The Chat Thread

[+Sorana she/her]

2 minutes ago, Voidus said:

I always suggest that people post ideas like that here before they develop them too much, but ultimately I'll leave it up to the people whose ideas they are to present them when they feel comfortable.

That is exactly the reason I adressed the GB plot here, once we had a rough idea what we want to do.

It will be a typical city plot, with some fighting, some mystery and some assassinations

The details are open for definition depending how many apart from the five of us are interested and would like to participate, which characters there'll be and the overall mood.

[kenod]

5 minutes ago, Voidus said:

I always suggest that people post ideas like that here before they develop them too much, but ultimately I'll leave it up to the people whose ideas they are to present them when they feel comfortable.

True, but some of those ideas have already been posted in this thread (I think). It might be good to collect those in one place.

[Voidus]

I will say that I really do like the idea of guild plots being opened up to everyone, there hasn't been much in the way of ooc guild relations happening for a while now so I don't think there'd be any harm in people RPing into guilds that differ from their associations as a player. Would be awesome if we could get a few of those up to really flesh out some of the guilds a little more.

16 minutes ago, kenod said:

True, but some of those ideas have already been posted in this thread (I think). It might be good to collect those in one place.

So I think two have already been discussed in this thread. 
1. Ghosblood plot set in Oasis city, with TBD details but involving mstery, fighting and assassinations.
2. Invo's main plot suggestion: fix the shredding of reality. Spacetime has become a little more ragged around the edges and everyone is required to fix it, would be a planet-wide plot with possibly some time shenanigans going on.

[Goldeneye63]

Hey @Voidus can you add to the AV PM.

[+Sorana she/her]

Update regarding the GB Plot. This is a summary of our brainstorming so far. How it will evolve what will happen exactly (apart from the entry) is up to those playing it.

Credits go to @I think I am here. , @Ark's Boyfriend and @Emperor Stick as well. This is the result of us brainstorming together.

Entry:
The Plot will start at a Ball. The ball is held to promote courageous members of the Ghostbloods for their actions during the fight against PlasmaCore and the surrounding events. Shortly after he announced those to be promoted Mr. Itiah is asassinated on stage by a mysterious person.

Larger Plotline:
The Uninvested are back. It's their goal to destroy the Ghostbloods and take their place, and they start by trying to take over the city. So they start to assassinate higher ranking members. The Triarchy decided to keep the problem quiet for the moment, but instead tasked courageous members of the guild to find the intruders and dispose of them.

The End:
Put a stop to the assassinations/ Uninvested

The Plot:
We brainstormed about different ways how to find the Uninvested and how to get rid of them. We can use them, or if somebody has a better idea, we can discard all of them, or if the rp leads in a different direction, then that's fine as well. We mostly wanted to make sure, we have an idea for different character types. So if all characters are scholars there will be a different solution, than if every character is a fighter.  If someone decides against being part of the planing, that is perfectly fine as well. All actions will matter, whether we discussed them or not. As a reference you could take a look at the Scadrial thread, or the Sewer Systems. In both cases there was some OOC planing, so that everybody roughly knew what will be going on, and could contribute ideas on how to go on next.

Edited July 11, 2019 by Sorana

[xinoehp512 he/him]

Who are the Uninvested?

[I think I am here. he/him]

1 minute ago, xinoehp512 said:

Who are the Uninvested?

Quote

Old guild that said they were against the GBs, sort of failed from the get go. We basically needed an enemy against the GBs so they’re back, like a nemesis-organisation. But they were a real guild at one point.

 

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

On 7/10/2019 at 6:59 AM, Voidus said:

Also I am aware of at least three different proposed plots for next era, so these could be spread out by location to allow people to pick a plot to become invested in rather than everyone being forced into the same major plot or else sidelining their character for a while until the plot is resolved.

 

On 7/10/2019 at 7:12 AM, kenod said:

Maybe it would be good to collect the different ideas here? It would be nice to be able to debate them, and see how they work together. I think at least two of the proposed plots would work well together, either sequentially or in parallel.

@Blessing of Potency this discussion involves the Cinder plot.

