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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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My main worry with the afterlife option is that it runs a risk of trivializing the stakes. Is the same thing going to happen again if we die? Well, that could still do for a story I guess, but it feels different.

I do like Hazo losing the ability to compete for runes against Orochimaru, if we end up doing that. It adds some consequence to what happened. We're just going to have to come up with a new world-breaking approach to sealing

OTOH - I actually struggle to conceptualize what motivates the Washerman to take things away from Hazou in 'trade' for giving us Akane / Jirayia. Is there a Watsonian explanation? Is it trying to hedge & get some 'benefit' in case we fail?
I'd rather have it establish some ongoing demand, in the directional of uplift / raising population. Unfortunately that seems difficult to establish on any reasonable timeline - it's not like we can promise to increase the worlds population in short term
 
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Option 1 makes most simulationism sense and players prepared it ahead of time. So it's the best option.

Option 2 is fine, because it's Tsunade finally getting her head out of her ass. Also simulationist, just a little worse than Option 1.

Option 3 is...well can't speak for simulationism, but it's metal as hell and it would be amazing for Hazou to be able to walk out of the rift after being killed. Especially with Akane and Jiraiya in tow. The only issue would be limiting the afterlife updates to a handful, maybe ten, as after that it's too dominating.
 
This is not a suggestion but,

This is basically the perfect bait for a crossover

Just simply make one of the path where Jashin will send us an another setting

For example of one.... Digimon

The digital the world makes for a great Version of the animal path, especially with all the beast and beast-like diginmon, and the talk in the digimon Reference book about it being a dog eat world.

There's also a perfect type of digivolution to Serve as a physical antithesis to idea that cooperation never works.; DigiXros Dub name: DigiFuse(no one calls it that).
DigiXros Works by 2 or more digimon working to become one with the help of a Xros Loader. Very powerful digimon, with one of the digimon being the leader. It's literally all about a bunch of people working together to defeat foe they don't have the power to. There is no limit to the number of digimon that can be DigiXrosed and Working with other Xros Loader users leeds to more powerful forms ( This is known as Double Xros if only 2 Xros Loader are Involved or a Great Xros if 3 are).This is literally powered by bonds.

Also to my knowledge Digivice To be the type of thing which can only be used by the actual user. So it's the type of thing that's hard to steal. There is the Darkness Loader which can do Forced DigiXrosses ( It's exactly as it sounds) and is Known to replicable as Copies or made in canon how ever, In canon, it's mostly used by evil digimon with the primary user, what are the real one being a manipulated Child. To put it bruntly, any person who isn't a digimon. Trying to use this will quickly find themselves stabbed if they the digimon they partnered with to be the leader do not trust each other. In other words, someone like ORoachie morrow can literally never use this thing without quickly risking getting killed.

Despite my lack of writing abilities I kind of want to write this now, how do you all feel about
J-man running the The D-Brigade who now based in the Village Hidden in Metael?
 
Anderkent said:
OTOH - I actually struggle to conceptualize what motivates the Washerman to take things away from Hazou in 'trade' for giving us Akane / Jirayia. Is there a Watsonian explanation? Is it trying to hedge & get some 'benefit' in case we fail?
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Well for one reason it could be that the only reason Jashin even has the power to "Bless" Hazo is through repurposing Hazo's existing connection to the Out.

With it being the case that Jashin normally requires the people it "blesses" to do murder rituals like Hidan.

Because those are normally a necessary fuel needed to main the "blessing".

But because Hazo already has an Out connection, no murders are required for blessing maintanance.
 
Anderkent said:
My main worry with the afterlife option is that it runs a risk of trivializing the stakes. Is the same thing going to happen again if we die? Well, that could still do for a story I guess, but it feels different
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I am thoroughly sick of the stakes being as high as they have been for the last ~year. I'm fucking tired of it. I'm fucking tired of having to optimize the hell out of every single clone-hour for maximum value so that we can scrape by.

Hell yes, lower the Sagedamned stakes. We can raise them again after 30 chapters of exploring the Outer Paths and learning Sage Mode and Deep Lore.
 
I'm not a fan of Tsunade interrupting and saving Hazou. For this to be true, we have to concede that Orochimaru, knowing full well that Tsunade attempting to save Hazou could happen, instead implemented a bioseal killswitch that doesn't instantly and completely mulch Hazou's body beyond recovery. There is no logical reason why he would elect to not do this.

The deadman switch blurtout also requires some suspension of disbelief to me, though less so than the above. My model of Orochimaru would not have bothered monologuing to Hazou about how stupid he has been before killing him; my model of Orochimaru would have popped Hazou's body the moment they got far enough away.

