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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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To add my three cents to the plan meta-discussion.

The main problem with having shorter plans, is that as you pass certain thresholds, they simply become suboptimal. Not just because they'll award less XP, which is something we can change, but they'll lead to worse outcomes. And this isn't a question of QMs interpreting them unfavourably. Let me give an example:

After entering the second event marsh, we voted to "Build a fort". As it turns out, the concept of a fort was of limited usefulness in that situation unless executed in a fairly specific way. So the QM writing the update had to either have Hazou decide that the fort would be useless, and not do it; or have the fort built in some manner, which may not be optimal or what the players imagined when voting for the plan. @eaglejarl decided on the latter, which led to some dissatisfaction when an enemy group exploited it effectively. I don't at all consider that to be his failure, but rather that of the playerbase.

Ultimately, execution details are what good planning is made of. Not necessarily because said details need to exist in the plan itself, but because they need to inform the broader points. If you want to "Build a fort", you need to think about the implementation. What is the fort for? How does it accomplish its goals? Does it have any weaknesses? Can we counteract them somehow? This means that while having shorter plans may make them easier to read and improve voter turnout, it won't necessarily make them easier to write. Not as long as we like winning.

That said, maybe there is a good limit. Tomorrow I'm going to conduct an experiment to edit down the current winning plan to certain word counts, see how much important information is lost at each threshold.
 
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Roomba said:
That said, maybe there is a good limit. Tomorrow I'm going to conduct an experiment to edit down the current winning plan to certain word counts, see how much important information is lost at each threshold.
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I wish you luck with that. It's actually quite hard to edit down plans while retaining information in my experience. I mean, you can cut out "filler" words, which'd get rid of around 30-40% but past that it's hard.
 
Roomba said:
That said, maybe there is a good limit. Tomorrow I'm going to conduct an experiment to edit down the current winning plan to certain word counts, see how much important information is lost at each threshold.
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When I was more active, this was an exercise I would do fairly regularly with plans I wrote. Ultimately, I think plan writers being conscious of strain on both other posters and QMs will lead to more participation and easier chapters for QMs to write. This does however, make plan writing more difficult and time consuming, so it's not a silver bullet, as it depends on plan writers being good at concise communication.
 
You know, the idea that plan-writing for Marked for Death is improving the playerbase's skills as writers is highly amusing to me, even if it does make sense. :p
 
This is the point at which an enterprising individual with a good sense of timing could do great things with an Armageddon Initiative. Just sayin'.
 
Velorien said:
This is the point at which an enterprising individual with a good sense of timing could do great things with an Armageddon Initiative. Just sayin'.
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"I have a plan to encourage more people to vote. It's brilliant, you guys are going to love it." said Velorien in QM chat.

Cariyaga said:
(which was an omake [god I hope so anyway])
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Why? We'd just need to not die until Pain completes his chakra net (whatever that means) and saves the world. Even better, it would mean that we helped by giving Skywalkers to Leaf at a very good timing. I bet Pain would be a strong believer in Mastermind Hazou.
 
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HAZOU: (flailing arms randomly) I have no idea what I'm doing!

SHIKAKU: Uh huh. Sure.

HAZOU: (flailing arm accidentally hits a button that makes him god-king of all creation)

SHIKAKU: (narrows eyes)
 
[X] Plan Bewitched!

Establishing Rapport with the Client
  • Be friendly. At minimum try not to show how uncomfortable she makes Hazou and Noburi.
  • Respond to some of her flirting jokingly. If she becomes too forward, rebuff her gently and inform her that your professionalism demands that certain boundaries not be crossed.
  • Find a way for Hazou and Noburi to engage her. Maybe she wants to listen to some made up stories of ninja adventures. Maybe Noburi can talk to her about her knowledge of herbs. Or perhaps she likes talking about her business. We want her to like spending time with us, less chance of her wanting to gallivant around the city in her free time out of boredom.
    • As befits his higher Presence, Hazou is probably best off trying to project confidence
    • As befits his higher Rapport, Noburi is best for being chatty
  • Whenever she is resistant to some of our security practices, try to leverage our good rapport and charm her into agreement.

