On other topics -- what about this bit of worldbuilding do you find "sloppy"?

First throughout the quest there had been a long term that ninjas don't historically think of using there powers for non combat abilities. That there aren't many utility Jutsu or skills
Also rare. Ninja typically focus on warfare, not uplift. There's no incentive for them to work on uplift.
In the team's experience, very rare, although that does depend on how pure you're going. Of course, this could be a reflection on Hidden Mist as much as on ninja in general.
To me this shows that most ninja are happy being warrior kings. Not really interested in dealing with civilians as a resource to be used. They just exist as the background.
Then we get to hot springs. The lovely innkeeper informs us that ice is a huge deal. That it would bring huge profits if they had it. Now if ninjas routinely did non combat things she could just hire a hot spring ninja to obtain it. Instead she decides to ally with missing nin who might be dangerous. So then we get to leaf. Which apparently has such huge amounts of ninjas engaging in non combat trades that a huge bureaucracy exist to stunt it. Now leaf has the largest economy. Ninjas working in non combat trades would be a huge boon to the economy. However it is apparently heavily restricted to protect civilians jobs. Mist would not have any reason to not let ninja produce goods. Yet there economy is smaller than leaf. Also we have the fact that no one has tried to do anything to bring Iron out of its economic collapse.
Overall I think you made a political solution to keep your world building in place but it can only apply to fire country but it has to apply every where else to keep the status quo and it makes no sense any where else
 
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Thank you for the reminder, I was wondering that, too: Specifically, if one succeeds at the tac move roll, but doesn't get out of the explosion's area all the way, what wound does one take?


[X] Training Plan Hazou: Hedging
Roki 12 [33]
Strength 9 [51]
Stamina 9 [69]
Dexterity 12 [93]
Save 33 XP

Hazou also trains in using his macerators in combat and begins to learn Kagome's style.

This gets Hazou an additional 6 dice in combat against enemies that he can pull off Roki against, 3 otherwise.

[X] Training Plan Akane: Hedging
Wits 7 [14]
Awareness 20 [53]
Strength 11 [75]
Save 1 XP, take 2 XP from conditioning total

Akane also continues training in Kagome's style, and works to incorporate macerators into it for a less-lethal method that's slightly more friendly-safe.

Akane's weak in awareness, I tossed the excess in Strength -- this will improve her performance against Ninjutsu/Weapons specialists of her approximate level by +3 dice

[X] Training Plan Noburi: Hedging
Syrup Trap 18 [46.5]
Dexterity 8 [62.5]
Tac Move 24 [131.5]
Save 13 XP

Finally getting around to bumping Noburi's Syrup Trap up. He and [glances at literally everyone having some means of aoe] literally anyone pair up together well.

[X] Training Plan Keiko: Hedging
Vacuum Step 15 [42]
Pangolin's Reach 13 [82.5]
Save 3.5 XP

Obviously we train Pangolin's Reach -- it'll be good once it's to an acceptable level -- and Vacuum Step will be good when we aren't allowed to use Skywalkers, which is most missions, I'd assume.
Bringing attention to this again. We really need to train unless we want a repeat of the Akane Incident in which we put off training with her forever and left her to face Arikada with 8 Awareness...

We also really need to work on integrating Macerators in Akane/Hazou's fighting styles.
 
Mist would not have any reason to not let ninja produce goods. Yet there economy is smaller than leaf. Also we have the fact that no one has tried to do anything to bring Iron out of its economic collapse.
Mist is filled with stupid militaristic warrior culture and has a totalitarian regime that bleeds the citizenry dry. It doesn't provide much incentive for innovation.
 
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This is contingent on finding evidence that Akatsuki is in Rain, either on our own or via whatever intelligence Konoha is gathering that we're not privy to.

[x] Lore Update
[x] Noburi Training: Nope
[x] Keiko Training: Nope
[x] Hazou Training: Nope
[x] Akane Training: Nope

For the record, I was surprised by the merchant council's powers, but I don't have a huge problem with them. Especially not if most licenses end up approved, it just takes a few months. This wouldn't be any major hindrance to local ninja and wouldn't be too different from some of the alternatives proposed. It would also make sense for local ninja and civilians to team up this way against new comers.
May I ask why you're voting no on training? If I may offer the alternatives:

[X] Training Hazou: Integrate Macerators
[X] Training Akane: Integrate Macerators
[X] Training Noburi: Integrate Air Domes
Noburi summons 4 clones -- 2 pull and place Air Domes around him, one pulls and activates a misterator, the other activates both air domes
 
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The ideal solution would be to find something that can be done entirely by civilians, then partner with a bunch of civilians to do the actual work. If ninja are doing the work then you'll need a license, but if civilians are doing it then you won't. Of course, that begs the question -- if the civilians are doing all of it, why are they sharing the profits? Still, having a civilian-doable product with civilians as your frontpeople will speed things up a lot.

