- Pronouns
- He/Him
All the same, IV does have a point when he says the pressure to rush back to save Leaf is gone if we were already too late and everyone has already scattered to the winds... a whole village marked for Death if you will :^)
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rational 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
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Seconding this.
Especially seconding this.
I think it's valuable and meaningful to have a difficult moment in stories, in a character's arc. It brings depth to the character and because of that it enriches each relationship the character has and the world around it.
I think it'd be powerful to have a moment where Hazo is dealing with incredible setbacks to his goals and is struggling to come to grips with the grief. A quiet grief but one that he does process and grows with. We learn so much in life from moments like that.
Perhaps the proper simulation would find someone like Hazo either giving up or more likely doubling down harder but I think there's a less extreme response that can be beautifully done. If there's an appetite among players and QMs to do so I think it's rich with potential for feelings and relationship and characters to change. If we have to suspend simulationism for the journey to be an interesting one so be it. I'm not suggesting to overhaul uplift as a primary goal but the characterization of Hazo going after it so doggedly.
It's a big blow, just like losing leaf would be. On that note, I'm unsure if losing Leaf is the idea I would support, I think there's enough to work with from Hazo having died. It does raise the loses Hazo endures and in that there's an opportunity as well.
The more Hazo gives the fairer it seems for him to gain things. I've seen many players state support for gaining boons. I think by losing some identity (perhaps temporarily or simply in the process of change) and in an even more extreme scenario losing Leaf, Hazo can pick up many useful tools without it seeming to stack the scales on his side too much. It'll feel earned in a sense.
It allows us to do fun things that many players, and as I understand, QMs (dying to hear from Velorien and Paper on their opinions for how to move forward) also want to do. Like punch and loot and explore the setting more thoroughly.
I'm for making consequences real even if they're mostly narrative and not
mechanical, which I think can be interesting and engaging even as I'd like to lower the difficulty on the quest. I think it strikes a good balance.
I also totally understand if consequences are heavy and that isn't an easy thing to do at this moment.
All I can really say is the climb up from rock bottom can be beautiful.
I want to see the Sun rise on an uplifted world through the eyes of a fully realized and tested Goketsu Hazo after he climbs out the depths of hell like Heracles and unflinchingly back down again as many times as needed.
I think it'd be powerful to have a moment where Hazo is dealing with incredible setbacks to his goals and is struggling to come to grips with the grief. A quiet grief but one that he does process and grows with. We learn so much in life from moments like that.
Perhaps the proper simulation would find someone like Hazo either giving up or more likely doubling down harder but I think there's a less extreme response that can be beautifully done. If there's an appetite among players and QMs to do so I think it's rich with potential for feelings and relationship and characters to change. If we have to suspend simulationism for the journey to be an interesting one so be it. I'm not suggesting to overhaul uplift as a primary goal but the characterization of Hazo going after it so doggedly.
It's a big blow, just like losing leaf would be. On that note, I'm unsure if losing Leaf is the idea I would support, I think there's enough to work with from Hazo having died. It does raise the loses Hazo endures and in that there's an opportunity as well.
The more Hazo gives the fairer it seems for him to gain things. I've seen many players state support for gaining boons. I think by losing some identity (perhaps temporarily or simply in the process of change) and in an even more extreme scenario losing Leaf, Hazo can pick up many useful tools without it seeming to stack the scales on his side too much. It'll feel earned in a sense.
It allows us to do fun things that many players, and as I understand, QMs (dying to hear from Velorien and Paper on their opinions for how to move forward) also want to do. Like punch and loot and explore the setting more thoroughly.
I'm for making consequences real even if they're mostly narrative and not
mechanical, which I think can be interesting and engaging even as I'd like to lower the difficulty on the quest. I think it strikes a good balance.
I also totally understand if consequences are heavy and that isn't an easy thing to do at this moment.
All I can really say is the climb up from rock bottom can be beautiful.
I want to see the Sun rise on an uplifted world through the eyes of a fully realized and tested Goketsu Hazo after he climbs out the depths of hell like Heracles and unflinchingly back down again as many times as needed.
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Another mostly lurker chiming in. I do think my favorite idea for a path forward is that Hazo dies, is placed by Jashin in front of the rift entrance and has a rift opener rune blank with him to open it back up from the other side. (Assuming I'm not misunderstanding if rune blanks can be stored in a storage seal.)
- Location
- florida
"The fun got optimized out"
Maybe?
How long did it take for runecrafting to go from being a fun toy to being an albatross.
It literally killed us.
Mmm.
As another aside. I think Earthshaping was a great example of a power that was fun and kept being fun the more we walked down that road.
Sealing... ironically presented too many solutions. I guess?
Maybe?
How long did it take for runecrafting to go from being a fun toy to being an albatross.
