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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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I'm pretty sure we aren't voting for anything, considering that @Velorien has already started writing.

But just in case it does something:

[x] Whose Leaf Does Not Wither
 
Well, that was a rollercoaster to read. I will start by saying that @eaglejarl and @Velorien, I entirely respect the original decision, and the interpretation given seemed to me to be as good as any competing interpretations.

That said, I'm glad the update was made non-canon. Of all of our future plans, the two that I most want to see in implementation are skywalking and Hidden Heaven, and part of their power is going to be that they are secrets, so I was sad to see HH exposed. I'm glad that it being actually hidden is still on the table.

In that vein, I'm still angry at Jiraiya and the Hokage that they made us reveal the secret behind our aerial platform. Honestly, I'd like to try to get a promise that in the future, if we accomplish something for their benefit, and we're debriefing, then it will be good enough to just say that we accomplished said thing. Otherwise, I'm far less interested in working closely with them in the future.
 
A wild funny idea appears! What do you do?

Option #1: write an omake. This, unfortunately, can be frustrated by writer's block, insufficient writing level, lack of time, etc.

Option #2: ignore it. Shame to waste a funny idea, though.

Option #3: Vote for it as our update, with the attendant permanent consequences. I think basically everyone here is on-board with this being the worst outcome.

Proposal: addition of 0–2 voting tags, depending on our wonderful author's preferences.

First, an [OM] (Omake) tag, which is for joke plans. Instead of getting an update, our wonderful authors push a serious update and write us an omake, which would certainly be better than anything I'd write. If our wonderful authors would rather not have this be a vote outcome, I encourage them to veto this tag.

Second, an [OR] (Omake request) tag, also for joke plans. Instead of voting for a plan as our update, we say "here's a funny idea for an omake I can't write for whatever reason (writer's block, writing level, time, etc), here's a vote to add it to an Omake Repository for a participant to write." Because this will take maintenance, I volunteer to maintain such an omake repository.

The [OR] tag doesn't necessarily make the [OM] tag obsolete. As has been said many times, our authors are really good. I beta'd the last several chapters of @Velorien's Lighting Up the Dark, but only kind of, because he'd send me a Google Doc with an entire chapter in it and I'd read it over twice and have trouble finding a single improvement to suggest. I'm an amateur amateur writer, but I can usually do better than that. Point is, if there's an omake idea we really want nailed, I anticipate anything we send our wonderful author's way would get done really, really well.

On the other hand, not wanting to write omakes is a deeply understandable preference. Wonderful authors: please advise.

Also, [OR] doesn't really fit as a voting tag. This is my second post; I'm still getting a feel for how things work. Please advise on how best to implement.

In conclusion: having a response to a funny idea that's not have it be our update with permanent consequences would have (a) preempted this whole mess and (b) seems a good idea on its own.
 
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QTesseract said:
It's almost certainly better to be safe than sorry.
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I suppose so.

[X] Action Plan: Whose Leaf Does Not Wither

You were missing the spoilers that were in the original plan in your quote. Here's the link to the plan with spoilers included.