[Lunar Blessing she/her]

Just now, AonEne said:

@Blessing of Potency this discussion involves the Cinder plot.

What's happening?

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

We're talking about plots for next era.

[kenod]

1 minute ago, Blessing of Potency said:

What's happening?

We're discussing Era 4 plots, both big ones as well as smaller guild-related ones.

[Fatebreaker he/him]

I had an idea for the following eras and have work-shopped it somewhat with other members of the DA. This plot would last for at least 2 eras, the first being a set up of sorts.

The main premise goes as follows:

Spoiler

The Stranger has grown tired of the bickering and wars. The pother guilds jockey and vie to be the most powerful, always seeking to undermine the DA's work. He’s seen the strain it’s put on Voidus, how they deify and demonize him, seen how they both long for the good old days. Then he remembers he can make that happen.

 We reference the Advanced Hemalurgy for The Scientifically Inclined. The big revelation at the beginning of that thread was that the Stranger created a spike that combined Hemalurgy and Forgery to forge a new identity for a pre-existing world that was already inhabited. The DA heads, or perhaps just the Stranger, could work to create a similar spike for the Alleyplanet and create a sort of House of M scenario. He'd need to gather resources, memorize details of the world. 

In order to ensure on one would catch wind of what he was doing, The Stranger could release Abominations as a distraction to keep both the other guilds and the DA occupied while the work goes on unnoticed. The abominations would slowly escalate as further secrecy was needed, the Stranger taking risks because he knows that the destruction won't matter if he succeeds. Just as the climax is reached, the world is spiked anew.

Everyone is still there, but things have changed. The changes could range from someone not having powers, to people having families they didn't have before.The DA would be seen as a small organization, mysterious but not overly worrisome. They would have to stay low profile so people won’t look into the shift. The great guilds would be vastly weakened, set to the early stages of their development. Characters could age, have kids, change in all kinds of interesting ways, or stay mostly the same. But no one would remember the Stranger as anything more than a folktale,and the world as it had been before would be but a dream.

But the new Worldspike was rushed or flawed, and cracks begin to appear. People have old memories returning. Certain things don’t match up. Things cannot hold...

Characters could try to discover/remember the shift and their old lives. Some could try to revert it. What follows remains to be seen.

I know it’s a long shot, but I have sooo many ideas for this. We could make this hugely collaborative and let the community decide what they want changed for their characters or guilds. We could discuss how we want each character to change or stay the same. This could allow some players to have their characters age and others remain the same. Players kids could develop into new characters. Relationships could grow or regress. If the community agrees we could even have characters come back that were killed. We could talk about power level adjustment in the post spike world as well. There could be cross guild alliances or relationships, different levels of memory retention.

I would want to keep this very open and collaborative so no one feels powerless or out of the loop. Both arcs are still easily changed, and we could cement those details if we as a community decide to move forward on this. It doesn't even have to be the next main plot, it could come later. This is just a loose outline.

Anyway, that’s my pitch. I think it’d be a great shift for the subforum and would open up a lot of plot options and character development. This could really happen whenever, so it doesn’t have to be this next era. It can be tweaked or changed however everyone sees fit, but I think it’s doable.

I'm happy to hear y'alls thoughts and input!

Edited July 12, 2019 by Fatebreaker

[+Ark1002]

48 minutes ago, Fatebreaker said:

I had an idea for the following eras and have work-shopped it somewhat with other members of the DA. This plot would last for at least 2 eras, the first being a set up of sorts.

The main premise goes as follows:

  Hide contents

The Stranger has grown tired of the bickering and wars. The pother guilds jockey and vie to be the most powerful, always seeking to undermine the DA's work. He’s seen the strain it’s put on Voidus, how they deify and demonize him, seen how they both long for the good old days. Then he remembers he can make that happen.

 We reference the Advanced Hemalurgy for The Scientifically Inclined. The big revelation at the beginning of that thread was that the Stranger created a spike that combined Hemalurgy and Forgery to forge a new identity for a pre-existing world that was already inhabited. The DA heads, or perhaps just the Stranger, could work to create a similar spike for the Alleyplanet and create a sort of House of M scenario. He'd need to gather resources, memorize details of the world. 

