Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Cariyaga · Mar 2, 2017

@eaglejarl Can we extend the "two seal mentions per plan" rule by positing rules for new seals? I'd really like to do the following in our next plan: Finish skill training, integrate macerator into the team's fighting (see: my mechanics for them from before) styles (research timed v2 if it hasn't been already; the argument that it has been is that PMYF has variable timers; presumably it can be reduced to 0 seconds as well?), Banshee Slayer --> Alarm --> Earbuster seal research sequence (admittedly a little more bandwidth, but the first two shouldn't require too much effort on your part [or Hazou's, for that matter], and Earbusters have @Vecht's mechanics to draw off of), and integrate Air Domes into Mari and Noburi's styles (we'll work on deployment methods more, sorry for not being clear on that before).

The mechanics for Air Dome Draining are probably something to this effect:

Noburi can drain within 20 meters of himself. So long as his allies are able to keep the enemies occupied -- at least A level success on Tac Move rolls, which may be considered separate to "engagement" rolls, and may be penalized in order to represent needing to corral the enemy, they are able to keep the fighting within his zone of influence.

The Air Dome by default has an X difficulty threshold to destroy. This may be discovered by the team's experimentation. Mari simply counts on it to protect her while using Genjutsu -- simple enough.

Lailoken · Mar 2, 2017

Kiba said:
Unless you have better idea, Noburi and Mari-sensei are going to Yuni, because that's where Hashimoto-sensei is.

Let me think for a second... how about the place which is willing to let even civilians buy ninja training?

Dictator4Hire said:
The only merchant I remember is the one who saw through all three of our genin's disguises and called us out on it. Since the 'Cold Stone Killers' are now more well known throughout the EN, if he wants to turn us in for a quick buck he can. Or he can blackmail us by saying he will give our position away to Zabuza if we don't do as he says.

Source? I only recall that the civilian mayor had diplomatic skills worthy of a seasoned ninja, but I believe that was caused by her constantly having to balance the political maneuverings of the various clans in Rice, not explicit, organized training.

@Vecht has a good point: why is Rice better than simply journeying to another city where we haven't made a name for ourselves before? We pissed off a lot of people in Rice before we left and we aren't as strong as we once were because of TGR. Keiko's boast could land us in serious trouble if the Rice ninja want to teach us a lesson. We don't even know which clan we further pissed off by abducting Arikada which means there is an unknown angry faction in that town too.

Some new town seems like a better overall bet for our team's survival. Mari can find another sob case to care about as harsh as that ~~sounds~~ is. What can we find in Rice that we cannot find anywhere else?

I don't have the quote to hand, but it was it was mentioned in an authorial aside that she has bought ninja training and unlike most civilians has a full stat sheet.

Who did we piss off in Rice? We made friends with the local clans and at the request of the mayor captured an extremely dangerous WMD outside of the city limits without harming anybody. It's possible that somebody there wanted the WMD in the area, but they clearly didn't want it openly, their most apparent alternative for a sealmaster is working with the team themselves, and it's at least as likely that the missing-nin sealmistress had a meeting arranged in Rice only because it is a relatively neutral, missing-nin-friendly area with a low presence of village-nin assets (hence the need for the greatest spymaster in the world to resort to a questionable team instead of a trusted asset) rather than by local invitation.

Feel free to propose alternatives, but in Rice we've got the beginnings of friendly relationships with the local powers, access to ordinarily village-controlled resources, a trade nexus, a missing-nin-friendly enviroment with the potential for shinobi allies, and a local population unified in psychotic resistance to any hint of influence by foreign powers by a neurosis born of witnessing a neighboring genocide. It has the potential to be both the safest and richest place available to us.

Do we know of another area which isn't part of the standard Hidden Village geopolitical order and its unified persecution of missing-nin? Iron, but that has its own problems and merely lacking a local village clearly isn't enough to keep out sweeps. The city in Tea which was strangled by the rockslide might be an option, but by its nature it isn't terribly rich in opportunity.

Cariyaga said:
I hate this idea that we have to "leave the lighthouse" when we've done a grand total of one research task on Hazou's part while here. Fuck that.

Hazou has been here for months and the only thing he has successfully researched is a shiny new neurosis. It may be time to stop digging this hole before a careening meteor happens to come crashing in just so to crush his paper supply, writing utensils, and fingers.

