Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Shard · Feb 20, 2018

What our good DM is saying is that Unrealized Potential is just... potential.

Potential doesn't exactly mean much, if at all.

Briefvoice · Feb 20, 2018

Vecht said:
Probably needs a contingency for if they don't want to go along with it.

Thoughts on what the contingency should be? It would be really nice to have the Team pull off an infiltration strategy. I would show some great versatility and smarts. The trouble is, Hazou is really the only one with skills/talents that lends themselves to a fake-out. I mean, I guess Noburi has decent social skills, but we need some *magic* like a genjutsu to get that extra final step.

But I might just not be thinking of it. Open to ideas to be edited in, or you can tell me if in that case we should give up and go for the beatdown.

Aodyssey · Feb 20, 2018

Briefvoice said:
Sakura uses genjutsu to make the exam candidates believe the similar paper Hazou has prep-prepared is their word and they'll store it back away.

Is this method reliable? If prickling one finger or applying physical force is such a well known Henge counter, Genjutsu counter-counter sounds like an intuitive development in the deceptive arms race. And if you can effectively genjutsu your targets, what's the reason for the song and dance?

There's also how that one shopkeeper immediately identified the whole Team or that one civilian lady Tea'd us.

eaglejarl · Feb 20, 2018

Couple of minor comments on the plan:

Briefvoice said:
Hyuga Hinata, Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame

Really fussy nitpick: You've given everyone else's name in surname/given name order, so this should be "Inuzuka Kiba" and "Aburame Shino". I mention this mostly because there's been at least one person in the thread saying that they've had trouble keeping track of who is who with the surname / given name switches in the updates, so I want to be careful about introducing more confusion.

(Also: Japan, did you really have to do this whole 'given name is only for friends' thing to us? *grumble* Do you have any idea how difficult this makes an author's life? *grumble, grumble*)

Briefvoice said:
Hazou should get a good night's sleep and not stay up late making seals.

That reminds me: I had been thinking that Hazō should have a temporary Aspect "Tired". It won't directly affect him but it could be invoked against him and would clear once he got 6-8 hours of sleep. I need to check it with the others but my suspicion is that they'll agree, so you should probably keep it in mind. Again, it doesn't prevent him from doing anything or downgrade his rolls, but it is something that could be used against him if someone wants to spend a Fate Point. (Assuming that @Velorien and @OliWhail agree that it exists.)

Background on my thinking purely as context and not an actual ruling: Hazō got 6 hours of sleep in 48, which is worth an Aspect but not a Consequence. Going 48 hours without sleep is a thing that he could do, but it would give him an actual Mild Consequence, meaning a 0.5*Aspect bonus penalty on his rolls for about a day. I haven't run this by the others yet.

Briefvoice · Feb 20, 2018

eaglejarl said:
Couple of minor comments on the plan:

Really fussy nitpick: You've given everyone else's name in surname/given name order, so this should be "Inuzuka Kiba" and "Aburame Shino". I mention this mostly because there's been at least one person in the thread saying that they've had trouble keeping track of who is who with the surname / given name switches in the updates, so I want to be careful about introducing more confusion.

(Also: Japan, did you really have to do this whole 'given name is only for friends' thing to us? *grumble* Do you have any idea how difficult this makes an author's life? *grumble, grumble*)

That is a fussy nitpick, but corrected.

That reminds me: I had been thinking that Hazō should have a temporary Aspect "Tired". It won't directly affect him but it could be invoked against him and would clear once he got 6-8 hours of sleep. I need to check it with the others but my suspicion is that they'll agree, so you should probably keep it in mind. Again, it doesn't prevent him from doing anything or downgrade his rolls, but it is something that could be used against him if someone wants to spend a Fate Point. (Assuming that @Velorien and @OliWhail agree that it exists.)

Background on my thinking purely as context and not an actual ruling: Hazō got 6 hours of sleep in 48, which is worth an Aspect but not a Consequence. Going 48 hours without sleep is a thing that he could do, but it would give him an actual Mild Consequence, meaning a 0.5*Aspect bonus penalty on his rolls for about a day. I haven't run this by the others yet.

