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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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@eaglejarl

How do you feel about us suggesting stunts that have "tried to download a summoning scroll with IN / some other source of direct exposure to what lies behind the veil" as a prerequisite?

Because I have a few that I haven't posted.

:)
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Good idea, here's a quick write-up in stunt form:

Stone Wall
Cost: 100 XP, Stealth 30
While the subtle arts of weaving lies and coaxing information out of people may be beyond you, nobody can question your ability to hold a pokerface. After all, there's not much difference between holding still in a dark corridor and holding still when someone asks you a question.

The user may use Stealth in place of a Deception roll solely for the purpose of not revealing information.
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Well, there's a lot more to stealth than freezing. You have to plan routes, misdirect, time your crawl forward with when the wind blows the grass forward, etc. I was thinking more along the lines of being able to use it on any defensive check to prevent somebody from realizing that you are even doing it at all.
 
MadScientist said:
Of course, the "get the most bang for your buck XP" option is to put Empathy/Rapport near the top of the social build to use the TYS points to push them into more expensive levels. This has its own problems, obviously.
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Its only definitely" The most bang for your buck" if you're viewing "Higher socials levels sum= good" which is most often not the case depending on what you actually want.

There are strikingly few "Apply Rapport" situations that cannot be solved through either (a combination of clever player input or purely narrative actions on our part ) or (Apply Deceit/Empathy) or (Have other person do it for us).

So if we're doing (Maximize gains for minimal XP expenditure on socials) or (Maximize social efficacy) Rapport is just an inherently poor investment.

It just doesn't matter as a stat for Hazou at the end of the day compared to other things. Anything it can possibly do is pretty much also accomplished by synergizing other socials stats (synergies which have greater potential other than doing that, too) and those stats actually do solid things on their lonesome as well.
 
MMKII said:
Its only definitely" The most bang for your buck" if you're viewing "Higher socials levels sum= good" which is most often not the case depending on what you actually want.

There are strikingly few "Apply Rapport" situations that cannot be solved through either (a combination of clever player input or purely narrative actions on our part ) or (Apply Deceit/Empathy) or (Have other person do it for us).

So if we're doing (Maximize gains for minimal XP expenditure on socials) or (Maximize social efficacy) Rapport is just an inherently poor investment.

It just doesn't matter as a stat for Hazou at the end of the day compared to other things. Anything it can possibly do is pretty much also accomplished by synergizing other socials stats (synergies which have greater potential other than doing that, too) and those stats actually do solid things on their lonesome as well.
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MadScientist said:
This has its own problems, obviously.
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:p
 
I 100% think that instead of training traditional social skills we should actually put the work in and get Iron Nerve socials. Since they apparently make the Kurosawa the most competent diplomat in the elemental nations
 
Oneiros said:
I 100% think that instead of training traditional social skills we should actually put the work in and get Iron Nerve socials. Since they apparently make the Kurosawa the most competent diplomat in the elemental nations
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*Summarizing discord conversation*
I would much prefer to be taught INS than re-derive it ourselves because I expect the extra XP cost to reinvent it would make the result a waste of XP compared to normal leveling.

Given the Clan Secret problem, we have two real options for being taught INS:
  1. Get Ren's permission somehow.
  2. Get it without her permission, leave no evidence, and bluff that we re-invented it ourselves.
In the latter case even though they'll obviously be able to tell that we're lying our pants off if there's no evidence any accusations they make won't hold much weight so we could probably get away with it.

In case 1, where we get Ren's permission, we need a way to contact her and some amount of pressure that we can leverage into getting permission for it. I'm sure given some time we can come up with a good carrot and/or stick, and we can also make other promises like 'we promise to never teach anyone else how it works or otherwise leak anything about the clan secret, so help me Wedding Shark' to ease their concerns. All-in-all, I think it's pretty viable.

In case 2, we have two main avenues: Hana or some rando. The Hana route is convincing her to teach it to us in secret, which we might be able to do (unless Hana goes super-stubborn on us about it and we can't get a word in edgewise) and Hana being who she is can very likely keep it secret. The rando route is to make contact with some rando Kurosawa with the training and... prevail upon them that they should teach us without Ren's permission. I honestly can't see this going any other way than us kidnapping them and forcing them to agree to it at kunai-point and then killing them so they don't immediately go back to Mist and tell Ren. All-in-all, the Hana route seems decently viable to me.

So everyone, what do you think? Is Iron Nerve Socials worth getting even if we have to reinvent it ourselves? If we want someone to train us, should we get Ren's permission or try to circumvent it? What sort of carrot or stick could we employ against Ren to get her cooperation? When in our laundry list of plans and schemes should we squeeze this ambition in?
 
