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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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I, too, don't see much of a reason to use lethal traps. If our enemies want to go through our nonlethal trap field and get caught in goo or knocked out by explosive tags, good for us. Lethal traps only introduce the possibility of an accidental death and subsequent shitstorm, and said shitstorm will absolutely reflect negatively on us at the end of the day.

There may be reputational reasons for the lethal route, but I don't think those align well with our current goals.
 
Vecht said:
But how do they know it's not? From the perspective of our opponents, if we use any amount of lethal options at all (much less at minimum a minefield of explosive traps and force walls), then us boasting "we didn't even have to use our full arsenal" rings a little hollow.
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We would not have because we have left one side non-lethal. It will be clear that if this was real we would not have.
 
eaglejarl said:
I disagree that I'm the state, but leave that aside.

I think y'all have a very different view from mine of how insanely stupid the other contestants are. I try not to promise that things will or won't happen, so I won't definitively state that no one would mulch themselves on your lethal traps or that there would be no political consequences. Still, if an enemy team stands up at dinner and says "I'm a sealmaster, these three sides are lethal" and then goes to a huge amount of trouble to notify everyone -- including the Kage -- then how stupid do you have to be to send your physical body into the blender? It's a Darwin Award waiting to happen.
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Speaking of underestimating the stupidity of our peers, how about that 4th event, eh? :p
 
So, lethality or not, we need to work on our fort defense design. @MMKII Could you repost your design you elaborated on earlier? Feel free to post the whole thing again or quote it, at your preference.
 
Cariyaga said:
So, lethality or not, we need to work on our fort defense design. @MMKII Could you repost your design you elaborated on earlier? Feel free to post the whole thing again or quote it, at your preference.
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I can do this when I get back to my place in a few hours.

@eaglejarl

For clarification: The defense vote is just for the fort design and not any tactics or such and such in addition to the actual design?
 
[X] (lethal) No
[X] (speech) Yes

It's a bad idea. It doesn't give us anything (doesn't make victory more/mess likely) and it threatens both our reputation and the odds we'll make it to the tournament. I'm not willing to jeopardize that much for 5XP.
 
Icehawk78 said:
[X] (lethal) No
[X] (speech) No

Is it bad that I feel more able to contribute to voting with constrained options? I like where freeform voting has taken this quest, but I generally end up feeling more like an observer in those cases.
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I told the QMs on more than one occasion that constrained options like these leads to more participation.

But we kept to freeform voting.
 
Immortal Lurker said:
I want to get some momentum behind the victory tour. It sounds amazing.

There are two questions

How much security do we need?
  • The less we need the cheaper it is, and we can do more for longer.
  • A semi random path with frequent detours to Leaf patrols should minimize the need for additional security.
  • Move very fast.
And who to take?
  • Hazou is a must.
  • The rest of team uplift would be amazing.
  • Kagome might be a bad idea.
  • Mari might be to valuable, but someone we trust absolutely to vet potential allies would be amazing.
    • We have a month or two, could we get an intrigue pangolin?
  • Any Leaf ninja who says they want in on it and gets Jiraiya's approval.
  • Mist ninja?
  • Special invites?
    • someone from Minami's clan?
    • Hinata?
    • Neji?
    • ISC?
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I don't think we need any security? We'd be moving through friendly territory, in a force of multiple Chuunin, including a sealmaster and a summoner. Next step would be taking an elite jounin with us, which I think is a bit overkill. Nothing short of a dedicated Akatsuki assassination squad should be a real danger.

I wouldn't go out of our way to play clan-level politics on this trip, either. We could ask people we want to befriend further, like Neji or Haru, if they'd like to tag along. ISC or Hinata seem like they'd take the invitation as something more than it is. If they hear about it independently, I don't see a reason to refuse, though.

Wanting to take Mari along to vet potential allies seems like getting ahead of ourselves here. This is basically a camping trip with some work to do during the day. It's fine to relax a bit and get to know people at a leisurely pace. We can start thinking about who we'd like to recruit and how to vet them once we get back.
 
Roomba said:
I don't think we need any security? We'd be moving through friendly territory, in a force of multiple Chuunin, including a sealmaster and a summoner. Next step would be taking an elite jounin with us, which I think is a bit overkill. Nothing short of a dedicated Akatsuki assassination squad should be a real danger.

I wouldn't go out of our way to play clan-level politics on this trip, either. We could ask people we want to befriend further, like Neji or Haru, if they'd like to tag along. ISC or Hinata seem like they'd take the invitation as something more than it is. If they hear about it independently, I don't see a reason to refuse, though.

Wanting to take Mari along to vet potential allies seems like getting ahead of ourselves here. This is basically a camping trip with some work to do during the day. It's fine to relax a bit and get to know people at a leisurely pace. We can start thinking about who we'd like to recruit and how to vet them once we get back.
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Um. If we're public about doing this, which we would have to be to get some of the people to come along, then this would be no less bait than Naruto was, for anyone who would be interested in our heads.
 