I would say that is fair... however. Part of the rationale for pushing ahead is the idea that the other teams will be "tired and low on chakra" from having to be constantly on guard against attack and staying on the move. Will you also be mechanically representing that by giving them Tired aspects? They likely slept as little as possible... maybe some of them got more sleep but on rougher ground, so it probably balances out.

Cariyaga · Feb 20, 2018

eaglejarl said:
Yeah, he's probably been getting more hate than he deserves. It started off as a joke in one of the updates and has picked up some momentum.

Oh, I don't hate him at all. But he is a jerk and his antisocial tendencies make him unsuitable for the stated duties of a chuunin (leadership).

faflec · Feb 20, 2018

You'd think that our enemies would have actual Consequences instead of just the aspect.

Roomba · Feb 20, 2018

I don't hate Neji at all. If nothing else, he serves an important therapeutic role as a means for eaglejarl to express his PUNCHING narrative philosophy.

More seriously, I just want to point out again that we don't know how Neji's circumstances differ from canon. For all we know, his dad is alive, the caged bird seal doesn't exist, and he's just a natural jerk. His interactions with Hinata certainly show no signs of resentment.

Briefvoice said:
Infiltration Strategy for Team Hazou/Sakura/Keiko

I notice this strategy has Keiko doing absolutely nothing. Do we want her as a third member just in case it comes to combat? In that case maybe we should swap her and Noburi; the latter is a lot more socially graceful and could help improvise a save if our deception goes off the rails somehow. Keiko is also the stronger direct combatant, which fits more with the PUNCH team.

Briefvoice said:
Hazou's Suggestions on which Team Should Use Which Approach for Hunting Words

I think this should have the proviso that we only suggest obvious things if the team in question seems reluctant to do so themselves. Telling Team Gai that they should probably go with the combat approach makes us look condescending at best and stupid at worst.

Briefvoice said:
In the Morning Talk with Keiko and Noburi about Yamamoto Haru

Haru has shown a lot of barely buried anger towards clan kids

This could swiftly become a big problem if we let it go unaddressed

Hazou would like to confront Haru about it and see if they can clear the air

Ideally would like to convince Haru we are for a world where everyone is treated more fairly and convince him we could be an ally

Don't want to crowd Haru, so think one or at most two should talk to him at once

Would Noburi agree to a double-team?

Noburi chats Haru up and tries to figure out what eaxctly his issue is

Then Hazou could follow up with an inspirational speech or something?

The problem here is, Hazou doesn't know that Haru harbours resentment against clan privilege. He just knows Haru was very upset at the idea of buying seals. Everything else is our OOC knowledge that we only possess because of a single interlude with Haru's POV.

This makes it difficult to meaningfully discuss. I'd expect our teammates to simply tell us to worry about more important things. Or to have Akane talk to Haru, which will achieve nothing except make him repress further. The reason my plan for Haru involved trying to provoke him into letting is guard down, is that otherwise the characters have very little actionable information.

If you want to do some kind of preparation for the Haru confrontation, maybe just talk to Akane, let her give her impression of him? I would hold off on having her question him directly though, Akane has terrible Deceit, and Haru will think even less of Hazou if he figures out what we're doing.

eaglejarl · Feb 20, 2018

Briefvoice said:
I would say that is fair... however. Part of the rationale for pushing ahead is the idea that the other teams will be "tired and low on chakra" from having to be constantly on guard against attack and staying on the move. Will you also be mechanically representing that by giving them Tired aspects? They likely slept as little as possible... maybe some of them got more sleep but on rougher ground, so it probably balances out.

faflec said:
You'd think that our enemies would have actual Consequences instead of just the aspect.

Excellent points, both of you. To the [QM] chat-mobile!

Briefvoice · Feb 20, 2018

Roomba said:
I notice this strategy has Keiko doing absolutely nothing. Do we want her as a third member just in case it comes to combat? In that case maybe we should swap her and Noburi; the latter is a lot more socially graceful and could help improvise a save if our deception goes off the rails somehow. Keiko is also the stronger direct combatant, which fits more with the PUNCH team.

Keiko is doing her usual thing of reviewing complicated plans to make sure they aren't a fuck-up. However I do agree that it would be nice to bring her in to do more and am open to suggestions.