In order to ensure on one would catch wind of what he was doing, The Stranger could release Abominations as a distraction to keep both the other guilds and the DA occupied while the work goes on unnoticed. The abominations would slowly escalate as further secrecy was needed, the Stranger taking risks because he knows that the destruction won't matter if he succeeds. Just as the climax is reached, the world is spiked anew.

Everyone is still there, but things have changed. The changes could range from someone not having powers, to people having families they didn't have before.The DA would be seen as a small organization, mysterious but not overly worrisome. They would have to stay low profile so people won’t look into the shift. The great guilds would be vastly weakened, set to the early stages of their development. Characters could age, have kids, change in all kinds of interesting ways, or stay mostly the same. But no one would remember the Stranger as anything more than a folktale,and the world as it had been before would be but a dream.

But the new Worldspike was rushed or flawed, and cracks begin to appear. People have old memories returning. Certain things don’t match up. Things cannot hold...

Characters could try to discover/remember the shift and their old lives. Some could try to revert it. What follows remains to be seen.

I know it’s a long shot, but I have sooo many ideas for this. We could make this hugely collaborative and let the community decide what they want changed for their characters or guilds. We could discuss how we want each character to change or stay the same. This could allow some players to have their characters age and others remain the same. Players kids could develop into new characters. Relationships could grow or regress. If the community agrees we could even have characters come back that were killed. We could talk about power level adjustment in the post spike world as well. There could be cross guild alliances or relationships, different levels of memory retention.

I would want to keep this very open and collaborative so no one feels powerless or out of the loop. Both arcs are still easily changed, and we could cement those details if we as a community decide to move forward on this. It doesn't even have to be the next main plot, it could come later. This is just a loose outline.

Anyway, that’s my pitch. I think it’d be a great shift for the subforum and would open up a lot of plot options and character development. This could really happen whenever, so it doesn’t have to be this next era. It can be tweaked or changed however everyone sees fit, but I think it’s doable.

I'm happy to hear y'alls thoughts and input!

I really can't accept that.

It's too much to have the guilds weakened. These guilds have been worked on for at least a yet in cases like the GBs and TUBA. The problem with this plot is all it would really do is make the DA even more powerful. Powerful as in: No other guilds have real strength. It just doesn't make sense to ruin what is there to that extent.

And I get the DA would act less powerful, but they could still easily abuse it.

 

On top of that, it would ruin the plots for a lot of things. Someone (I think Invo), made a plot similar, but not as annoying to the guilds. This would make that plot seem like a rip off. But also that plot has a ton of community support already.

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

It's a very interesting idea and I'd love to read noncanon fanfiction of it or something, but I'm not sure about it as a plot, especially if we don't undo it at the end.

[MetaTerminal he/him]

1 hour ago, Fatebreaker said:

I had an idea for the following eras and have work-shopped it somewhat with other members of the DA. This plot would last for at least 2 eras, the first being a set up of sorts.

The main premise goes as follows:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Stranger has grown tired of the bickering and wars. The pother guilds jockey and vie to be the most powerful, always seeking to undermine the DA's work. He’s seen the strain it’s put on Voidus, how they deify and demonize him, seen how they both long for the good old days. Then he remembers he can make that happen.

 We reference the Advanced Hemalurgy for The Scientifically Inclined. The big revelation at the beginning of that thread was that the Stranger created a spike that combined Hemalurgy and Forgery to forge a new identity for a pre-existing world that was already inhabited. The DA heads, or perhaps just the Stranger, could work to create a similar spike for the Alleyplanet and create a sort of House of M scenario. He'd need to gather resources, memorize details of the world. 

In order to ensure on one would catch wind of what he was doing, The Stranger could release Abominations as a distraction to keep both the other guilds and the DA occupied while the work goes on unnoticed. The abominations would slowly escalate as further secrecy was needed, the Stranger taking risks because he knows that the destruction won't matter if he succeeds. Just as the climax is reached, the world is spiked anew.

