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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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@eaglejarl, there's a simpler and maybe more plausible reason for Kagome to attack Minami Nikko; she knows we're the Cold Stone Killers, and that's the sort of PR nightmare that would quite plausibly be worth killing someone over. Do you really want to give OOC confirmation that that's not why Kagome is trying to off her?
...
Have a short speech plan thing:
[X] Proto-plan: Defuse the Kamikaze
"Minami-san, I'd ask you to consider the facts but I think you're already considering options. Please don't trigger any suicide techniques you can't disarm yet, I'm already risking my life to keep you safe."
[Insert village loyalty thing here, probably addressed to Noburi].

Also: did we seriously have "describe the Hot Springs incident" in the last plan? I don't remember seeing it.
 
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eaglejarl said:
I understand the points you are making but I disagree with them. We've laid out what the world of MfD looks like and we aren't going to redo all the backstory and cultural context that we've created. Our model is not slapped together, it's based on months of discussion and debate, using canon as a starting point and diverging where necessary, and I feel that it holds together fine.

Honestly, I wish you were correct. I strongly dislike the culture that we've created and I wish I had a good reason for it to not be like this.
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Honestly I feel this is exactly the same as your problem with worm. You decided that you wanted a world that mostly looked like the Naruto universe but was "rational". Then you backed solved to get there. Then when people point out the problems with that you fall back onto authorial fiat to justify it
 
eaglejarl said:
There's way too many possibilities in ninja combat for me to model it all out in one example post. I simply wanted to make the point that no, fighting a jōnin is not an instant TPK. As to the deaths in the final scenario: note that if the team is fighting a taijutsu jōnin then Keiko will probably be at range and therefore can't be harmed on the first round. That means that yes, Hazō dies if he's stupid enough to try to punch a jōnin, but everyone else would probably survive.
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I feel like you're building a universe around the premise "ninja combat is fast and almost instantly lethal," but trying to make it so that ninja combat is survivable and low risk? I'm a little confused. Instant death type things certainly seem fairy common in various parts of the story (e.g. the opening scene, Hazou vs. Three Genin, Tapirs combat, Hot Springs) and even A or B class wounds are pretty big deals (at least, that's how we've treated them in the past). Like, even if it's not a TPK from the first round, it doesn't quite seem worth it in terms of survivability for allies to hide abilities from each other. Now, I'm totally willing to grant that clans don't do this because of tradition and history, but I do think that a village which shares it's secret techniques is likely to have substantially more success than a village which does not.

eaglejarl said:
Oh, one other thing:

  • Embarrassingly, I don't recall whether the denominator in the (roll - roll) / (dice + dice)^0.65 formula is based on base dice or total dice.

If anyone can find an answer to this, either in the rules docs or in a GM post, I will happily award 10 XP to the entire party. It's an important question and I would gladly pay XP to not have to find the answer.
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I don't remember this ever being discussed (though my memory is awful), but I'd assume that it's total dice, not base dice.
 
Alright, way to go reasonable people!

I don't know if I'll be able to follow discussion as closely as I have for this on a regular basis, but I figure since I have I might as well share an observation.

It's possible some of Kagome's issue is he sees Minami as taking Inoue's place, thus predisposing him to think of her as an enemy, and that respecting her as a leader would be a betrayal. If he's not backing down, or doesn't look to stay backed down, it might be prudent to point out how his actions would have been an actual betrayal. Both in that she vouched for him, and in the repercussions of her peaceful retirement and marriage. We can plead for what it would mean for us as well, since he does like us, but I think his attachment to Inoue is the strongest, and maybe the most relevant here. And pointing out how much all of us, including her, want to be part of Leaf may also help Minami see that at least we are serious about joining loyally.
 
Oneiros43 said:
Honestly I feel this is exactly the same as your problem with worm. You decided that you wanted a world that mostly looked like the Naruto universe but was "rational". Then you backed solved to get there. Then when people point out the problems with that you fall back onto authorial fiat to justify it
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My issue with Worm was more focused around the fact that there is a literal conflict ball shoved into everyone's head that makes them fight instead of doing useful things with their powers and that the entire story is driven by the fact that you have two super aliens that want to prevent the heat death of the universe but think that the best way to do that is to make primitives fight each other to see if they invent any interesting new techniques for punching, as opposed to recruiting those primitives -- or the super-advanced aliens they got all the nifty tinker tech from -- as research partners.

As to MfD, I don't think we've applied authorial fiat anywhere...? I've said "I disagree with your points, we've put a lot of thought into this and this is where we ended up" but that's not the same as "because I said so." Or am I misunderstanding you?