It literally killed us.
Mmm.
As another aside. I think Earthshaping was a great example of a power that was fun and kept being fun the more we walked down that road.
Sealing... ironically presented too many solutions. I guess?
This is something that I agree with extremely, and leads into something which I find quite funny.
I don't want Hazō to go on an afterlife quest, or at least not in the manner most people are describing. This isn't because I think it would be unsimulationist, or because I think it wouldn't lead to satisfying gameplay. Frankly, based on the thread's mood, both players and qm's would have fun. However, there would be a major problem in the story's narrative.
For the past hundred chapters, the story has been mainly about one problem: control of the afterlife rift. This makes sense both in and out of character, as it literally is a way to revive people. In the past 20 chapters, Hazō "betrayed" his country, uprooted his life, spent 9 months running around the woods trying desperately to kill S-ranks with shiny rocks, and succeeds, only to fall at the last second to a stab in the back. His punishment for the loss?
Being sent to the pure lands, where he has been trying to get to for the entire last year.
Do you see the problem?
Okay, let's lose all our combat XP and return to the Sealing mines as Orochimaru's rune slave for the next 3 IRL years.
Great idea, I hope you like your new job at the nerve farm.
- Location
- Texas
The goal was never to go to the Pure Lands. From what we know of reincarnation in this setting, everyone goes to the Pure Lands after they die. Getting there is easy, it just takes an overcast Shadow Clone jutsu, or a kunai, or throwing yourself into a lake. It's getting that Rift that we've been interested in, and there's no guarantee how simple that's going to be if we enter the PL naturally.
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- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Yeah, just, from the bottom of my heart, what I want is to be able to chill out a little. To not have ominous deadlines looming over our head and forcing us to pass up on fun interesting stuff in favour of what has the most impact per solar day.
I want to go poke the interesting parts of the setting, to go adventuring and get shinies and lore and stuff by punching stuff and making good plans. I couldn't justify such luxuries while we were racing Sasori to the rift. I haven't been able to justify such luxuries for a long time now.
I don't really care what form it takes. Just let the quest be more than a series of forced moves.
I should clarify - I'm personally against it, but completely understand why the thread as a whole wants to go there: the quest would be extremely fun, it would still be a joy to read, and it makes plenty of sense: Hazō does in fact die when he dies. I just want to note the problem inherent to it. I'm personally more partial to Hazō somehow going onto an unknown path, or the animal path as I previously mentioned, but completely understand why people want to go there.
Edit - forgot the quote
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
So like, I just want to note for posterity's sake that "Hazou is now in the afterlife dimension, and he unfortunately got there the easy way" is only a fulfillment of his own goals in the most ironic, darkly sarcastic, literal genie sort of way.
It is the sort of wish fulfillment that Greek tragedies are woven out of. He is exactly where he wanted to be, without any of the tools he needs to make a difference, and in exactly the wrong context able to make use of the fact that he is now in the land of the dead. Can't bring anyone back to life from the inside, after all, especially if you don't have a hope of finding them...
This is the kind of stuff that just causes someone to laugh at the inhumane irony of it all before breaking down for a little bit, if they were placed in that situation.
That is probably how that should (initially) be played, FMPOV.
I do not think it should be easy to hunt people down in the afterlife dimension. On the contrary, I think it should be mindboggling difficult, since we are not going in there with the requisite tools (like we would in the counterfactual universe). Running into Jiraiya is a miracle that is perhaps excusable to follow the conceit (something something Jashin) in some scenarios, but I personally don't think it should be that quick or that easy.
Every human, at least. Plants and animals seem to have their own thing going on, probably including the Seventh Path Clans.
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
While we're discussing our preferences, something's been on my mind- what makes fights fun for you? At least one mutual goal of ours seems to be to reduce lighthousing and meetings in favor of having Hazo go out and punch things, but the last couple of fights where Hazo directly participated seem to not have been as enjoyable as hoped- the chakravores and magma guys were spoon-intensive to run and not hugely satisfying if I remember your comments right, and when we did the leopard fight the QM comments I remember weren't enthused about unstagnating that particular way. For the sake of setting expectations and figuring out what to plan around, what would you generally prefer? Smaller groups? What in particular would you prefer to avoid? Fewer seals to track?
For the sake of clear communication, the main concerns about combat I can think of on our end is that circumstances make level-appropriate combats rare and difficult to engage with, but that's one of the reasons I feel hopeful about Afterlife Quest not needing us to worry about how to handle apocalypses for a while. Similarly, there were concerns about having to level research stats to figure out solutions, but the apocalypses that needed solving and the softcaps for research stats are both mostly handled and as far as I know the build plan was already focusing on combat even before the Oro announcement.