Everyone is still there, but things have changed. The changes could range from someone not having powers, to people having families they didn't have before.The DA would be seen as a small organization, mysterious but not overly worrisome. They would have to stay low profile so people won’t look into the shift. The great guilds would be vastly weakened, set to the early stages of their development. Characters could age, have kids, change in all kinds of interesting ways, or stay mostly the same. But no one would remember the Stranger as anything more than a folktale,and the world as it had been before would be but a dream.

But the new Worldspike was rushed or flawed, and cracks begin to appear. People have old memories returning. Certain things don’t match up. Things cannot hold...

Characters could try to discover/remember the shift and their old lives. Some could try to revert it. What follows remains to be seen.

I know it’s a long shot, but I have sooo many ideas for this. We could make this hugely collaborative and let the community decide what they want changed for their characters or guilds. We could discuss how we want each character to change or stay the same. This could allow some players to have their characters age and others remain the same. Players kids could develop into new characters. Relationships could grow or regress. If the community agrees we could even have characters come back that were killed. We could talk about power level adjustment in the post spike world as well. There could be cross guild alliances or relationships, different levels of memory retention.

I would want to keep this very open and collaborative so no one feels powerless or out of the loop. Both arcs are still easily changed, and we could cement those details if we as a community decide to move forward on this. It doesn't even have to be the next main plot, it could come later. This is just a loose outline.

Anyway, that’s my pitch. I think it’d be a great shift for the subforum and would open up a lot of plot options and character development. This could really happen whenever, so it doesn’t have to be this next era. It can be tweaked or changed however everyone sees fit, but I think it’s doable.

I'm happy to hear y'alls thoughts and input!

En contrare: I actually love this idea. 

Firstly, it makes total sense that the DA would do something like this. Voidus and Fate have lost control of their world - obviously they would try to get it back. That’s not an argument for the idea, particularly, but it’s interesting to note.

Secondly, as someone who never found the monolithic power of guilds as interesting as individual characters, I think it would be amazing for character growth and development. People respond to being pushed beyond their limits and making hard choices. This is, quite possibly, the biggest push there could be. How do leaders react to having everything taken from them? If this reality is fractured, maybe they could get a little bit of their power back - but at what cost? Would you make a rift in space-time to gain troops, political clout? Would you stop your enemy from doing similar?

Also; some people gaining more from the shift, or new characters coming into existence, and those people fighting for things to stay changed. (Obviously we’d have to revert, but things could be permanently changed, or carried over, to make it meaningful. Plot shouldn’t be just ‘things that happen that don’t have lasting impact’. The status quo needs to change.)

I wouldn’t argue that this makes the DA more powerful. (And saying that they can abuse the system by just having stuff - anyone can do that. We just have to agree that everyone can’t.) We can say that everyone is underpowered - including the DA - there are no guilds any more. 

It’s clearly not a ripoff of Invo’s idea, so that’s a moot point. And it doesn’t have to be next era if that ruins existing plots. Honestly, I’d be happy to put this on the backburner for one era and pick it up over 5 and 6 so that we have time to sort everything out and prepare accordingly/conclude current plots.

[Snipexe he/him]

23 minutes ago, Ax's Boyfriend said:

And I get the DA would act less powerful, but they could still easily abuse it.

The DA has been exceptionally overpowered since the beginning of the Alleyverse, and have never abused it. Why would they do so now?

[overlord stick]

This is an amazing idea, but people already have plans, and while I would love to use this plot, we probably won't be able to without ruining other things in Era 4. For Era 5 & 6 however, if people already know that going to happen ooc, we could do this and it would be a lot of fun, and people wouldn't be unhappy their idea they've been working on has been messed up.

[Voidus]

28 minutes ago, Ax's Boyfriend said:

The problem with this plot is all it would really do is make the DA even more powerful. Powerful as in: No other guilds have real strength.

The Stranger would be the only one from the DA with any appreciable level of power compared to what exists currently, and the entire goal would be around keeping this going, not trying to take over the world or anything. And as Snip mentioned, that's not a new problem, the DA has always been OP compared to everything else. Every era we've come up with some justification for why they're not getting involved in things but it is going to be getting more and more difficult over time.