Personally, I think reinventing INS won't be penalized by increased XP costs; rather, it will be penalized by increased time taken to reinvent it (we don't have generations of work on our side) and poorer bonuses compared to Kurosawa-refined INS (due to the former). But that's just me.
 
faflec said:
Personally, I think reinventing INS won't be penalized by increased XP costs; rather, it will be penalized by increased time taken to reinvent it (we don't have generations of work on our side) and poorer bonuses compared to Kurosawa-refined INS (due to the former). But that's just me.
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I know it's not 100% correlated, but I feel like since XP is an approximation of the time and effort available to have spent on training and practice if it takes more time for us to invent it'll also cost more XP.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
*Summarizing discord conversation*
I would much prefer to be taught INS than re-derive it ourselves because I expect the extra XP cost to reinvent it would make the result a waste of XP compared to normal leveling.

Given the Clan Secret problem, we have two real options for being taught INS:
  1. Get Ren's permission somehow.
  2. Get it without her permission, leave no evidence, and bluff that we re-invented it ourselves.
In the latter case even though they'll obviously be able to tell that we're lying our pants off if there's no evidence any accusations they make won't hold much weight so we could probably get away with it.

In case 1, where we get Ren's permission, we need a way to contact her and some amount of pressure that we can leverage into getting permission for it. I'm sure given some time we can come up with a good carrot and/or stick, and we can also make other promises like 'we promise to never teach anyone else how it works or otherwise leak anything about the clan secret, so help me Wedding Shark' to ease their concerns. All-in-all, I think it's pretty viable.

In case 2, we have two main avenues: Hana or some rando. The Hana route is convincing her to teach it to us in secret, which we might be able to do (unless Hana goes super-stubborn on us about it and we can't get a word in edgewise) and Hana being who she is can very likely keep it secret. The rando route is to make contact with some rando Kurosawa with the training and... prevail upon them that they should teach us without Ren's permission. I honestly can't see this going any other way than us kidnapping them and forcing them to agree to it at kunai-point and then killing them so they don't immediately go back to Mist and tell Ren. All-in-all, the Hana route seems decently viable to me.

So everyone, what do you think? Is Iron Nerve Socials worth getting even if we have to reinvent it ourselves? If we want someone to train us, should we get Ren's permission or try to circumvent it? What sort of carrot or stick could we employ against Ren to get her cooperation? When in our laundry list of plans and schemes should we squeeze this ambition in?
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If Hazou learns INS without explanation the clan will just assume it was Hana and kill her anyway. Better to just adopt her to provide procedural cover. She has the very best training anyway.

Good thing we spent ten minutes getting Jiraiya and Ren to sign off on a visa for her before they ran off to the most dangerous fight of their lives. -otherwise, this might be difficult. Heck we could have ended up needing to get Hiashi's cooperation in letting a foreign social-spec elite-jounin sister of the Mizukage into Leaf to join a Leaf clan.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
*Summarizing discord conversation*
I would much prefer to be taught INS than re-derive it ourselves because I expect the extra XP cost to reinvent it would make the result a waste of XP compared to normal leveling.

Given the Clan Secret problem, we have two real options for being taught INS:
  1. Get Ren's permission somehow.
  2. Get it without her permission, leave no evidence, and bluff that we re-invented it ourselves.
In the latter case even though they'll obviously be able to tell that we're lying our pants off if there's no evidence any accusations they make won't hold much weight so we could probably get away with it.

In case 1, where we get Ren's permission, we need a way to contact her and some amount of pressure that we can leverage into getting permission for it. I'm sure given some time we can come up with a good carrot and/or stick, and we can also make other promises like 'we promise to never teach anyone else how it works or otherwise leak anything about the clan secret, so help me Wedding Shark' to ease their concerns. All-in-all, I think it's pretty viable.

In case 2, we have two main avenues: Hana or some rando. The Hana route is convincing her to teach it to us in secret, which we might be able to do (unless Hana goes super-stubborn on us about it and we can't get a word in edgewise) and Hana being who she is can very likely keep it secret. The rando route is to make contact with some rando Kurosawa with the training and... prevail upon them that they should teach us without Ren's permission. I honestly can't see this going any other way than us kidnapping them and forcing them to agree to it at kunai-point and then killing them so they don't immediately go back to Mist and tell Ren. All-in-all, the Hana route seems decently viable to me.

So everyone, what do you think? Is Iron Nerve Socials worth getting even if we have to reinvent it ourselves? If we want someone to train us, should we get Ren's permission or try to circumvent it? What sort of carrot or stick could we employ against Ren to get her cooperation? When in our laundry list of plans and schemes should we squeeze this ambition in?
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I think we've already got what we need to make out custom INS and without some of the weaknesses, they may have.