*points at post* Yessss, fucking yesss. I know that the QMs don't like lighthousing, but they kind of wrote themselves into a corner where the only way we can stop the apocalypse is by doing just that. Heck, Naruto literally ordered us to do it! Being kicked to the afterlife resets all the stakes, or at least makes it impossible for us to meaningfully affect the big issues we were worrying about. We can go back to punching chakra beasts, we can revive Roki and Iron Nervemaxxing, we can explore small scale problems and level combat jutsu without feeling like those are luxuries we can't afford to engage in, lest the world end and everything we care about with it. The world has already ended. Now it's time to play in the ashes. And that's something that neither of the first two options can get us.
That was quite an impactful end to a protagonist I've been following for years and more of a lurker at this point. I can't say I expected Hazō to perish in this manner, but I was wary of Orochimaru trying a warmer approach with the young man. Turns out that the honey he was using had some big flies in it.
I can see why Orochimaru would exploit Hazou's vulnerability and maximize his chance of survival. He noted Hazou's mindset and determination pushed him toward incredible accomplishments. That those same traits would be eventual impediments to Orochimaru's goals wasn't entirely unforseen by the playerbase or select NPCs. I find it unfortunate that it finally caught up with us though.
Because of that, I have to concur with Zampano even though I get why option 1 and option 3 appeal more so to the players. With Tsunade's participation in this operation and her recent meeting with Hazou over his concerns, I think a 'Tsunade interrupt' would be likely. She's seen first hand what Hazou's runes can do, and coupled with his vulnerability, I don't think she would leave him alone with Orochimaru at this point.
I can see why Orochimaru would exploit Hazou's vulnerability and maximize his chance of survival. He noted Hazou's mindset and determination pushed him toward incredible accomplishments. That those same traits would be eventual impediments to Orochimaru's goals wasn't entirely unforseen by the playerbase or select NPCs. I find it unfortunate that it finally caught up with us though.
Because of that, I have to concur with Zampano even though I get why option 1 and option 3 appeal more so to the players. With Tsunade's participation in this operation and her recent meeting with Hazou over his concerns, I think a 'Tsunade interrupt' would be likely. She's seen first hand what Hazou's runes can do, and coupled with his vulnerability, I don't think she would leave him alone with Orochimaru at this point.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
To be fair, if we came back without Orochimaru and the Rift, we'd be fine against Akatsuki. Superchillers just re-enter the menu.
Heleor
^_^
I like this a lot. While we're at it, do we *need* the game mechanics? Can afterlife quest and everything after it just be narrative? Can we ditch 400 word plans and just vote in vague ideas or directions again? ... can Marked for Life be a new thread with a really insanely great prequel?
(I am but a single lurker voice as well.)
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Well they're really good and make for incredibly engaging gameplay for 1-2 dozen people who engage heavily on a daily basis with this story so I would imagine that's worth something.
Hazou is written by the QMs (excellently of course) but he's the players' character too...
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- Location
- florida
@eaglejarl
If we didn't opt to go under the operation for the kill switch. Would Orochimaru have decided not to kill us?
If he wants us dead I don't... think we could have stopped him. Not really.
If we didn't opt to go under the operation for the kill switch. Would Orochimaru have decided not to kill us?
If he wants us dead I don't... think we could have stopped him. Not really.
- Location
- Liverpool
We've slightly moved away from it, but I wanted to point out for anyone who wanted a minatoseal solution to Orochimaru's kill switch: we don't have Minatosealing, and we're at least a couple hundred HP and a lootbox swallow away. Though I'm very in favor of getting it ASAP, and actually playing with TH mechanics (for a little bit, no more lighthouse for a long time) (it's part of why I wanted Chakra at 40, to make projects go faster).
Just a reminder for everyone: I'm pretty sure the requirement for Minatosealing is level 60 in sealing. If we lose our out stunt, we fall below that threshold, and would have to raise sealing to get access to it again. Though it could still be worth it.
On a related note to all this: I really enjoy the mechanics! I'm even running my own short irl campaign based on them (though with simplified elemental techniques and stronger healing mechanics/no max lethality rules). And I do want to get better at basics, find out what bio and Minatosealing do, make a cool combat kit, and then kick some actual butt with it.
I like the research genuinely. But I also really want to see Hazou actualize the combat potential that we've all been lamenting. I think it would be very... cathartic.
Just a reminder for everyone: I'm pretty sure the requirement for Minatosealing is level 60 in sealing. If we lose our out stunt, we fall below that threshold, and would have to raise sealing to get access to it again. Though it could still be worth it.
On a related note to all this: I really enjoy the mechanics! I'm even running my own short irl campaign based on them (though with simplified elemental techniques and stronger healing mechanics/no max lethality rules). And I do want to get better at basics, find out what bio and Minatosealing do, make a cool combat kit, and then kick some actual butt with it.