Jashin giving Hazou his favor...it's going to depend a lot on Hidan and his current status, and his ability to kill Mari. If Hidan is alive and in a position to find/kill Mari before she starts spreading EM Nuke knowledge, Jashin should have no reason to offer Hazou any sort of bargain. Of course, this assumes Jashin's motives for helping Hazou are specifically in the context of EM Nukes and not something else, but this goes beyond what faflec-the-player should know.
 
faflec said:
The deadman switch blurtout also requires some suspension of disbelief to me, though less so than the above. My model of Orochimaru would not have bothered monologuing to Hazou about how stupid he has been before killing him; my model of Orochimaru would have popped Hazou's body the moment they got far enough away.
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In fairness, my model of Hazō wouldn't have walked out into the woods alone as Prime either.
 
My opinion is as a lurker and worth literally nothing, but I know I'd feel a lot more comfortable voting (or even thinking about voting) if option 3 was selected. From an outsider perspective, the skill floor for this quest seems kinda high.

Option 1 definitely feels more like the rest of the story, but hold on while I predict the future real quick:

  • Option 1 goes through
  • Not enough time to stop akatsuki and orochimaru
  • Hazou dies in like 10 chapters due to split focus
  • Thread goes full salt
Tbh I think option 3 might be better for the quest from a meta perspective, you guys seem like you could use a vacation.

eaglejarl said:
"Deadman switch!"

Orochimaru paused, one eyebrow rising. "Explain."

"You were about to kill me, weren't you?"

"I would never admit to such a thing."

Hazō snorted. "Oh, please. You were absolutely about to kill me."
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This is hilarious though, I won't lie. 2 children squabbling in the woods.
 
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chryssalideater said:
Option 1 definitely feels more like the rest of the story, but hold on while I predict the future real quick:

  • Option 1 goes through
  • Not enough time to stop akatsuki and orochimaru
  • Hazou dies in like 10 chapters due to split focus
  • Thread goes full salt
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True. Whatever method of Hazo not dying happens next, going back to defend leaf without the rift is a bleak future. We would need to confront Orochimaru now, with the combined leaf forces we brought for the rift fight, or somehow convince Oro to not do the betrayal and come home; yes even after his desire to kill Hazo is made clear.

Anything else is just... forgive the repetition, but it's bleak. That rift and the people we could bring back from it represent hope that all of our efforts will one day reward us. Without the rift, if it's lost in the wilderness, then it's just another Akatsuki ritual that had to be stopped at massive cost, and the world carries on as ever, a little worse than it was before.

I don't know, maybe there's a path forward where we convince Akatuki not to retaliate, where they don't bring the combined force of the AMITY alliance down on us, where things quiet down for a while. Sure, Orochimaru and the rift are off in the wind, but he might one day start bringing a select few people back. He might one day satisfy any research that requires the rift itself and allow us to find it while he moves on, and until then we have a relatively calm period of tense diplomacy that Hazo doesn't need to be personally involved in, and family shenanigans as we find Ami and bring Kagome home.

But the most likely future is the one you predicted, yeah. It's hard to argue that that is the path we want to take going forward from here.
 
Anderkent said:
OTOH - I actually struggle to conceptualize what motivates the Washerman to take things away from Hazou in 'trade' for giving us Akane / Jirayia. Is there a Watsonian explanation? Is it trying to hedge & get some 'benefit' in case we fail?
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Doylist: I was running with the dream that Velorien wrote.

Watsonian: Eh. I'm confident we can make some shit up.

chryssalideater said:
My opinion is as a lurker and worth literally nothing
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You read, you get an opinion of you want to put it out there. Also, welcome!
 
T_of_A said:
To be clear the cost for Leaf is currently quite low. Moon paid the cost this time.

Then it's just a matter of winning the next world war, Leaf versus the entire world.
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Yeah but Hazo's struggle isn't actually leaf vs others. Hazo fights for Humanity vs inevitable extinction, and losing an entire hidden village is a hefty blow.
 
eaglejarl said:
You read, you get an opinion of you want to put it out there. Also, welcome!
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Oh for sure an opinion but like... if someone's gonna lurk, and a lot of lurkers vote, and the players vote a different way, and the lurker votes win...

You don't have a playerbase any more.

Is the line of logic I think they were getting at.
 
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Lurker gang rise up! :mob: Overthrow the stale status quo!

This death was not an end, but a new beginning! Hazo will listen to our voices now!

(I used to lurk, I can still call myself a lurker right? Please tell me I'm not about to depose myself)
 
I like number 2 best as maintaining relative simulationism, it's just Tsunade updating slightly to the possibility of Oro's betrayal after we talked to her about it, and being on the look out for something after thinking about what that might look like.

2>3>1
 
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Hear me out for a second: Leaf gets destroyed.

