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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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eaglejarl said:
How do we balance Hazō's agency against the players' agency?
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Just roll wisdom or whatever your equivalent is. Highest social. 'Players say threaten Jiriya", "Hazo rolls wisdom, isn't retarded. Hazo adjusts plan". The degree of out of character or counter to IC knowledge a thought is the lower the Challenge Rating of the roll. Sometimes the roll fails, so be it. That's just chance. You fluff it as anxiousness causing thoughtlessness and the players can't complain because dice.
 
KaGoGoGadgetMe said:
Not for the first time, @eaglejarl, I have noticed that you have to defend your side of the fight? argument? "discussion" largely by yourself. I don't doubt that your expressed opinions are supported by the other QMs, I just have to wonder if it gets tiring having to be the stern Mom of the quest? I know I would not have nearly as much patience or restraint from using the "because I'm god and that's how it is, me-damn-it" stance.
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The main problem here is that @eaglejarl tends to put it well enough that I feel I have nothing to add. Making a post just to say, "Hear, hear" feels awkward.
 
Tua said:
It's an entertaining story to read, that's for sure, but not without its issues.

I mostly read just the story updates so there is always a chance I missed something but I do remember the QM shooting down @Sentient Tree's battle optimizations for Walpurgisnacht - which, supposedly, is the endgame of the quest. And even though a lot of the conflict does in fact revolve around hostilities, combat is pretty much always guaranteed to go in the player character's favor because her team is just ridiculously OP. The QM asserts that combat power isn't the driving force in the quest but when a lot of the angst is whether the characters will survive Walpurgisnacht this time around rings somewhat hollow.

But the worst part is that things the players post outside of votes actually makes it into the player character's head. Why is this bad? Maybe pointing out that I only found about this after reading the Staff Posts moderating players blaming each other for putting the wrong thoughts into the PCs head even though those happened outside of votes would help show why.

Could you imagine this happening in MfD? Silly one-off jokes aside like Hazou wanting to wear a Youthsuit for real, it would stifle discussion because we'd have to censor ourselves. No longer could we argue for stuff in broad strokes with the expectation that others will take a look and agree or disagree with it so we can collectively come up with something the majority agrees with.

An example:

> Orochimaru is the best, let's join him unconditionally!
> Orochimaru is evil, let's not.
> Orochimaru is complicated. Here is why: <stuff>
> OK, so maybe we need a more nuanced approach.
> How about we probe for information first and then decide?

If at any point one of these posts gets take out of context even though none but the last, refined point made it into the vote then how would that be a net benefit to the quest?

Either way, not entirely sure where I was going with this except, I suppose, to contrast that this quest has a few (unique?) things going for them and that being unlike other quests on this site isn't just a Bad Thing.
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Hi.


eaglejarl said:
This is exactly what we're currently doing.
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So, you agree with me. That necessarily implies that anybody who does not is fundamentally wrong, in which case, why are we wasting sapient-seconds discussing it?


Shard said:
There's also the option of simply just letting things play out and let the players handle the consequences themselves (if they vote to kill themselves by Hokage, then yes, they would die by Hokage), and if they so desire, they might collectively vote in a system to constrain themselves. The real issue with this is that it runs into the problem that very rarely, players do a really big collective stupid. Statistically it's bound to happen, given players are not perfect machines possessing perfect information.
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Speak for yourself, please.


Heleor said:
Some of the most interesting posts for me have been the "rolled back" updates - and it seems at least some of the lessons for those stuck (note how the thread reacts when someone submits a youthsuit vote!)

How about writing the failed situation and giving a vote afterwards to roll back that update, officially? It's not very simulationist, but it helps teach, still has consequences, and maybe will allow the thread to take more risks as the consequences are not as game-ending.
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I'm about 90% confident that I can jigger this into an LN(O) general search algorithm.


eaglejarl said:
You miss the point. It's not that I want to have bad things happen, it's that I want players to be able to do what they want and reap the rewards, positive or negative. There's no pride in a one-person race, nor in high-risk/high-reward moves if you know the risk is meaningless.

Seriously, though. All you have to do is have Hazō act like you would in the real world and all of your problems go away.


Would I threaten to have someone killed if they didn't cooperate? Maybe Hazō shouldn't do that.

