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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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MadScientist said:
HAZOU: (holding YAK, who sports a black eye, by the collar and shouting into his face) Talk or I'll hit you again!
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Hm... come to think of it, Hazou seems like he might be able to sympathize with the yakuza better than most. Forced into a position by circumstances beyond his control, and finds family there?

e: You know... thinking about it, we might be able to do something with that. If we could get Hazou connections in Mist's yakuza, that would be useful in a variety of ways.
 
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Cariyaga said:
Hm... come to think of it, Hazou seems like he might be able to sympathize with the yakuza better than most. Forced into a position by circumstances beyond his control, and finds family there?

e: You know... thinking about it, we might be able to do something with that. If we could get Hazou connections in Mist's yakuza, that would be useful in a variety of ways.
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I thought the Mist Yakuza disliked Hazou due to his gambling schemes in the prologue?

Edit: let alone how the Yakuza feels after the ways we've screwed them over historically if they cross-communicate, etc.?
 
Citrus said:
I thought the Mist Yakuza disliked Hazou due to his gambling schemes in the prologue?

Edit: let alone how the Yakuza feels after the ways we've screwed them over historically if they cross-communicate, etc.?
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Oh, I'm sure they're pissed. I'm equally sure they aren't fools, and to turn down an alliance with the son of the hokage, informal or not, would be the height of foolishness.
 
Cariyaga said:
Oh, I'm sure they're pissed. I'm equally sure they aren't fools, and to turn down an alliance with the son of the hokage, informal or not, would be the height of foolishness.
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When seeking to make a deal, one should first decide:

1. What am I prepared to offer?
2. What do I want?

What, concretely, would Hazou be prepared to offer? Is he going to help sneak Yaz operatives into Leaf villages? Offer to help convince Jiraiya to release Yaz criminals? Make seals under the table for Yakuza chakra-users?

What does he want in return? Money? Information?

So I'd suggest that for a first exchange, something very concrete. Hazou agrees to make and infuse some seals for the Yakuza, and in return he wants to know details of the upcoming Exam Events.

That's a lot less grand than an "alliance", but the fact is that alliances rarely start with alliances. They start with deals, usually small ones, and then both parties learn to trust each other and they expand out from there.
 
Briefvoice said:
When seeking to make a deal, one should first decide:

1. What am I prepared to offer?
2. What do I want?

What, concretely, would Hazou be prepared to offer? Is he going to help sneak Yaz operatives into Leaf villages? Offer to help convince Jiraiya to release Yaz criminals? Make seals under the table for Yakuza chakra-users?

What does he want in return? Money? Information?

So I'd suggest that for a first exchange, something very concrete. Hazou agrees to make and infuse some seals for the Yakuza, and in return he wants to know details of the upcoming Exam Events.

That's a lot less grand than an "alliance", but the fact is that alliances rarely start with alliances. They start with deals, usually small ones, and then both parties learn to trust each other and they expand out from there.
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You know what we could do? Push them into legitimate-but-illegal business.

Instead of murder, they can smuggle past the merchant council. We deliver them loads of ice and in exchange for a cut they get to do what they want with it.
 
We could do the thing where we focus on a team and do our best to beat down two of the three and leave the third completely unharmed to wipe out the trust of the unit.
 
Pangolins are really humanlike ,and that's a really narrow point in mind space ,so they must have some connection whit humans.
Either kagome is right or there is some chakra thing that copies human minds or something like that.
Also we should ask kagome things more often.
And trying to discuss more often that kind of plot relevant information along whith our general situation , objetives and long term plans so it doesn't exit the focus of the hivemind and we can act instead of just react to the last update is a good idea .
 
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Cariyaga said:
You know what we could do? Push them into legitimate-but-illegal business.

Instead of murder, they can smuggle past the merchant council. We deliver them loads of ice and in exchange for a cut they get to do what they want with it.
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My understanding of the Yakuza, which may be flawed, is that 'murder' is more of means of facilitating their business and enforcing contracts in the absence of government than it is a business in itself. If they did murder for hire, they'd be competing with ninja!
 
Another option for information gathering is start to make contacts with caravans and start feeling them out for ice trade/merchant empire. Find someone and give them a gift of ice and storage scrolls. try to establish a long term relationship if possible
 
Considering that Goda was a Yakuza guy and they probably know that Jiraiya/Leaf were the ones that captured him, they might not want to work with us. Of course maybe we can use some kind of rivalry or something...but we don't know a lot about the Yakuza.
 
ContextBot said:
Considering that Goda was a Yakuza guy and they probably know that Jiraiya/Leaf were the ones that captured him, they might not want to work with us. Of course maybe we can use some kind of rivalry or something...but we don't know a lot about the Yakuza.
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While the Yakuza do appear to have some sort of pan-national organization, in this world of limited communication I have to believe that local bosses are primarily concerned with local concerns.