I would be willing to switch her out with Noburi if there were a specific plan for how he could improvise a save... his Rapport is great, but he has not so much Deception.

I think this should have the proviso that we only suggest obvious things if the team in question seems reluctant to do so themselves. Telling Team Gai that they should probably go with the combat approach makes us look condescending at best and stupid at worst.

No, it's fine. The idea is to sit down and explicitly divide up approaches among us. Saying, "You guys Punch... you want to do the Punch!?" doesn't seem out of line since have to clarify who is doing what.

The problem here is, Hazou doesn't know that Haru harbours resentment against clan privilege. He just knows Haru was very upset at the idea of buying seals. Everything else is our OOC knowledge that we only possess because of a single interlude with Haru's POV.

This makes it difficult to meaningfully discuss. I'd expect our teammates to simply tell us to worry about more important things. Or to have Akane talk to Haru, which will achieve nothing except make him repress further. The reason my plan for Haru involved trying to provoke him into letting is guard down, is that otherwise the characters have very little actionable information.

eaglejarl said:
As far as Hazō knows:

Akane, Lee, Neji, and Chōji are all Taijutsu fighters. Neji has the Byakugan and his pain-in-the-ass family style. Chōji has some sort of body-morphing family jutsu. You aren't 100% clear on everything it can do, but you know that it improves his Taijutsu.

Yamamoto Haru is a vicious Taijutsu type with some lightning techniques that make him brutal in close combat. He has always been polite but you can tell he doesn't like you and has a (well-disguised) chip on his shoulder.

Hazou is in-character aware that Haru doesn't like him and has a chip on his shoulder. Personally, I don't even remember the interlude you're talking about. I get the idea it might be non-clan resentment based on the way he's been depicted as acting. I can edit to be less certain on the theorizing, though.

If you want to do some kind of preparation for the Haru confrontation, maybe just talk to Akane, let her give her impression of him? I would hold off on having her question him directly though, Akane has terrible Deceit, and Haru will think even less of Hazou if he figures out what we're doing.

Actually, if Noburi is teaming up with Haru then that would be a chance for Noburi to use his Empathy skill to suss out Haru's issues. Could ask him before we split up and in the morning. In fact, given Noburi's good empathy he may already have figured out Haru's issues and simply never had occasion to talk about what he has discerned with Hazou.

Winged_One · Feb 20, 2018

eaglejarl said:
See, that is an entirely different proposition. And unlike your prior one, this one is at least somewhat correct-adjacent. A plausible hypothesis is very different from a mere idea, and it has value in that it lets you complete execution more quickly.

Sure. So Hazou is good at coming up with multiple plausible hypothesis. Do you doubt that for every 5-10 seals Leaf shows us, we'd come up with at least one major exploit? We currently have, what, 12-something seals in our repertoire? 5SB, Air Dome, Earth Dome, Explosive Tag, Force Wall, Goo Bombs, LBF, Tunneler, Air-purifier, some assorted light-producing seals, some assorted storage seals, most of which are our own designs. Out of those we have one really major exploit (Skywalkers), one slightly less but still pretty major exploit (Skytowers), and a bunch of decently valuable (Given that Leaf was willing to pay us cash for them) exploits (Macerators), for a rate of one exploit per 4-5 seals. Additionally, a bunch of unconfirmed but fairly probable exploits (Force wall shenanigans, implosion seals that store air instead of being destroyed and can thus be stacked for bigger BOOM, adding storage seals to basic explosive kunai for extra bang, etc) and a bunch of prospective research projects that seem like minor modifications of existing seals that return a lot of value (e.g. air purifiers that are used to concentrate explosive/poisonous gas). Leaf gave us Air Dome, Earth Dome, Goo Bombs, Tunneler, Air-purifier and some assorted light-producing seals. That's 5-something seals, out of which one got majorly exploited (Air Dome). Meaning that as far as Leaf is concerned it got 1 working major exploit for giving us 5 seals.

