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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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redzonejoe said:
Now I'm imagining that scene. Wish i was a better writer so i could share it.

Stunned, shocked Hazou staring at the red pool covering the invisible ground. Kagome, wide-eyed and panicked, worried about exile or death. Everybody else looking grim and stoic.

Akane turns to Hazou to get his opinion on what to do with Kagome.

He holds out his hand, and in the center, untouched by the red mist that paints the back of his hand and forearm is Akane's expensive gift, pristine and beautiful even here.

Kagome's Eyes go even wider, though he doesn't say anything. Akane is confused, but brushes it off. "How is that relevant? You need to focus."

Hazou can't find his voice for a minute, and when he speaks his voice is on the edge of broken. "Kagome-sensei helped me... For your birthday"

Words fail him then.

Akane reaches out slowly to take it, then shakes her head. "Now isn't the time for this!"

All along, Hazou's other hand had been in his pocket. He withdraws it now, clutching a shaped explosive. It's active and about to blow. The others all flinch away, before noticing the explosive is pointed back towards Hazou.

The pin, in his still outstretched hand, escapes the blast zone.
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Much thanks to @redzonejoe. That was beautiful--but I'd still like to see the version that our GMs come up with. <G>
 
[x] Hiatus

I'll join in on the vote for a short hiatus. Let's give the GMs some time to discuss what happened, whether they're going to partially retcon this, and how they intend to handle things going forward. We can vote on an actual plan when they've come back to us with a result.
 
[X] Action Plan: Best of a Bad Situation

Please stop trying to self terminate Hazou. I like living in his head. Hazou is incapable of outright lying to anyone he considers a teammate it seems, let information be free!
 
Another random thought about all of this being blown out of proportion is the fact we used the mistarators against civilians. The plan called for us to go in and take down anyone who wasn't instantly drained. So as a simple lie we could have just said ninjas have to much chakra to drain through mist. But we use it cause Noburi can sense through it. Boom opsec maintained.
 
Wasn't planning on coming back, but I had a darkly amusing thought.
Imagine the tantrum spiral that will hit Team Uplift if the suicide vote wins.
Akane and Noburi will probably survive, albeit with not inconsiderable trauma. Although, come to think of it, given Akane's previous issues and her final words to Hazou, that might be enough to take her over the edge too.
Keiko and Kagome would be broken or dead. Kagome would probably go out in a suicide attack against Leaf that would validate all the Nara's fears about Skywalkers. Keiko would either kill herself or retreat so far into the Frozen Skein she might as well have.
Imagine Mari receiving the report, either from Akane, Noburi (and if it's Noburi giving the report, he's probably the sole survivor) or Jiraiya.
Would she survive that? If so, how in particular do you think she'd break?
 
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PSA: There will be a retcon and Sunday will be a lore update.​

Time for some Clear Communication no Jutsu:

First of all, the QMs are all in agreement that the players made a major mistake by revealing clan secrets. The fact that everyone is doubling down on "not our fault" is a bit confusing, but we'll deal with that separately. We'll make a separate post outlining the basics of ninja OPSEC.

Second, we are angry and upset at the amount of insults and slander we have received. This strongly motivated us to let the update stand as written, just out of spite. We do not like the idea of being spiteful people, so we have made an effort to set those feelings aside.

We've been writing this quest without a break for the last 18 months, so clearly it's important to us. Among the things that are important is the idea that it is simulationist, not narrative. Player choices must be respected and consequences, positive and negative, must be allowed to happen. Despite the recent suggestions of too many people, we are not evil genies. We do not go out of our way to misinterpret your plans or "punish" you with the worst possible outcomes. We play fair to the absolute best of our ability. To do otherwise would ruin the entire point.

We were extremely reluctant to consider a retcon because (1) we feel that all characters were completely within their characterization, (2) reversing consequences goes against the simulationist principle mentioned above, (3) we didn't want to support the idea that we could be compelled to undo things just because the playerbase disliked them, and (4) it's always a bad idea to reward bad behavior and the amount of insulting libel we've received over this definitely counts.

However. We prefer the rationality of "the QMs are reasonable people who will own their mistakes and fix them" over the rationality of consequences in the quest. We have been narrowly convinced that we made a mistake.

Various players have pointed out that all of the characters, especially Kagome, acted within their characterization but that important information was available to Hazō that was not available to the players: Kagome was acting even more twitchy than usual and Noburi and Keiko were angry about something. This information was not purposely withheld, but the fact that the players didn't have it is still a problem. Accordingly, we are going to go back and tweak the last two chapters to make that information available and have Hazō be nervous enough about it that he catches Kagome before he kills Minami.

Some important reminders:

  • Social combat does not happen within the party. You cannot convince Keiko or Noburi of something just by winning a skill check. (This is not a change, just a reminder.)
  • As an offshoot of the above, Hazō notices intra-party things based on his character, not based on mechanics. (This is not a change, just a reminder.)
  • In order to avoid giving out meta-information, failed rolls (deception, awareness, etc) are not always listed in the text. (This is not a change, just a reminder.)
  • Hazō's agency will be modified as described below.