Anyway, let's return to the immediate and specific. Let me go through this logically:

1. Part of the Exam is explicitly information-gathering. Finding out where and when Events will occur (and preferably their nature) one of the tasks set before the genin.

2. The majority of competing genin are at a disadvantage because they are not local and have no points of contact.

3. Finding the local criminal underworld and gaining information from them is explicitly part of how ninja spy networks operate. We literally saw that it was part of Jiraiya's network!

Conclusion: The fact that Hazou already knows local yakuza hangouts is an advantage he should not fail to exploit. Assuming that we are not totally fucked up by the current plan, one of the tasks he should undertake the next day is to go exploit those contacts and try to buy information from them on the forthcoming Exam Events. I imagine that an organization like the Yakuza pays very close attention to ninja activity in their locality. As they are at an overwhelming force disadvantage, it's critical they be on the look-out for an upcoming purge or something of that sort.

Now ordinarily local criminals might be highly reluctant to sell information to foreign ninja and risk getting branded traitors to the village. But in this case... it's all part of the game! In fact, Mist might deliberately have leaked Exam information to the Yakuza to see if any Exam participants are smart enough to exploit the local criminal underworld.

The questions we should try to answer are:

1. Should Hazou go openly as himself, go in disguise, or give one of his teammates the information and send them to negotiate? Can someone look at the relevant updates again and try to estimate how angry the Yakuza actually are with Hazou balanced against their comfort at doing business with someone they are least know?

2. What should Hazou be prepared to offer for this information? Seals? Money? Information? Should probably create a priority list so that the GMs determine how much he pays based on negotiation rolls.
 
Briefvoice said:
While the Yakuza do appear to have some sort of pan-national organization, in this world of limited communication I have to believe that local bosses are primarily concerned with local concerns.

Anyway, let's return to the immediate and specific. Let me go through this logically:

1. Part of the Exam is explicitly information-gathering. Finding out where and when Events will occur (and preferably their nature) one of the tasks set before the genin.

2. The majority of competing genin are at a disadvantage because they are not local and have no points of contact.

3. Finding the local criminal underworld and gaining information from them is explicitly part of how ninja spy networks operate. We literally saw that it was part of Jiraiya's network!

Conclusion: The fact that Hazou already knows local yakuza hangouts is an advantage he should not fail to exploit. Assuming that we are not totally fucked up by the current plan, one of the tasks he should undertake the next day is to go exploit those contacts and try to buy information from them on the forthcoming Exam Events. I imagine that an organization like the Yakuza pays very close attention to ninja activity in their locality. As they are at an overwhelming force disadvantage, it's critical they be on the look-out for an upcoming purge or something of that sort.

Now ordinarily local criminals might be highly reluctant to sell information to foreign ninja and risk getting branded traitors to the village. But in this case... it's all part of the game! In fact, Mist might deliberately have leaked Exam information to the Yakuza to see if any Exam participants are smart enough to exploit the local criminal underworld.

The questions we should try to answer are:

1. Should Hazou go openly as himself, go in disguise, or give one of his teammates the information and send them to negotiate? Can someone look at the relevant updates again and try to estimate how angry the Yakuza actually are with Hazou balanced against their comfort at doing business with someone they are least know?

2. What should Hazou be prepared to offer for this information? Seals? Money? Information? Should probably create a priority list so that the GMs determine how much he pays based on negotiation rolls.
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The yakuza head of a ninja village/area is probably pretty high on the pay-grade scale compared to random localities. Let alone the chunin exams being here. I would totally believe there's unofficial communication going on between the Yakuza and random kage's already actually, sincerely doubt anyone high up would give a crap about what a random genin applicant wants. Maybe the Yakuza low on the hierarchy will be willing, but definitely noone higher than that
 
Briefvoice said:
Can someone look at the relevant updates again and try to estimate how angry the Yakuza actually are with Hazou balanced against their comfort at doing business with someone they are least know?
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eaglejarl said:
He kept playing the tables to bring in money. Momma scolded him and told him to stop, that it was dangerous, but he continued anyway. He continued until the man with the dragon tattoo took him into the back of the casino and had a long talk with him. The man placed a hammer on the table at the beginning of the talk, but never touched it.
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Doesn't sound too serious. They discovered a fresh Genin cheating at low-stakes craps, so they warned him to stop, and that was that. Might not even recognize us depending on who we talk to. And if they do, I think an apology and willingness to compensate them for the disrespect caused should be enough to solve the problem. In fact, their reaction to the apology should tell us something about how they want to deal with us. If they demand fair recompense, or waive it completely, it'll be a sign of good will for future deals. If they try to abuse us, we might want to back out.
 