On a personal level I would really enjoy a plot where I didn't have to worry about keeping the DA/Voidus from overshadowing things.
 

25 minutes ago, AonEne said:

It's a very interesting idea and I'd love to read noncanon fanfiction of it or something, but I'm not sure about it as a plot, especially if we don't undo it at the end.

One of the things I really liked about this when FB pitched it was that it's essentially a chance to create a huge Fanfic which can become selectively canonical at the end or be easily retconned. People could remember things from both realities so players don't need to remember everything that was real vs. what wasn't, reality could be restored patchily or in its entirety so the parts that people wanted to be permanent could be permanent, others could be less permanent.
This would also be an option for people to change characters around if they wanted to, alter powersets without needing to resort to Hemalurgy, etc.

I think it's safe to say that at least some of it would be undone at the end, how much would be up to how the RP goes and community decisions as always.
 

17 minutes ago, MetaTerminal said:

Secondly, as someone who never found the monolithic power of guilds as interesting as individual characters, I think it would be amazing for character growth and development. People respond to being pushed beyond their limits and making hard choices. This is, quite possibly, the biggest push there could be. How do leaders react to having everything taken from them? If this reality is fractured, maybe they could get a little bit of their power back - but at what cost? Would you make a rift in space-time to gain troops, political clout? Would you stop your enemy from doing similar?

 

That was my thinking here as well, especially given the plot Sorana has posted it feels to me that the general consensus is that we're moving away from the early days of the Alleyverse being all about OOC spying and infiltration and the guilds and are moving into a more fully fleshed out world with players that trust each other.

Lowering the power of the guilds allows us to give them enemies outside of just other guilds or swarms of abominations. But even the guild warfare would be more interesting, TUBA and the DA could actually have conflicts without TUBA needing to worry about giant Kaijuu being unleashed and destroying the world. The GBs could actually try to assassinate people again.

Smaller groups of people from outside the guilds could form with their own interests and actually provide meaningful opposition because characters couldn't just summon a guild army to take care of it.

Could even go a step further and say that at the start of the era the guilds aren't yet established at all, could give a chance to actually RP the creation of guilds, recruiting, laying out claims throughout the city. Explore the actual reasoning behind why characters would join these guilds, if they would join at all, and have a bunch of newcomers all signing up at the same time, easy way to start scenes for characters to interact with each other on a personal level rather than just missions and fighting.

[+Ark1002]

12 minutes ago, Voidus said:

50 minutes ago, AonEne said:

 

One of the things I really liked about this when FB pitched it was that it's essentially a chance to create a huge Fanfic which can become selectively canonical at the end or be easily retconned. People could remember things from both realities so players don't need to remember everything that was real vs. what wasn't, reality could be restored patchily or in its entirety so the parts that people wanted to be permanent could be permanent, others could be less permanent.
This would also be an option for people to change characters around if they wanted to, alter powersets without needing to resort to Hemalurgy, etc.

I think it's safe to say that at least some of it would be undone at the end, how much would be up to how the RP goes and community decisions as always.

But it's not the same. You couldn't RP the old during that time. It's all the issues with a long timeskip, amplified a hundredfold.

[+Sorana she/her]

I like the idea of Fatebreaker's plot, although I'm not sure how everything will fit together in the end.

Like, we always had several plots and active threads, with different goals, with different characters. This plot sounds to me, like it would determine the setting for the whole AV while it's running, meaning that we have only one active thread during that time. Please correct me, if I got this wrong.

But for me I liked it a lot, that you have the possibility to sit in a tavern with one char and can fight a duel with another one.

[Voidus]

9 minutes ago, Ax's Boyfriend said:

But it's not the same. You couldn't RP the old during that time. It's all the issues with a long timeskip, amplified a hundredfold.

Not quite sure what you mean here, you could RP whatever you wanted, either old characters or new. Allows those who wanted a timeskip so they could RP their kids to do so without needing everyone else to either abandon or significantly change their existing characters.

5 minutes ago, Sorana said:

I like the idea of Fatebreaker's plot, although I'm not sure how everything will fit together in the end.

