Voidus

"Because a Slowbro is definitely not fantastical?"

"But... but..." I pointed in the direction of the literal Phoenix I'd made.

"I vote that Meta also become the god of wikis. Given that they already are."

This would not destroy the universe. Although the amount of destruction that would ensue from fighting him might.

"I mean realistically? Whatever one of us wants it to do to them. But in order to keep things realistic, fear is probably an appropriate response."

"It's ok." I said. "I've prepared a contingency for that." Gesturing off to our left, for a moment the colossal figure of a mime the size of the world appears before vanishing just as suddenly. "But it also might give nightmares to all the NPCs so that's probably a last resort."

I do definitely get the appeal of secret PMs, but these should be used sparingly, otherwise to everyone else a lot of plans just seem like a bunch of random occurrences that make no sense. Or I suppose a consideration would be that characters plans are publicly available, while players plans may be kept secret in PMs.

This is definitely a good point, there's a reason that most RPGs involve classes that each have their own role. Splitting up the abilities between multiple characters mean characters need to rely on each other, which means they interact with each other in ways other than trying to murder each other. Yeah in-world there's not a lot of RP around the guilds, other than people who don't like the DA or the GBs and the GBs fighting over who should be in charge. I think part of that comes from guilds wanting to keep plans a secret so things happen in PMs rather than threads. I think we need to either start moving guild operation to threads and be more open with things, which would also let some people RP day-to-day guild operation a bit more, or we start removing the guilds from the RP elements of the Alleyverse. They don't really add much these days that couldn't be done with a looser alignment of interests.

Laurelai watched the fray, nervously looking towards the other researchers in the room. This seemed a little disruptive to the research they were doing, shouldn't someone stop it?

"Um...." The barrier seemed confused. "Initiate hibernate mode?"

The barrier watched, confused, as the army charged towards it. They collided with the Aonic shield and were repelled back. It left the hat where it lay.

Thoughts: Summation is definitely a good idea, probably the mods doing this is going to be easiest since we can edit posts. I don't think these need to be particularly lengthy, just covering any large impacts or changes in the story of the thread. Planning is always good, I feel like the beginnings of the Alleyverse have caused some problems here. Everything started off very secretive and there were a lot of suspicions. This has made some fun reveal moments here and there but I feel like this mindset causes some serious issues with RP, if everyone isn't aware of what other people's plans are they can't work towards them. Now obviously not everyone is going to agree with your plans but giving a resistance time to plan as well isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes having a dramatic reveal is fun and exciting but if everyone wants to have one of these then they become commonplace and boring. Having a lot of people involved in planning your plot means that everyone is invested in the story and works together towards it paying off. It would also help avoid threads being derailed quite so frequently because a clear plan is set in place. Power creep is probably another of the biggest issues I find. A lot of story tends to devolve into PvP combat so a lot of people want really strong or powerful characters. Unfortunately all this usually does is make everyone else try to ramp up their characters power level in response. It also means people tend to (Just my opinion) become more interested in their own character's power/growth/interestingness and not much else. RP should rarely be competitive like this, they should be collaborative. Character interaction has always been one of my favourite moments of any RP, characters talking, arguing, growing with each other. Combat (And especially curbstomp combat where one side overwhelmingly overpowers the other) makes up some of the least interesting moments. This also brings me to another point: Less direct PvP conflict. I know a lot of players here like fight scenes, I like them too although usually in moderation, but I think the amount of PvP fight scenes can really hurt the story. Given our rules on godmodding there's rarely going to be a satisfactory conclusion for either side, it usually ends with one side teleporting away. I can see a few solutions to this, the first is just less combat in general. Focusing on things that are more likely to promote character growth (Instead of power growth) would I feel make better stories, better characters, and also let people be a little more open in their planning. The second option would be to start threads which have a GM of sorts, someone to compose a group of NPCs who act in opposition to the PCs, the rules of not godmodding these characters would then still apply to the PCs but they could speak with the GM to see if general tactics would work and then apply those to scale. This would mean a fair bit of time investment from a GM but might let a bit more rewarding combat take place where it's challenging but still has a satisfying ending.

"Sorry, I can't help with that. Was there anything else I could help with?" The barrier replied with a tone of forced patience.

The barrier sighed. "I suppose so. Was there anything you needed assistance with?"

"I change things that have been written all the time."

"There is no wall man, only Zuul." A grim voice rang out from the wall. A moment later the same polite voice from earlier spoke up. "Sorry, little interference there for a moment. Yes I still remain, though I would like to register an objection with that name."

The barrier faltered. It's smile weakened for a moment at this newest revelation. But it was still assured of its victory, the barrier was flawless, nothing could ever defeat it. It was made to protect the most precious item in the Alleyverse, and to hold the most dangerous creature. It forced a grin once more, ready to unleash its final weapon upon the pop culture army that was arrayed against it. And then it stopped, the Aonic figures all vanished, being subsume back into the wall. The face of Aons dispersed back into the barrier.

"The horn I could probably concede is non-interventionist enough to justify but that in itself is a little pointless. If literally everyone agrees that something needs to be one then it will be done, regardless of whether or not someone has a horn. The Oracle is not in any way non-interventionist, you just directly stated that they'd use that power for other people, that's like the opposite of non-interventionist. The sword I'm most strongly opposed to, that seems incredibly railroady and drastic."

"On that note: I replied to that too and I don't think there was anything further after that. For reference:" Barring the first one (Possibly, even then I'm not sure what exactly you would have in mind for the character), those are just personality quirks not a non-intervention policy, that doesn't really set me at ease in any way.

Playing loose with time is one thing, actual time alteration or time travel is something I hope we can avoid. It get's really awkward really fast. And what are their spiritual aspects lining up to? Physical location doesn't have any bearing on the spiritual realm so it won't change anything. If their actual Connection was changed then maybe? But that would at the most just sync their time up with the other location, not change the entire flow of time.

I'd rather retcon or handwave some history than set up a time slip, means that any character who travels here is going to be out of the story for the next several years otherwise.

I mean it kind of does need to make sense to some degree. But if that's a requirement rather than just an additional piece of worldbuilding then I suppose my question would be, why is it necessary that some places have an Alleystorm hundreds of years ago? Because anywhere the Alleystorm goes is still on the same planet, which is definitely within the range of the spike so to suspend disbelief is going to need a pretty strong justification I think.

Anything that's far enough from the worldspike as to be outside the range of its effects is more going to be non-existent / non-real than temporally slipped. And it does have a pretty wide range, it's meant to stabilize the entire pocket universe after all.

Why would not being on the map mean they're hundreds of years in the future comparatively?