Radvic said:
I feel like you're building a universe around the premise "ninja combat is fast and almost instantly lethal," but trying to make it so that ninja combat is survivable and low risk?
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Yes, ninja combat is fast. (At least, in world -- out of world it takes forever to model.) It's definitely not instantly lethal -- the way the skill roll formula works and the thresholds are set means that you have to have MASSIVELY more dice than your opponent in order to win in one round. The point of my post, however, was that it's actually very hard for any single opponent to solo the team in one round.
 
[X] Action Plan: Deescalate, explain, deescalate

Well, that's been an interesting few days. Consider me shocked out of being a mere lurker.
 
I for one am feeling the slow but steady tug of the lurk...

I don't know how much longer I'm going to last

Oh god, I think it's got me.


 
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eaglejarl said:
My issue with Worm was more focused around the fact that there is a literal conflict ball shoved into everyone's head that makes them fight instead of doing useful things with their powers and that the entire story is driven by the fact that you have two super aliens that want to prevent the heat death of the universe but think that the best way to do that is to make primitives fight each other to see if they invent any interesting new techniques for punching, as opposed to recruiting those primitives -- or the super-advanced aliens they got all the nifty tinker tech from -- as research partners.

As to MfD, I don't think we've applied authorial fiat anywhere...? I've said "I disagree with your points, we've put a lot of thought into this and this is where we ended up" but that's not the same as "because I said so." Or am I misunderstanding you?


Yes, ninja combat is fast. (At least, in world -- out of world it takes forever to model.) It's definitely not instantly lethal -- the way the skill roll formula works and the thresholds are set means that you have to have MASSIVELY more dice than your opponent in order to win in one round. The point of my post, however, was that it's actually very hard for any single opponent to solo the team in one round.
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I mean, the world of Worm is sort of focused around that, but not so much the story. At least, not till the endgame. It takes a long long time to get there. Most of the story is not about what you put as transparent text. Sort of like how Naruto the show isn't focused on Kaguya's actions or whatever. If that makes any sense. Which doesn't mean I disagree with you on that part of the story being a little weak.
 
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eaglejarl said:
I don't actually disagree with you, but the options are pretty limited. "God damnit!" doesn't work because there is no singular 'God' in the Narutoverse. We've seen characters use 'fuck', 'shit', etc, but the phatic intensifiers don't fit the culture.
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Scum, ingrate, [lazy people], [deleriction of duty] sounds like it fit. There's the old adage about "Idiot" coming from Greek meaning layabouts, weren't there? Other people can shares language-specific swears too.
 
More of a forums mechanics question, how can I see which plans are currently being voted for and what they actually are? I've gone through the past few pages but I don't have the time to search 20+ pages for where the plans actually are.
 
eaglejarl said:
As to MfD, I don't think we've applied authorial fiat anywhere...? I've said "I disagree with your points, we've put a lot of thought into this and this is where we ended up" but that's not the same as "because I said so." Or am I misunderstanding you?
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Not the original poster and I don't 100% agree with them, but some of your comments have sounded a bit like "That's a good point, but we've already put a lot of thought into it so now we won't change because we're stubborn," even though I know that's not what you intended.
 
ProperAttorney said:
More of a forums mechanics question, how can I see which plans are currently being voted for and what they actually are? I've gone through the past few pages but I don't have the time to search 20+ pages for where the plans actually are.
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Right now, this is the only plan:

Briefvoice said:
[X] Action Plan: Deescalate, explain, deescalate

Objectives:
1. Survive
2. Deescalate the situation to where there's no imminent threat of violence
3. Apologize and explain yourself
4. Express flat-out disgust about "legitimately" killing to protect your secrets

