented mechanics of the game are the authority in terms of what is reality, and where not specified or implemented, one can assume reality or nature is the same as on Earth.
• There is no magic in Cantr, but characters can think there is magic.
• The form of a character’s body is chosen by the player and can be anything that is possible in real life without any events outside of the character’s experience (a new character can’t spawn with battle scars). The same applies to describing animals, within reason. Note that a character’s public description may be used to describe anything that another person would easily notice upon seeing the character. See examples for “Character Description” at the table below.

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:

• The player (or one of their characters) has committed one of the items listed as meriting a warning (described below).
• The PD team has been informed of the proposed warning and associated message for at least 24 hours (unless it is an emergency situation).
• There is a current majority vote by PD, and at least 1.5 votes (the department chair has a vote of 1.5).

Details:

• The first warning a player ever receives is not counted against them, so they must receive another later warning before receiving a punishment.
• Only one warning may be issued at a time, and a subsequent warning must be for infractions committed after the last warning. A warning only lasts 6 months.
• Upon reaching a second warning, a player may receive one of the restrictions listed in “Restrictions of punishments that the PD may require only after a player is warned”.
• Upon reaching 3 warnings, a player may be banned with a unanimous vote by the Game Administration Board (GAB).
• If the Players Department determines a case where a player is breaking an aspect of the Capital Rule that is not specified in this document as meriting a warning, the Players Department may notify the player and request their cooperation only after a vote by the Game Administration Board, and this request may not be counted as a warning against the player.
• Any substantial change or additions to the policies in this document require approval by the Game Administration Board, and as with all GAB proposals, players should be informed of the change.

When a warning is issued, the following procedure applies:

• The warning message is sent after consideration by the Players Department.
• The player is informed:
  • that they are receiving a warning.
  • for which specific infraction the warning is for (from the public list).
  • what may happen as a consequence of a future infraction.

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:

• To avoid situations where the Capital Rule would likely be broken.
• To avoid inevitable or subconscious player bias due to knowing information that their character doesn’t, and to not impose such extra information on players.
• To make enforcing the Capital Rule reasonable (it can be difficult to know the motivations of players).
• To make the game as fair as possible for all players.

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):

• Attacking a character with two or more characters of the same player.
• Dragging a character with two or more characters of the same player.
• Passing items or notes between characters of the same player, including dropping and picking up (there must be the character of another player involved).
• Unlocking a door or lock for another character of the same player.
• Working on the same project as another character of the same player.
• Voluntarily traveling in the same vehicle as another character of the same player.
• Whispering to another character of the same player.
• Having three or more characters in the same town (regardless of the building, etc.).
• Revealing events to another player (or publicly) less than 4 days after the event passed.
• Having more than one character in both the same town and the same organization (e.g. both are town officials).
• Creating a character in a language in which one only knows a few words (practice elsewhere first and learn basic grammar and conversation).
• Creating another Cantr account when one already has an active account.
• Publicly or privately sharing information about the Cantr world (as opposed to old events) that Cantr staff has not made publicly available (for example, on the wiki). This includes maps, resource locations, locations of organizations, or locations of characters other than your own (exception: information from Cantr may be shared with someone who is one of the following: a Player Advocate, a member of the Players Department, a member of the Game Administration Board).
• Revealing who the players of specific characters are, without permission by the player See examples for Language, Philosophy, and Skilled Knowledge in the table below (“Capital Rule Examples”).
• Engaging in ERP (erotic roleplay), submitting sexual, graphic, or obscene content with more than one other character present in the same location (even if whispering) or without permission from the player of the other character (they and you must be 18 years or older). Consent may be stated through one’s character in parenthesis or prefaced by “OOC:” (out of character).
• Breaking Cantr’s Terms of Use in any other way.

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. To request consent for explicit content where there is more than one other character present, you may use this form: ERP and Graphic Content Consent Form

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

• Planning the future actions of characters outside of the game with other players who will be involved in any way.
• Anything in the “Not allowed” category of provided examples.

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.