OliWhail said:
[X] Action Plan: Whose Leaf Does Not Wither

Goals
  1. Survive
  2. Stay on Jiraiya / Leaf's good side, including out minders
  3. Maintain cover / don't cause any incidents
  4. Check up on Akane
  5. Agree on rewards
  6. Get to know more about Leaf / our minders
Methods
  1. Greet our escorts less formally once out of Jiraya's office - we're glad to meet them, and hope that we can be friends or at least have an enjoyable time together.
    1. If Hazou gets snark for this, point out that as Akane's sensei, it falls to him to keep up the level of youthfulness while she's indisposed.
    2. Throughout the day as we build up rapport:
      1. Build bridges and genuinely try to make friends; get Keiko involved where possible, and Noburi if he is not doing so on his own.
      2. Share Mist and Missing-nin life trivialities, ask about Leaf (e.g. things we do the same, things we do different)
      3. What do ninjas do here to relax? What are their favorite foods? I thought there would be more trees?
  2. Confirm our cover story as well as any disguises we may use. Learn what we are expected to do in Konoha and what we explicitly can and can't do during our stay
    1. Do we need to have any paperwork or identification on us?
    2. Is Keiko clear to interact with summons and/or go to the Summon Realm to conduct business there?
    3. Are there going to be any opportunities for training/sparring?
    4. Specifically, is there a library we're authorized to read at / borrow from? (Assuming Hazou has heard of such a thing)
  3. Go get Noburi's barrel and the supplies to fix it, as Jiraiya instructed
    1. See if we can't find a pack of some kind to disguise it without compromising function, which preferrably doesn't sacrifice aesthetics.
  4. Check on Akane
    1. Do any of our minders know where we could find get-well-soon flowers to bring?
    2. Can we get her some reading material to help pass the time? Engineering stuff, fiction?
    3. Send (1) and (2) along if we cannot see her in person, and ask when we will be able to visit her.
    4. Tell her about Jiraya's unilateral decision to reinstate her, and that he didn't throw us out when we brought up our long-term plans
    5. Don't push for a decision about sticking with us
      1. It is a big question, and her recuperation will take time, she has time
      2. Discuss rewards with her (see rewards section)
  5. Leaf tour / sightseeing / leisure time - follow any set itinerary from Team Asuma, or freewheel it if not
    1. Are there any places we should visit as if we were just average tourists?
    2. Is Jiraiya paying for lunch? Hazou is craving ramen.
  6. Once we are back in quarters for the night
    1. Dispel
    2. Run through Mari the idea of passing on (via whoever is watching us) a request to J either for a minimally-spied-on place to have sensitive team discussions, or authorization to do so encryptedly (or in genjutsu iff Hazou knows that's a thing)
    3. Noburi presumably gets to work on the barrel
    4. Communicate Hazou's feelings to Keiko CCnJ style
      1. "I did not feel your responses to my suggestions after Inoue-sensei talked Arikada down were merited. Ensuring that teammates are on the same page sometimes requires stating the obvious - I did not mean to imply that you hadn't thought to thank Panchipaama. While I appreciate genuine corrections, I feel hurt by the jabs you make when I am trying to use a mode of communication that, almost by definition, requires transparency which makes one particularly vulnerable to social attacks, and I would ask that in the future you postpone sarcastic comments until we are in a relatively secure situation."
Contingencies
  1. Don't piss off Leaf
    1. Be polite to everyone we meet
    2. Listen to our handlers and follow their (reasonable) instructions to the letter
  2. Try to minimize Kagome's stress level by not making him talk too much / interact with non-teammates if he doesn't feel like it, keeping close-by, encouraging him to eat any of the nice food we get that someone else has already checked for poison (are there chocolatiers in Leaf?)
  3. Safety and Security Rules
    1. Never be in a group of less than two (Except for Mari)
    2. Keep a watch in our rooms even at night
    3. Make sure we all have whatever the local equivalent of white flags are
    4. Try to stay in public areas with a reasonable number of civilians and other ninja
  4. Combat contingencies
    1. White tactics by default
    2. Use any panic buttons Jiraiya has given us (none yet, sounds like)
    3. Try to leave the city or converge on Jiraiya's office to turn ourselves in. Make sure we're doing the equivalent of waving white flags.
  5. Assume we are being spied on at all times by multiple hostile parties
  6. Ask minders / J if we have access to some version of a panic button, whether seal-based or a colored firework or what, in the event of trouble
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If people want to discuss something useful while waiting for the update, here are the rewards we voted in for Chapter 84. (Technically the last winning vote.)

The update didn't get far enough so they are probably not locked in. They are also not included in Oliwhail's plan because we got scared and don't want to discuss the plans while being spied on. If we want them though we need to put them inside a plan at some point.

Thoughts and discussion about them would probably be a good thing. I know some people had a problem with them.

