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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know

[X] Lore Update: Literally all the political information Hazou should have but we don't.
 
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Asquil said:
@Velorien said that he wanted Ami to attend the wedding, but couldn't figure out how, and that he was willing to give a large number of XP if we found a way.

Now that I think about it, after reading this update, he might have been lying the whole time. The whole wedding happening so soon was apparently Ami's plan all along.

Did we seriously just spent a lot of our collective brainpower - and a good chunk of Hazou's reputation in the eyes of Shikamaru - on a wild goose chase? @Velorien, what the hell?

[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know
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Let me see if I understand this right. You are accusing me of a prolonged act of deception in the name of... what? Denying you XP? Refusing to provide an outcome you feel your efforts earned? Generic QM sadism?

I do not appreciate the fact that your default assumption in a case like this is that the QMs are dealing in bad faith. I certainly do not appreciate being accused of lying. I participate in this quest because I enjoy writing, because I enjoy the challenge of building and running a world within the constraints of a rational quest, and above all because seeing people be emotionally invested in something you create is an amazing feeling. With that in mind, being accused of writing the 20,000 words I've written so far this month in the spirit of malevolence is simply disgusting. This community is better than that. You are supposed to be better than that.

With regard to the specifics of the so-called lie. Your plan was terrible. I'm sorry, but it was. We even gave you explicit advance warning that trying to send inter-village mail was serious business with serious implications. Because I had carte blanche, I decided to be nice, and instead of implementing that subplan as was, I had Hazō consult somebody capable of understanding the mistake, and he explained to you exactly what would have happened.

We don't devise traps. We present scenarios which, being simulationist rather than narrative, are open and may have multiple solutions, or none. We don't know if there was a good solution. We just know that yours didn't work. We didn't expect you to find one that worked. That was the whole point of offering an XP bounty for surpassing our expectations. Which, by the way, a) you are not entitled to under any circumstances and b) we would probably have given to you anyway because XP is awarded for plans, not consequences.

The rest is character agency. Ami was in a position you weren't. She had a Mizukage ready and more than willing to give her formal authorisation, and she had been established as a character with both the skill and the motivation to get to Leaf on her own. Were we to pretend that away in order to give the players an opening to help her?

Edit: let's not forget that you decided to pursue the idea of inviting Ami. You decided to invest brainpower in it. There was no compulsion, no restriction of your agency, and nobody was forcing you to go after that potential bonus XP either.
 
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@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail I recognize that y'all have more spoons than Kagome has explosives, but I would really like an explanation of Hazou's thought processes when Keiko announced her revocation of the Pangolin-Skytower deal; specifically, for his initial reaction ("Keiko, I can't allow–") and his intentions behind his prompting of Mari.
 
I still say we should assasinate Hiashi. Non jokingly, this is genuinely our best option. Short of that, though, we need to start working with Mari on votes for this stat. The Hokage position is so much more important than this jockeying for Ren favors or Ami favors or shikamaru hours it's not even funny. The only remotely comparable goals we've had since BotG are Naruto, Snake Scroll, and Seventh path shenanigans - all of which are nonetheless still of somewhat lower value.
 
faflec said:
I know it's not meant in that regard, but "annoying ghost bullets" made me lose my fucking shit.
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They make me lose my shit too!
*fingerguns*

Everyone in this thread whos ever had to edit plans knows about the annoying ghost bullets. This goes triple if you do it on mobile. This goes triple double-double with a side of shake-n-bake and a large order of FUCKFUCKFUCK if you use an iPhone with default Safari because the only way to kill the bullet specters is to UNFORMAT THE ENTIRE 400 WORD PILE OF BULLETPOINTS AND DO IT AGAIN! Also the text selection on SV just plain WONT WORK. No, I *dont* want to select the entire goddamn page, thank you phone!

FUCK YOU PHANTOM XENFORO BULLETPOINTS!!! YOU ARE THE REAL RIFT DENIZENS!!!
 
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MMKII said:
They make me lose my shit too!
*fingerguns*

Everyone in this theead whos ever had to edit plans knows about the annoying ghost bullets. This goes triple if you do it on mobile. This goes triple double-double with a side of shake-n-bake and a large order of FUCKFUCKFUCK if you use an iPhone with default Safari because the only way to kill the bullet specters is to UNFORMAT THE ENTIRE 400 WORD PILE OF BULLETPOINTS AND DO IT AGAIN! Also the text selection on SV just plain WONT WORK. No, I *dont* want to select the entire goddamn page, thank you phone!

FUCK YOU PHANTOM XENFORO BULLETPOINTS!!! YOU ARE THE REAL RIFT DENIZENS!!!
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No, I mean the way you described them was hilarious.