I like the research genuinely. But I also really want to see Hazou actualize the combat potential that we've all been lamenting. I think it would be very... cathartic.
Iris-Iven-Ibis
Interested-Idiot-Immortal
- Location
- You know
I generally agree. That's some low steak adventures would be a nice break like maybe Jashin basically hires Hazou, Jiraiya and Akane to fix something in some other path and Them coming back to life is part of the payment. You can also say that he's making sure The time difference is favorable for them as long Is they do something to fix the problem
- Location
- Central Standard Time
Lurker, rare voter, etc. Congratulations on finishing a quest!
I don't really see Tsunade-retcon being particularly helpful in terms of disrupting the current thread status quo, though.
For what it's worth, I prefer 2/3>>>1, with the first two in no particular order.
From a certain point of view, isn't "luck" just FP? Perhaps a "restricted" FP direction, then.
I like this story beat. My ideal afterlife arc has unknown time dilation, earned power-ups (Training under Jiraiya). I'm ambivalent on the Jashin-regeneration, but Jashin-luck? I think that's more likely to lead to the right types of fun, especially with additional training in punch.
I don't really see Tsunade-retcon being particularly helpful in terms of disrupting the current thread status quo, though.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Honestly removing DOB is likely to result in more lighthousing rather than less, because now we need to spend even more xp, and hence time, to make progress on anything related to it, and unless the situation changes we still actually do need to do said research.
Rihaku
The Internet
I think QM burnout is a serious problem and the demands of updating the world simulation on top of analyzing each research proposal have taken their toll. The quest would benefit OOC from a great simplification for a time. In that sense, Option 3 (Afterlife w Jiraiya and Akane) is very suitable:
*QMs don't need to model the entire Human Path, just two NPCs plus whatever adventures are in the party's specific locality
*Jashin gives the route to the rift, Hazou & Co simply undertake the harrowing journey there
*Lots of combat with lower stakes - even in death you simply respawn, plus Hazou now has Jashin-regeneration. A plausible reason for Hazou to quickly develop his combat skills.
*It is fitting that the Washerman's prophet of life would have an outlook and mentality almost diametrically opposed to his prophet of death. The man who died because he too-selflessly promoted the ideals of open cooperation and mutual gain is exactly the kind of person Jashin would be looking for to promote the maximization of the human population in the future.
Losing DotB kind of sucks and, as others have mentioned, would not actually resolve the problems of research spam. I hope that if it's implemented Hazou would at least be able to infuse the Runes in his current arsenal - RER 2.0, Ninja Radar, Force Dome, TR150, Storm Rune etc at his previous level of competence. They are the hard-won product of an entire year spent on the run from the whole world, and the players understandably have a great deal of attachment to them that no equivalent shiny would compensate for. Turning himself into the great strategic enabler has been Hazou's entire character arc and his Runes are physical manifestation of that, so it'd be sad to see them go (or even be crippled).
Hazou & Co can emerge from the rift into a simplified worldstate without so many burdens of simulation - a new stable equilibrium for his actions to overturn. Orochimaru and the Rift in deep hiding (Oro fears Pain the most and would never open the Rift), and everyone else licking their wounds from the Leaf vs AMITY clash (or perhaps Ami stabilized that situation?).
*QMs don't need to model the entire Human Path, just two NPCs plus whatever adventures are in the party's specific locality
*Jashin gives the route to the rift, Hazou & Co simply undertake the harrowing journey there
*Lots of combat with lower stakes - even in death you simply respawn, plus Hazou now has Jashin-regeneration. A plausible reason for Hazou to quickly develop his combat skills.
*It is fitting that the Washerman's prophet of life would have an outlook and mentality almost diametrically opposed to his prophet of death. The man who died because he too-selflessly promoted the ideals of open cooperation and mutual gain is exactly the kind of person Jashin would be looking for to promote the maximization of the human population in the future.
Losing DotB kind of sucks and, as others have mentioned, would not actually resolve the problems of research spam. I hope that if it's implemented Hazou would at least be able to infuse the Runes in his current arsenal - RER 2.0, Ninja Radar, Force Dome, TR150, Storm Rune etc at his previous level of competence. They are the hard-won product of an entire year spent on the run from the whole world, and the players understandably have a great deal of attachment to them that no equivalent shiny would compensate for. Turning himself into the great strategic enabler has been Hazou's entire character arc and his Runes are physical manifestation of that, so it'd be sad to see them go (or even be crippled).
Hazou & Co can emerge from the rift into a simplified worldstate without so many burdens of simulation - a new stable equilibrium for his actions to overturn. Orochimaru and the Rift in deep hiding (Oro fears Pain the most and would never open the Rift), and everyone else licking their wounds from the Leaf vs AMITY clash (or perhaps Ami stabilized that situation?).
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