How many seals would Leaf have in general? Let's say 30 that we haven't seen so far-sealing is dangerous to research, but Leaf is a major village. Add another 5 for the bioseal lady, and another 5 for the mountain+casino seals-some of those would have to be researched before their properties would be known, but I assume Leaf has competent seal masters that can be trusted to do that. Based on our current rate that's 8-10 exploits Leaf is currently missing out on. Let's be pessimistic and say it's only 1/2 of that - 4 or 5 exploits. How much would you bet that none of those would be Skywalker/tower-class?

If ideas are worthless, maybe we should have Hazou look up elemental nations math textbook. After all, mathematics is just ideas. It's all just one idea after another that all follow from the previous ones in a chain where every single step only relies on a single non-obvious idea step, not anything hard like an execution. And that go all the way back to very simple initial postulates. If ideas are worthless then end result of a bunch of ideas would also be worthless, right? Especially to e.g. someone like Nara. They definitely don't want to find out about modern methods of economic analysis.

Restinan said:
Okay, so if we're talking about the seal inventions Hazou and Kagome have worked on so far, specifically the skywalker, when we talk about "value" or "importance" in this scenario, we should be thinking about the question of what the bottleneck was. Or, put another way, the question of what was preventing skywalkers from being invented.

You can bet that there have been literally dozens of bright sealmasters who thought flight was a cool idea, and tried to make it happen. And, like in the real world, that vague idea of something cool is essentially worthless without anything more detailed to work from. But Hazou didn't just come up with the same old "wouldn't it be cool if we could fly" idea. Hell, he didn't even just come up with the idea to use platform to step on in the air; he tried that with five-seal barrier and got shot down because it couldn't be reduced to one seal, which was necessary for the idea to work. No, Hazou found the specific seal that could be used for this. Hazou came up with a very specific idea, using an air dome as a platform to stand upon, triggered by chakra adhesion to allow you to run on air.

(It is worth mentioning that the specificity of Hazou's idea is what made it valuable. It pointed pretty well to a small area of seal-design space, which is what allowed it to actually be translated into reality. Even at the stage where Hazou was thinking of creating something similiar, but with a generic "something to stand on" subbed out for the air dome, it was basically useless.)

So, those dozens of bright sealmasters from earlier? How many knew something like air dome, but didn't think to use it that way? How many could have managed what Kagome did, and altered the air dome to produce smaller domes easily triggered by chakra adhesion, if someone had brought them the idea? Probably not too many. But I'd be surprised if it was less than a couple dozen. So the thing the world was crying out for wasn't the ability to implement the idea. A lot of people had that. Nobody actually knew what specific idea to implement. There was an uncomplicated solution staring civilization in the face. But it took someone noticing it to move the world forward.

There were probably a number of existing ideas that were basically impossible to implement. I can guarantee that someone thought of combining weightlessness and wind. But a seal to make you weightless? Really hard. The idea there is easy, and the bottleneck is the implementation. Similarly with one-seal-barrier. Everyone and their mother knows that that would be great. The idea is everywhere. But the implementation is basically impossible. So the idea is worthless.

But skywalkers? I mean, Kagome's a genius. The implementation there was probably actually really hard, and probably not that many people could have managed it. But literally nobody else had the idea. It was the most important sealing innovation of the century, and nobody else managed it. So, what, then, was the bottleneck? In the past century, there have probably been at least a couple dozen people as good at sealing as Kagome. If Kagome weren't there, Hazou's idea would have been worthless. Until he brought it to someone else, and warfare would still have been revolutionized. Remove Hazou from the picture, though, and nobody comes up with the idea. Skywalkers don't get invented. Remove Kagome, and there are still a bunch of ways the seal can end up in reality. Remove Hazou, and not so much. Then, nobody notices the solution to the problem, and it goes on not getting solved for another few decades until (and this is the really important bit, the bit that makes my argument) someone else comes up with the idea.

There were dozens of people capable of the implementation phase of the seal design. And, over the course of a century or more, none of them managed to make the finished product, because none of them had the idea to use an air dome stuck to your feet that could be toggled by chakra adhesion to allow you to run on air. The idea was the bottleneck there.