Would I betray my friend's confidence to someone I met a day ago? Maybe Hazō shouldn't do that.

Would I, a Russian spy who just defected, dress like a clown and act weird while being escorted around Washington DC by Secret Service agents? Maybe Hazō shouldn't do that.

See my point?
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This is not as useful as you seem to assume. I believe that there is even a standardized name for this failure mode. For instance, my first thought upon encountering any given challenge is, "does this thing need to be on fire, Y/N?"
 
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We really need to get permission to do sealing research. This 30 in sealing is begging to be used
 
faflec said:
I really hate Usami. Did I ever mention that I hate Usami?
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On the flip side, he gave Mari a significant measure of self-respect. The fact that he did so by turning her into an amoral corruption and murder machine is surely secondary.
Lailoken said:
This is not as useful as you seem to assume. I believe that there is even a standardized name for this failure mode. For instance, my first thought upon encountering any given challenge is, "does this thing need to be on fire, Y/N?"
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I prefer a more proactive phrasing: "Is there a reason why this thing should not be on fire?" Better still is "Why is this thing not on fire yet?"
 
Absoloot said:
Just roll wisdom or whatever your equivalent is. Highest social. 'Players say threaten Jiriya", "Hazo rolls wisdom, isn't retarded. Hazo adjusts plan". The degree of out of character or counter to IC knowledge a thought is the lower the Challenge Rating of the roll. Sometimes the roll fails, so be it. That's just chance. You fluff it as anxiousness causing thoughtlessness and the players can't complain because dice.
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Wouldn't such a system just incentivize us to power level Hazou in a single social stat in order for him to cancel out any of our "bad" plans, thus continuing the issue of stifled player agency?

Y'all just gotta accept that freedom to do whatever cool shit we want also means freedom to fuck up when said cool shit sometimes backfires on us :p
 
Raichu1972 said:
Wouldn't such a system just incentivize us to power level Hazou in a single social stat in order for him to cancel out any of our "bad" plans, thus continuing the issue of stifled player agency?
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Yeah that's a fair point. I'm not claiming a perfect solution or even a good one, but that was off the top of my head. This whole discussion of player success is the player's success and failure's their failure's seems silly to me though because there isn't just one player.

Compromises are made, edits are thrown around, and a consensus gets put together. Sometimes during all that a detail slips through, or whatever. Punishing that heavily seems counter productive, becuase for all the discussion it's not really the GM's VS the Players.

It seems to me what matters is intention. If a combat vote has shit strategy and the players push it through anyway, then it's perfectly reasonable that they suffer for it. But for negotiation/diplomacy, that's why dice exist. How many people no how to negotiate a contract, now how many of those in this quest? So you give the GM your intention. Talk to guy, convince him your worried, the situation matters to you, the outcome matters to you, and you'd like his help. GM rolls dice, determines likely outcome, then write a cohesive narrative that captures that outcome.

How that becomes threatening a senior official to the face of the spy master I have no idea.
 
So thoughts:

We are currently building what is essentially a mini village.
We have a bunch of civvies there, we have ninja who semi permanently live there, and with future economic implementation though ninja magic said mini village may end up being quite prosperous.

Whoever is Kage of Leaf in the future may or may not appreciate having Hazou in charge of a mini village.

We should probably get this situation cleared up now before someone declares this retroactively to be Omega Treason and Naruto gets sent to splatter our brains.
 
Raichu1972 said:
So thoughts:

We are currently building what is essentially a mini village.
We have a bunch of civvies there, we have ninja who semi permanently live there, and with future economic implementation though ninja magic said mini village may end up being quite prosperous.

Whoever is Kage of Leaf in the future may or may not appreciate having Hazou in charge of a mini village.

We should probably get this situation cleared up now before someone declares this retroactively to be Omega Treason and Naruto gets sent to splatter our brains.
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What is the districting between "mini-village" and "clan compound"? We've seen multiple other clans who have ninja living semi permanently there, as well as civilians who presumably provide economic benefit (but nowhere close to the level of economic benefit that a ninja actively doing missions provides to the clan).

Obviously that changes once uplift starts reaping it's benefits (or since my auto-correct is apparently Killa Bee, rapping it's benefits) then that equation changes, but that'll be the case no matter what we do, because ninja won't believe that civilians provide economic benefit greater than livestock until we prove it to them anyways.
 