Twofold said:
Haggle for rewards
  • Most of these rewards are centered around making us stronger and better assets, so it's against Jiraya's interests to be stingy here
  • Hazou's suggested list of rewards, ordered by priority
    1. Medical training for Nobby for the foreseeable future
      • An ongoing deal where Nobby gets access and training in Leaf's medical facilities when he asks for it
      • Konoha has the best mednin around, this should be an easy thing to do
      • It is very important since it keeps us alive and opens new angles of attack
    2. Information on our families in Mist
      • Is mom still in active duty? Prisoner? Alive?
      • Whatever the others want to know
    3. Free Pass to cross Fire borders
      • This should come packaged with Akane's reinstatement
      • Akane is not much of a carrot if we can't come to see her
    4. MechApt specialization for Akane
      • Naturally don't decide this until Akane wakes up and has had her say
      • She needs something to pass the time
      • Get a tutor and reading materials
    5. Mist generation jutsu for Nobby and Mari
      • You do have water ninjutsu specialists in Fire, right?
      • The jutsu needs to create actual mist instead of a chakra construct
      • Or just Mari if Nobby is busy
    6. New Sealcraft for Kagome and Hazou
      • As long as higher priority rewards have been satisfied, get as many seals as we possibly can
      • We showed you ours, now show us yours!
      • There's a very good chance we will make improvements, we can kick those back at you for reasonable compensation
      • Priority on what Kagome deems necessary
      • Hazou specific sealcraft requests:
        • Wide approach (Hazou's preferred option)
          • Multiple low-to-med utility stuff for ninja operatives
          • Examples in order of priority
            1. Communication devices
            2. Advanced alarm seals
            3. SCBA
            4. Night vision
            5. Eye/ear protection
            6. Sound muffling seals
        • Deep approach
          • One heavy specialization
          • Everything Jiraya has on storage scrolls
    7. Earth Jutsu for Hazou
      • Didn't you agree to this last time?
      • Hazou has room for two 10 dice jutsu
      • Some ideas, use training plan vote to decide
        • Tunneling jutsu
          • Personal combat tunneling
          • Tunnel building for out of combat
        • Sensory jutsu (Tremor Sense, See Through Stone, etc.)
        • Nintaijutsu (Doomu, Earth Fist etc.)
        • Ranged attack with a roll tied to another skill or attribute
    8. An up-to-date bingo book or comparable intel
      • I can't believe we didn't ask for this last time
    9. New ninja gear and essentials, our old ones are rather contaminated
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Kiba said:
What did @Velorien meant by last winning plan?
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Solonarv said:
I assume it's the plan that would've won if YOUTH!! hadn't been voted in. IIRC, that's @OliWhale's plan.
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We didn't discuss in any detail what he's going to write for tomorrow, so I have no idea what's coming. It is definitely going to be short and it may or may not relate to any of the currently outstanding plans. Personally, I suggested that he do a 3-paragraph update of you coming out of a store with a green spandex jumpsuit in your arms.
 
So there I was, checking to see if MfD had updated since chapter 84. I saw that it hadn't and I was bored, so I did something I didn't normally do.

I read the thread.

You see, I was one of those people who only read the story using the thread marks. I basically treated this whole thing like any other fanfiction, rather than thinking of it as a quest. I didn't even have an account here until a few minutes ago.

I saw the votes for a reasonable plan add up. I saw the vote for a silly one overtake it (long after the vote had closed). I saw the ex-cannon post (after it had been ex'd), and everyone's reaction to it.

I saw the chapter get redacted, and everyone's reactions to that.

And after this emotional roller-coaster of a thread, there is one thing that really stands out. One question I need answered.

What exactly is the Armageddon Initiative? I see it referenced, but I have no idea what it is.

Also, I think @Velorien did a great job with the post and I'm glad it was stricken from canon, although I do think we could have salvaged the situation somewhat.

If nothing else, this whole fiasco brought one more person to the Votes Against Jokes Brigade.

Now, I'm off to figure out how this whole dice-rolling experience-spending thing works. And this website in general, actually.
 
Kiba said:
Haven't saw anyone edit or update the failure analysis for the biosealmistress missing-nin mission. Are people that disinterested?
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In case you missed it, people had some other things on their mind for a while there.

If you want to discuss it, I suggest throwing out some ideas so people can engage with them.

Chronocide said:
What exactly is the Armageddon Initiative? I see it referenced, but I have no idea what it is.
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It is a plan idea that was floated and almost voted for during the Village Hidden in the Mountain arc in Tea. The details are vague, but the plan mostly involves using huge amount of explosives to murder everyone and everything not included in Team Uplift.

