Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
I'd unironically be onboard with asking her for lessons that would help us do our own variant of the thing she does with her organziation/lackeys.
 
MadScientist said:
"Become my mentor."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
faflec said:
Edit: But in all seriousness, this doesn't seem that bad. Part of me thinks we could do better, but can't think of a better way...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Being quite honest, I'd approve of this too. It's a similar thing to Iron Nerve Socials in terms of type of payout, and Ami's clearly competent at the domains she's working in.

Continued contact between Ami and Hazou might be difficult to arrange given the nature of hidden villages, even allied ones, but we could possibly make it work.
 
Noumero said:
Good question! Let's ask Mari.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

To be clear, that was more of a question to the players than anything.

I personally do not trust her all that much. Sure, the favor system would likely break down if she dealt in bad faith but with the way she treats even the people closest to her (in their eyes if not hers) I got the impression that Ami will do anything she thinks is necessary to achieve her goals.

And if that means dealing in bad faith/extorting us, then she'd likely do that. And in a way that will make it look like we are at fault somehow because she is freaking Ami and can do anything.


I am in support of using the favor to prevent Hiashi from getting the Hat however. We should coordinate this with Mari and ask her whether she thinks it's a good idea to use it here or if she thinks she got it handled without cashing in the favor.

E:
We could also do what Keiko did to Jiraiya:

Ask Ami what she thinks our favor would be best used for.
 
Last edited:
MMKII said:
If Mari could teach us effectively why are we still so bad at these things?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Last time I asked the QMs this, the response I got was to the effect of

"Even though skill levels bought with XP are the mechanical representation of in character effort to learn to become better in social situations, we're not going to allow social training to impact social competence because then combat specs wouldn't be allowed to have compelling personalities."
 
MMKII said:
If Mari could teach us effectively why are we still so bad at these things?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Did we ever ask about this actually?

I think we asked about general social training but maybe we need to about something specifically to earn some roll modifiers or whatever.

And we did resist Ami's seduction attempt the first time we met her and @Velorien (I believe) did point out that was in part because of the social training we got from Mari specifically.
 
Tua said:
Did we ever ask about this actually?

I think we asked about general social training but maybe we need to about something specifically to earn some roll modifiers or whatever.

And we did resist Ami's seduction attempt the first time we met her and @Velorien (I believe) did point out that was in part because of the social training we got from Mari specifically.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hmmm. I suppose that is true. Fair enough then.

I mean, if Mari is down to get off her ass and actually teach us things that'll probably work.
 
MadScientist said:
"Even though skill levels bought with XP are the mechanical representation of in character effort to learn to become better in social situations, we're not going to allow social training to impact social competence because then combat specs wouldn't be allowed to have compelling personalities."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I can see a slightly different take on this that might better match what the QMs might have been feeling:

"Even though Hazou has gained the skills needed to be competent in social situations, he has not integrated those skills into his lifestyle as passive tendencies, and must consciously call upon them. Furthermore, he must be in an appropriate mental state to call upon them, and if caught off guard may not be able to use those skills."

It's the difference between carrying a knife on your belt and holding it in your hand wherever you go, to give a mental image. Mari and other social specs have the knife in hand all the time and can cut with a casual motion, while Hazou has to draw it from his belt before he can cut, and that means a) most of the time he is unable to cut unless he realizes he needs his knife, and b) if someone can stop him from drawing his knife, he can't cut even if he needs to.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
It's the difference between carrying a knife on your belt and holding it in your hand wherever you go, to give a mental image. Mari and other social specs have the knife in hand all the time and can cut with a casual motion, while Hazou has to draw it from his belt before he can cut, and that means a) most of the time he is unable to cut unless he realizes he needs his knife, and b) if someone can stop him from drawing his knife, he can't cut even if he needs to.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Clearly we must turn Hazou himself into the knife. Its the only way to be sure...
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
I can see a slightly different take on this that might better match what the QMs might have been feeling:

"Even though Hazou has gained the skills needed to be competent in social situations, he has not integrated those skills into his lifestyle as passive tendencies, and must consciously call upon them. Furthermore, he must be in an appropriate mental state to call upon them, and if caught off guard may not be able to use those skills."

It's the difference between carrying a knife on your belt and holding it in your hand wherever you go, to give a mental image. Mari and other social specs have the knife in hand all the time and can cut with a casual motion, while Hazou has to draw it from his belt before he can cut, and that means a) most of the time he is unable to cut unless he realizes he needs his knife, and b) if someone can stop him from drawing his knife, he can't cut even if he needs to.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The conversation in question:

MadScientist said:
Also, can we write in a plan to have Hazou carefully consider the sucessful social tactics he's witnessed (Ami, Mari, Jiraiya, etc.) and resolve to try doing similar things?

Personally, I find it very silly that social stats don't influence narrative-level social aptitude, since they're an OOC representation of an IC amount of effort and time that the character has spent improving their social aptitude, and that IC time investment should have an effect on the narrative level.

But if that's not the case, and Hazou can only get better via things done on-screen (which his social training never has been to my recollection) then I want him to spend more time doing things explicitly similar to social training on-screen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Velorien said:
Your problem is that if they did, nobody would be able to have a compelling personality without heavy investment in the appropriate socials. And heavy investment in the appropriate socials means getting killed by people who optimised for combat.