One major thing I noticed is that Hazo can record conversations by parroting. Kind of hard for him to do that if he's actually in a conversation himself though.

And yet he's already seen and implemented alternative language systems he can draw from to form his own personalized language(s).
(CCnJ, Uplift call signs and battle signs, Nara sign language, floral language, etc)

Hazo can use what he's observed and come up with a sign-language and combine it with 'sleight of hand' or other items (flute?) to hide the fact he's recording conversations or to hide or distract from the IN transitions in our expressions depending on the situation.

Continuing on from there, he can even disguise his diplomacy by implementing his fondness for games of his to rope folks into activities where he can further secure his recording activities or communicate with a desired third party in a situation with far-less stakes. There's less room for a Jounin to use their social skills here with a game used as a focus.

The beauty here is that he's the Game Night's catching on and we've already done most of the leg-work here in promoting this unassuming lightweight diplomacy tool. It's our equivalent to floral language. We just need to co-opt the various games for our needs.

tl, dr: We've got the tools to make our own custom made INS already.

Thoughts?
 
Orisha91 said:
I think we've already got what we need to make out custom INS and without some of the weaknesses, they may have.

One major thing I noticed is that Hazo can record conversations by parroting. Kind of hard for him to do that if he's actually in a conversation himself though.

And yet he's already seen and implemented alternative language systems he can draw from to form his own personalized language(s).
(CCnJ, Uplift call signs and battle signs, Nara sign language, floral language, etc)

Hazo can use what he's observed and come up with a sign-language and combine it with 'sleight of hand' or other items (flute?) to hide the fact he's recording conversations or to hide or distract from the IN transitions in our expressions depending on the situation.

Continuing on from there, he can even disguise his diplomacy by implementing his fondness for games of his to rope folks into activities where he can further secure his recording activities or communicate with a desired third party in a situation with far-less stakes. There's less room for a Jounin to use their social skills here with a game used as a focus.

The beauty here is that he's the Game Night's catching on and we've already done most of the leg-work here in promoting this unassuming lightweight diplomacy tool. It's our equivalent to floral language. We just need to co-opt the various games for our needs.

tl, dr: We've got the tools to make our own custom made INS already.

Thoughts?
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If memory serves, the QMs are on record saying that we could indeed create our own Iron Nerve Socials from scratch, but that it would take more XP than if we were taught. I mentioned this near the beginning of my post, that my expectations are that if we try to make it on our own the XP cost will be high enough that we'd have been better served directly investing in socials instead.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
If memory serves, the QMs are on record saying that we could indeed create our own Iron Nerve Socials from scratch, but that it would take more XP than if we were taught.
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It depends on the specifics at the end of the day, I figure.

The stuff Ren and/or Hana can do are both probably best learned from them. If we wanted to hack together something less general but more specifically applicable, we probably could do so, and it might be a net global gain even if its a comparative local loss.
 
Without the specific advantage of the bloodline socials seem like a poor investment. Heck, even with it they're not that appealing. Have somebody else specialize in them.

Fortunately, we can have our cake and eat it too by just letting social work be handled by the utterly loyal elite-jounin with Kurosawa main branch clan head training we arranged passage for when it became clear that Jiraiya and Ren might be going off to die. Can you imagine if we hadn't? Not having that immense resource available might have led to Hiashi just barely scraping together a winning bid for the hat. Boy, we'd have been in trouble then.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
If memory serves, the QMs are on record saying that we could indeed create our own Iron Nerve Socials from scratch, but that it would take more XP than if we were taught. I mentioned this near the beginning of my post, that my expectations are that if we try to make it on our own the XP cost will be high enough that we'd have been better served directly investing in socials instead.
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I haven't thought about the mechanics heavily yet, but I'd imagine XP cost as far as recreating things from scratch wouldn't be too prohibitive. And even then, I think there are positives that make up for it.

My thinking is that normal socials pit us against another party more directly and we'd need the appropriate stat for the appropriate situation. We're already deceit heavy, we've got a misdirection as a stunt, and our games have already very good at disarming friends and foe alike while allowing us to punch above our weight in interactions.

We've already got most of the tools in place for our own flavor of INS or HINS

Sleight of Hand + Games + Pre-recorded signs = HINS

Coming up with the call signs or sign language used will probably be taking the bulk of the work here. But that's 33%? Assuming all the signs are unique.
 