So, we've discussed selling PTJ to Konoha in-story.

A sleep-deprived and not-speaking-in-authority-as-QM eaglejarl said the following in discord: " "We'll give you [Orochimaru] PTJ as soon as you bring Jiraiya back as he was with no special controls or etc" actually seems like a decent deal. "

I think that it'd be significantly more plausible to be able to sell the pangolin on a couple friendly S-rankers getting PTJ than the whole of Konoha -- perhaps in exchange for doing a major mission for them (Kill condor summoner, get rid of scroll, etc.).

There is, of course, the consideration that ORochimaru could simply take it from us in whatever way his S-rank self desires, but that depends on such being possible -- it may not be something Hazou or any non-pangolin can teach. Still, that's something that we can address.

I would very much like to pursue this. It is something we can do to a) get Naruto PTJ and make nice with him and b) get Jiraiya back, that lazy fucker.
 
Briefvoice said:
There might be a lesson there about so many people being convinced something is a bad idea?
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I was going to try to find a way to phrase something about different questing styles, or MfD's awesome questers, or something, but then-
eaglejarl said:
Most quests are wrong.
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Hahahaha. Straight to the heart of it. God I love this quest and the QM's.
KnowledgeKing said:
Also gotta remember IRL that Naruto exists as a show in which this is based on. And in that show, everyone seems to know everyone's techniques. And what they can do. When it's like...convenient at least.
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True, but the QM's have repeatedly told us that it's a very bad idea to rely on (non-MfD) cannon information.

Velorien said:
The main problem here is that @eaglejarl tends to put it well enough that I feel I have nothing to add. Making a post just to say, "Hear, hear" feels awkward.
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Dammit Eaglejarl, stop being so sensible and communicating so effectively. It's polite to leave more for your fellow QM's to say than "Yep, EJ is correct. Like always*." :p

*barring Faflec
 
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Cariyaga said:
So, we've discussed selling PTJ to Konoha in-story.

A sleep-deprived and not-speaking-in-authority-as-QM eaglejarl said the following in discord: " "We'll give you [Orochimaru] PTJ as soon as you bring Jiraiya back as he was with no special controls or etc" actually seems like a decent deal. "

I think that it'd be significantly more plausible to be able to sell the pangolin on a couple friendly S-rankers getting PTJ than the whole of Konoha -- perhaps in exchange for doing a major mission for them (Kill condor summoner, get rid of scroll, etc.).

There is, of course, the consideration that ORochimaru could simply take it from us in whatever way his S-rank self desires, but that depends on such being possible -- it may not be something Hazou or any non-pangolin can teach. Still, that's something that we can address.

I would very much like to pursue this. It is something we can do to a) get Naruto PTJ and make nice with him and b) get Jiraiya back, that lazy fucker.
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Jiraiya is clearly worthless without Akimichi stims, and thus those should be our focus.

With enough caffeine I could conquer the world...


JustForThis said:
I was going to try to find a way to phrase something about different questing styles, or MfD's awesome questers, or something, but then-
Hahahaha. Straight to the heart of it. God I love this quest and the QM's.
True, but the QM's have repeatedly told us that it's a very bad idea to rely on (non-MfD) cannon information.


Dammit Eaglejarl, stop being so sensible and communicating so effectively. It's polite to leave more for your fellow QM's to say than "Yep, EJ is correct. Like always*." :p

*barring Faflec
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Be wary of invoking @faflec's eldritch truename. Do not summon up what you cannot put down.
 
Body; Waaah! We're completely exhausted! Waaah!

Me: Okay, okay, we'll go to bed early! Relax!

Body at bedtime: Aaaaah. Yummy bed. We sleep now. Mmm.

Body at 2:45am: Yaaaay! Awake now! Let's go play!

Me: ...I hate you.




So, I was remembering the negaverse omake that someone wrote about during the Exams. I enjoyed that and would like to read more. Anyone up for writing it?

Also, @huhYeahGoodPoint , I think my question got lost in the shuffle somewhere: What do the GUTS suits do and what exactly does "focus on getting everyone's suits restarted" cover?
 
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