Dawn of a New Era

[Furamirionind]

27 minutes ago, Voidus said:

Honestly? I don't think government is possible between guilds. I can't imagine the DA and TUBA in the same room drafting laws together.

That's why I suggested a republic with a variable-party system. (current parties being the DA, TUBA and GB) Those 3 parties would then not be on equal footing. And the fact of there being an odd number at the moment will force tiebreakers even if they were on an equal footing.  I would suggest if we go for a republic, (which is what I think most people voting for "democracy" actually want), that we have 1 Chancellor and 2 Legislatures.  The way I see voting working is all three major guilds nominate 1 person for office to represent them.  Each minor guild is then allowed to cast a vote for one of those representatives. The person with the most becomes Chancellor. And the other 2 become legislatures.

Off the top of my head, how I would imagine the government working is the Chancellor can create laws with some advice from the Legislatures, then every so often they vote on some of those. With each vote counting as 1 vote, between 3 voters, there will always be a tie breaker.  The trick will be for the DA and TUBA to agree on something so that GB doesn't always get what they want.  This honestly sounds like a TON of fun to me.

If you still don't think that would work, I can flesh out the idea more over the next couple days and repost it then. As this is all just off the top of my head, and tuning, tweaking, and brainstorming will all be needed to implement a new system.

Quote

I think that if a government exists that voting takes place in, votes should be limited to one per Sharder. Otherwise one person with a dozen characters would have the same voting power as a dozen people with one character. That seems unbalanced to me.

That is partly why I am saying votes should be per guild.  Either per sharder, or per character should work then. It also encourages more guild centered plots and ideas, which I am all for!!

Edited December 13, 2018 by Furamirionind
NOTE: Yes, I know the names I used for my government are not technically correct for the circumstance I am using. Perhaps we could create our own names for these roles?

[MetaTerminal he/him]

If we go for the Great Guilds idea, then other guilds like the Thief’s Guild and the Diagramists (possibly) would also qualify, bumping the number up. I’d hate to see the number of major guilds limited to just the major three.

I would also get behind one vote per guild, as that prevents guilds from lots of people from just dominating every vote (like in the cookie vote which won with 106 to about 10). I don’t think that will happen on such a scale, but it may occur, and causes problems for smaller guilds.

[+Sorana she/her]

27 minutes ago, Ookla the Cited said:

If we go for the Great Guilds idea, then other guilds like the Thief’s Guild and the Diagramists (possibly) would also qualify, bumping the number up. I’d hate to see the number of major guilds limited to just the major three.

And the thief's guild consists of low power characters. Which would support our overall goal of lowering the powerlevel a bit.

[Voidus]

See my thought was more that any realistic member of TUBA would kill anyone from the DA that they came accross and would definitely not accept them holding power in a government.

It's just very unlikely that they could cooperate to any degree ever.

[MetaTerminal he/him]

The last time TUBA tried to fight the DA, it ended... poorly. *remembers the Phoenix destroying literally everything and 30% casualty rates*

I'd imagine they'd likely just get used to the fact that their enemies aren't going anywhere and they'd be best just trying to work around them via diplomacy.

[Furamirionind]

I probably don't need to say more, and perhaps my time would be better spent actually flushing out this idea (or sleeping O.o ), but I really want to convince Voidus of this... : )

MetaTerminal, I was just using three guilds for the moment because those are the only ones I knew about. We could expand the number of legislatures to 3 or 4 or so.  There technically isn't a limit in my proposal.  If there gets to be enough great guilds, we could actually do cool stuff with committees and branches and stuff (not complicated, just requires more people... and probably some experience with this idea).

As, in this suggestion, the Great Guilds need the smaller guilds to vote for them to get more power, they will need to grant favors, resources, and law changes out to these smaller guilds.  Who can use this to follow their own agenda, or try to become a great guild themselves to become a competitor. We are granting power to the guilds at the top as a reward, but also requiring them to pass pieces of power down to others, to keep their own power.

I can't tell if Sorana was saying something along these lines, but regardless it made me think: if we have the government have administrative powers, such as defining what a Great Guild is, that could cause some interesting power struggles, with the Great Guilds trying to hold onto as much power as they can, while still needing to make the smaller guilds happy. (I predict the result will end up being that the more homeless there are total, the higher the restrictions will be. Which means that people would be regulating their own rules within their own world, in character, which could help people think of them less as rules, and more as things to RP around.)