Obviously, you need the implementation for the idea to be worth anything. But in order for the ability to implement the idea to have value, you need to have the idea in the first place (and, obviously, the idea needs to be well-specified enough for you to know what implementing it would actually mean). Ability to do a thing, but no idea of what to do, and an idea of what to do but no ability to actually do it, are both worthless on their own. You need both. In our world, ideas are a dime a dozen, and it's basically impossible to notice the ones well-specified enough that they can even be called 'good' or 'bad'. Hell, it's even more difficult to find ideas well-put-together enough to have an idea of what implementing them would actually look like. But an idea that's well-specified, where you can tell what the intermediate problems will be within a few minutes of thinking, and tell that the implementation would be valuable? An idea nobody else would come up with? Calling that worthless seems strange. In general, sure, ideas are mostly worthless. But exceptions exist, and Hazou coming up with Skywalkers is an example of one.

Hazou's idea was the turning point, the thing that handed Leaf the world. It was simple, well-specified, pointed the way to a solution, and allowed people to productively work on the problem. If he had not had it, the problem would not have been solved. Because he had it, he is now the adopted son of one of the most powerful men in the world, and he has handed his new polity unprecedented military power. If Kagome wasn't there, he'd probably still be out in the wilderness grinding his sealing skill to make the prototype. The idea without someone to turn it into an actually working seal would be worthless. But the ability to make the seal was also worthless, when nobody even knew what seal they needed to be trying to make. If you need two elements to manage something important, the fact that you need both doesn't make only one literally worthless.

In short: Hazou's ideas are often pretty crappy. We come up with a lot of stuff and throw it at the wall to see what sticks. Out ideas often get shot down as foolish, or unworkable for some unforeseen reason, or we just forgot something or missed something in the planning stage. Worse, they often don't point to actual solutions to problems. But that one? Skywalkers? Well, when X is the missing element preventing an entire civilization from managing something, and X is added, and then the world fundamentally changes, the X certainly wasn't unimportant.

Yeah, this. Except we didn't have just one idea, we had multiple.

Exmorri · Feb 20, 2018

Winged_One said:
If ideas are worthless, maybe we should have Hazou look up elemental nations math textbook. After all, mathematics is just ideas. It's all just one idea after another that all follow from the previous ones in a chain where every single step only relies on a single non-obvious idea step, not anything hard like an execution.

No, mathemathics is not just ideas. Mathematics is very much implementations, specific recipes and executions. "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a way of solving this equation?" is an idea. Details matter.

thamuzz · Feb 20, 2018

faflec said:
You'd think that our enemies would have actual Consequences instead of just the aspect.

Honestly, this is probably true of more than just exhaustion. There have probably been quite a few fights between teams, leading to a smattering of low level (these are the winners of those fights) consequences all 'round.

Briefvoice · Feb 20, 2018

Here's an idea that gets Keiko more involved.

Go as before, but as Hazo lifts up the word-half it is "snatched from his hand" and blown up into the air by Keiko using Zephyr's Reach. She moves the paper upwards at an angle instead of horizontally, so unless genin can fly they'll have a trouble reaching it, but they can jump for it and probably grab it. At that point, Keiko peels off and the team will chase her to get the person who tried to steal their word.

Except... what she actually levitated was a fake word-half out of Hazou's hand while he stashes the real one. And what's running away is a clone (or maybe a pangolin summon?), since Keiko was able to activate ZR seallessly. At which point everyone on Hazou's team moves off in the other direction, re-henges, and vanishes into the streets. Meanwhile Sakura is still covering everything with genjutsu to make it all more plausible.

The point is to play the other team/person like puppets, using their expectations about what is going on to get them to react the way we want while we use those reactions to get them to overlook where their word-half actually went. It's all a shell game.

Citrus · Feb 20, 2018

Briefvoice said:
Here's an idea that gets Keiko more involved.

Go as before, but as Hazo lifts up the word-half it is "snatched from his hand" and blown up into the air by Keiko using Zephyr's Reach. She moves the paper upwards at an angle instead of horizontally, so unless genin can fly they'll have a trouble reaching it, but they can jump for it and probably grab it. At that point, Keiko peels off and the team will chase her to get the person who tried to steal their word.