MMKII said:
It probably isn't that good at social manipulation-- its an inkblot.
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So, ah, about that. Has anyone here ever read Fine Structure? Recall Oul's Egg?
One day, in a secret military facility appeared an object with strange properties.

It was person-sized, egg-shaped, and perfectly black. All matter except flesh of living humans (bullets, lasers, knives, clothes, mice, dogs, wood, nonhuman apes) treated it as an indestructible obstacle. Live humans, on the other hand, passed through it unobstructed. There was nothing special inside, though, just some air — people couldn't enter it fully because it repelled the air in their lungs, but volunteers who stuck their limbs or heads within it only reported that it was warm inside, and even this was caused by their own body heat (which, of course, was unable to escape the egg's shell).

One curious aspect was that, while human corpses (or pieces of them, such as skulls) treated it as an obstacle, dead matter that belonged to living humans (fingernails, hair, donor organs) passed through freely. Naturally, it became a scientific necessity to see what would happen if a live human were inserted into the egg and then killed.

This was exactly what the egg wanted. In actuality, it was part of Oul — an 80+6-dimensional autonomous hyperweapon imprisoned within our universe as the result of a higher-dimensional conflict. This part of it was incredibly diminished, collapsed to this egg-shaped boundary and only able to control what passed through it and what didn't. The only way for it to acquire more agency was to come into contact with a vacant-but-not-wholly-dead body... so it manipulated the scientists into bringing one to it. All its "properties" were wholly artificial, it just decided what passed and what didn't on a case-by-case basis.

A death row prisoner's arm was inserted into it, then the prisoner was killed via CO poisoning. The moment he died, Oul took control of his body and escaped to carry out its omnicidal plans.
Now consider: what did we just tell our characters to do? Go infect more ninja with the Blotch, bring it to a populated area, possibly surround it with the bodies of a dead ninja patrol! Infect ninja, because it's only transferred through chakra; do it fast, because it's quickly growing into an implosion nuke; don't just despair and kill your friends, because it could be reset easily enough. It introduced time pressure, suggested lethal consequences for dawdling, defined the type of target it wants, and gave us leeway to provide it with one.

We've played right into its hands. At least Kagome didn't let it talk to the Fox.
 
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Noumero said:
So, ah, about that. Has anyone here ever read Fine Structure? Recall Oul's Egg?
One day, in a secret military facility appeared an object with strange properties.

It was person-sized, egg-shaped, and perfectly black. All matter except flesh of living humans (bullets, lasers, knives, clothes, mice, dogs, wood, nonhuman apes) treated it as an indestructible obstacle. Live humans, on the other hand, passed through it unobstructed. There was nothing special inside, though, just some air — people couldn't enter it fully because it repelled the air in their lungs, but volunteers who stuck their limbs or heads within it only reported that it was warm inside, and even this was caused by their own body heat (which, of course, was unable to escape the egg's shell).

One curious aspect was that, while human corpses (or pieces of them, such as skulls) treated it as an obstacle, dead matter that belonged to living humans (fingernails, hair, donor organs) passed through freely. Naturally, it became a scientific necessity to see what would happen if a live human were inserted into the egg and then killed.

This was exactly what the egg wanted. In actuality, it was part of Oul — an 80+6-dimensional autonomous hyperweapon imprisoned within our universe as the result of a higher-dimensional conflict. This part of it was incredibly diminished, collapsed to this egg-shaped boundary and only able to control what passed through it and what didn't. The only way for it to acquire more agency was to come into contact with a vacant-but-not-wholly-dead body... so it manipulated the scientists into bringing one to it. All its "properties" were wholly artificial, it just decided what passed and what didn't on a case-by-case basis.

A death row prisoner's arm was inserted into it, then the prisoner was killed via CO poisoning. The moment he died, Oul took control of his body and escaped to carry out its omnicidal plans.
Now consider: what did we just tell our characters to do? Go infect more ninja with the Blotch, bring it to a populated area, possibly surround it with the bodies of a dead ninja patrol! Infect ninja, because it's only transferred through chakra; do it fast, because it's quickly growing into an implosion nuke; don't just despair and kill your friends, because it could be reset easily enough. It introduced time pressure, suggested lethal consequences for dawdling, defined the type of target it wants, and gave us leeway to provide it with one.

We've played right into its hands. At least Kagome didn't let it talk to the Fox.
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I reiterate: feed it to Fifi.
 
Noumero said:
So, ah, about that. Has anyone here ever read Fine Structure? Recall Oul's Egg?
One day, in a secret military facility appeared an object with strange properties.