• That specific characters of a player in the same location separate (one must leave the town).That two characters in the same organization leave the organization, regardless of location.
• That a specific character no longer participates in ERP (sexual roleplay) or graphic violence, regardless of the situation.
• That a specific character doesn’t speak out of character (using OOC) for any reason other than consent.
• That a character or player not participate in a particular in-game situation (such as an attack).
• That a character leave a specific town or vehicle for a period of time less than one Cantr year (20 days).
• That characters of one player don’t interact with or stay in the same location as the characters of another player, if there is evidence that the players live in the same household or know each other outside of Cantr and the Cantr community.
• Locking a specific character for 7 days or less.

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.

• Asking a player not to engage in any sexual roleplay or graphic violence.
• Limiting the number of characters a player may have.
• Restricting the creation of any new characters.
• Restricting the creation of character(s) in a specific language.
• Restricting speaking OOC at all with one’s characters.
• Locking a specific character for 14 days or less.
• Locking a player’s account for 14 days or less.
• Requiring a character or any characters of a player to not be present at a particular town or vehicle (for more than 20 days).
• Asking characters of one player not to interact with or stay in the same location as the characters of another player.

The following also require a vote by the GAB

• Locking a player for a second time within a 6 month period, if more than 14 days in total.
• Removing (killing) a character of a player, or locking the character for more than 14 days.
• Banning a player from the game.

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:

• Has received 2 or more warnings in the past 6 months and has merited a third warning.
• The GAB votes unanimously to ban the player.
• The player has received a punishment within the past year and has received another warning since then (lesser punishment first before banning).

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):

• Attempt at (or successful) sabotaging or hacking the game of Cantr.
• Attempt at stealing of private information or data from Cantr.
• Using information from Cantr to create a competitor game, in such a way that violates Cantr’s Terms of Use or the Staff Volunteer Agreement (email permissions@cantr.org to request permission on a case-by-case basis).
• Using Cantr or Cantr player communities to stalk or threaten players or anyone in real life.
• Where legal action is being taken against the player in relation to their use of Cantr.

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

• Not merit any warnings (banned players do not necessarily receive warnings until they request reentry) or break any rules for the original duration of the ban, plus three months for any rule they break after banning (e.g. trying to make another account). This means that if a player is banned for 6 months, they must not have broken Cantr’s terms for the last 6 months prior to requesting removal of the ban, or the last 12 months if they broke Cantr’s terms twice after being banned.
• Contact the Players Department or Game Administration Board with the following:
• Request removal of their ban from Cantr.
• State that they have read and understand Cantr’s Capital Rule Clarifications and Policies (this document) and agree to follow them.
• The Players Department may additionally request the following:
  • Demonstrate understanding on a particular point.
  • Agree to follow certain restrictions on their game-play (see the lists above for possible restrictions).

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):

• Collaborating or planning outside of Cantr with other players.
• Attempting to use a second or additional account to play Cantr.
• Speaking or submitting sexual content, ERP, or graphic violence or other obscene content without proper consent or with more than one other character present.
• Trying to persuade players inside the game to stop playing the game.
• Breaking a “Safety Precaution”.
• Not following requests by the Players Department (received as messages on one’s Player Page after logging in).
• Using Cantr to send spam messages or advertisements.
• Harassing a player or a member of Cantr staff.
• Speaking to someone after being requested to stop (not through roleplay).
• Personal attacks towards an individual player or staff member either privately or publicly (on Cantr, Cantr communities, or elsewhere).
• Threatening a player or a member of Cantr staff.
• Using Cantr or Cantr events or relationships to blackmail someone.
• 4-day rule.
• Unrealistic character or item description.
• Inappropriate information in description.
• Creating a character in a language you don’t know.
• A character speaking a language they did not properly learn in-game (with a minimum of 2 Cantr years for fluency).
• Unrealistic roleplay.
• Unreasonable advanced or specialized knowledge from the real world.
• Named reference to something from the real world or outside the character’s experience.
• Quotes or lyrics from the real world or outside the character’s experience.
• Speaking out of character excessively or without a valid reason.
• Direct reference (even if not explicitly named) to religions, organizations, or documents outside of the character’s experience.