Except... what she actually levitated was a fake word-half out of Hazou's hand while he stashes the real one. And what's running away is a clone (or maybe a pangolin summon?), since Keiko was able to activate ZR seallessly. At which point everyone on Hazou's team moves off in the other direction, re-henges, and vanishes into the streets. Meanwhile Sakura is still covering everything with genjutsu to make it all more plausible.

The point is to play the other team/person like puppets, using their expectations about what is going on to get them to react the way we want while we use those reactions to get them to overlook where their word-half actually went. It's all a shell game.

If Hazou practices the movements beforehand, he wouldn't have to roll Deceit correct? Or the Deceit roll is made at the time of memorization of the movement via Iron Nerve? Or none of the above?

Briefvoice · Feb 20, 2018

Citrus said:
If Hazou practices the movements beforehand, he wouldn't have to roll Deceit correct? Or the Deceit roll is made at the time of memorization of the movement via Iron Nerve? Or none of the above?

Hazou ought to be able to achieve his best possible sleight of hand roll using Deception and repeat it every time using Iron Nerve, but he cannot control how good an opposing roll enemies will make.

Roomba · Feb 20, 2018

Briefvoice said:
Here's an idea that gets Keiko more involved.

Go as before, but as Hazo lifts up the word-half it is "snatched from his hand" and blown up into the air by Keiko using Zephyr's Reach. She moves the paper upwards at an angle instead of horizontally, so unless genin can fly they'll have a trouble reaching it, but they can jump for it and probably grab it. At that point, Keiko peels off and the team will chase her to get the person who tried to steal their word.

Except... what she actually levitated was a fake word-half out of Hazou's hand while he stashes the real one. And what's running away is a clone (or maybe a pangolin summon?), since Keiko was able to activate ZR seallessly. At which point everyone on Hazou's team moves off in the other direction, re-henges, and vanishes into the streets. Meanwhile Sakura is still covering everything with genjutsu to make it all more plausible.

The point is to play the other team/person like puppets, using their expectations about what is going on to get them to react the way we want while we use those reactions to get them to overlook where their word-half actually went. It's all a shell game.

We can also just have Hazou and Sakura do it by themselves. Nothing says the teams have to be composed of three people each, and the combat team will benefit from additional firepower. I do like the Zephyr's Reach idea because smart people who carefully analysed the rules won't give their word half up even if we ask for it. The little pantomime with Keiko might make them less suspicious of Hazou being an impostor, but if they're suitably clever and paranoid, they won't give up their word half. The Zephyr's Reach idea gives us a contingency. (On that note, we should probably write a short guide to proctor interactions and include it in every plan until the end of the exam. I'll do it a bit later today.)

For Noburi, I was thinking that he'd be on standby, and if the conversation went off the rails or the targets got suspicious, he'd move in, Henged as a proctor, ostensibly to either relieve Hazou, deliver some message, or just casually chat. That would let us reset the conversation and distract the targets.

EDIT: I also think chakra might be a bigger problem for Sakura than for Haru. Sakura's capacity is supposed to be very low, and her only contribution to the setup is her genjutsu. Haru, on the other hand, can always just punch normally.

Briefvoice said:
Hazou is in-character aware that Haru doesn't like him and has a chip on his shoulder. Personally, I don't even remember the interlude you're talking about. I get the idea it might be non-clan resentment based on the way he's been depicted as acting. I can edit to be less certain on the theorizing, though.

Are you sure you haven't learned of Haru's anti-clan tendencies from us talking about it here? I probably wouldn't be so certain of it if I hadn't read that interlude.

I guess we can ask our teammates what they think, and as you mention, it wouldn't be surprising for Noburi to have noticed something either, but I wouldn't expect them to jump straight into "We must stage an intervention asap!".

Briefvoice · Feb 20, 2018

Roomba said:
We can also just have Hazou and Sakura do it by themselves. Nothing says the teams have to be composed of three people each, and the combat team will benefit from additional firepower. I do like the Zephyr's Reach idea because smart people who carefully analysed the rules won't give their word half up even if we ask for it. The little pantomime with Keiko might make them less suspicious of Hazou being an impostor, but if they're suitably clever and paranoid, they won't give up their word half. The Zephyr's Reach idea gives us a contingency. (On that note, we should probably write a short guide to proctor interactions and include it in every plan until the end of the exam. I'll do it a bit later today.)