Like, we always had several plots and active threads, with different goals, with different characters. This plot sounds to me, like it would determine the setting for the whole AV while it's running, meaning that we have only one active thread during that time. Please correct me, if I got this wrong.

But for me I liked it a lot, that you have the possibility to sit in a tavern with one char and can fight a duel with another one.

So it would be over two eras, the first of which would be a pretty standard plot as far as they go, similar to SDW. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about another plot based around rampaging abominations that need to be dealt with but at its core all it needs to be is a distraction so we could workshop and change things around a bit. That era would be fairly similar to previous eras.

The one after that would be post-spiking, so everyone would have had an era to set characters up as they want to. Would still be across multiple threads, probably more spread out than we are at the moment to be honest since I imagine it would open up the possibilities for a lot of smaller plots. The main plot would only be for those who want to be involved in it, it wouldn't be a super obvious city-ending threat like the SDW or Plasmacore, just some people remembering the old world and potentially wanting it back, while others may want to stop them. It'd essentially be a PvP driven main plot, not a whole lot of oversight to drive it.

[old man moomba he/him]

Hey

This smells like the end of Part 6 of JoJo.

[MetaTerminal he/him]

2 minutes ago, Voidus said:

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about another plot based around rampaging abominations that need to be dealt with but at its core all it needs to be is a distraction so we could workshop and change things around a bit. That era would be fairly similar to previous eras.

I personally like the idea of another plot being the ‘main’ plot while the DA setup plan takes a backseat as a secondary. Then, just as the main plot gets resolved - plot twist! The one you weren’t paying attention to has major consequences for the next era. Or we could figure out a non-combat way to dramatize trying to stop the new spiking (perhaps with Cold War-style spying and subterfuge.) If we wanted to do that, then this could even take place over 4 and 5, which I am all for.

We haven’t had people experience failure, either, so this could be a way to do that. The first half (4/5) is the ‘snap’ and 5/6 is the endgame of the story.

15 minutes ago, Sorana said:

Like, we always had several plots and active threads, with different goals, with different characters. This plot sounds to me, like it would determine the setting for the whole AV while it's running, meaning that we have only one active thread during that time. Please correct me, if I got this wrong.

The way I envisioned it is that we keep setting threads, but we notate that the setting has changed (and listing those changes.) And new plots could be started just as easily in the new timeline.

[+Sorana she/her]

7 minutes ago, Voidus said:

The one after that would be post-spiking, so everyone would have had an era to set characters up as they want to. Would still be across multiple threads, probably more spread out than we are at the moment to be honest since I imagine it would open up the possibilities for a lot of smaller plots. The main plot would only be for those who want to be involved in it, it wouldn't be a super obvious city-ending threat like the SDW or Plasmacore, just some people remembering the old world and potentially wanting it back, while others may want to stop them. It'd essentially be a PvP driven main plot, not a whole lot of oversight to drive it.

well... if we keep the different locations, and the characters... I like the idea of multiple small plots, the main plot thread is really exhausting to write for me atm.

I personally always prefer good character rp, over the guilds, so I can go along with them being weaker, but I'd like to keep them, in some way. To me they are a vital part of the world-building.

So yeah, as long as I can keep my characters, I'm fine with it. They were a lot of work, and if they die because of some "not-so-intelligent-actions" it's one thing, but if I can't use them because of a plot it's different.

[I think I am here. he/him]

Overall I like the idea. I think it allows us to take characters and settings in new directions, and then by the end of it all, allowing us to choose which parts stay into canon and which parts don’t, so it becomes like a reality-mesh. It gives the possibility of doing some pretty cool things, almost as if the characters were travelling in an ‘alternate timeline’ where things were different (obviously this hasn’t got anything to do with time travel but the analogy remains as the world is almost the same with some differences).

I agree with the others though in that the guilds I think are a vital part of the setting. I love character-driven RP but I feel lots of work would be undone if the guilds were depowered to the degree that was noted. I’m fine with having them be less powerful for the setting, but in my opinion going back all the way to the power level when the guilds were just being set up is too much.

Edited July 12, 2019 by I think I am here.