Chronocide said:
Now, I'm off to figure out how this whole dice-rolling experience-spending thing works. And this website in general, actually.
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Welcome.

Check my signature for the basic voting guide if you already haven't. System rules document is good for mechanical rules and reading the dice rolls involved in our latest fight scenes is a good way to get situated.

Just remember that the mechanics are sort of vague and unstable, so some guesswork is always involved when trying to figure out how things work.
 
[X] Action Plan: Whose Leaf Does Not Wither

I figure I should kick off my membership to the Votes Against Jokes Brigade by Voting against a Joke.

Even if I'm not sure if these votes are being counted for anything.
 
Chronocide said:
What exactly is the Armageddon Initiative? I see it referenced, but I have no idea what it is.
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Twofold said:
It is a plan idea that was floated and almost voted for during the Village Hidden in the Mountain arc in Tea. The details are vague, but the plan mostly involves using huge amount of explosives to murder everyone and everything not included in Team Uplift.
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I believe it gained popularity based on this action plan I wrote a while back. While this was definitely a less good plan than we passed, it definitely would have been fun.

Radvic said:
[X] Action Plan: Fireworks
Village hidden in the mountain was fun while it lasted. Now it's time to watch it all burn and take what we want from the wreckage. At the very least, we've now got a scroll to help us learn summoning technique, and got a bunch of XP. Let's do this cleanly and intelligently.

Goals:
  1. Survive
  2. Destroy the Village Hidden in the Mountain
  3. Get loot from the wreckage
Methods:
  1. De-escalate with Kouta
    1. Prevent Kagome from attacking anyone
    2. If someone asks, insist that it was not our fault, they'll need to wait to talk to our sensei to sort things out. Tell them to check to see if the cut is lethal or not.
    3. Insist on our team returning home to our mini-fort.
    4. When Inoue gets back, if someone approaches to discuss things, attempt to satisfy them --> impress that we no longer wish to have Kouta train with us and will release him back to the village for discipline for his actions.
      1. Do not leave the fort for any meetings, say we want the excitement to settle down before we leave again.
  2. Return to base
    1. Return to our fort, begin siege preparations.
      1. Talk with Kagome about long-distance delivery methods for explosive seals
        1. Suggest MEW cannons powered by explosive seals
        2. Suggest throwing Kunai
        3. Ask about his suggestions --> we'd like to be able to hit the village from distance, while moving from place to place.
    2. Wait for Inoue, Noburi, and Keiko to return from their negotiations with Takahashi.
      1. They should be able to take care of themselves, Keiko's coming out toward Noburi and Inoue, they should be under Takahashi's pseudoprotection.
    3. Pack whatever things we have, prepare to leave.
  3. Convince team this is the right course of action.
    1. Takahashi took advantage of us
    2. Kouta took advantage of us
    3. Takahashi knows our secrets
    4. Takahashi may be screwing us over
    5. We aren't getting anywhere with the village, and we can't leave loose ends -> burn the loose ends
  4. At night, after we're all back in the fort destroy the village
    1. Take out our guard contingent quietly if possible
      1. If it's just ninja, put them in a genjutsu and have Keiko murder them from range
      2. If it's ninja and tapirs, put the ninja in genjutsu, have Keiko and Kagome take out tapirs (use explosive seals if necessary), then ninja
    2. If guard contingent was killed without noise, make a fallback point in the forest (not our fort) then attempt to infiltrate the village and kill some people
      1. Fallback point should be rigged with explosives and traps --> make sure we're all there and memorize where the traps are so we can avoid them.
      2. When infiltrating the village, have Inoue take point, put people in genjutsu and have Keiko or Kagome kill them if they're at range (assuming Kagome's got a weapons score similar to Keiko's), Hazou kill them if they're nearby. Be silent, be aware, stay together.
      3. When possible, plan mines on buildings and roads.
      4. If discovered, unleash explosive hell and retreat to the forest fallback point we've made. unleashe a village bombardment (if possible) from there, then retreat into the forest.
    3. If the guard contingent was killed with noise, or after returning from our guard assassination, immediately bombard the village and disappear into the forest.
  5. Targeting
    1. In our attacks against the village, we need to take out their chain of command. Target elder's houses over normal houses, Tapir pens, and Takahashi's house in particular.
    2. Try to avoid exploding the shrine
  6. Defensive plan
    1. If we've got an easy bombardment method, make a cycle of bombard-move
      1. After each bombardment, retreat to another location
    2. If we bombard from fort, when leaving, rig fort to explode on remote command if possible (if not, just put proximity mines on the entrance we normally use as we leave).
    3. In the forest, set explosive traps, and repeat bombardment if possible (using whatever method we used in the fort)
    4. Repeat bombardment up to a total of three times, from three different locations, refill on chakra from streams we pass to keep going.
      1. Stop and re-evaluate when we're either down to about 100 explosive seals, have completed 3 bombardments, or meet serious resistance (ninjas using more than just Taijutsu, a group of ninjas it doesn't look like we can take, etc.)
Contingencies:
  1. If people approach us diplomatically before we rejoin with Inoue, stall, insist we won't make decisions without our sensei there. Under no circumstances go with people places.
  2. If people approach us with hostile intent at any point, pull out all the stops and destroy them.
  3. Maintain basic contingency that an explosive seal going off means we need to escape and destroy the village, meeting place for within 5 minutes of explosive seal going off is fort, meeting place for after 5 minutes is forest fallback point.
  4. Have someone keep watch from the fort wall when we get back --> keep an eye out for shenanigans.
  5. Leave no survivors.
  6. Once reunited, do not separate for any reason.
  7. Withhold nothing at any point once combat begins. We'll be fighting for our lives. Always use lethal methods. Take no prisoners.
  8. Use reroll if there's a roll which results in one of us dying.
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Ahh... the good old days when our reaction to "that person knows we're from Mist!" was "we should probably carpet bomb their village"

