Implemented
-
Going forward, links to content from Twitter (now X) will no longer be embedded. Pre-existing links should not be affected.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
- Location
- Liverpool
I did, admittedly, forget about that recent conversation. I suppose I accidentally picked a social stat in there, but yeah, probably not the ideal one. Deceit, to hide things. And empathy, because of nothing else Kei's characterization of being terrible at small talk and truly getting some people/caring deeply about them and doing something about it screams empathy to me over rapport.
Thank you for the reminder.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Empathy had similar coverage as the Deceit stat, and Kei's Deceit is already higher than her Empathy, so I think we should level it to 40.
And while Rapport has some utility as an attack social stat, Kei has a +9 to Intimidation, so raising Intimidation to 31 would give Kei an effective 40.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Mechanically that's all true, but narratively there's more to it than that. My reading of the situation is that Kei wants some actual social skills that don't rely on lying to or scaring the shit out of whoever she's trying to have a constructive conversation with. Also, deceit and intimidation aren't the right skills to a) do so e serious diplomacy with an ally one had a difficult past with, b) reconnecting to any extent with old family and friends, or c) manage either the KEI or her own polycule with more than stubbornness and luck.
Kei repeatedly claims to have no idea why so many people seem to like her or why her attempts to get people into any specific emotional state or position of understanding even works out. Part of that is narrative too (as is the part where so many of her social projects work out in the first place), but if nothing else then numerical social skills still represent formal training and understanding. Kei could finally be able to better analyze what the hell she is doing and what effect it actually has on others, for good or ill.
- Location
- United States
What's a genjutsu if that doesn't match the definition?
The words were just to convey the idea. The idea can be compressed. Ex: how can we subvert the leopards and cause internal conflict? what are your politics and why do you obey when the clan boss isn't looking? It can be compressed more but that's what I got from just the top of my head compression.
I stated the clear objective already. For future dog operations to reduce the number of leopards fighting the dogs and even better if the leopards start fighting each other.
I don't want to pork trade for it yet because of other aspects I dislike about your plan. But in case I change my mind is this (edit: this is referring to the previously mentioned idea. not the paragraphs below this sentence) roughly something you would pork trade for?
The following is me posting into the thread about your plan, and not addressed solely to you.
For sir stompy's plan:
Can we not do Plan C which is just murder? It's different than the self-defense we did so far. Or we can talk first and if they attack us in response we can kill.
Even placing traps along the border in plan B is uncomfortable if we don't put signs that there are dangerous traps (or that crossing the border means death if we don't want to reveal traps). It's like booby trapping your home. Killing people for trespassing. Just like what the Leopards who attacked us did.
Last edited:
Presumably something that works like this
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
@eaglejarl
Cannai asked us to "Cross the border, murder twelve of them, urinate on the corpses, and leave them to rot in the sun."
If we don't otherwise specify in the plan, will Hazō-pilot A) urinate on their corpses as he was instructed to or B) not do that and leave it up to the rest of his raiding party?
Possible reasons in favor of A:
Cannai asked us to "Cross the border, murder twelve of them, urinate on the corpses, and leave them to rot in the sun."
If we don't otherwise specify in the plan, will Hazō-pilot A) urinate on their corpses as he was instructed to or B) not do that and leave it up to the rest of his raiding party?
Possible reasons in favor of A:
- He takes Cannai and the situation seriously.
- He is a trained ninja who defaults to following mission parameters.
- He wants to immerse himself in Dog culture and bond with this impromptu raiding pack.
- He thinks signalling to Leopards that a Human Summoner is involved in the punitive raid is valuable (as a signal that Cannai is serious for instance).
- It's cathartic.
- He knows Cannai will understand that this is not Human culture and expects the instruction to therefore not have been meant literally, at least not when it concerns him personally.
- He strongly dislikes murder and this would feel too much reveling in or celebrating it.
- He is viscerally disgusted by the very idea or at least can't go through with it when confronted with the actual situation.
- He is not a dog (or a Dog), nor does he want to pretend to be one.
- He wants to hide his involvement at least for the time being.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The QMs have said that leveling a social stat doesn't change a character's characterization.
Social stats are for social combat, not two people having a good faith, constructive conversation.
She's also a big girl and can tell us how she feels, if that is the case. She hasn't, and she's nit shy about letting us know how she feels. Since she hasn't, I'm discounting this.
The Mori aren't allies, nor are her biological family members (Ami exempted).
Kei manages KEI just fine, as-is, and the only reason she would need to roll social stats against her own polycule is if she were in social combat with them. The Kittensphere is healthy enough that I doubt this will ever come to pass.
Vel has repeatedly asserted that the playerbase should be grateful that the QMs to not have mechanical socials stats influence narrative characterization.
Discounting this.
Kei is already doing better, without the need to screw up her build with sub-optimal social syat investments.
Sure, she's not perfect, but she's at a much better point now, than she was at the start of the quest. Does she backslide on occasion? Sure, but healing and growth aren't linear.
- Location
- Europe
I mean, Cannai said this:
While some dogs might thinks tricking them and then crippling them as a tactic is bad, Cannai really wants that mission to go well while keeping his side strong. And he knows how humans work.