Waffle said:
[X] (lethal) No
[X] (speech) Yes

It's a bad idea. It doesn't give us anything (doesn't make victory more/mess likely) and it threatens both our reputation and the odds we'll make it to the tournament. I'm not willing to jeopardize that much for 5XP.
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It does make victory more likely.
 
I'm not convinced it does. If anything, them being willing to step onto the goo-minefield because it's nonlethal makes our victory more likely as those who step onto that will be out for good.
 
Waffle said:
I'm not convinced it does. If anything, them being willing to step onto the goo-minefield because it's nonlethal makes our victory more likely as those who step onto that will be out for good.
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They are going to send clones first. If they don't think of it Shikamaru will definitely suggest it to them.
 
Noumero said:
Using lethal traps is an exciting option, but it has two failure states: enemies being stupid, and enemies being clever.

The stupid one was already discussed.

The smart one is, "two could play this game". Once we announce our intention to use lethal traps in order to game-theoretically coerce our opposition into attacking us from a particular direction, what would stop our enemies from doing the same? E. g., Hazama could state that he'll be using his Lighting Pillars with lethal force if he sees our team employing Pangolins, some Mist clan could take a page from your book, @Vecht, and precommit to use weapons-grade explosive tags against our fortifications if we don't immediately surrender, similarly warn everyone from genin to Kages about it, et cetera.

All it takes is one copycat, and all contestants will realize that they could do it too.

It'll be very inconvenient, if admittedly extremely entertaining. But we can have no nice things, so...

[X] (lethal) No
[X] (speech) Yes
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Doesn't work that way. If it did we could just say at the beginning "Give up or we will kill you".
 
fictionfan said:
It does make victory more likely.
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Not really.

The only reason the trapfield exists is to herd them towards us along a predetermined path in the first place.

If a handful decide to go wade through it anyway, whether theres a dozen lethal explosives or a dozen training explosives in their way, they'll still be out of the fight. One is just a more permanent solution.

This doesnt really serve to do much besides upping the stakes, as I see it. Maybe theres a minor advantage? I think its negligible for reasons pointed out though. I dont think we need to go this route to get everyone to comply with the aforementioned herding since we already voted to suggest that Shika do this anyaay. I cant really imagine him objecting to doing that with a minor expenditure of effort on his end yet being okay with us accomplishing the same thing by upping the stakes substantially.
 
fictionfan said:
They are going to send clones first. If they don't think of it Shikamaru will definitely suggest it to them.
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If we are unable to make traps that can break clones but aren't as costly (to us) as a Goo Bomb we don't deserve to advance. We could instead make basic anti-clone traps. They're called mundane traps. Like tripwires, or basic pitfall traps. Stuff that doesn't cost us our big guns.

And if they continue to make clones to trip us up, it:
  • burns a fuckton of chakra (each clone costs 15CP);
  • makes clones that have 1/3 the user's Alertness or the Clone's level (whichever is lower), resulting in clones that fail against our (Pangolin) trapmaking level; and
  • gives us more time to throw long-ranged projectiles and/or start our own counterattack (e.g., Pangolin ambush).
 
...incidentally, the more I see Shikamaru the more I realize that the Nara also suffer from a form of depression.
 
faflec said:
If we are unable to make traps that can break clones but aren't as costly (to us) as a Goo Bomb we don't deserve to advance. We could instead make basic anti-clone traps. They're called mundane traps. Like tripwires, or basic pitfall traps. Stuff that doesn't cost us our big guns.

And if they continue to make clones to trip us up, it:
  • burns a fuckton of chakra (each clone costs 15CP);
  • makes clones that have 1/3 the user's Alertness or the Clone's level (whichever is lower), resulting in clones that fail against our (Pangolin) trapmaking level; and
  • gives us more time to throw long-ranged projectiles and/or start our own counterattack (e.g., Pangolin ambush).
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I have no idea what you are arguing for. I am arguing for lethal traps on 3 sides. Your suggestion seems best for the non-lethal traps on the 4th side.

On the lethal sides we want the clones to die in a awesome way to stop people from following them.
 
fictionfan said:
I have no idea what you are arguing for. I am arguing for lethal traps on 3 sides. Your suggestion seems best for the non-lethal traps on the 4th side.

On the lethal sides we want the clones to die in a awesome way to stop people from following them.
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I am arguing for no lethal traps. At all. I argue this for the dangers and etc., you've read this stuff before and I don't think I need to repeat everything.

Specifically, I was responding to your quote below:
fictionfan said:
Waffle said:
I'm not convinced it does. If anything, them being willing to step onto the goo-minefield because it's nonlethal makes our victory more likely as those who step onto that will be out for good.
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They are going to send clones first. If they don't think of it Shikamaru will definitely suggest it to them.
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I had assumed that you, having read @Waffle's post, believed that our enemies would send out clones to test a <hypothetically non-lethal> goo minefield and trip the traps, resulting in our net loss of material (they lose 15CP in clones, we lose Goo Bombs). My rebuttal to that argument was that we could put preliminary traps that could disable clones but didn't cost us a lot (e.g., pitfalls, tripwires), thus allowing us to prevent clones from detonating goo bomb traps without costing us much. Thus making a goo minefield (with extra stuff) viable.
 
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