That's the price of our failure. Just Leaf, we can say Mari flinched away from the proliferation button at the last second just like Hazou flinched away from activating the Superchiller. Itachi descends on Leaf like a wrathful kami and without Hazou or Orochimaru there to defend it there's no hope. Leaf-nin scatter into the wilds, Leaf's institutions are shattered, and as far as geopolitics is concerned Leaf transgressed AMITY for the final time and now no longer gets to exist.

Notably, this does not kill all Leaf-nin. The groups that scatter, clans most likely, hole up in secret places across Fire Country, knowing that they can't return to Leaf without getting hunted down. So Ino's still alive somewhere out there, and the Nara didn't get wiped out and trigger whatever unfathomable consequences that allegedly entails. But Leaf still ceases to exist as a geopolitical entity, and the rest of AMITY descends like vultures on its territory to take it for themselves.

Hazou, of course, still goes through an afterlife arc and claws his way back into reality. Time dilation is not needed here, arriving back in the EN somewhere between a month and a year from now would still be fine timeline-wise, which smooths over one of the bigger contrivances of this route.

But why is this desirable in the first place? It's simple: as I was talking about before, the quest was contorted into an unfun researchmaxxing state because if we didn't Leaf would die. The threat of Akatsuki was too strong, too imminent, and nobody else could feasibly protect Leaf. That forced our hand, made us bite the bullet again and again and again, even if we'd rather go hunting crabs for chakra metal or something.

But what if Leaf... wasn't? It can't be in danger if it's already destroyed. The people who were in it, they either survived or they didn't, living in secrecy or dying in Leaf's defense. When we stumble across an enclave of survivors we'd want to protect them, but they're already protected by secrecy and in a stable state: they can wait until we're in a good position to make a move. We'd want to take revenge on the Akatsuki, but they're also in a stable state and we can wait until we're in a good position to make a move. We can afford to follow Orochimaru's advice, running around power-seeking in fun and engaging ways, the right balance of research and adventure, and only then take the world by storm and bring Leaf back from the ashes.

And as for why I said "the price of our failure"... I haven't been looking at the situation this way myself, but there seem to be a lot of players who feel that because we lost here whatever solution we arrive at should still carry some of that loss forwards. That our death should still have consequences, still make us suffer, even as we weave a scenario in which Hazou's story gets to go on. I, personally, am intrigued by this idea mostly because it sounds like it would fix a lot of the incentive structures of the quest, but it also undeniably counts as a major loss for Hazou and his goals, which would make it and options including it more palatable to those among us who want us to carry the scars of this moment forwards.

I'm also not married to it, to be clear, it just crystallized in my head now after a day or two of idle thoughts, but it seems reasonably plausible and surprisingly beneficial for the quest. Sometimes you need to prune a few branches to keep the tree healthy, after all.
 
Sir Stompy said:
I am thoroughly sick of the stakes being as high as they have been for the last ~year. I'm fucking tired of it. I'm fucking tired of having to optimize the hell out of every single clone-hour for maximum value so that we can scrape by.

Hell yes, lower the Sagedamned stakes. We can raise them again after 30 chapters of exploring the Outer Paths and learning Sage Mode and Deep Lore.
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I don't participate in plan-making and hardly ever vote, but I really agree with this. The quest's stakes just keep getting higher to a frankly unreasonable degree. "Oh no, Akatsuki are going to complete their secret plan that will do some unspecified evil thing! Thank Jashin this newly minted chuunin invented the technology that lets us beat them (he was still a genin missing-nin at the time, what a precocious boy!). Oh no, Jiraiya is dead. And so is the new Hokage, along with a significant amount of Leaf's senior leadership. Hazou, you have to develop a new paradigm to help us fight Rock! Thanks for the Porcupine scroll, have the Dog scroll for yourself. A rift? Should be nothing. Summoner, there's fucking dragons! Please, save the 7th path! Hazou, what the FUCK was that ice bullshit sealing failure?! Oh, it was a basic jutsu you say? Uh, yeah, sorry about your girlfriend. My fellow prophet, have the death of your girlfriend's killer as a gift! Summoner, great job rounding everyone up to kill the dragons! Oh, yeah, so, about that rift from earlier..."

Even by the standards of a ninja, Hazou has led an overly eventful life. Orochimaru was talking out of his ass. His sensei was probably the most powerful ninja and greatest technique hacker of his generation, and he went on normal goddamn missions and wasn't being recruited to save the world every 6 months! Hazou would have fucking soloed the Sannin at their age if he had been born with all their advantages, instead he needed to invent the technology to walk on fucking AIR just for the privilege of joining their village!
 
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Ishtar said:
I like number 2 best as maintaining relative simulationism, it's just Tsunade updating slightly to the possibility of Oro's betrayal after we talked to her about it, and being on the look out for something after thinking about what that might look like.