The first iteration of this government I expect would be tricky as everyone will probably be asking for everything for themselves, and giving nothing in return.  However, if we give it a little time (with modifications happening as we learn what does and doesn't work), the overall power of the great guilds I expect will be balanced by the power of the small ones.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Furamirionind

[Voidus]

I like it in concept as a really good basis of plot for an RP, I just don't see a reasonable way that the guilds would form something like this. There are some pretty deep moral issues between them all that are hard to let go. If they were just rival factions it'd be one thing but the DA literally steals peoples souls, I don't feel like that's something that people could just look past or try to work around.

[Furamirionind]

9 minutes ago, Voidus said:

I like it in concept as a really good basis of plot for an RP, I just don't see a reasonable way that the guilds would form something like this. There are some pretty deep moral issues between them all that are hard to let go. If they were just rival factions it'd be one thing but the DA literally steals peoples souls, I don't feel like that's something that people could just look past or try to work around.

IRL, people often think the other parties are trying to steal people's souls...

Edited December 13, 2018 by Furamirionind

[Voidus]

Just now, Furamirionind said:

IRL people think opposite parties are trying to steal people souls...

This is a fair point

[Darth Woodrack he/him]

@Dr. Dapper I'm directly trying to avoid the Precursors being sucked up. They are an impartial body that tried to help keep peace, and enforce law. They do work for the governing bodies, not just guilds, all governing bodies, but deep down as are our own guild. I do not want to be sucked up into larger group where we completely lose everything that made us unique, and fun. He getting sucked up would just be the same as saying, 'you guys can't exist anymore.'

[Furamirionind]

6 minutes ago, Darth Woodrack said:

@Dr. Dapper I'm directly trying to avoid the Precursors being sucked up. They are an impartial body that tried to help keep peace, and enforce law. They do work for the governing bodies, not just guilds, all governing bodies, but deep down as are our own guild. I do not want to be sucked up into larger group where we completely lose everything that made us unique, and fun. He getting sucked up would just be the same as saying, 'you guys can't exist anymore.'

Idk how large your army/police force is, but is this the sort of group that would likely become the official police force of the government?

If not, would you be okay with becoming a division of the police force? I don't think the culture would necessarily change. Source: bridge 4.  I am thinking that to be official in the time of government (which I for now am assuming is going to happen), you would probably be reporting to them in some sense? This is of course assuming your wish is to be official.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Furamirionind

[Karnatheon he/him]

I really love this idea. For one, if we implemented something like this it would give us a big source of conflict that doesn't involve combat, which I believe is something many people have expressed an interest in. As far as the DA and TUBA not being willing to work together at all, I agree that could be an issue. However, given how things stand currently I honestly don't believe TUBA has much of a chance to take out the DA in a direct conflict, considering that the DA is willing to literally sell their souls in order to gain unlimited power. if TUBA has any hope of ever being able to outmatch the DA, they might likely need the force of the entire Alleyverse alongside them. In order to gain that, they would need to be willing to work with all of the guilds including the DA, to set up a government and then hopefully over the course of time everyone would see the problem that the DA poses. Then potentially if everyone agreed on that, everyone would be able to unite against the DA. It is of course a long shot for TUBA to hope that, but it is a possibility that requires very little effort or risk on their part. I'm also not saying I think the Alleyverse should unite against the DA, as that would be unfair for it's members, but it's something that could get TUBA willing to try. Also, everyone to an extent cares about the Alleyverse, so if you can at least try to make it a better place for everyone, wouldn't it be worth working alongside your enemies to do so? Just my take on it. Obviously representatives of TUBA would need to agree to it but that's my opinion.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

I think that the guilds would have to have an in-universe reason to try and create a government as opposed to just leaving things the way they are.

[Sherlock Holmes he/him]

We already tried that, Karna. Remember the Seven Day War?

[Furamirionind]

2 minutes ago, Ookla the Phoenix said:

I think that the guilds would have to have an in-universe reason to try and create a government as opposed to just leaving things the way they are.

I think there are Infinite reasons why each guild should both want to have and want not to have a government, so it would be more up to the people as a collective.

The DA sounds like they have a lot of power, this power would be translated diplomatically. And they would be able to work towards their goals with less effort.

TUBA would have protection from the DA, and could try to use this as a method to undermine the DA, lowering their power.

Even though I am apperantly a GB now, I don't know anything about their goals.

Arguements like this can be made for each guild.

Just now, Ookla the Meme-Thief said:

We already tried that, Karna. Remember the Seven Day War?

For the newcomers in this conversation, would you mind providing some context?

[Sherlock Holmes he/him]

TUBA and the Ghostbloods joined up to kill the DA.

[Voidus]

Which was fine and all, I mean really no harm done.
Then Archer threw a pineapple at the barrier for the Worldspike and things got serious.