It's not preferable, but if they won't voluntarily give up their words then they at least have to produce them and clearly display the paper to the "proctor". In that case, Sakura could do a genjutsu of "the paper just caught fire" to get them to panic and let it go, while Keiko simultaneously snatches it for real with Zephyr's reach and lifts it upwards.

That's not preferable because now they're following the real paper, but perhaps a clever switch with a duplicate when it's momentarily out of sight? That just takes a little set-up on the ambush site.

EDIT: Or wait, if Pandaa is prepositioned then Keiko could send the paper over to him... and then he desummons himself and vanishes with it.

EDIT: I also think chakra might be a bigger problem for Sakura than for Haru. Sakura's capacity is supposed to be very low, and her only contribution to the setup is her genjutsu. Haru, on the other hand, can always just punch normally.

This gets into the "not knowing capabilties" issue. I don't really understand the limits of Sakura's genjutsu or how much chakra it takes.

eaglejarl · Feb 20, 2018

Offtopic PSA:

It was pointed out to me in PM that I was being too strident in the "value of ideas" discussion, to the point of coming off as (a) childish and (b) abusing my power as a QM. When I go back and re-read I do agree that my big post in response to @Jello_Raptor was intended to be funny but it overshot and landed in 'snotty'. I didn't review the entire discussion, but it's quite possible that some of my other posts were, shall we say, not exactly perfect. I had already edited in a comment on the big J_R post, but want to make sure that I've thoroughly covered the bases:

@Jello_Raptor , we have met twice and I have thoroughly enjoyed your company. I have a tremendous respect for your intelligence, your education, and your social eptitude. I should have taken more care not to be rude or mean in my response.

To anyone else who felt similarly ill-used by one of my responses: My apologies. It wasn't my intent. Even if I disagree vehemently with something you said it was not intended as an attack on you personally and I should have taken more care in my presentation.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled planning discussion.

(NB: In case you were wondering, the person who PM'd me was not Jello_Raptor.)

OliWhail · Feb 20, 2018

Jello_Raptor said:
huh I just realized I misread Hibachi as Hitachi and was wondering why that was so useless. I mean, you probably don't need one rated for 10s of meters, but I'm sure tons of people would love one that worked in the bathtub.

...surely that exists already. Of ALL the things that exist, that HAS to be one...

*off to the google machine*

(E: okay, yes, thank jashin, we haven't UTTERLY failed at capitalism)

eaglejarl said:
actual definition

Something something beware arguing by definition

faflec · Feb 20, 2018

So uh... @eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail Any update on:

Keiko's Pangolins/Pangolin jutsu?
Character sheets?
Unanswered questions from the last update:
- Who did the other Leaf teams encounter and how did it go?
- Who do they think are the high-power dangerous teams to watch out for?
- How many seals did they bring in?
- How did other Teams locate the Exam?
- For any team who turned in word, put high priority on learning how proctors treated them and what measures were in place to prevent them from sending messages back.

eaglejarl · Feb 20, 2018

faflec said:
So uh... @eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail Any update on:

Keiko's Pangolins/Pangolin jutsu?

Character sheets?

Unanswered questions from the last update:

Who did the other Leaf teams encounter and how did it go?

Who do they think are the high-power dangerous teams to watch out for?

How many seals did they bring in?

How did other Teams locate the Exam?

For any team who turned in word, put high priority on learning how proctors treated them and what measures were in place to prevent them from sending messages back.

Afraid not. We've barely caught each other in chat since last week. @Velorien has been sick and suffering poor sleep, @OliWhail has had other obligations, and I've been distracted. We touched base today and there has been some discussion about the handling of 'Tired' and consequences, but nothing on the rest of it. Sorry for the delay.

Roomba · Feb 20, 2018

Briefvoice said:
It's not preferable, but if they won't voluntarily give up their words then they at least have to produce them and clearly display the paper to the "proctor". In that case, Sakura could do a genjutsu of "the paper just caught fire" to get them to panic and let it go, while Keiko simultaneously snatches it for real with Zephyr's reach and lifts it upwards.