Well this makes it easy.

[X] Action Plan: Goketsu Stands for ALL Guts

Goals:
  1. Survive
  2. Be an upstanding, law-abiding Leaf citizen
  3. Don't accidentally attack people; learn to let our guards down gradually
  4. Do economic reconnaissance about Leaf's businesses
  5. Find out if establishing a meat processing factory would be feasible and economically advantageous for us
Explanation and Justifications:
0. (Meta-level) I'm afraid of change a big fan of the old style of plan-making, but I always felt that the plans just simply got too big with all of the indents in the 'Steps' section. This new section is another one of my attempts to clearly convey what it is I'd like to do in the upcoming update without giving the QM's a massive headache. This section will explain each of the goals listed above so that the following steps can be solely action focused. In other words, QM's can mostly ignore the following walls o' text unless they need more in depth explanation. Here goes nothing.
  1. Survive - self-explanatory; if someone attacks us we defend ourselves
  2. We don't want to cause trouble in Leaf so we need to follow all of Leaf's laws and customs to the letter. Causing a diplomatic accident or inadvertently breaking the law as members of the newest noble clan in Konoha would be awkward and terribly inconvenient.
  3. We almost killed a kid last update and that's not good for PR. We are now in a real home for once and hunter-nin are incredibly unlikely to try to kill us here. We should not be as relaxed as we are when we are surrounded by Kagome's defenses, but we do need to find a happy medium between "out and about in hostile territory" and "safely behind metric tons of explosives thousands of meters off the ground".
  4. We, both in character and out of character, don't really know what Leaf's economy looks like. Since opening a business should be the most profitable way to earn money quickly in our new circumstances we need to know how businesses here are organized. Do most have a single owner? Are angel investors a thing here? How does the Merchant Council regulate industries? What paperwork do we need to fill out in order to open a business? Are there any civilians looking for ninja business partners in Leaf at the moment? Most importantly, where is the line drawn between services and goods only ninjas can supply and civilian operations? We are searching for opportunities in general here, but since that takes far too many spoons to accurately model the economy of a small-ish city in a fantasy setting the next step gives something for all of us to focus on.
  5. Now I know what you're thinking: "Why meat processing of all things?" Well, in my opinion, it is the simplest innovation we can implement quickly given our current financial situation and limitations placed on us by the Merchant Council (hence forth referred to as the 'MC').
    1. Explanation for why this would be feasible for us:
      1. Hazou has a knack for optimization: he can (thanks to us) near-instantly realize the best way to use the resources he has available and then use them accordingly. Basic meat processing on an early industrial scale revolved around simplifying the butchering process in order to speed up production (machinery isn't necessarily needed to operate such a facility; it simply makes said facility even more efficient). Each civilian employee could be viewed as specialized seals: they all have an intended purpose so they cannot be used everywhere, but in the situations where you do need them they are perfectly suited for that occasion.
      2. Noburi understands biology well enough that he should (I'm hoping) be able to identify the best places on a carcass to separate the slabs of meat into desirable individual cuts. We may need to refer to other butchers' work to see how it is already done so that we don't end up with a more inefficient process than what already exists.
      3. Keiko can use Hazou's general idea and Noburi's medical insights to then organize where each civilian laborer needs to be in order to perform their particular task. From there it's only a matter of laying out the disassembly line to maximize workflow. To read more about this, here's a link to a modern day guide to setting up a simply meat processing plant that employs a minimum of 3-4 people. She might also be able to give some pointers on how to use knives to the employees since she is a weapons expert as well.
      4. There has to be a supply of meat coming from somewhere in order to feed Leaf's citizens. We only need to process it more efficiently (and therefore, cheaply) than our competitors in order to make bank without using chakra magic bull shit.
      5. There is no tech creating necessary in order to implement the basics ideas of a meat processing plant. We aren't making a product from parts; we are disassembling an animal carcass for profit. All this fundementally takes is the idea of dividing one skilled job into more unskilled labor positions. Later one we can look into using rails to transport carcasses throughout a larger facility, but without mundane refrigeration (MC just has to make things difficult) we won't be able to store large amounts of meat for very long.
    2. Why other people haven't thought of this already:
      1. Leaf is (IIRC) the largest city in the Elemental Nations. With so many people living in such a small area, traditional methods of meat processing simply aren't as effective as they are in small hamlets. Butchering an animal is a lengthy process for a single person especially without modern tools. In order to supply a city of 50,000 people with enough meat for each person for one day, you would need 5.15625 tons (10312.5 lb.) of meat (where the average person eats 3.3 oz. of meat in a day, according to the USDA (I'm using modern day dietary guides since Leaf has a high standard of living for the time period and setting)). Since there is roughly 490 lb of edible beef at the end of the butchering process for one cow, that means for 50,000 people you need at least 337 cows per day. A quick google search found a blog saying that it takes one modern day homesteader 14 hours to fully process a cow from killing to the final product. Therefore, considering a butcher has other matters to attend to, he can only reliably butcher one cow per day. That means Leaf has to have literally hundreds of butchers just to meet its meat quota each day with no time off for any off these butchers. Compare that to a modern day meat processing plant that can do up to 400 cows per hour, there is most likely a market here for us. (Yes, I'm ignoring other potential butcher-able livestock, but you get the point).
      2. If Leaf has such an organized system in place already for meat processing, we would have seen other businesses copy the basic idea behind it: many smaller jobs making larger jobs easier. Since the tech-level in MfD is still mostly medieval, I doubt this is the case.

