The Beginning - The Mainstream Threads:

You vs The World (or YvTW for short) is basically a bunch of threads on the Comic Book Rumbles messageboard with the premise of everyone who has chosen superpowers for themselves, and posted them online somewhere, gets those powers. Quite simple.

In the first thread there were no limitations on powers. This eventually resulted in people choosing deity level powers and generally turning the whole thing into a cheese-fest. So Manuel started up the YvtW 2.0 thread in which there were limitations on the powers you could pick. The new thread far exceeded it's predecessor in terms of participants and the quality of participation, and it slowly progressed from a simple make believe "what if" scenarios thread to an role-playing thread.

Some time later the participants of the 2.0 thread decided that it would be cool to have alternate, evil versions of themselves from a "Mirror" reality. That's the 0.2 thread. It's creation also really kicked off the roleplaying aspects of the YvtW threads, as now there were villains as well as heroes to roleplay as and to create a plot with.

Some time later again one of the regulars (Mg_knt) chose to start a 3.0 thread with slightly different rules... His major objection was to the fact that in the 2.0 thread, many people with dimension traveling powers chose to supplement their average powers with incredibly advanced technology/magic gained from other dimensions. Unhappy with what he perceived as a recurance of the unwanted cheesiness that had ended the original thread, Mg founded his own instead. This one brought in many more new players into the YvtW worlds... but it still has not caught up to the sheer length of the still-thriving 2.0 thread.

How it works:

The way the treads work is like role playing in that we each write about what we (and our alternate characters) do with those powers.

The most important thing to remember is that these characters are supposed to be *US* with powers. So no pretending to have Doom-like intelligence.

Another thing to bear in mind is don't piss off the big players in the Thread multiverses. Things generally considered to be bad ideas in the mainstream continuity are: declaring war on HALST; threatening Rune or Tanith; mass destruction; annoying The MunchKING; trying to impose your beliefs on others; trying to conquer the world. Doing any of those will probably get you killed off; WORSE if you, for example, try and kidnap Rune.

Also, there are always job opportunities at Planar and Dimensional Travel and HALST (resident super-team).

As a general rule of thumb, any newcomers might want to keep a low profile and keep up cordial relationships with fellow participants until they get the hang of things.

Mainstream Alternate Realities:

In a time when all three main YvtW threads were languishing from lack of posts, new ideas were put forth to revive them. Two ideas took root successfully to enjoy their own storyarcs.

One was the Ultimates storyline, which is written directly into the YvtW 2.0 thread. It's based on the line of comics from Marvel bearing the same name. Note that the stories and characters of the Ultimates are generally considered apart from the mainstream continuity. What happens on one does not affect the other. The premise of YvtW Ultimates runs thusly:

Would you still be the same as you are in the ordinary 2.0-verse, or would you be different? Would you choose to be different?

Here's your second chances to fix up anything - like some different powers, putting yourself as a different gender. Any regrets you might have can be tossed out the window. Change them if you like. We're trying to draw in a new audience, people!

The other idea that sprang from the mainstream threads was the Next Generation thread, which mainly focuses on the progeny of the various Thread characters. While this is a based on current thread continuity, it is also considered only a *possible* future. Thus, the currently storylines on the main threads are free to deviate from the histories of the Next Gen thread.

Complete Spinoffs:

Other threads have been made with the same idea as the YvtW threads, trying to tap into the popularity of the role playing genre. These have no continuity ties at all to the mainstream YvtW threads or their alternate reality spinoffs.

The major spinoffs are:

• The Divinity Thread - Where each person chooses an area to be deity over (eg. Nature, War, Destiny, etc.) in a Greek Pantheon type of way. The stories usually revolve around the battle against the forces of Evil (Hell, Lucifer, Fallen angels and deities). As a side note, all other roleplaying realms are considered to belong under the realm of the Goddess of Fiction in the Divinity-verse, including the various YvtW realms.

• The Idaho Thread - The idea of the "Your Private Idaho" thread is that each participant is in charge of a planet of their own. The participant has total and complete control of the design of their world (under certain limits), whether it be over the laws of reality, the evolution of the inhabitants, etc. All of the planets are located in a close cluster of star systems, and thus must also learn to deal with one another as well as outside forces.

• The Radioactive Animal Thread - Inspired by the origins of Marvel superhero Spiderman, the RA thread's premise is that the various participants have been bitten by a radioactive animal of their choice. Their powers are derived from the animal, under certain limits, and with reasonable margins of interpretation.

Footnote:

There may have been other role playing spinoffs threads on the Rumbles board. However, many of them tend to fall by the wayside and are lost to the gulf of the archives. The only threads that are recorded here on this site are the ones that have survived for at least a few hundred posts.