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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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So I just read this quest (though only small samples of comments). Quite intriguing. The world and characters have a lot of work put into them, and there's a real sense of danger and fog of war. Definitely deserves more attention.

There's been something I've wanted to mention for a while as I read through the quest, and hopefully I can present it without stepping on toes as a newcomer. I also see that it has boiled over recently (perhaps making this a bad time to bring it up). To wit: I fear that the control the players have is not reliable or suited to the actual environment. The QM's have a tendency to take directions like 'go east' and sometimes have Hazo cleverly diplomance his way past border patrols while stocking up on important supplies, sometimes robotically walk off a cliff, and sometimes get pissed off and go north to kick Hanzo the Salamander in the gonads. I appreciate that part of the 'rational quest' idea is that if players do something wrong there are consequences, and furthermore that writing and GMing are both very complicated things to do, so I don't want to give the impression that I don't appreciate the effort or difficulty. Nevertheless I think that having the QM's give a bit more charity to the intention of a plan might be preferable. Currently there's a strong sense of 'gotcha' when the players forgot to clarify the 27th line in their otherwise exhaustive plan. Sometimes this is legitimately a mistake, and sometimes it's just a mismatch between the rules (like keiko and social skills), the world models, or just sheer memory and effort. When the QM's don't want to make there be major consequences they just have a character (or all of them) mock Hazo for the idea (it was funny the first few times, but kinda grating from then on). All this leads to an adversarial relationship where the players are paranoid about leaving anything out and need to fill their plans with legalese and define common sense. The plans in this quest are already significantly more complex than any other quest I've seen. So making a giant common sense flowchart that is included in every plan and must be explicitly overridden to be bypassed is the best idea I have to control the crazy mars rover that is Hazo, but I hesitate to advocate for this sort of control. It's bound to have undefined edge cases, contradictions, etc. This is becoming a cautionary tale about the difficulty of defining proper behavior in every situation -- aka why gofai was never going to work. On top of that there was most of a chapter banning giant list production which may or may not be entirely humorous


Meta knowledge is also a difficult grey area, like are players allowed to mention Kabuto's use of challenge response code way back when? Or would Hazo never have noticed it because he doesn't a priori expect Kabuto to be a spy like we do? Have the players been too trusting of Jiraya because of canon expectations?

Yagura's ability to kill Hiruzen is very concerning and indicates a significant increase in Bijuu power to me.

Uchiha representative mentioned reminds me that we don't know anything about how the Uchiha clan differs in this story from canon.

Pangolins are allies, but I'm concerned about their extremism re enemies.

I still have no idea how much to believe of Kagome's exposition dump.

Lupchanz kinda sounds like Zetsu. Also the description of what happens when Lupchanz infect an infant kinda sounds like what players do to Hazo. Also possibly root agents / scorch squads ('whatever they do to make their eyes look like that').

I'm confused about the laws / rules regarding summon realm, and sealing in the summon realm. How banned (if at all) is it? Why were the summons going to copy our seals stored there if its banned? Is sealing in summon realm safe? Can Keiko bring the rest of us with her to summon realm? Where do you reappear when you return from summon realm? What if there's an obstacle? Can you just send the summon / items back? Jiraya uses this for travel, why not teleport bombs?

Velorien said:
However, regardless of the circumstances, you are our team leader, and you deserve a certain amount of respect from us."

Which was a load of crap. Nobody deserved respect for being a team leader.
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No, you can't use clear communication jutsu for social lying Hazo, that's corrupting its entire purpose.


The fact that more words are spend on criticism than praise is not an indication of appropriate allocation, praise is just harder to meaningfully formulate.


There's lots more to say (about a pretty long quest), but much of it is no longer relevant, and some will have to wait.
 
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nohat said:
Yagura's ability to kill Hiruzen is very concerning and indicates a significant increase in Bijuu power to me.
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Just taking this part in isolation, ninjas do get old, and I expect Hiruzen was going to start losing Taijutsu stats sooner or later. Of course, if he was secretly the Sage of Six Paths then this was all set up to let him become the much younger Jiraiya for the next couple generations of his unending reign, but outside of that Yagura's win can probably be chalked up to Hiruzen not being quite as strong as he was in his prime.
 
Velorien said:
I can see where you're coming from, but I've always felt this was a tricky position. Are you still being "worse than killed" if somebody persuades you to change your beliefs? What if they do so through trickery, so that they make you a slightly different person in a way you wouldn't have consented to had you known? What about brainwashing versus subtle manipulation? Big beliefs versus small ones? It seems to me that you end up with a sliding scale of personality alteration, which doesn't mesh well with absolutes like "worse than killed".
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I am not the same person I was ten years ago. He is long since dead.

I recognize the alteration of beliefs and ideals given time and circumstance, and accept that. Change is good. Perfection is stagnation is terrible. But there is a continuity that I value. I weight what my past self values against what my present self values against what my future self might value in the most likely Everett branches.