Citrus said:
The yakuza head of a ninja village/area is probably pretty high on the pay-grade scale compared to random localities. Let alone the chunin exams being here. I would totally believe there's unofficial communication going on between the Yakuza and random kage's already actually, sincerely doubt anyone high up would give a crap about what a random genin applicant wants. Maybe the Yakuza low on the hierarchy will be willing, but definitely noone higher than that
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I'm not sure what your point is? Sure, Hazou shouldn't walk in demanding to see the local boss, but he doesn't need to. He just needs to find his contact, tell the guy what Hazou wants, and presumably he'll be directed to the appropriate level of dealmaking authority.

Roomba said:
Doesn't sound too serious. They discovered a fresh Genin cheating at low-stakes craps, so they warned him to stop, and that was that. Might not even recognize us depending on who we talk to. And if they do, I think an apology and willingness to compensate them for the disrespect caused should be enough to solve the problem. In fact, their reaction to the apology should tell us something about how they want to deal with us. If they demand fair recompense, or waive it completely, it'll be a sign of good will for future deals. If they try to abuse us, we might want to back out.
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I agree, doesn't sound like a big deal. I wouldn't even mention it unless they bring it up, and as you say it looks like they consider the matter done with.
 
Roomba said:
Doesn't sound too serious. They discovered a fresh Genin cheating at low-stakes craps, so they warned him to stop, and that was that. Might not even recognize us depending on who we talk to. And if they do, I think an apology and willingness to compensate them for the disrespect caused should be enough to solve the problem. In fact, their reaction to the apology should tell us something about how they want to deal with us. If they demand fair recompense, or waive it completely, it'll be a sign of good will for future deals. If they try to abuse us, we might want to back out.
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No no no. Hazō doesn't apologize at all. We need to establish that we are the dominant member of this relationship. The Yakuza respect strength so Hazō has to project it. Personally I'd walk in to the gambling den where we used to play with a hammer. Sit it down and proceed to lose at gambling
 
Oneiros said:
No no no. Hazō doesn't apologize at all. We need to establish that we are the dominant member of this relationship. The Yakuza respect strength so Hazō has to project it. Personally I'd walk in to the gambling den where we used to play with a hammer. Sit it down and proceed to lose at gambling
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Then they must respect us a lot already for having killed Goda and his bodyguards. Strength, right?

By giving some face to start with, we let them show their intent towards us. If they respond with polite deference, we can proceed from there. If they push and try to dominate us, we can bring out the hammer. Starting with a provocation runs the risk of them outwardly cooperating, but then also screwing us over in some subtle way, like volunteering information about the deal to our enemies. I don't want Hazou to grovel before them, just acknowledge past dealings and politely apologize for the trouble.
 
Roomba said:
Then they must respect us a lot already for having killed Goda and his bodyguards. Strength, right?

By giving some face to start with, we let them show their intent towards us. If they respond with polite deference, we can proceed from there. If they push and try to dominate us, we can bring out the hammer. Starting with a provocation runs the risk of them outwardly cooperating, but then also screwing us over in some subtle way, like volunteering information about the deal to our enemies. I don't want Hazou to grovel before them, just acknowledge past dealings and politely apologize for the trouble.
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I agree that while giving up some face is important projecting strength is more important. Which is why i suggest we lose money gambling. That plus the hammer shows that we are willing to let bygones be bygones. While at the same time underscoring that we are willing to use violence to achieve our goals. You have to tailor your response to the audience. This interaction is one that a more aggressive stance will pay of.
 
Roomba said:
Then they must respect us a lot already for having killed Goda and his bodyguards. Strength, right?

By giving some face to start with, we let them show their intent towards us. If they respond with polite deference, we can proceed from there. If they push and try to dominate us, we can bring out the hammer. Starting with a provocation runs the risk of them outwardly cooperating, but then also screwing us over in some subtle way, like volunteering information about the deal to our enemies. I don't want Hazou to grovel before them, just acknowledge past dealings and politely apologize for the trouble.
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Oneiros said:
I agree that while giving up some face is important projecting strength is more important. Which is why i suggest we lose money gambling. That plus the hammer shows that we are willing to let bygones be bygones. While at the same time underscoring that we are willing to use violence to achieve our goals. You have to tailor your response to the audience. This interaction is one that a more aggressive stance will pay of.
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At a certain level it appears to me that this is what mechanical social skills are for, to assess the best approach for a given situation. I suppose players can give the general approach of "project strength" or "be polite", but much deeper than that and you go to game mechanics for details.

By the way, don't be too scared of Hazou's low Rapport. This isn't necessarily an opposed roll, but may just be set against a low standard target for "don't fuck up making an approach to talk business".
 
So from a mechanical standpoint wouldn't Noburi or Keiko be better suited for doing Diplomacy with other people? Just a thought.
 
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