That's not preferable because now they're following the real paper, but perhaps a clever switch with a duplicate when it's momentarily out of sight? That just takes a little set-up on the ambush site.

EDIT: Or wait, if Pandaa is prepositioned then Keiko could send the paper over to him... and then he desummons himself and vanishes with it.

Couldn't find how much XP Pandaa has exactly, but I'd estimate the summoning cost at 15-30, and then 5-10 per additional hour, according to the rules. That's acceptable even if he ends up desummoning himself on every successful attempt. So it sounds like a good idea, if we keep Keiko in the Infiltration team.

Briefvoice said:
This gets into the "not knowing capabilties" issue. I don't really understand the limits of Sakura's genjutsu or how much chakra it takes.

According to Hazou's IC knowledge you quoted earlier, we do know Sakura has low chakra capacity. This might force us to put Noburi on the infiltration team after all - Sakura's genjutsu is pretty important for the strategy, though she's apparently smart enough to be useful without it as well. A hybrid approach where we rendezvous with the Punch team and Noburi recharges Sakura is possible as well. In any case, we'll need to ask her about it, though preferably not in front of everyone.

EDIT:

Briefvoice said:
He can't duplicate their word in advance, but he could use his calligraphy skills to draw similar patterns to that found on word halves on some paper

I don't think we have a source of green ink for this. It would be very useful to have one, as being able to make a believable fake would make secret word opsec a lot simpler. I do recall some discussion of this pre-rules change, but I don't think any useful conclusions were reached.

Maybe just visit a paper shop and see if they sell any?

Briefvoice · Feb 20, 2018

I updated the plan with additional contingencies. Give it a read.

Roomba said:
I don't think we have a source of green ink for this. It would be very useful to have one, as being able to make a believable fake would make secret word opsec a lot simpler. I do recall some discussion of this pre-rules change, but I don't think any useful conclusions were reached.

Maybe just visit a paper shop and see if they sell any?

A fate point declaration could be that Jiriaya had some in his calligraphy supplies and gave it to Hazou when he asked during the debrief. Willing to spend the FP?

According to Hazou's IC knowledge you quoted earlier, we do know Sakura has low chakra capacity. This might force us to put Noburi on the infiltration team after all - Sakura's genjutsu is pretty important for the strategy, though she's apparently smart enough to be useful without it as well. A hybrid approach where we rendezvous with the Punch team and Noburi recharges Sakura is possible as well. In any case, we'll need to ask her about it, though preferably not in front of everyone.

I mean, literally the only thing we're asking her to cast is her genjutsu. You don't think she has enough chakra to do that five or six times if she does nothing else?

Roomba · Feb 20, 2018

[X] Plan of Attack

On the updated plan:

Briefvoice said:
Hazou will prepare decoy papers (see below) and then spend ten minutes or so practicing Sleight of Hand (see below) using Haruno and Keiko as Observers so he can get down the best possible combinations of Iron Nerve muscle motions to switch papers without anyone seeing what's up.

Maybe add a note to be careful about not leaking Iron Nerve mechanics here? Might even be worth to only do it in front of Keiko for this reason.

Briefvoice said:
Hazo will roll Deception and use a Fate Point to invoke "Tired" or other appropriate aspects or consequences the enemy has on them to make them less attentive

Hmm, blowing a Fate Point at every attempt is expensive, and I thought we were trying to conserve them for combat. Maybe only do this if the targets seem alert and clever?

Briefvoice said:
A fate point declaration could be that Jiriaya had some in his calligraphy supplies and gave it to Hazou when he asked during the debrief. Willing to spend the FP?

I think so. It gives us a lot of options. For example, we can make a bunch of believable fake half words, and then let them be stolen. Hopefully turning a fake in to a proctor will result in a DQ or first event fail. And keeping our real secret word becomes much easier.

I'd rather just check a shop for it first though, should only take a couple of minutes and potentially save us the FP.

Briefvoice said:
I mean, literally the only thing we're asking her to cast is her genjutsu. You don't think she has enough chakra to do that five or six times if she does nothing else?

Don't know, honestly. Worth including a contingency to meet with Punch team and have Noburi recharge her?

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