But yes, fuck off. It's why I spend the time altering the bullets so that they're in different paragraphs; that way you won't have to reformat everything. Just some things.
 
faflec said:
@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail I recognize that y'all have more spoons than Kagome has explosives, but I would really like an explanation of Hazou's thought processes when Keiko announced her revocation of the Pangolin-Skytower deal; specifically, for his initial reaction ("Keiko, I can't allow–") and his intentions behind his prompting of Mari.
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Isn't this backwards? Iirc spoons were the resources you spend, not what you spend them on, so the problem would be that the QMs have too few spoons to answer every single question, no?
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Is it? If you're in a position of authority, it's hard to imagine a statement starting with "I can't allow" that isn't an order of some sort, if only (very heavily) implicitly.


I think we're going to have to insist on having a discussion about the pros and cons of our summons realm plan with Keiko.

We already walk on eggshells around her to a certain degree, but we can't actually set a precedent of letting Keiko avoid an important topic because she might be wrong and that would make her feel bad.

Feeling super burnt out on dealing with her self-esteem issues though. It's realistic, but it's certainly not fun.
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Honestly, Keiko's extreme self-loathing and constant emotional issues don't seem like something a well-made plan can even resolve. In Real Life, when somebody has someone who is constantly being a drain on your emotional/cognitive resources, you need to cut them off. No one is entitled to your attention and its often better to redirect someone to another individual capable of helping them, like a counselor or therapist.

However, in a Quest, it seems even harder to deal with because you can't simply cut someone as important to the story/characters off. Especially given that Keiko is the most intelligent and powerful (because summons) member of the Chunin-Goketsu. Because of this, i'm not too outraged by Mari's behavior. Keiko may simply require some manipulating at this point to achieve our goals, given that literally nobody else in the Goketsu clan has the emotional intelligence/social skill to effective deal with her.

Perhaps i'm being too emotional myself after reading this chapter, so I apologize if I come off as harsh.
 
[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know

@huhYeahGoodPoint Thoughts on your plan:
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
Resolve to apologize to Keiko for the order later.
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I'd like to suggest we also apologize to Mari, for making her do something she clearly didn't want to do (that is to say, manipulate Keiko into changing her mind). Hazou knows (...right?) Mari loves Keiko, like, a fucking lot, and having her manipulate Keiko like that was fucked up. We should own up to our mistake in this regard.

At least, assuming that's what Hazou was intending. I don't actually know what he was thinking.
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
He can only speak to knowing that he loved Ino absolutely.
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If you think it's a good idea, we can reminisce on that one time Inoichi decided to mess with Hazou using his and Ino's relationship.
 
faflec said:
Yes? No? Maybe? Tsunade said (according to WoG) that she was a contendor in the same sense that Ren was (read: social training). But she didn't make mention of possible problems when she did so.

But I think this illustrates what's been going on with the thread lately. We have no idea what the fuck is going on and the QMs have so many spoons on their plates they can't respond fast enough; things are simply moving too fast for any of us to deal with.

At the cost of turning people off of the thread...might I suggest making the next update a single, simple scene (like what @huhYeahGoodPoint's proposed) but with a lot of back-info on stuff that we should know but don't?
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I second this motion - both the voters and the QMs are feeling the time pressure, it seems, and there's no need for that.
MMKII said:
I don't get this.

Shikamaru's an asshole and he pretty much just sprinkled salt and broken glass in the half-healed wounds inflicted upon us from when Jiraiya hit our agency with Samehada.

In summary, his CCnJ talk was:

SHIKAMARU: You stupid man. I like you, but you're worthless

Just like pretty much every interaction with him that isn't just chilling out.

(Though, its true that Keiko then wrapped our wounds shut (unpleasant particulate matter and all) with the Pangolin Scroll and is currently in the process of tossing us into a volcano because she is categorically incapable of clearly communicating [KEIKO WE HAVE A FUCKING TECHNIQUE FOR THIS YOU MORON] even the most basic of preferences to the rest of the siblings Gouketsu without a childish outburst and taking drastic action that could backfire on a scale of such great magnitude that even Kagome would recognize the danger.)
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I felt the same way, having earlier misread Shikamru's speech as being "this is dumb, you're dumb for thinking this could work, and I'm revising my opinion of your worth down as a result", which I felt was a real downer. Having gone back to reread it, I realised that him saying this specific idea was dumb was in no related to him saying our personal worth to his clan was much less than it was when Jiraiya was around (I appear to be skimming things lately.) It also took place before we got Naruto onboard, with him explicitly mentioning our need to recruit him, so he wasn't taking that into account. I came away with two very different impressions of Shikamaru's speech. May I ask if you possibly made the same mistake I did?

Velorien said:
Let me see if I understand this right. You are accusing me of a prolonged act of deception in the name of... what? Denying you XP? Refusing to provide an outcome you feel your efforts earned? Generic QM sadism?