Steps:
  1. Take a trip around town to introduce ourselves and to look into the various businesses of Konoha.
    1. Impromptu meet and greets should help ensure that the businesses we visit aren't doing anything too unusual when we walk in (we want to see things as they normally are, not what they look like when the Hokage's clan comes to visit and they have time to prepare).
    2. Talk shop with whoever is in charge and try to find out as much about running a business from them as we can.
      1. Let them know that if they feel that we are asking too personal (for lack of a better word) of questions to please tell us and we'll stop. We don't want to copy their business, we just want to make our own and so we are looking for general tips and tricks.
    3. Focus in particular on the butchering industry and where they get the raw supplies from.
  2. Talk with our team at home about the pros and cons of starting any business, but in particular a meat processing business.
    1. How much starting capital do we have to work with? How are we pooling our resources from all of our new jobs, if at all?
    2. If we were to start a business, can/should we use the clan grounds?
    3. What are the pros and cons of partnering with a civilian and does the team think it is worth it if we can manage to find a potential and willing partner?
    4. Give the team an IC run down of the former 'Explanation' section about the advantages of establishing a more efficient meat processing facility. See what each team member has to say about it and if they think it's a good idea.
    5. Could we use this as a way to gain influence with the Akimichi since they have a restaurant? They most surely use a large amount of meat each day, so if they could buy from primarily one supplier instead of multiple butchers it might be more economical for them and therefore politically advantageous for us.
Contingencies:
  1. Noteworthy combat - please end the update; something has gone horribly wrong
    1. If it is inconsequential like sparring or a stray animal has run amok that's one thing, but being attacked by a group of hostile ninjas is another.
  2. If we meet someone we know and/or who wants to talk to us be polite and indulge them as we do our commercial sight-seeing.
    1. Invite them to come along, but warn them that they might get uncomfortable since we are going to visit butcher shops among other businesses.
    2. Don't talk about the reason for wanting to visit at least one butcher shop in particular, just deflect that we are always interested in knowing where our food comes from and we want to see the shops the city has to offer.
      1. We aren't interested in buying anything at the moment, but we may do so later once we have seen everything we want to see and can then make an informed decision.
I of course leave sealing research or training to the winning training plans.



This is meant as a way to focus solely on starting a business. Simulating Leaf's economy just to see how we can upturn it is going to take a warehouse full of spoons for the QM's, so I decided to not include any other scenes simply to save their last remnants of sanity.

Comments and constructive critiques welcome. I'd be happy to better explain and defend my position to clarify anything to all y'all. This makes sense to me, but I am self-aware enough to know that just because it makes sense to me doesn't mean it's clear to everyone.
 
Wait, would they even be able to stop us from using EM refrigeration? We're not selling it.
 