  • Ask for everyone allow you to speak
    • Release grip on Kagome when it seems sure he's not going to try anything stupid
    • Deep breath
    • Not moving hands too fast, give Minami the Nara hand sign for 'you need to hear this'
  • Explain yourself to Keiko, Noburi, and Kagome
    • Ask everyone to bear with you, you know Kagome's actions are the most important thing to be addressed, but you'd like to talk about the lead-up.
    • Tell everyone that while you're technically a Kurosawa, your mother raised you as an exile outside the clan. You might have a bloodline, but you weren't raised as part of a clan.
    • You were always taught that your village was the most important thing and where you owed your loyalty.
    • So while you understand clan secrets in your head and we've talked about it... you don't really get it in your gut.
    • When you joined Leaf you figured from now on you owed it your loyalty, and you were thinking about ways to use everyone's abilities to best complete the mission, like you always do.
    • The new clan barely seemed real; you weren't thinking at all about it as something whose secrets were to be protected from the village you were supposed to be loyal to now. That was a mistake.
    • Apologize deeply to all three of them.
    • Ask them, if it's okay, if you could tell Minami the story of the Village Hidden in the Swamp. She needs to understand.
  • Explain yourself to Minami
    • Promise her again that you're going to address Kagome's actions, but you want her to understand where this team came from too.
    • Unless the others protested, tell Minami the story of the Village Hidden in the Swamp and how it came to be and how it ended.
    • Explain you didn't set out to become missing-nin... it was more done to you, and all of a sudden you were in a situation where there didn't seem like there were other options.
    • But objectively now you've got to tell her honestly... Mist is a horrible place and Leaf seems a lot nicer. In case she wondered if it was all propaganda, it's not.
    • Kagome's story is his own to tell... enough of revealing comrades' secrets. But you can tell Minami that when you found him he was lost and alone after a long exile in the woods, and if he owed some penalty for leaving his home village, you think he's paid it.
    • You want to believe in the ideals of the Village Hidden in the Leaf and the Will of Fire. It seems like a beautiful thing, even if humans are always bound to fall short.
  • Time to talk about Kagome's actions
    • Get mad.
    • Kagome, enough of this "stinkers" shit. That's the word he always uses when it's time to stop treating someone like a human being and you're sick of it.
    • Kagome calls Minami a 'dumbbutt' so he don't have to feel bad about what he tried to do. Well it was attempted murder and it was wrong.
    • Everyone on this team has done things that are wrong because we thought it was that or die. Okay. We're all ninjas, all killers, all terrible.
    • But this wasn't 'do or die'. This was trying to murder a fellow member of our new village because you thought there might be some danger from something she knew under hypothetical circumstances far in the future.
    • Fuck that. And you know what, fuck the idea that it's "legitimate" for a clan to kill to protect its secrets, especially someone who didn't ask to be told them and did nothing wrong.
    • If Kagome ever, ever, tries some shit like this again, do you know what Hazou will do?
    • He will personally drag Kagome back into the woods and live with him in exile, serving Leaf by occasionally passing back sealing research. Because I love you sensei, and if taking you away from everyone else is the only way to keep you alive I'll do it. Please don't- Hazou hates living in the woods.
  • Back to Minami
    • If she needs it to feel safe in our company, Hazou will be her hostage.
    • But weird as it is to say after all this, he would rather be her comrade.
  • Let everyone digest and respond
  • If possible, resume the mission.
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In general, there's a website here MFD PlanBot that's generally up to date (but not right now). Other than that, there are ~7 posters who have the counting code we use to tally votes and link to the plans. TL;DR There's a website, and asking will probably get you the answer in thread.
 
Radvic said:
In general, there's a website here MFD PlanBot that's generally up to date (but not right now). Other than that, there are ~7 posters who have the counting code we use to tally votes and link to the plans. TL;DR There's a website, and asking will probably get you the answer in thread.
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And one of these days I'll use one of my spoons to scoop some of that sweet sweet planbot source code onto my machine.
I suspect the "tricky" part will be compiling.
 
Hokay, fair warning, I am at this moment quite drunk. Just broke the six figure mark on a wave of unexpectedly effusive praise, wooohooo! (My impostor syndrome is already kicking in. After all, my group lead is a really nice, friendly southern lady. Of course she would be overly effusive in praise. My task lead is a proper northern lady. Mild praise for a job well done, a kick in the ass for any failure.)

That said: further campaigning for Hazou to have an emotional breakdown, and how it will resolve our current (and hopefully future) problems.

If we don't want everything to go to shit, we need to humanize ourselves with both Minami and our team.
With Minami the reason is obvious: right now, to her, we are a Cold Stone Killer, a Missing Nin, a Monster. Suffering a breakdown will abruptly re-contextualize us as a 14 year old struggling to keep it together in the face of the hell that is being a missing-nin. A tearful confession that we're a missing-nin because the Jonin we love and respect decided to rebel and we were dragged along will go a lot further in befriending her and getting her to work with the team than any amount of calmly laying out facts ever could.
To the team: Hazou is a creature that prizes self control. When things go wrong, when he fucks up, he tries to address things rationally. He owns up to his mistake, he tries to recognize what he did wrong. He does not break down crying at his failures. Go back to the early updates where we see him through Noburi's eyes. Hazou having a breakdown now will shock them all into a state where they're willing to listen, and where they'll be more willing to see him as human in the future. In the immediate term, it should paralyze Kagome.