I do not appreciate the fact that your default assumption in a case like this is that the QMs are dealing in bad faith. I certainly do not appreciate being accused of lying. I participate in this quest because I enjoy writing, because I enjoy the challenge of building and running a world within the constraints of a rational quest, and above all because seeing people be emotionally invested in something you create is an amazing feeling. With that in mind, being accused of writing the 20,000 words I've written so far this month in the spirit of malevolence is simply disgusting. This community is better than that. You are supposed to be better than that.

With regard to the specifics of the so-called lie. Your plan was terrible. I'm sorry, but it was. We even gave you explicit advance warning that trying to send inter-village mail was serious business with serious implications. Because I had carte blanche, I decided to be nice, and instead of implementing that subplan as was, I had Hazō consult somebody capable of understanding the mistake, and he explained to you exactly what would have happened.

We don't devise traps. We present scenarios which, being simulationist rather than narrative, are open and may have multiple solutions, or none. We don't know if there was a good solution. We just know that yours didn't work. We didn't expect you to find one that worked. That was the whole point of offering an XP bounty for surpassing our expectations. Which, by the way, a) you are not entitled to under any circumstances and b) we would probably have given to you anyway because XP is awarded for plans, not consequences.

The rest is character agency. Ami was in a position you weren't. She had a Mizukage ready and more than willing to give her formal authorisation, and she had been established as a character with both the skill and the motivation to get to Leaf on her own. Were we to pretend that away in order to give the players an opening to help her?

Edit: let's not forget that you decided to pursue the idea of inviting Ami. You decided to invest brainpower in it. There was no compulsion, no restriction of your agency, and nobody was forcing you to go after that potential bonus XP either.
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I came away from this pretty down, especially having misread some stuff, but I can appreciate it's a result of simulationism and not you trying to screw us over. Keiko's reaction was excruciating to read, but entirely realistic, as was Shikamaru's.

BG-Scout said:
Honestly, Keiko's extreme self-loathing and constant emotional issues don't seem like something a well-made plan can even resolve. In Real Life, when somebody has someone who is constantly being a drain on your emotional/cognitive resources, you need to cut them off. No one is entitled to your attention and its often better to redirect someone to another individual capable of helping them, like a counselor or therapist.

However, in a Quest, it seems even harder to deal with because you can't simply cut someone as important to the story/characters off. Especially given that Keiko is the most intelligent and powerful (because summons) member of the Chunin-Goketsu. Because of this, i'm not too outraged by Mari's behavior. Keiko may simply require some manipulating at this point to achieve our goals, given that literally nobody else in the Goketsu clan has the emotional intelligence/social skill to effective deal with her.

Perhaps i'm being too emotional myself after reading this chapter, so I apologize if I come off as harsh.
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I suggest at some point in the near future, we broach the possibility of Keiko seeing a professional to try and help deal with this, because frankly a) no one in the Clan is qualified to do so, except maybe Mari if she weren't in her current headspace and b) the players are struggling to deal with it, because like in real life dealing with someone with issues like these is exceptionally draining, made worse by the fact that they need the support. It's honestly pretty miserable.
 
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
See, I really, honestly agree with you. The problem is that when I read the update, Hazou doesn't.




Hazou directed the attack, and would have attempted it himself if Mari didn't offer to do it for him better. In a very real sense, Hazou sought specifically to prevent her from terminating the contract, and gave permission for Mari to make her attempt to stop it.

IMO, voting in this plan would backfire because the message sent would be "what you did wrong was fail", not "what you did wrong was to use your full ability against a clan member".

What we need to do first, again, imo, is to reflect that it has been two weeks tops since this:

But somehow, the moment we became Clan Head we pretty much signed off on Keiko's primary value being the Pangolin Contract and willingly approved Mari's attack on Keiko to make her back down from the decision she needed to make.

We really need to reflect on this. Realize that we're going full Jiraiya, just not S-Rank.

Realize that we need to do better.

In combination with another initiative:

To socialize with the clan heads more. Shikamaru pretty much told us straight out our good relations with the clan heirs is a significant part of our present legitimacy; we should play that up some more.