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

Lailoken said:
Rice

PSA: Other countries in the EN include, but are not limited to:

Bear
Bird
Claw
Demon
Fang
Fire
Forest
Frost
Grass
Hotsprings
Iron
Key
Lightning
Marsh
Mountain
Neck
Noodles
Rain
River
Sky
Snow
Tea
Valley
Vegetable
Water
Waterfall
Wind
Wolf
Wood

Lailoken · Mar 3, 2017

Vecht said:
PSA: Other countries in the EN include, but are not limited to:

Bear

Bird

Claw

Demon

Fang

Fire

Forest

Frost

Grass

Hotsprings

Iron

Key

Lightning

Marsh

Mountain

Neck

Noodles

Rain

River

Sky

Snow

Tea

Valley

Vegetable

Water

Waterfall

Wind

Wolf

Wood

Okay- do you have a comparative analysis for them? We're trying to avoid making lists just for the sake of lists until our host's mental health improves.

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

Lailoken said:
Okay- do you have a comparative analysis for them? We're trying to avoid making lists just for the sake of lists until our host's mental health improves.

I do not. However, I do believe that our puny little monkey brains should be aware of their existence, because otherwise they're easy to fool into thinking the only options available are the ones seen most often.

eaglejarl · Mar 3, 2017

PSA:

Over dinner, Noburi has reluctantly acknowledged that he's been sitting on his butt long enough and it's time for him to get back to work. You've been helping him capture and study chakra beasts for a couple weeks now (cf @OliWhail's most recent update) and he has been frustrated at his inability to make much progress due to a lack of basic knowledge.

He's decided to go back to Hashimoto and see about getting more training, and is asking the team's advice on how to make that work. What is the best way to convince her to take him on as a student again?

Cariyaga · Mar 3, 2017

Lailoken said:
Hazou has been here for months and the only thing he has successfully researched is a shiny new neurosis. It may be time to stop digging this hole before a careening meteor happens to come crashing in just so to crush his paper supply, writing utensils, and fingers.

This is literally the first time we've had the chance to do research in months of RL time and we've (or at least, I) been looking forward to it forever. The fact that the hivemind has been, this past few updates, stymied by RL shenanigans, incompetence at putting together a workable plan, and various other shenanigans notwithstanding, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect Hazou to want to complete more than a single seal that he had already had half-finished (and the air dome but shh)!

(italics for emphasis; I'm frustrated, not actually upset.)

Lailoken said:
Okay- do you have a comparative analysis for them? We're trying to avoid making lists just for the sake of lists until our host's mental health improves.

Personally, I'm fond of Fire. There's people there that maybe won't kill us, and even Hazou's girlfriend (and isn't it a travesty that Hazou managed that before Noburi)!

Oneiros · Mar 3, 2017

Didn't Jiriyia give us the go ahead to take over a minor country? Specifically vegetable or am I misremembering things?

eaglejarl · Mar 3, 2017

Oh, further PSA: Anyone who has been using CounterBot should do a 'git pull'. I tweaked the regex that normalizes plan names so that it will see "Action: Do the thing" and "Action Plan: Do the thing" as the same vote.

Briefvoice said:
I'm starting to remember why I gave up on this quest. Nothing's changed. Endless arguments over grandiose ambitions that hold little interest for me. Endless demands that training plans and seals be completed before the quest can go anywhere or anything that can be accomplished. Now apparently even the mechanic for registering a vote has become arcane and unknowable. (It sure isn't on the front page.)

Good suggestions in here, so I've put a little more explanation about this on the front page. Note that if you find PlanBot confusing you don't need to worry about it; just vote as you always have. PlanBot will recognize normal votes but, more importantly, CounterBot is still the canonical vote aggregator so the behavior hasn't changed since before you quit the quest. Nice to see you gave up on quitting, by the way -- good to have you back.

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

eaglejarl said:
Oh, further PSA: Anyone who has been using CounterBot should do a 'git pull'. I tweaked the regex that normalizes plan names so that it will see "Action: Do the thing" and "Action Plan: Do the thing" as the same vote.

Are there any other normalizations you do? Besides just stripping whitespace and non alphanumerics?

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

Although this isn't super useful, here are Bingo Book estimates for Panoptikon and Panteon. Note that since numbers were not included, both skills shown are likely to be underestimates. Also, Panteon's Diplomacy skill could be Diplomacy, or Diplomacy + Dealmaking.