That said, there is some influence. Hazō has amazing Deceit at times when he plans well how to use it; he's just not great at improvising (which seems to fit the bi-weekly-plan nature of his mind pretty well).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
I would like Hazou to not be a tool. That's Mari's job :p

But in all seriousness, we should probably have Mari up our Social competence. Like, have the two of us eat lunch with political figures under less-than-nightmarishly-criticial conditions.
 
Tua said:
Hey man, no sequence breaking.

You can't just waltz into the endgame dungeon when we only just entered midgame.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Lets just use HLaM to wallhack through to the bottom layer and nab Snek Uncles horcrux/ressurection McGuffin then.

For all we know Yamato's down there in our basement in a stasis chamber!
 
faflec said:
That's Mari's job :p
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think you misspelled "Keiko". I have no idea what Mari is right now, but I wouldn't be so hasty as to label it "a tool". (Unless "tool" here means "General AI that we're sure won't go rogue at us".)
Tua said:
You can't just waltz into the endgame dungeon when we only just entered midgame.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Dark Souls 1 allows you to do that, and the results are fascinating.

Modified the plan.
Noumero said:
  • Update Mari on Ami.
    • Can we trust her?
    • She may cause us trouble in Leaf. Does Mari have her handled?
    • Should we sell her any valuable information for favours?
    • Favour ideas:
      • Enlisting help with the elections.
      • Getting Iron Nerve socials.
      • "Become my mentor."
      • "Up to the favour's value, ...
        • ... maximize my social competence."
        • ... maximize my agency."
        • ... do whatever would be most beneficial for me."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
faflec said:
But in all seriousness, we should probably have Mari up our Social competence. Like, have the two of us eat lunch with political figures under less-than-nightmarishly-criticial conditions.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

One way of leveraging the hivemind's social competence would be to have Mari train Hazou's observation skills. That sounds like something that should be possible without breaking the game mechanics by letting Hazou randomly roll higher on social combat.

If you think about, most of the issues we have is that Hazou's PoV is bound to miss subtletlies so we are always operating on incomplete information against higher level opponents.

Imagine if Hazou had been there in that scene instead of Eiichi.

He likely would have noticed a little bit more but not all that much more so we'd still have to speculate to fill in most of the gaps. But once he learns to observe people better then that would show up as clues in the text for us to analyze with better accuracy.

Of course, the drawback to this would be that Hazou would still suck for spontaneous social decisions but at some point he is bound to get better at it by virtue of internalizing what the hivemind makes him do (and not do).

MMKII said:
Lets just use HLaM to wallhack through to the bottom layer and nab Snek Uncles horcrux/ressurection McGuffin then.

For all we know Yamato's down there in our basement in a stasis chamber!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I see no way this could go badly. Let's do it.
 
I've discovered a new technique of wordcount optimization! It's called Genda no Jutsu.

Look at the draft of the new version of my plan! It saved me 87 words, made the plan 30% shorter!

  • Get Mari, Kagome, papers, a blackboard, writing implements. Go high-security (anti-hyuuga seals...).
    • Brainstorm:
      • Nara a habit: five minutes each day contemplating an enemy destroy them.
      • Thirty by-the-clock minutes: can find overlooked fixable vulnerabilities?
      • Ideas on blackboard. Idea #1: Disguised people poisoning relations with merchants.
        • Or infiltrating compound. Surely no way to disguise that well? Although Fourth Event...
        • One of us disguise self Hyuuga, cause chaos?
      • Take extensive notes. Transcribe meeting, stream-of-consciousness. Analyse how think about things. Be thorough.
    • Get Noburi, if available. Share BotG briefing.
      • Kagome's impression? Discuss:
        • RESURRECTION TECHNIQUE.
        • Pain's goal, nature.
        • "The Five".
        • Fate of lost bijuu.
        • Contents, authorship Akatsuki book.
        • Detailed description ritual site.
      • Akatsuki:
        • Loose, "pursuing peace the hard way". How insane contact them? If genuine peace, you've suggestions...
        • At their mercy anyway. If do nothing, they decide take over EN?
        • Could we assemble psychological profiles? Tailored approaches!
    • Update Mari on Ami.
      • Can trust her?
      • May cause us trouble Leaf. Mari have handled?
      • We sell her valuable information, favours?
      • Ideas:
        • Help elections.
        • Iron socials.
        • "Become mentor."
        • "Up to favour's value, ...
          • ... maximize my social competence."
          • ... maximize my agency."
          • ... do whatever would be most beneficial for me."
    • Who remaining Leaf jounin? Adopt clanless ones (Anko, Ebisu, Kabuto, Minori, Kurenai...)?
  • Commit one creative training.

@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail, would you classify it as a kinjutsu?
 
Cariyaga said:
That's not a great way to do it. Seals have to be identical.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They must have some small amount of tolerance, two brush strokes are never exactly the same. The position of all the little fibers and the amount of ink on the brush will make small differences even if someone is really, really careful.

Actually, I'd wager that even Hazou's work isn't exactly the same seal to seal because of the state of the ink and brush. The shape and movements would be precise, but the shape of the ink left on the paper would be ever so slightly different. It would be much more consistent than any non-Iron Nerve sealmaster, though.


As for Ami, I kind of wish we could say something like: 'I have the following problems, and I would like what help you can offer in fixing these problems that isn't going to backfire horribly or compromise my personal sense of ethics too badly.'

I feel like Ami could figure out a single plan that fixed most or all of our problems at once, if anyone could.

That aside, I wonder if she'd be willing to offer advice on helping Mari without asking a favor for it? She seems to be fond of her.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top