To make this:

[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know
  • Reflect on what Hazou just ordered.
    • He insisted that his sister, Keiko, was not allowed to make a decision that was best for her, on the basis that the clan needed it to happen more.
    • It has not been a week since Hazou expressed the polar opposite sentiment to Keiko; the primary difference between then and now being Jiraiya's death and Hazou's subsequent temporary assumption of Clan Head status.
    • This is a very large inconsistency in character. Hazou expressed that he hated it when Jiraiya did it to him and Keiko, so why does he think it is good now that he's where Jiraiya is seated?
    • Jiraiya...Jiraiya was great. Awesome. But - no, and - he had flaws, some of which Hazou picked up.
    • One of them was this. Hazou needs first to acknowledge that he has made the same mistake Jiraiya did; valuing the paper over the person.
    • Resolve to apologize to the clan and Keiko specifically.
  • Go meet Ino.
    • Ask Mari for advice on a flower bouquet of mourning.
      • Intended meaning should be "we do not know what we have lost and that makes the loss all the greater".
    • Go ask to see Ino.
      • If she is not taking visitors, leave the bouquet for her with our name attached.
      • If she is taking visitors, offer the bouquet and offer to commiserate, if she's willing.
        • It's true. Hazou doesn't know what she's lost.
        • He can only speak to knowing that he loved Ino absolutely.
        • But Hazou would like to know what we did lose.
      • If she's up to it, we can talk shop.
        • Who are the Yamanaka - or really, the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi - supporting for the Hat?
        • Is there anything else we can do to help?
        • Can she introduce us to the diplomatic corps?
      • Thank her for her time.

Lines that were tempting to add but had to be cut: losing two fathers makes us somewhat of an expert on the subject
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faflec said:
[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know

@huhYeahGoodPoint Thoughts on your plan:

I'd like to suggest we also apologize to Mari, for making her do something she clearly didn't want to do (that is to say, manipulate Keiko into changing her mind). Hazou knows (...right?) Mari loves Keiko, like, a fucking lot, and having her manipulate Keiko like that was fucked up. We should own up to our mistake in this regard.

At least, assuming that's what Hazou was intending. I don't actually know what he was thinking.

If you think it's a good idea, we can reminisce on that one time Inoichi decided to mess with Hazou using his and Ino's relationship.
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I have it down as an apology to the clan in general, because I feel like we should apologize to the clan in general.

I have also linked that scene, because it's like one of two (!) in the entire quest with Inoichi.
 
Velorien said:
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I agree that our plan was terrible. Many other voters agreed as well. But because we couldn't come up with anything worthwhile in time we, IMO, chose the copout of putting the whole burden on your shoulders. And you wrote an amazing update.

But what @Asquil is trying to say can be interpreted more charitably. Here's my interpretation in CCnJ:

You expressed interest in seeing Ami at the wedding.
We reacted with enthusiasm.
Your interest was expressed in a way that we interpreted to mean that you currently didn't know how to accomplish it and that it was up to us to find a way if we wanted to.
A significant part of the time and energy we chose to invest into planning this cycle went into trying to find a way to have Ami attend the wedding.
We made a mess of it.
It turns out that you weren't actually having any difficulties with finding a plausible way to have Ami attend the wedding because by the time you made that comment and put up the XP bounty Ami had already been traveling to Leaf since the previous chapter at the latest.

The following are only assumptions on my part because I am me and Asquil is Asquil, but I will proceed anyway.
I think Asquil was confused by the above and his investment in the story and emotions both are running relatively high. Thus he lashed out with an accusation instead of thinking of alternate interpretations of why his understanding of the meaning of your comment back when you put up the XP bounty differs from the current evidence of Ami being scheduled for attendance all this time.

In my opinion he owes you an apology, but the discrepancy in question could still be addressed regardless.

On to a completely different topic:
firestorm440 said:
Has that been confirmed as buying us their vote for the Hat?
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@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail ?
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I suggest at some point in the near future, we broach the possibility of Keiko seeing a professional to try and help deal with this, because frankly a) no one in the Clan is qualified to do so, except maybe Mari if she weren't in her current headspace and b) the players are struggling to deal with it, because like in real life dealing with someone with issues like these is exceptionally draining, made worse by the fact that they need the support. It's honestly pretty miserable.
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Unfortunately, there are no therapists in this world. The closest we have is Yamanaka Neira, who has very vocally expressed that she's not a therapist.

There's no trained professional to help Keiko deal. There's just us, the ones who know her issues best. And it's not working.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
It also took place before we got Naruto onboard, with him explicitly mentioning our need to recruit him, so he wasn't taking that into account.
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It does? I don't see any timestamps indicating this. Perhaps I'm being a huge dumbass and skipped a detail indicating where we're at in the timeline or something.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Unfortunately, there are no therapists in this world. The closest we have is Yamanaka Neira, who has very vocally expressed that she's not a therapist.

There's no trained professional to help Keiko deal, there's just us, the ones who know her issues best. And it's not working.
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I mean, after a certain point, you can't help people if they don't want to help themselves.
To my understanding, many of the issues Keiko is having are the same ones that have gripped her since the start of this quest, over a year ago IC.

If all the trials and tribulations and joy and hope of her surrogate family can't do anything for her after all this time, then Hazou with his mediocre at best people skills certainly can't. This is not a "puzzle" that we as players can resolve I feel.
 
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