Bingo Book has been updated with the newest data, along with a couple bug fixes.

Oneiros · Mar 3, 2017

eaglejarl said:
Jiraiya laughed and shook his head. "Okay," he said. "Just you then, sweet thing. Show the nice Yamanka lady that you aren't planning to take over the world, cause a world war, overthrow any of the major nations...you know, the usual."

"Major nations?" Agent Black inquired archly. "What, you don't care if they take over Vegetable?"

"You stay out of this," Jiraiya said. "As long as they aren't planning to start playing politics, I'm fine."

Action plan: Conquer Vegetable [jk but only for now]
Go to vegetable. Kill all who would deny us our rightful throne. Build Hidden Heaven on the corpse of our enemies.

eaglejarl · Mar 3, 2017

*catchs up on all the multiple pages of discussion since this afternoon*

Wow, that was a lot. Cool.

Also, apparently y'all were already thinking of suggesting Noburi go back to school. That works well.

Vecht said:
Neck

Is there really a "Land of Neck"?

Damn it, Kishimoto.

Cariyaga said:
Can we extend the "two seal mentions per plan" rule by positing rules for new seals? I'd really like to do the following in our next plan

I am falling into bed at the moment and my brain just bounced off your post. I'll get back to you tomorrow? I'm not going to be a stickler about it.

Lailoken said:
Hazou has been here for months and the only thing he has successfully researched is a shiny new neurosis. It may be time to stop digging this hole before a careening meteor happens to come crashing in just so to crush his paper supply, writing utensils, and fingers.

WWDTTY?

Vecht said:
Are there any other normalizations you do? Besides just stripping whitespace and non alphanumerics?

I think that's it. Strip prefixes, \s, and \W, then lowercase everything. Oh, and support x, X, and + as the voting markers.

Cariyaga · Mar 3, 2017

eaglejarl said:
I am falling into bed at the moment and my brain just bounced off your post. I'll get back to you tomorrow? I'm not going to be a stickler about it.

Rest well.

My thoughts on extending the seal mentions per plan thing was, well, if ordinarily two seals takes up 50% of your seal bandwidth each, maybe giving you well made mechanics to slot in could work well to offload some of that, lower it to 25 or 20%

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

eaglejarl said:
Is there really a "Land of Neck"?

Right next to "Wood"

eaglejarl said:
+ as the voting markers

... Dammit.

Loxagn · Mar 3, 2017

Hi there, first time poster. First time I've ever participated in a Quest, for that matter!
I had an idea, bit silly really, but has thought been given to the idea of a mobile base? I know the subject of hot air balloons was brought up but not really touched upon in-depth, but it seems to me that the basic materials would be extremely easy to put together, and we already have a built-in 'stealth mode'. Really, just attach Misterator seals to the bottom, and is there any real difference visually between us and a cloud?
The same idea could be applied on a larger scale, in the future, for larger airships, or even the Hidden Heaven idea.
(Though that does bring up the question of how much weight can be held up by a five seal barrier or force walls.)

Cariyaga · Mar 3, 2017

Loxagn said:
Hi there, first time poster. First time I've ever participated in a Quest, for that matter!
I had an idea, bit silly really, but has thought been given to the idea of a mobile base? I know the subject of hot air balloons was brought up but not really touched upon in-depth, but it seems to me that the basic materials would be extremely easy to put together, and we already have a built-in 'stealth mode'. Really, just attach Misterator seals to the bottom, and is there any real difference visually between us and a cloud?
The same idea could be applied on a larger scale, in the future, for larger airships, or even the Hidden Heaven idea.
(Though that does bring up the question of how much weight can be held up by a five seal barrier or force walls.)

5SB and Force Barriers are inherently immobile, but there is something to making a sizable enough Zeppelin to sleep in. With seals, we don't really need to land that frequently at all, and they can offload a lot of the weight of the airship and accoutrements themselves...

Also, welcome to the hivemind, enjoy your stay; you're here forever.

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

PlanBot has been updated.

Fixed the "start" issue from earlier
It should now use all of CounterBot's rules for standard voting
HAI has been excluded for now until I have time to work on it

{!} Start 1737 7993038
{!} Schedule 14:00 04-03-2017

Loxagn said:
Hi there, first time poster.

Welcome!