It was person-sized, egg-shaped, and perfectly black. All matter except flesh of living humans (bullets, lasers, knives, clothes, mice, dogs, wood, nonhuman apes) treated it as an indestructible obstacle. Live humans, on the other hand, passed through it unobstructed. There was nothing special inside, though, just some air — people couldn't enter it fully because it repelled the air in their lungs, but volunteers who stuck their limbs or heads within it only reported that it was warm inside, and even this was caused by their own body heat (which, of course, was unable to escape the egg's shell).

One curious aspect was that, while human corpses (or pieces of them, such as skulls) treated it as an obstacle, dead matter that belonged to living humans (fingernails, hair, donor organs) passed through freely. Naturally, it became a scientific necessity to see what would happen if a live human were inserted into the egg and then killed.

This was exactly what the egg wanted. In actuality, it was part of Oul — an 80+6-dimensional autonomous hyperweapon imprisoned within our universe as the result of a higher-dimensional conflict. This part of it was incredibly diminished, collapsed to this egg-shaped boundary and only able to control what passed through it and what didn't. The only way for it to acquire more agency was to come into contact with a vacant-but-not-wholly-dead body... so it manipulated the scientists into bringing one to it. All its "properties" were wholly artificial, it just decided what passed and what didn't on a case-by-case basis.

A death row prisoner's arm was inserted into it, then the prisoner was killed via CO poisoning. The moment he died, Oul took control of his body and escaped to carry out its omnicidal plans.
Now consider: what did we just tell our characters to do? Go infect more ninja with the Blotch, bring it to a populated area, possibly surround it with the bodies of a dead ninja patrol! Infect ninja, because it's only transferred through chakra; do it fast, because it's quickly growing into an implosion nuke; don't just despair and kill your friends, because it could be reset easily enough. It introduced time pressure, suggested lethal consequences for dawdling, defined the type of target it wants, and gave us leeway to provide it with one.

We've played right into its hands. At least Kagome didn't let it talk to the Fox.
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Turning and turning in the widening gyre ​
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;​
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;​
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,​
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere ​
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;​
The best lack all conviction, while the worst ​
Are full of passionate intensity.​
​
Surely some revelation is at hand;​
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. ​
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out ​
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi​
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert ​
A shape with lion body and the head of a man, ​
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, ​
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it ​
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. ​
The darkness drops again; but now I know ​
That twenty centuries of stony sleep​
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, ​
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, ​
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?​
 
[X] Make a Summoning Contract with the Ink Blot
 
Noumero said:
So, ah, about that. Has anyone here ever read Fine Structure? Recall Oul's Egg?
One day, in a secret military facility appeared an object with strange properties.

It was person-sized, egg-shaped, and perfectly black. All matter except flesh of living humans (bullets, lasers, knives, clothes, mice, dogs, wood, nonhuman apes) treated it as an indestructible obstacle. Live humans, on the other hand, passed through it unobstructed. There was nothing special inside, though, just some air — people couldn't enter it fully because it repelled the air in their lungs, but volunteers who stuck their limbs or heads within it only reported that it was warm inside, and even this was caused by their own body heat (which, of course, was unable to escape the egg's shell).

One curious aspect was that, while human corpses (or pieces of them, such as skulls) treated it as an obstacle, dead matter that belonged to living humans (fingernails, hair, donor organs) passed through freely. Naturally, it became a scientific necessity to see what would happen if a live human were inserted into the egg and then killed.

This was exactly what the egg wanted. In actuality, it was part of Oul — an 80+6-dimensional autonomous hyperweapon imprisoned within our universe as the result of a higher-dimensional conflict. This part of it was incredibly diminished, collapsed to this egg-shaped boundary and only able to control what passed through it and what didn't. The only way for it to acquire more agency was to come into contact with a vacant-but-not-wholly-dead body... so it manipulated the scientists into bringing one to it. All its "properties" were wholly artificial, it just decided what passed and what didn't on a case-by-case basis.

A death row prisoner's arm was inserted into it, then the prisoner was killed via CO poisoning. The moment he died, Oul took control of his body and escaped to carry out its omnicidal plans.
Now consider: what did we just tell our characters to do? Go infect more ninja with the Blotch, bring it to a populated area, possibly surround it with the bodies of a dead ninja patrol! Infect ninja, because it's only transferred through chakra; do it fast, because it's quickly growing into an implosion nuke; don't just despair and kill your friends, because it could be reset easily enough. It introduced time pressure, suggested lethal consequences for dawdling, defined the type of target it wants, and gave us leeway to provide it with one.

We've played right into its hands. At least Kagome didn't let it talk to the Fox.
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That seems impossible to defeat as a puzzle boss for mfd. But I definitely see the what the blotch's creation was inspired by.
 
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