We just need to invent canning which shouldn't be very difficult. You just need to cook food inside an air-tight container.

Right, but for now meat processing doesn't really take any new technologies for us to implement it at the moment. All it takes is better organization of a disassembly line and the vision to do so.

If we had the time to come up with new industries we would be spoiled for choice. Under the current circumstances though, this is the best I could come up with before the deadline.
 
Well this makes it easy.

Comments and constructive critiques welcome. I'd be happy to better explain and defend my position to clarify anything to all y'all. This makes sense to me, but I am self-aware enough to know that just because it makes sense to me doesn't mean it's clear to everyone.

First, I read a couple of sentences and then I stopped caring. You wrote too much for an action plan.

Also, I am dog-gone tied and I haven't seen much effort by planmakers and players in general making a good action plan. I am afraid we'll end up with a mediocre plan this time around, during a time in which we are not in any danger. This is the perfect time to earn a lot of XP.
 
Wait, would they even be able to stop us from using EM refrigeration? We're not selling it.

I'd err on the side of caution and say yes it would count since it's a part of the production and storage process. They do do inspections presumably to find these sorts of things.

That's partially why I'd like to see how the butchers in Konoha already do their job. Preservation is already a problem for them and they might have a solution already for us. It might not be ideal for us, but it would get the ball rolling until we can get a license to use EM and other ninja magic in our commercial facilities.

First, I read a couple of sentences and then I stopped caring. You wrote too much for an action plan.

Also, I am dog-gone tied and I haven't seen much effort by planmakers and players in general making a good action plan. I am afraid we'll end up with a mediocre plan this time around, during a time in which we are not in any danger. This is the perfect time to earn a lot of XP.

Establishing a new industry in a fantasy setting while only using in character resources takes a fair bit of explanation. I even wrote in there that you can mostly ignore the 'Explanation' section since it only gives plausible reasons for our characters to be attempting this in the first place. If it's too much for you to read, just skip to the 'Steps' section.

This plan took me *looks at clock* over 2 hours to write. Sorry for not finishing this sooner; I have other stuff to do IRL. Actually doing creative stuff IC is hard since we have to avoid every instance of "Hazou doesn't know that" and now we have to work with the additional complication of the MC spoiling our seal-based industry ideas. If we can pull off creating a new industry though, I sincerely hope it will be worth a ton of XP.

I strongly prefer the plan be thoroughly indented and spoilered, fwiw.

Well now I know for future plans. I'll try to keep it in mind.

Hey @eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail do y'all have any preferences in terms of formatting, especially for something like creating a new business?
 
We may also want to make certain that we aren't going to step on the Akimichi's toes with it.
 
That said:

[-] Lore Update

There's too many standing questions wrt the Merchant Council and also stuff like LBF wands.
 
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Hey @eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail do y'all have any preferences in terms of formatting, especially for something like creating a new business?
Also how much seed capital do we have? Is it enough to start the business. (get an empty warehouse, starting livestock, knives, wages for employees)
Keep in mind we may have to pay extra because assembly line work is incredibly boring compared to the normal crafting process.
 
[X] Action Plan: Continuation

Goal:

1. Learn to make money and get ready to make money. Simply put, we need to replenish the treasury.
2. Research. This is also the perfect time to do research as well, but training priorities come first. We are in the eye of a storm after all.
3. Socialize. We need to build up a social network within the village. We barely know anybody here.
4. Make money.

Non-binding Suggestions:

Licensing:
  • Get everyone a business license for whatever they are planning to do. Hazō and Kagome will get sealing license, Noburi will get medical license, etc.
  • Figure out which seals are most preferred by customers and at what price, such as explosive seals and so forth.
Training:
  • Training come first before research, because something will happen in the wider world. So the team needs to be prepared.
Sealing research:
  • Find out if there's an equivalent version of the Casino Seals in either the Konoha library or the Nara library.
  • The equivalent seal should be easier to research due to documentations.
  • May required asking for permission or help from Keiko to access restricted parts of a library.
  • If necessary, reverse engineer the Casino Seal under the supervision of a senior sealmaster(Kagome, Jiraiya, or someone else).
  • Suggest to Kagome about researching a hot air balloon, essentially a bigger version of a sky lantern.