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

eaglejarl said:
He's decided to go back to Hashimoto and see about getting more training, and is asking the team's advice on how to make that work. What is the best way to convince her to take him on as a student again?

Our suggestions from previous action plans included offering her money (we have lots of it), and Macerator v1 seals that might assist her in her work.

Dictator4Hire · Mar 3, 2017

Cariyaga said:
This is literally the first time we've had the chance to do research in months of RL time and we've (or at least, I) been looking forward to it forever. The fact that the hivemind has been, this past few updates, stymied by RL shenanigans, incompetence at putting together a workable plan, and various other shenanigans notwithstanding, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect Hazou to want to complete more than a single seal that he had already had half-finished (and the air dome but shh)!

(italics for emphasis; I'm frustrated, not actually upset.)

I agree. I believe we need to prioritize what seals we should have Hazou research, rather than simply instructing to research ALL the seals. A simple approval voting poll should suffice. For example:

(1) (insert name of seal 1 here)
(2) (insert name of seal 2 here)
(3) (insert name of seal 3 here)
(4) (insert name of seal 4 here)
(5) (insert name of seal 5 here)

Then our next update should cover until we finish researching the first seal on the list. I'd like to see how long it would take to research one of the seals we consider to be simple so that we can extrapolate how long it will take to finish our other ideas.

On that tangent of sealing ideas, I just had another:
Take a thick, full body cloak that, when unfurled, touches the ground and put a pentagram of rigid wire inside of it. When the cloak is fully unfurled, the wire pentagon should be touching the ground. On each corner of the wire shape, put the necessary seals for a 5 SB. The central seal can be placed by the user's foot or dropped via ninja wire, w/e works. This way our team can use 5 SB as a faster defensive technique; the necessary 5 outer seals are already in place and only require the central seal to turn the cloak into an immovable object, thereby saving the user from most physical attacks. If the cloak is voluminous enough the user can even weave handsigns while still protected; Noburi especially could be much more effective if he can control his water whip under the safety of an all encompassing protective barrier. If everyone on the team has such cloaks we could also set off point blank explosives and not have to worry about harming our teammates.

Cariyaga said:
Personally, I'm fond of Fire. There's people there that maybe won't kill us, and even Hazou's girlfriend (and isn't it a travesty that Hazou managed that before Noburi)!

Does Yuno not count? They went on dates and even got engaged! Surely a first fiance beats a first girlfriend by far in the relationship milestones department.

Dictator4Hire · Mar 3, 2017

Lailoken said:
Who did we piss off in Rice? We made friends with the local clans and at the request of the mayor captured an extremely dangerous WMD outside of the city limits without harming anybody.

At the very least, we pissed off the clan that wanted to hire Arikada. We also embarrassed the clans Keiko boasted in front of by making them look like fools in one of their favorite bars. We did the same thing to the Yakuza genin back in Iron and that royally pissed of their jonin sensei, so I believe it's likely that we would have a similar situation in Rice.

Lailoken said:
It's possible that somebody there wanted the WMD in the area, but they clearly didn't want it openly, their most apparent alternative for a sealmaster is working with the team themselves, and it's at least as likely that the missing-nin sealmistress had a meeting arranged in Rice only because it is a relatively neutral, missing-nin-friendly area with a low presence of village-nin assets (hence the need for the greatest spymaster in the world to resort to a questionable team instead of a trusted asset) rather than by local invitation.

This just turns Rice into another gilded cage scenario; if we are valuable enough to make seals for them, they will never want to let us leave. Since we have political aspirations, it seems strange to want to journey to a place where we have no claim to political power and is also hostile to foreigners trying to subvert the local powers. Fruthermore, our team with its poop OpSec managed to infiltrate Rice and complete a mission. If we get identified in Rice there's nothing stopping Zabuza from murdering all of us in short order and getting away relatively easily. I find it highly likely that if we enter Rice and try to sell our unique seals we will just end up in a situation slightly worse than joining Leaf.

Lailoken said:
Do we know of another area which isn't part of the standard Hidden Village geopolitical order and its unified persecution of missing-nin? Iron, but that has its own problems and merely lacking a local village clearly isn't enough to keep out sweeps. The city in Tea which was strangled by the rockslide might be an option, but by its nature it isn't terribly rich in opportunity.