It is in our best interest at this juncture to show vulnerability.
With this in mind, our Iron Nerve might be our biggest enemy. Spontaneous expression requires conscious effort, so a genuine loss of control will look weird to Minami.
 
eaglejarl said:
As to MfD, I don't think we've applied authorial fiat anywhere...? I've said "I disagree with your points, we've put a lot of thought into this and this is where we ended up" but that's not the same as "because I said so." Or am I misunderstanding you?
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It's more the fact that you decided to keep so much from canon Naruto. The clan structure. The relative position of all of the hidden villages. The fact that ninja apparently constantly plot how to kill each other even when they are allies. The rampant paranoia about letting your allies know about techniques that they literally can't copy. The Uchiha massacre still happening. Akatsuki still being exactly the same and still be based in rain. Leaf being the good village. Just feels to me that you decided to be beholden to canon to much and not really try to work out what the actual dynamic of the world should be.
Like sending scrubs to kill Jounin is stupid dumb. This is a rational fic so no one should blatantly pick up an idiot ball but that pretty much it. Then when people point out why this stuff is dumb you claim oh I wish the world was different. When you literally sit up the starting point of the world.
 
[X] Action Plan: Deescalate, explain, deescalate

@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail
Just want to say thanks on an amazing quest. It's been an amazing ride so far and I appreciate all the work you guys have put in to make it so great. Also the player base has consistently been one of the
m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶w̶r̶e̶t̶c̶h̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶i̶v̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶c̶u̶m̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶v̶i̶l̶l̶a̶i̶n̶y̶ most positive and rewarding internet communities I've ever seen, so that's been really cool too.

Regarding the vilification of the QM's... I think that relatively few people were actually insulting or writing the QMs off as antagonistic (certainly compared to those who came out in support). But that vocal minority combined with the overall atmosphere of negativity and the actual meaningful criticisms definitely wasn't the most pleasant. One thing I'd ask from you the QMs is to try not to characterise the thread as a whole by the actions/words of a few.. as a whole I think we're mostly still right behind you :)

(Also survivorship effect means that even if that isn't true at any given time it's likely to become true ;) )
 
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thamuzz said:
Hokay, fair warning, I am at this moment quite drunk. Just broke the six figure mark on a wave of unexpectedly effusive praise, wooohooo! (My impostor syndrome is already kicking in. After all, my group lead is a really nice, friendly southern lady. Of course she would be overly effusive in praise. My task lead is a proper northern lady. Mild praise for a job well done, a kick in the ass for any failure.)

That said: further campaigning for Hazou to have an emotional breakdown, and how it will resolve our current (and hopefully future) problems.

If we don't want everything to go to shit, we need to humanize ourselves with both Minami and our team.
With Minami the reason is obvious: right now, to her, we are a Cold Stone Killer, a Missing Nin, a Monster. Suffering a breakdown will abruptly re-contextualize us as a 14 year old struggling to keep it together in the face of the hell that is being a missing-nin. A tearful confession that we're a missing-nin because the Jonin we love and respect decided to rebel and we were dragged along will go a lot further in befriending her and getting her to work with the team than any amount of calmly laying out facts ever could.
To the team: Hazou is a creature that prizes self control. When things go wrong, when he fucks up, he tries to address things rationally. He owns up to his mistake, he tries to recognize what he did wrong. He does not break down crying at his failures. Go back to the early updates where we see him through Noburi's eyes. Hazou having a breakdown now will shock them all into a state where they're willing to listen, and where they'll be more willing to see him as human in the future. In the immediate term, it should paralyze Kagome.

It is in our best interest at this juncture to show vulnerability.
With this in mind, our Iron Nerve might be our biggest enemy. Spontaneous expression requires conscious effort, so a genuine loss of control will look weird to Minami.
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I feel like having a nervous breakdown because it's politically/socially convenient is exactly what a Cold Stone Killer mastermind would do.
 
eaglejarl said:
Honestly, I wish you were correct. I strongly dislike the culture that we've created and I wish I had a good reason for it to not be like this.
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Given the same set of initial conditions, I would would think you could come up with many different ways the world could be like.

Got to say, I've read you saying something like this multiple times and it's always puzzled me. In any given situation involving people, there are almost invariably multiple plausible outcomes. If you ever find yourself saying, "This is the only logical way it could happen," it's probably a sign you've become too attached to some assumptions and are mistaking them for logical inevitability.
 
Looking at the plan, is there any way we can change
  • Ask them, if it's okay, if you could tell Minami the story of the Village Hidden in the Swamp. She needs to understand.
so that we don't give away so much just by asking. This lady is smart, she's already connecting plenty of dots. Not too difficult for her to connect "Village Hidden in the Swamp" with "Join Leaf-Mist extermination mission in the swamp some time back." Might not be important, but I think we've put our collective feet in our mouth enough as it is.
 
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