[Karnatheon he/him]

I do not, in fact, remember the 7 day war. Due to the fact that I didn't join the Alleyverse until several months after it was over. however I'm not suggesting that we all join up to try to take out the DA. I'm merely saying that if we're looking for an in the universe reason for guilds to work together to create a government, that could be a reason that some of the guilds are willing to try it. And then hopefully, after working together for a while, people would realize the benefits of having a central government and be willing to continue it. Even if an anti-DA coalition never gets off the ground.

Also, I've had several end goals in mind for The Forge. In light of the recent attempt for public planning, I'lll state a few of them here. One of my goals for Laonin, is for him to make a lasting impact on the Alleyverse.he doesn't want to simply fix the problems here, he wants to try to prevent them from happening again in the future. One of the ways I saw that maybe being able to happen, is that once he has made an impact and potentially gathered a small following of people, he would stand up to the guilds. Obviously there are many powerful people who wouldn't like that. Considering that Ark has already expressed a desire to kill him, I don't think there would be a shortage of people willing to take him out. I was then hoping that in a sort of act of martyrdom, him sacrificing himself for his goal would inspire the NPC population of the Alleycity to try to hold the guilds accountable for their actions. I don't know if the people living in the city would  do that or not, as I'm not sure what their general temperament toward the guilds is, but it's and idea. I don't know if that sounds reasonable to anyone at all, but if that sounds like something that would work that could also be a reason for this to happen.

I guess the question is, would the people crying out be enough to sway the guilds into working together? This idea could also be absolutely terrible for all I know. Just s thought.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

Something like that might work. The general idea is that if the guilds are going to change policy massively, they need a reason. Otherwise they'll just keep doing what they've been doing, which hasn't caused enough problems (so far) to warrant a change.

[Gancho Libre he/him]

10 hours ago, Ookla the Paragon said:

I want a longer time skip, like 100 years. If characters from the time when we allowed higher power levels are still around, or can easily return, it can lead to power creep, replicating the issues with that that we had during this era. There are people who want to keep their characters in Era Three. Should they continue to participate, it would seriously hamper efforts to create a consistently low levels of character power in E3. The only way I can foresee this not happening if we do a short time skip is if everyone’s characters die before the new Era begins, or are somehow striped of their powers and OP technology. I’m advocating for a hundred year skip, but I realize I’m in the minority with this opinion.

3

I agreed with this completely. And if anyone wants their character to survive, just pop 'em in a cadmium bubble!

EDIT: OH YES MRAIZEARCHY IS AN OPTION!!!!!! I VOTE THAT!!!!!!!!

Edited December 13, 2018 by Ookla the Libre

[+Ark1002]

I really like Fur's idea. Except the part about the GBs not always getting what they want.

[Gancho Libre he/him]

We do. Because we just say that whatever happens was our intent the whole time we're just that awesome.

[MetaTerminal he/him]

9 hours ago, Voidus said:

There are some pretty deep moral issues between them all that are hard to let go.

It’s been seventeen years of coexisting without any problems. There are people of voting age who don’t remember the Seven Day War. (That actually works out nicely for people who join in Era 3, actually, since their characters don’t have a reason to know about past events.)

Cities tend to have a sort of lifecycle, and without an actual government that puts the city solidly in its adolescent phase. Without laws, I’d find it likely that murder and theft would be fairly common among the lower classes - something that wouldn’t bother PCs, but would bother the disenfranchised.

For that reason I can imagine them eventually agreeing to form a sort of legislative government. Yes, there will always be a conflict between them, but between political factions there is always conflict. I can see the three groups agreeing to work together for the good of the city.

[kenod]

There's also the fact that the DA and GBs have both already defended the Alleycity, showing that they actually care about the place and it's inhabitants. They could easily agree to take a more active hand in it, to improve their defenses. And since this wouldn't involve active combat, groups like TUBA would also join because it would allow them to be more effective in keeping the DA in check. Basically, the DA protects the place from threats and criminals, and TUBA protects the place from the DA (anyone reminded of Dresden Files now?).

[Darth Woodrack he/him]

8 hours ago, Furamirionind said:

Idk how large your army/police force is, but is this the sort of group that would likely become the official police force of the government?

If not, would you be okay with becoming a division of the police force? I don't think the culture would necessarily change. Source: bridge 4.  I am thinking that to be official in the time of government (which I for now am assuming is going to happen), you would probably be reporting to them in some sense? This is of course assuming your wish is to be official.

I have been trying to make them the official police force since they were founded, I've just been feeling push back from the same people now trying to make a centralized government and code of laws, about the existence of a code of laws. I am actually working on a code of laws for the citadel, right now. If you want to use it when I'm done, you can.

Ps. If anyone who is an actual lawyer and not a teen ager wnats to take over, tell me.