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

• Requesting or giving consent for sexual or graphic roleplay.
• Asking or answering a question about how the game works, in relation to what one of the characters present is trying to do. Such OOC conversation should be limited to a few sentences or statements; if more clarification is needed, please use the staff contact form on cantr.net, ask at #peer_support on Discord, or ask a member of Cantr staff.

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.

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?

• In a broad sense, sexual content can be any content that would likely arouse sexual feelings to a reader or arouse such feelings in someone experiencing or viewing the roleplayed action in real life. Usually it is obvious when someone is intentionally writing roleplay in this way.
• More concretely, as mentioned earlier, content requiring consent is anything not permitted in a rated R film (which requires parental consent below 17 or 18). Also, any content that legally requires consent or parental permission.
• In addition, for Cantr, any roleplay or statement that refers to a private body part while using sexual language or romantic action (e.g. kissing or hugging while explicitly touching private parts).
• We do not restrict kissing by itself without consent, though the Players Department may request keeping this private where kissing is exaggerated and other players are bothered.

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.

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:

• provide all requested information regarding the characters taking part in the suspected breach
• implement character actions in the game world as requested by PD
• maintain privacy and anonymity of the conversation regarding the PD member and other affected players

The Player has the right to:

• be treated with respect
• ask for specific recommendations for what each character should do to resolve the case
• request the supervision of the PD chair over the case
• request investigation by the Game Administration Board if the Player suspects that PD is handling the case incorrectly or unfairly

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.

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:

• Character`s body attributes (height, girth, hair color, scars, etc)
• Greater detail of clothing or jewelry (her boots are unlaced, his sleeves are rolled up, etc)

Information/behavior that is not allowed:

• Anything that breaks the CR
• Anything that can be contradicted by the game mechanics (wearing clothing you don`t own, etc)
• Exploitation for the purpose of invisible communication between characters (descriptions are logged)
• Unrealistic changing of attributes (red haired man robs town, changes hair to blue after escaping to avoid identification without role-playing a dyeing process, etc.)

Grey areas:

• Things that can be contradicted by character actions. It would be wrong to put that your character is sleeping under a bush when they`re active. If you do this, you need to be vigilant about updating your descriptions as necessary.
• Things that can be contradicted by future implementations. Mechanics always trump RP, so if your character puts in their description that they have a tattoo, and tattoos are later implemented, they would need to get a real tattoo to justify the description. The best way to judge if something will be implemented or not would be to check the suggestions forum (be sure to do a search first before posting again). If you do choose to risk descriptions like tattoos, etc, the gaining of said attributes should be role-played, not magically endowed.

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.

• It's not permitted to set descriptions which are inconsistent with the object name. Descriptions are usually single-language only, so it should be possible to roleplay without fully understanding them.
• It's not permitted to set descriptions which make the object more similar to an object of another type than the described object is (for example, a cotton shirt cannot be long sleeved, because we have the object long sleeved cotton shirt. However long sleeved cotton shirt can "lose" sleeves when they are affected by significant roleplay matters [ragged during the battle]).
• Object descriptions shouldn't mention additional materials which are not used for manufacturing the object (for example bone earrings can't have anything about gold or iron in their description).
• Object descriptions shouldn't be changed dramatically (the length of a bone spear shouldn't change from 3' to 6'), but even significant changes are allowed if they are correctly roleplayed (a blue coat can become a red coat if you RP the dyeing process). Generally "ragged" object descriptions shouldn't become "brand new" in the description.
• Descriptions, like character descriptions, should describe only objective characteristics of the item. No implying other people's actions. (Bad description example: "These earrings are so nice that you constantly look at them."). It also is not permitted to describe actions done with the object (especially when it's not a piece of clothing). Bad description example: "This sword is always in the hands of its bearer." That would look strange when lying on the ground. It would also be strange in the inventory of a character who has no hands. Such detailed descriptions belong in the character's decription. One exception is clothing items: you can assume clothing is worn in a conventional manner. For example, you can expect gloves to be worn on the hands.
• It should be easy to distinguish between the description of the object itself and text written on an object's label. For example, the description "red bottle" is ambiguous. It could mean that the bottle is red or that the bottle has a label that says "red bottle". Instead, you could use *red bottle*, *a big bottle with a label*, or "big bottle with the label: 'red bottle'".