Social:
  • Invite different clan heirs to gaming night? Probably not a good idea since the manor hadn't yet been renovated. Discuss the idea at dinner.
  • Have dinner with Akane's family. Everyone in the clan go, or just Hazō or Akane?
  • Go to popular cafe and see who hangs out.
  • Carve a plaque for Mari out of wood or granite: "Welcome to the Desk Corp"
  • Plan birthday/retirement party with team except Mari.
Find that telescope(ancillary):
  • Where in the world do people sell telescope? Are there telescope maker in Konoha?
  • If there is a telescope craftsman in Konoha, visit their shop and look around. Note the price.
  • If there is not, petition Jiraiya during dinner about sponsoring a telescope maker when clan finance is back in order.
Make money:
  • Look around for jobs. Note which make the most money and job description.
  • In particular, seek out mechanical oriented skillset for Akane and Hazō.
  • Noburi might be able to get a job with the Konoha General Hospital or similiar.
  • Do missions to keep clan finance afloat, but don't go overboard:
    • If at all, possible, a job would provide enough income to keep the clan afloat.
    • However, if missions are necessary, it should be prioritized below jobs.
    • Ideally, something like a low-risk C-rank mission. The team had done too many "C-rank" mission turned into disaster A-ranked missions.
 
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We may also want to make certain that we aren't going to step on the Akimichi's toes with it.

They own a restaurant, not a processing facility as far as I know. If they do have a stake in the processing business though, the economic reconnaissance part of the plan should find out about it.

Also how much seed capital do we have? Is it enough to start the business. (get an empty warehouse, starting livestock, knives, wages for employees)
Keep in mind we may have to pay extra because assembly line work is incredibly boring compared to the normal crafting process.

We might be able to partner up with an existing butcher shop and teach him how to better optimize his workplace workflow by hiring unskilled employees to do repetitive tasks. Also, normally line workers get paid less since they are unskilled laborers; it's easy to replace them.
 
[-]Action Plan: Talking For Fun And Profit

After some thought, I have come to the conclusion that the format of the plan was hampering me. I will be integrating what I feel is the best components of all available plans available into a new formatted plan, but that's likely to take me a while.

I would like to make a note, however: please be nice to the planmakers/QMs. It gets demoralizing to constantly hear "not good enough" and "wow that sucks" over and over again. I know I am not quite blameless on this front, but I would like everybody to keep that in mind.
 
It is easy to replace them in the modern era. In MfD's time period if you are unskilled you die.
Filler: Ford didn't pay $5 a day just to be nice

So all we have to do is find the people who want to work but have no skills to offer up. I'd be flabbergasted if there were no such people living somewhere in Konoha.

As for the article you linked, we will do as Ford did: pay what we have to in order to keep the factory and the business operational.
 
I would like to make a note, however: please be nice to the planmakers/QMs. It gets demoralizing to constantly hear "not good enough" and "wow that sucks" over and over again. I know I am not quite blameless on this front, but I would like everybody to keep that in mind.

I apologized if I make comments like that. That's not my intention. It is my intention to voice any and all stray critiques on an action plan, which can be a lot.

So all we have to do is find the people who want to work but have no skills to offer up. I'd be flabbergasted if there were no such people living somewhere in Konoha.

As for the article you linked, we will do as Ford did: pay what we have to in order to keep the factory and the business operational.

Most people will be in agriculture. There is little of surplus labor available in a medieval village. So, you would focus more on agricultural/mechanization instead.
 
First, I read a couple of sentences and then I stopped caring. You wrote too much for an action plan.

Also, I am dog-gone tied and I haven't seen much effort by planmakers and players in general making a good action plan. I am afraid we'll end up with a mediocre plan this time around, during a time in which we are not in any danger. This is the perfect time to earn a lot of XP.
I would like to make a note, however: please be nice to the planmakers/QMs. It gets demoralizing to constantly hear "not good enough" and "wow that sucks" over and over again. I know I am not quite blameless on this front, but I would like everybody to keep that in mind.

I just realized why @huhYeahGoodPoint felt demoralized now.

I do not know how to phase it more politely than this: I do not feel confident about the activity level and the lack of a feedback cycle that is supposed to be going on.

I offered my own plan to satiate my dissatisfaction, but I don't feel satisfied with the quality either, and no critique or feedback is offered.

I feel confident that we will earn XP, but not as high as it could be, and we may be exposing ourselves to even more risk than necessary by thoughtlessly taking ninja missions to satisfy the clan's financial concern.
 
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