I doubt he will be overly sad about some crippled Leopards, who were already part of an active raiding party.
Just don't kill cubs.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
It can be succinctly summarized, but I think the only ambiguity is (IMO) whether or not you must take Consequences with a full stress track if there is no incoming stress remaining that needs soaked.
- If you take stress:
- Step One: Is the amount of incoming stress more than the amount of filled boxes on your stress track?
- Yes: Fill up to the amount of the incoming stress.
- No: Fill one more box than is currently filled.
- Step Two: While going through Step One, do you still have incoming stress leftover, but no boxes in your stress track left to fill (or otherwise would you fill over the amount of your stress track)?
- Yes: Take Consequences to remove some stress from your stress track, until you no longer have any incoming stress unaccounted for. Good luck next round!
- No: You do not need to take a Consequence, have a nice day.
- Step Three: While going through Step Three? Did you run out of Consequences to take?
- Yes: Oh no. Either you choose to get Taken Out if appropriate, or you die. RIP
- No: Phew. Carry on, loyal soldier of the Leaf village.
- Step One: Is the amount of incoming stress more than the amount of filled boxes on your stress track?
It's also one of those things that's just vastly simpler to illustrate with a diagram to be honest.
Last edited:
I don't think you need to keep taking Consequences if the remaining stress fits on your track.
Say you have a 4-box track and 6 incoming stress, IMO you should be able to take a Minor and then fill your track with the rest.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
I kinda feel like this should go above the interrogation scene, just in case the QMs roll some dice that say "oh yeah someone was close enough to come attack you before you even finish the interrogation".
Also, while I know that oaths seem to be a pretty big thing in multiple Seventh Path cultures, I'm not certain every clan is as... pathological about it as the Arachnids were. That is to say, given that these Dogs are here with a grudge against the Leopards and are explicitly here to kill them, they might not mind all that much if we promise not to kill the Leopard who cooperates more but then do it anyways. A touchy topic to be sure, but if they agree we could get the benefits of the interrogation while also getting closer to our mandated kill count.
What's weighing on me here is that having to stick around to get one last kill introduces extra risk, of the "sudden Jounin to the face" variety but also the "this group has a cub and now we can't use any of our AoE tricks lest we put their life at risk". Reneging on our promise is not a very nice-guy thing to do, but we're here to be thoroughly not-nice to Leopards and if our dog companions okay it I want to get this mission done with ASAP.
Last edited:
Sure, sounds good.
I don't know how to raise this idea without making the "Oathbreaker Hazou" meme more intense if, in fact, they do take it just as seriously as the Arachnids do.
I also think that if we get 11 kills, but are running low on chakra and it's time to GTFO, Cannai isn't going to care if we're a little short.
Last edited:
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Yeah:
By "run out of boxes" I mean very colloquially "do you have unallocated incoming stress leftover after filling your track, or otherwise would you have to fill more boxes in the first step than you actually have", more or less. Edited a bit for clarity.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
We, presumably, still have a bunch of normal Banshee seals. Tie them up with rope, ask them questions, activate a Banshee point-blank into their ears. Leopards may have worse eyesight than humans, but their other senses are better. Summons communicate via telepathy, so we can have our most Intimidating Doggo ask the questions while we play the role of Scary Human With Unknown Tools.
I don't like this idea, we don't want to be making huge fucking noises while in enemy territory. Would much rather do this Mari-style
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
My understanding was that Kei was not just going to Mist to communicate with the Mori.
Social combat is not just verbal fights between two adversarial characters. Nor does it only cover zero sum situations. In the past it has often covered situations where a character was trying to get a better understanding of their opposite or trying to convince them of the mutual benefits of a course of action.
Anyway, here's a choice selection of quotes from Kei and my interpretation of them:
Kei is not excruciatingly feeble at intimidation, not even in her own excruciatingly biased opinion. I'm not even sure she considers her own deceit skill excruciatingly feeble.
This will involve more than talking to the Mitsukage one on one. And Mist ninja are not known for their easygoing straightforwardness. Yet I'm pretty sure the goal is not only to lie to them, to catch them lying, to intimidate them and to not be intimidated in return.
This especially seems to go beyond just deceit and intimidation. It seems very much a rapport/empathy kind of task.
This too seems like a task that doesn't work very well on a basis of deceit and intimidation alone.
- Location
- Europe
MARI: *looks at Yasuji*
MARI: "Yes Hazou, that's how I interrogate people. Good boy, now go kill cats"
I realized now that this got left out of my original post.
There's nothing morally wrong with a philosophical debate before some killing. And it's not even that. It's an interrogation not a debate. And it's about motivations not philosophy.
edit:
also the intel is to be used for future operations against other leopards. not against these ones we are killing/crippling
Last edited:
- Location
- Yes.
Uh, I was thinking about Arikada.
- Location
- Europe
- Location
- Yes.
- Location
- UK
For some context about reasonable assumptions, I thought only Hyūga could do this because it's useless for everyone else. Like, you can't make hand seals with your elbows, so what are you training this for, the ability to water-walk like a dog?
This holds even if you include sealing, since the majority of people only use explosive and storage seals, neither of which you really have want to trigger from the side of your face.
Last edited: