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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Roomba said:
Personally, one of the things I'm hoping for from this strategy is to put some pressure on the proctors. Force them to make this kind of decision, to potentially cancel the event or cut it short. Compromise it in some way. They wanted to play dirty, we'll show them dirty.
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You should include that in the plan, then, see what Kei thinks of the idea.
 
[X] Action Plan: The Pressure Cooker

This plan will ideally take us until the Elemental Mastery gambit described either bears fruit or fails. We'd like the update to end at that point in order to separately plan how we want to capitalize on what we have wrought.

1. Escape the tunnel
Hazou moves to the collapsed tunnel exit and uses the tunneling technique to create a new one, aiming to emerge at the original entrance point. Conceal the new entrance afterwards, if it can be done quickly and quietly.

2. Discuss the plan with our teammates
  • Find a secluded spot away from the tunnel entrance.
  • Check Hazou's equipment for signs of tampering.
  • Hazou relates what happened to him and hears what Noburi and Keiko have been up to.
    • He strongly suspects he was followed when he went to dig the tunnel, and consequently, that his assailant knew his identity at the time.
    • Given that the assailant was a Wakahisa, obvious suspects are either Team Downfall or a rogue proctor.
    • In any case, Hazou believes that our enemies stepped up their cheating, and that conventional strategies will no longer result in a good score for this event.
    • After hearing Noburi's story, Hazou expresses surprise that Hinata didn't warn Noburi about the trap, which she should've been able to see with her Byakugan.
  • He explains his plan (found under points 3 and 4), and asks for feedback from his teammates.
    • Hazou himself is compromised and will be watched the moment he makes a public appearance. Keiko and Noburi's identities might be as well, so they should exercise great caution.
    • Because of this, Hazou himself will provide a distraction, while they execute the real plan.
    • The plan hinges on Akane's help and breaks opsec on Elemental Mastery. Hazou isn't happy about it, but it's the safest idea he has under the circumstances.
  • Noburi and Hazou are low on chakra, and we might need to support Akane later. If there's an opportunity to ambush a candidate safely in the maze and drain them a bit, go for it. If not, there will be more opportunities later.
  • Update should end if Keiko deems the idea unworkable or too reckless.
3. The Elemental Mastery Gambit
  • The basic idea is to use Elemental Mastery to increase the temperature in most of the event area to uncomfortable levels, derailing the party and herding participants into a single area. Capitalize afterwards.
    • The purpose is to disrupt the event, derail any ongoing plans, and pressure both other candidates and proctors into bad decisions.
    • Increasing the ambient temperature will let us distinguish ninja from civilian via observing their sweat dissipate after leaving their chakra body.
    • Hazou is open to ideas on how to capitalize effectively - Noburi was always good at this kind of thing.
  • Find Akane and ask her for help.
    • Agree on a signal in case she refuses, in which case the update should end.
    • Easiest way would be to use Bonku, but Hazou leaves this (and most of the plan's execution) up to Noburi and Keiko's judgement.
    • Be very careful about this and make absolutely sure nobody ends up taking note of Akane. Her safety in this plan depends on her evading attention while traversing the mansion.
    • We want her to place EM zones along the perimeter of the grounds, and then within the mansion itself, with the intent of driving all the party participants into an exposed, open area.
    • The target temperature should be around 45 degrees Celsius - uncomfortable for most people, but not a direct hazard to their health.
    • There's no rush - Akane should take great care not to give herself away, prioritizing that over speed. Nobody should see her cut handseals for EM, and she should always cast it from a distance.
    • Once the participants have gathered in the designated zone, place EM there as well, but at a lower temperature, encouraging them to stay, but still causing them to sweat.
    • Decide on an out of the way safe-zone, where we can direct allies, and which we'll cool with ice from our storage scrolls. Perhaps a remote break room?
  • Notify our allies of the safe zone.
    • Ideally, this should be the whole SuperTeam, or however many of them Keiko and Noburi can find.
    • This can happen concurrently with Akane setting up the EM zones.
    • Only tell them that the location will be safe if they need it, without specifying what the threat is.
      • If Team Asuma want in, explain the plan to them, but request some chakra for Noburi as a buy-in.
  • Wait until the plan bears fruit. Our team get ready to unleash more chaos on the congregated partygoers.
4. The Distraction (doesn't need to happen on-screen)
  • Hazou's identity is almost surely compromised, and disseminated to an unknown number of parties. However, whoever knocked him out expect him to stay knocked out, and will surely be distracted if he suddenly becomes publicly active.
  • Hazou adjusts his persona to appear a bit drunk and more gregarious and outgoing for this.
  • He goes out of his way to talk to a lot of people and move around with apparent purpose.
  • The Fake Sneeze Gas threat
    • Hazou uses Sleight of Hand to plant harmless training seals in various locations. Spend FP on him having them, if necessary.
    • He also occasionally leaves a meaningless "coded" message in spots that seem like they'd be good for dead drops.
    • In conversations, he offers in confidence that he overheard some people in the maze talking about unleashing a gas in the mansion that is supposed to cause rapid and violent sneezing. Aren't ninja just weird sometimes?
  • The Second Level Game
    • Hazou attempts to start a game for the partygoers: The Secret Ninja Game.
    • He prepares slips of paper with all the secret roles he remembers, but without his own present.
    • The game mirrors the event: Participants get to pick (it's important that the choice is theirs) a role, and then need to find their counterpart without giving themselves away.
    • Hazou takes special note of the person who takes his opposite role, if anyone does.
    • If people discreetly approach him, asking for "tips" on finding their counterpart, he's willing to help them out. He tries his best to commit them to memory, in particular.
  • He tries to keep an eye out for anyone specifically following him throughout.
@Velorien, since you expressed displeasure with last week's plan, can you provide some preliminary feedback on this one? Too long? Some parts too detailed? Or maybe some parts are underspecified? I'm willing to make changes for your improved update-writing experience.
 
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Roomba said:
This plan will ideally take us until the Elemental Mastery gambit described either bears fruit or fails. We'd like the update to end at that point in order to separately plan how we want to capitalize on what we have wrought.
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I feel like there's something wrong with the wording on this statement, specifically where we end the update when the EM gambit bears fruit. I'm not sure what our precise intentions are, but FMPOV the update would end after we get all the intel we can from the EM gambit, instead of ending when the EM gambit starts and we can start figuring out our next step.
 
I still kind of feel like this plan has three different directions it can go and isn't really doing any of them as effectively as it could
  1. Make people sweat, ID them that way.
    • Supported by the plan as a whole, but detracted from by the fact that we'll be IDable too. Can be adjusted for in the next plan, though, I suppose? Shouldn't we at least get some ice prepared or whatever?
  2. Stay out of the way
    • Supported by creating a safe room. But I don't really think a safe room can be a thing if this plan will be effective at all -- if there's a number of zones, and EM affects a zone, I seriously doubt "out of the way room" would be a zone its own. Also, once the duration of EM ends, the heat will spread naturally, making that room plenty hot anyway.
    • Still really don't approve of the above.
  3. Just in case Hazou thinks henges will pop
    • Nothing is in the plan on this that I can tell.
    • I would suggest finding a break room overlooking the slightly-lower-temperature area outside noted in-plan, and using a curtain or cloth of Hazou's own to obscure his and his team's face as they overlook the popping henges, getting intel on them.
 
I will observe that if Henges start popping en masse we're going to be interrogated as individuals whose Henges did not pop. It might be good to have an excuse or something.
 
faflec said:
I will observe that if Henges start popping en masse we're going to be interrogated as individuals whose Henges did not pop. It might be good to have an excuse or something.
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Being in a break room, nobody would see ours popping.

Also, I'm not sure why they would. The reasons for the henges popping would be pretty self evident after a moment's thought.
 
[X] Action Plan: The Pressure Cooker

Personally, I say that once people are herded, we throw a banshee into the crowd.
 
Ah, also, we need contingencies for if Akane doesn't have enough chakra to do this immediately.
 
Roomba said:
1. Escape the tunnel
Hazou moves to the collapsed tunnel exit and uses the tunneling technique to create a new one, aiming to emerge at the original entrance point. Conceal the new entrance afterwards.
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Why the entrance btw? There could be still some unexploded training tags in the area and if someone deliberately tried to bait our teammates into the tunnel in the hopes of trapping us all, wouldn't they keep an eye out on the entrance?
I'd propose we tunnel away from the mansion and closer to the border instead without going out of bounds. As the one having made the tunnel, Hazo should know which way to dig (worst case, ask Nobby where he entered from and use that as guideline to orient yourself).

Roomba said:
Notify our allies of the safe zone.
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If we apply the same logic of missing attendee = likely a ninja when we herd people into the proposed place, shouldn't the same apply to us as well? People will notice us missing and mark us down as ninjas.


Roomba said:
Hazou uses Sleight of Hand to plant harmless training seals in various locations. Spend FP on him having them, if necessary.
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We are pretty much guaranteed to get caught doing this since it rolls against Awareness IIRC. Is it intended that we go from "almost surely compromised" to "definitely compromised"?
 
faflec said:
What, are we supposed to get Akane's help without talking to her? How the fuck
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I proposed there being a sufficient time delay between us contacting Akane and her actual leaving to do her thing so the two actions don't look connected. Ideally, by the time the rooms start heating up we are already visibly chatting up other people.
@Roomba: Please add that part to the plan?
 
Cariyaga said:
Sure, someone talks to her. But "talk to her -> learn she doens't have enough chakra -> talk to Noburi -> Noburi gets her alone to drink water" is a lot of points of failure.
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Unless Noburi talks to her. Which is something he could do. Find her, get her alone, Noburi explains the plan, gives her chakra if she doesn't have enough. One conversation, bam.
 
faflec said:
Unless Noburi talks to her. Which is something he could do. Find her, get her alone, Noburi explains the plan, gives her chakra if she doesn't have enough. One conversation, bam.
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There we go, then.

Alright, what about the clique that was threatening us into revealing we were a ninja? How about we ambush them in the maze? We know they're here.
 
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