I compared memory editing to necromancy, but I actually don't mind necromancy as much, in worlds where souls don't exist.
 
Velorien said:
"On which note," she turned to Akane, her tone changing not a jot, "I believe it is now your turn to carelessly place the team in mortal peril. I ask only that you do so after I have gained access to the Nara Clan Library."
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:lol:rofl::rofl:

Glad to see they're acclimating to the idea.
 
Someone really needs to get a plan together. I'd do it but I'm working tonight plus my last plan resulted in team killing
 
[X] A Plan, I guess
  • Go to the next place
  • Apologize to the team for being
    • Maybe volunteer to do all the work around camp or something
  • Keep head down and don't fuck up
  • Make sure Kagome doesn't kill anyone
 
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Vecht said:
[X] A Plan, I guess
  • Go to the next place
  • Apologize to the team for being
    • Maybe volunteer to do all the work around camp or something
  • Keep head down and don't fuck up
  • Make sure Kagome doesn't kill anyone
  • Propose marriage to Noburi
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Changes made based on feedback. Will not be around to make edits for a while.
 
Vecht said:
[X] A Plan, I guess
  • Go to the next place
  • Apologize to the team for being
    • Maybe volunteer to do all the work around camp or something
  • Keep head down and don't fuck up
  • Make sure Kagome doesn't kill anyone
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Click to shrink...

Imagining this being taken literally and the team going "Hey Hazou, why have you kept your head bent downwards for the last 3 days. Doesn't your neck hurt?" Hazou: "can't fuck up"
 
[X] Action Plan: Still The Mission

  • General thoughts:
    • When talking about mission-related plans we let Minami take the lead. We offer suggestions listed below.
      • MAKE SURE WE FOLLOW OPSEC RULES THIS TIME
      • Maybe talk with Keiko about our plan if we have a private moment.
    • Make sure to continue sending messages to Jiraiya via Pangolin. Background reminder :p
  • Get to the other River contacts.
    • Use Skywalkers to move from place to place.
      • Make sure that when ascending or descending we aren't spotted.
      • We should be using chakra water to speed our movements, and refill as needed.
    • Whenever resting, do so using Skytower technology.
      • Keep a standard watch out for flying chakra monsters.
    • Make contact.
      • Everyone going to the contact together is too conspicuous (esp. with Kagome and Noburi's barrel).
        • Minami will need time to trust us again, let her decide who to make contact and who to watch from a distance.
      • Use Henge to turn into the appropriate cover, based on our knowledge of the contact.
        • Discuss this beforehand; between Hazou, Keiko, and Minami this should be easy.
      • Make sure we're prepared.
        • Everyone has the appropriate number of seals: Explosive tags, PMYF, Skywalkers, etc..
        • Everyone's topped off with Noburi's chakra beforehand.
      • Deliver the message, and ask if they have more messages to send or need "short-term muscle".
        • Don't commit to giving muscle to the contact; discuss with the team first.
        • General rules for selecting for the mission (not in any particular order):
          • We want to take missions that help protect the contact/ensure their safety.
          • We don't want to take missions that keep us in the area for a significant period of time (let the team decide this).
          • We prefer to avoid morally "wrong" situations (e.g., killing so the contact can gain power in the town).
          • We want to avoid risks to the mission (i.e., any involvement with rival ninja is a no-go).
  • Go to Sand.
    • OPSEC concerns:
      • Most of our number are still (technically) missing-nin, so only Minami should go. Jiraiya should have written out that part of the plan, or told us before we left.
      • Don't bring Skywalkers in case they get confiscated. I'm not 100% on how Sand treats ambassadors but it would be a bad idea to take the risk.
      • Make it seem like we came to Sand on foot. Park a Skytower near the Sand-Rivers border and let Minami go in on foot, then come back on foot. We meet them and prep for Tea.
  • Talk with the team when we have time:
    • Discuss how we're going to fix the whole "Minami knows about Mist-drain".
      • Obviously, only do this when Minami is on the Suna trip.
      • Take the backseat, since we don't have the know-how on this.
      • Also ask if we should send a (second) message to Jiraiya about the current situation.
    • Apologize to Noburi.
      • We fucked up with telling Minami about your abilities.
      • Our desire to integrate Minami into the group quickly and our naivete with regards to secrets caused us to ignore OPSEC concerns since she is a) not in our ingroup and b) in a rival clan.
      • To make matters worse, we didn't even realize the magnitude of our failure and needed you (and Keiko, and Akane) to save the day.
      • We know how hard you worked to master your technique. It's unfair to ask you to suck it up so quickly just because we're on a mission. If Noburi revealed skywalkers to jiraiaya before we were ready, we'd be devastated. We messed up.
      • Words are wind. Hold us to our mistake and only let us know we've been forgiven after we've made a visible effort to correct our mistake.
      • Offer to do whatever it takes to make up for our screwup. We recognize we're in the middle of a mission but if there's anything we can do during said mission OR after said mission we'll do it.
 
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