2>3>1
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I don't see any value in maintaining simulationism as an end in itself at this point. We died.

Game over.

Time to figure how we take our next steps. Maintaining simulationism is good insofar as it produces a fun quest to play. We do not need to maximize it. If it becomes cumbersome we can cast it off entirely for a few moments to establish the ground rules for the next stage of the quest.

Inferno Vulpix said:
But what if Leaf... wasn't? It can't be in danger if it's already destroyed. The people who were in it, they either survived or they didn't, living in secrecy or dying in Leaf's defense. When we stumble across an enclave of survivors we'd want to protect them, but they're already protected by secrecy and in a stable state: they can wait until we're in a good position to make a move. We'd want to take revenge on the Akatsuki, but they're also in a stable state and we can wait until we're in a good position to make a move. We can afford to follow Orochimaru's advice, running around power-seeking in fun and engaging ways, the right balance of research and adventure, and only then take the world by storm and bring Leaf back from the ashes
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I see no reason why we need to be "punished" either. Unless the player base has a masochistic streak I'm unaware of. We lost. So what? I reject any implication that we need to be punished over this.

I am perfectly fine with doing something fun and easier for a bit. Powerlevel in the afterlife so Hazou doesn't suck so much. Get access to the Deep Lore etc. That sounds like fun.

I am here to have fun, I am not here to suffer psychic trauma over all the dead Leaf ninja this is going to result in.
 
In general the situation is closer to "Here is basically what folks want out of this, this is the game we wanna play. What do you guys want? What about everyone else? QMs? The point of this is to iron stuff out so that we are playing a different game that we both find fun."

Its possible what the QMs want and what the readerbase wants to see or what the playerbase wants to play are mutually exclusive in some or many instances, in which case, best to get that out of the way very clearly and firmly and obviously now, to save people the time and effort invested.

My personal take is closer to... well, here:

Like, this is a good opportunity to very thoroughly analyze what fucking sucks about the quest and what incentive gradients lead inevitably to actions and situations that we are all kind of unenthused by, and then fix all of that shit. Let's not just settle with an extension of whatever we've been doing so far, because whatever we've been doing so far has CLEARLY got some seriously unfun bits that we can just agree to strip out while we're at this point.

And this includes stuff that just fucking sucks from a story perspective. If "this story has very low levels of kung fu wizards and adventuring stuff..." is an issue at the moment, then we can fix that right now. If "how does everyone else fair while Hazou's PoV is privileged and time passes" is an issue, then we can fix some of that right now. If "man it kind of sucks that the PC literally cannot be relevant to the main story stuff outside of this lighthousing research stuff" is an issue, then we can fix that right now!

Break the mold lol.



Ultimately, the result of the game we've been playing so far is "After succeeding more than anyone in his position at Chapter 1 could ever possibly have succeeded without magical outside context information, Gouketsu Hazou is assassinated by Orochimaru in the woods 700 chapters later.". Returning to that and figuring out if there's a path forward is ultimately a question of "Alright, so that was the end state there, but how do folks feel about continuing on in some way, yknow, to make a better ending for the story and play a fun game."

So lets do that, and not worry so much about engaging with "simulationism" or "game balance" as we have done so in chapters 1-700. Anything that comes after this can probably be simulationist in the sense that we can almost certainly cludge together some bullshit that fits in seamlessly with vague worldbuilding stuff already mentioned or foreshadowed. Any game balance stuff can be with the lens that, well, we lost the Ultrahardcore version of the game, so instead of it being grueling and terribly balanced and the Balance Of All Things constantly consuming an entire spoon drawer on the GM side every week, lets just like, not worry so much if Hazou fucking around in the Afterlife or the Planeshopping shit or whatever can go from chuunin to throwing hands with Hidan in 1-2 in game years of subjective time off the Human Path.

Personally, I find Shroom's suggestion of "Spend 100-200 chapters romping through everywhere in-setting that isn't the Human Path, and return to kick major fucking ass after inventing and acquiring some serious powerups." most appealing. I have already done the thought experiments on how to make that work while keeping the players happy with significantly less/zero boring lighthousing, and it seems pretty viable to me so long as the general QM consensus is "That sounds fun" and not "Gee, 2/10 wouldn't want to write that". Something like that or a big afterlife powerup arc (that is not just sitting on the beach and doing kata with Jiraiya and Akane or whoever... and that has minimal direct interactions with any Deus ex Machina stuff or anything of the "You wake up with your giga buffs after a short stay in the graveyard dimension" variety) would be the most narratively satisfying given the current character arcs IMO.


That's just my two cents though.
 
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For what it's worth, my vote is for option 3 with a relatively short afterlife period. Getting J man back would be great (I was sad at his passing) and I would like to see what would happen with a less squishy protagonist.
 
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