Based on the "Poll (Agency)" results, from now on we will have Hazō ignore some or all of a plan if we feel that it makes sense for him to do so. In the case that we need to override the plan we will have Hazō do whatever we think is most appropriate, even if it means throwing out the rest of the plan. Be advised that, as always, we choose where an update ends, so if the plan needs to be discarded early enough it's possible that Hazō will spend several thousand words outside of player control.

Objections to such GM overrides will not start off on a strong footing; we've demonstrated twice now that we can be convinced to unwind an event if there's a good enough case, but we do not want that to be a common thing. We will do our best to set such feelings aside and evaluate everything on its merits, but we're only human and if we find ourselves having to debate every single decision then we will be conditioned to ignore the arguments. Please be judicious in such cases.

A final note: as mentioned above, we were convinced to do this retcon by the mature arguments of a handful of people. The griefing and insults that we got from what seemed like the majority of respondents strongly motivated us to stand firm. We set that aside, but I hope that the griefers will learn the lesson "Rudeness very nearly caused me to not get what I want" instead of "Yay! If I complain enough I can get what I want!"

The new version of the most recent chapter is up. The prior chapter update will be available soon, although not necessarily today. We'll notify you when it happens.

Here endeth this session of Clear Communication no Jutsu.
 
I just want to point out a few things that I think went unnoticed with all of the PANICKED SUICIDAL SCREAMING IN THREAD!

Velorien said:
"You will observe," Keiko said tonelessly, "that there is nothing up my sleeve except the obligatory backup shuriken."
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Keiko also seems very pissed about the reveal of Pandaa. Like, holy shit Hazo, it's just one thing after another stahp.
Velorien said:
It's lucky we're nearly done subjugating the Condors, or the higher-ups would go bonkers.
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And thus ends the tale of the Condor genocide.
But maybe they aren't all dead, and the survivors are slaves. I mean, that's better than a full-genocide... Right?
 
thamuzz said:
Wasn't planning on coming back, but I had a darkly amusing thought.
Imagine the tantrum spiral that will hit Team Uplift if the suicide vote wins.
Akane and Noburi will probably survive, albeit with not inconsiderable trauma. Although, come to think of it, given Akane's previous issues and her final words to Hazou, that might be enough to take her over the edge too.
Keiko and Kagome would be broken or dead. Kagome would probably go out in a suicide attack against Leaf that would validate all the Nara's fears about Skywalkers. Keiko would either kill herself or retreat so far into the Frozen Skein she might as well have.
Imagine Mari receiving the report, either from Akane, Noburi (and if it's Noburi giving the report, he's probably the sole survivor) or Jiyahara.
Would she survive that? If so, how in particular do you think she'd break?
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This line of thought is ugly, and perhaps better served by not thinking about it. The update should make it moot.

Kagome's value to the team is linked to his sealmaking abilities with Hazou. With Hazou out of the question, Kagome's value to the team and the clan will turn sharply negative. Killing Kagome is now more palatable, but is limited on how well the team can pull it off. Three Genin against a Jonin usually results in a wipe, so exile is the most likely solution. Granted, that requires rational decision-making on behalf of all team members, which might be beyond them.

Assuming that no team members attack Kagome, (which results in a TPK), the remainder of the team will return to Leaf and report the mission failure. Half of the team is KIA / MIA, and is now without the ability to replace skywalker seals.

Long term, this spells the end of Jiraiya's clan. The biggest proponents for the clan formation just went up in smoke, and the remaining amount is not enough to hold. Keiko is safe with the Nara, but Noburi no longer has any protection for his medical inventions. His status within Leaf may be called into question.

Mari isn't going to break. She had succeeded in all of her goals and responsibilities to her team. I expect she will be shaken up about it, as will everyone else, but she has herself, her husband and her future kids to worry about.

Emotionally, I think Akane will keep them all together in time to report back to Jiraiya, using the stress of the deployment to set aside the stress of what just happened. After that is anyone's guess. I don't believe Akane will kill herself, at least, as she had severed emotional bonds with Hazou prior to the explosion.

Roll Credits.

Edit: Changed up some chronological order of paragraphs to make it easier to read.
 
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Vecht said:
Oh, that's it. I've had it with this quest.

[Χ] Armageddon Initiative
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And thus another regular falls to the ways of Armageddon. Soon my fellow doom seekers. Soon we shall strike. We must wait for the lurkers to leave to lower the vote threshold, and must devise an in character way for Hazou to perform, but both are possible. Patience in a virtue.
 
thamuzz said:
Huh, still showing up black. I don't think I'm seeing a cached page.
Anyone else seeing this?
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Should be fixed now, Beelzenef willing.

Edit:
Radvic said:
And thus another regular falls to the ways of Armageddon. Soon my fellow doom seekers. Soon we shall strike. We must wait for the lurkers to leave to lower the vote threshold, and must devise an in character way for Hazou to perform, but both are possible. Patience in a virtue.
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You realise that the barriers to total annihilation have gone up considerably, right? Now you not only have to devise a means but make Hazō believe it's a good idea.
 
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