Hidden Mountain fits this criteria; they aren't a part of the political landscape and they hate all outsiders equally. The difference is that we have Ui's heir and a rapport to not be killed on sight. While they may be technologically backwards, they were able to remain actually hidden for centuries before we showed up. We could learn a lot from their OpSec alone.

There could be many more places that fit this criteria as well; we just haven't visited them yet. Personally, I think we should finish air transportation of some kind and then discreetly use it to scout out various towns to see which would suit our needs best. When borders are no longer a concern our options for where we can travel and then set up shop expand as far as we can stealthily fly. The sky is literally the limit.

Cariyaga · Mar 3, 2017

Dictator4Hire said:
I agree. I believe we need to prioritize what seals we should have Hazou research, rather than simply instructing to research ALL the seals. A simple approval voting poll should suffice. For example:

(1) (insert name of seal 1 here)
(2) (insert name of seal 2 here)
(3) (insert name of seal 3 here)
(4) (insert name of seal 4 here)
(5) (insert name of seal 5 here)

Then our next update should cover until we finish researching the first seal on the list. I'd like to see how long it would take to research one of the seals we consider to be simple so that we can extrapolate how long it will take to finish our other ideas.

[X] Poll: 1 (Timed Macerator v2)
[X] Poll: 2 (Banshee Slayer)

Banshee slayer before alarm seal because it can provide a measure of protection from the potentially-deleterious effects that could occur in researching the latter, though Kagome may veto that; if he does, alarm first.

[X] Poll: 3 (Alarm Seal)
[X] Poll: 4 (Tunneler's Friend)
[X] Poll: 5 (Tunneler's Friend)
[X] Poll: 4 (Earbuster Seals)
[X] Poll: 5 (Earbuster Seals)

Not sure whether I want Tunneler's Friend or Earbusters first; they both provide a large amount of utility. TF makes it possible to create facemasks for Hazou to use in combination with Living Roots to have no penalty when blindfighting in opaque noxious gas (which may be released via macerator; charcoal would be sufficient); Earbusters are a less sure thing, but if they work the way I intend them to they pretty much end any fight with someone unprepared.

Vecht · Mar 3, 2017

Dictator4Hire said:
While they may be technologically backwards, they were able to remain actually hidden for centuries before we showed up.

This is actually a really good point. However, I do feel it might be counteracted slightly by the fact that we found them pretty much as soon as we went looking for them, and their presence is no longer a secret from the world at large.

Dictator4Hire said:
We could learn a lot from their OpSec alone.

Given that their opening move was literally "Shoot first, ask questions later" I think it's a safe assumption at least 90% of this boils down to "kill everything that even tries to come close." Which, to be fair, is pretty good for opsec.

Dark as Silver · Mar 3, 2017

Poes law kinda ruined the whole list scene as far as I'm concerned.

Dictator4Hire · Mar 3, 2017

Briefvoice said:
This isn't really a plan I would ever expect to "win", but it expresses my feelings and why the day-to-day stuff of the quest is so interesting to me and yet I completely tune out whenever people start going on about floating hidden villages. This is how I really, sincerely feel, and it gets a place in the votecount, and if you want to believe all this "Hivemind" stuff then there will be a small part of Hazou that feels this way as well.

I'm honestly curious as to what you want this quest to become. We've had opportunities in the past to choose the safest (and frankly, sanest for people actually afraid for their lives) option, yet opted not to so that we could continue the story and keep it interesting. The safest option would be to run as far as we can into the wilderness, user our abilities and sealing insights to create a self-sufficient hideaway, and live off of chakra beast hunts until we die of old age. Would it not be more realistic to accept that trying to rescue Hazou's mom would be a huge risk for the rest of the team so Hazou should just give up on that? After all, facilitating the desertion of an enemy jonin would be grounds for declaring war according to Jiraiya and if Hazou wants to be safe along with his friends, avoiding anything that would start WW4 would be prudent.

Why is one potentially war-causing wish acceptable when other proposals of similar implications are not? We've already proven we are capable of creating seals of immense military implications. We've already given Leaf, and now the Pangolins, seal-tech that will give them huge strategic advantages. People in the thread have crunched the numbers for numerous projects involving alterations of seals we already have multiple times as well. It's not a question of 'if' we can change the world anymore; it's a question of 'how' we want to change it further from now on.

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Handsome Gentleperson

Handsome Gentleperson

Handsome Gentleperson

Handsome Gentleperson

Handsome Gentleperson