Edit:
[X] Action Plan: Whose Leaf Does Not Wither

I'd also like to apologize to pretty much every MfD fan for proposing the joke plan the other day. That was awful of me.
 
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Dark as Silver said:
Are you saying it isn't a tradition or that isn't a reason.
This is why no isn't a full sentence.
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Do you want another fluke like what happened yesterday to happen again? You're essentially playing with fire. It's not a harmless tradition by any means.

If we need to blow up everything and everyone at some point, we'll vote for that if it comes to that.

If not, then it deserved to be downvoted, repeatedly.

edit: [/] Armageddon Initiative
 
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eaglejarl said:
I like the idea of voting against. I'm not going to implement voting either for or against people, but I think anti-proposal votes is a good idea. I'll think about it some more and tweak CounterBot as soon as I have some tuits. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Fair enough. Nonetheless, I think that creating a quest culture that actively stigmatizes joke votes by immediately dogpiling the perpetrators with (polite and nonthreatening) @-addresses may be a good idea, provided it's within forum rules.

Also, it turns out that implementing it might be more difficult than I had anticipated, since we have multiple categories of votes, and it should be possible to, say, vote For a specific training plan but Against certain action plans and have both count.
nevereatcars said:
[X] Action Plan: Whose Leaf Does Not Wither
[/] Armageddon Initiative
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To clarify, my proposal is that a voter's Against votes only count if the voter has made no For votes, so putting both For and Against votes into a post is meaningless (unless they are about different types of "ballots" with separate winners, like action plan vs. training plan).

This is needed to stay within the framework of approval voting: a vote Against is just a convenient shorthand for voting For everything else (since what matters is the differences between net vote totals, not their specific values), but if voting For didn't undo all votes Against, a voter could effectively vote twice: once by voting For the preferred options and once by voting Against all other options.

I am envisioning it as a stopgap measure to quickly downvote disastrous or frivolous proposals from, say, a mobile phone (by replying to the offending post, deleting everything but the vote, and replacing the "X" in the brackets with a "/"), without having to catch up on the discussion and make up one's mind which proposal(s) to vote For. (I, for one, LeechBlock SV during work and bedtime hours, but sometimes catch up on the thread on my mobile phone.)

We could have a rule that if none of the options end up with a net positive vote total, it's considered a Lore Update win. :whistle:
 
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