Establish a SOP with Granny Karina
(all of this done with the greatest politeness)

Moving Granny Karina Around
  • During travel, one team member takes to the rooftops to have a higher field of vision while the other two stick closer to the palanquin to be able to converse with with client and keep ground-level eyes out
    • Given client's expressed preferences, Keiko should normally be on rooftop duty
  • When we arrive at a location, the group will stop in the street outside. Karina stays in the palanquin.
  • One team member will go in to scout the location for assassins and announce Karina's arrival.
  • The other two stay on guard outside, looking for snipers. (If necessary, send someone to investigate any suspicious areas where an enemy sniper might be concealed.)
  • Determine if Karina needs to take in a sample case of some sort. If so, then it will be carried either before or after her, but not at the same time.
  • If all seems safe, Karina will exit the palanquin and be escorted inside by all three ninjas. Instruct her that if danger appears, she is to duck down and huddle on the spot and we will protect her. Running will only expose her to danger.
    • See "attack response" discussion below for more details.
  • Reverse this procedure upon exiting.
    • Palanquin to be inspected for traps before Karina enters it each time
Attack Response
  • Always have at least two people (one can be a Noburi clone) close to the client whenever she's out of the palanquin, with Blocks prepared for stopping any attack targeting her.
  • If she follows our instructions and ducks be prepared to deploy an Earth Dome above her. Demonstrate this to her ahead of time so she doesn't panic if it happens.
    • Unless we identify the attackers a Rock team or anyone else we suspect can manipulate the ground that can manipulate the ground, in which case get her the hell off the ground.
  • Otherwise, move her into cover without breaking the Henge. Always be on the lookout for appropriate cover.
  • If three people (counting clones and Pangolin) are available, one goes after the attacker. Don't start a full on fight in the city streets, but attempt to intercept and stop them from going after the client.
  • Once the attacker is confirmed to have fled, proceed as previously planned.

Where are we going?

Determine Immediate Destination
  • If Karin has no preferences on order, we will respectfully suggest going to the up-and-coming business first and then the upmarket area second.
    • Our team's logic is that the upmarket area is likely to be where many teams will travel, and we want to have a chance to scout it out before jumping into the mix.
    • In addition, Hazou is most familiar with the up-and-coming area and has better chance of noticing anything unusual
Discuss Longer Term Plans with Grandma Karina
  • Respectfully inquire with Karina if she has appointments at specific times/places over the next five days
  • Determine if she has any plans for meals.
    • Will she be taking dinner meetings?
    • We of course desire to ensure that her food is safe. We are happy to go out and buy food for her, watch its preparation, prepare it ourselves, or whatever will ensure client-san a satisfying and safe meal experience.
While at the Shop
  • Inform Karina respectfully that for her safety one member of the team will be going ahead to scout the next location while the other two guard her during negotiations.
    • Default to having the team member back within an hour or so, unless Karina thinks negotiations will be faster or much slower.
  • Send one team member to the next area by rooftops and to go check out the next location and the path to it, checking out potential ambush spots along the way.
    • Likely this will be Keiko, but we can quickly discuss by handsigns. Keiko can send a Messanger Pangolin as required as well.
  • While doing this, try to spot other teams, their method of travel, and their merchants. See what's visible.
  • Fate Point Declaration: We prearranged a message drop location with the other teams where we can communicate information back and forth dropping messages in a Leaf code.
    • Keiko can drop off message identifying our client's trade and that she acquiesced to our arrangements for the night and any observations she may have made about other teams along the way.
    • Check to see if other teams have dropped any messages of their own.
    • Attempt to arrange meeting later in the night where teams can send representatives to exchange information in person
      • Ideally we'll all be staying at the same boarding house so this will be literally no problem at all
  • Otherwise Keiko's actions are to her own best judgment. If she sees a target of opportunity from a team that's being careless, she can drop a trianing explosive their way
  • Two members remaining at the shop are to remain on their guard but also observe the negotiating process closely.
Contingencies

If another team with a client in the drug trade shows up.
  • Prioritize protecting our client over targeting theirs
    • Move Karina back, move into blocking position.
    • Do not be the first to initiate combat and be open to rapid negotiation if they seem to hesitate
      • It's not going to improve our rating to needlessly pic a fight in front of the client
      • Unless the other team are total suckers and leave such an easy shot we can't resist taking it, of course.
If the Yakuza show up trying to enforce their no-drug-trade rule
  • Attempt a social intervention by convincing them to step to the side and listen to you before acting
    • Drop Saitō's name.
    • Explain (if these particular enforcers are unaware) that this is a game for purposes of the Exam and attempt to convince them to step away and at least check with Mr. Saitō before interfering further.

Hazou's crazy idea
  • Try not to have this discussion directly in front of Karina
    • May need to have a little musical chairs and discuss in groups of two as one team member guards Karina directly while the other two do "perimeter sweeps" or otherwise as opportunity presents.
    • Part of preplanning for the Event would have been how to arrange discussions without making it seem like we're neglecting the client
  • The big problem with narcotics sales is that other than sales to legit healers, the buyers are potential drug distributors don't know if the drugs will be illegal next week.
    • This means they'll be reluctant to invest a lot of money without knowing what the market will look like.
    • This could be fixed if the Mizukage were somehow induced to make a ruling immediately.
  • Hazou proposes that we could come up with a prominent figure in the village and plant drugs on them and/or drug them in a way that would be publicly discovered tomorrow morning and would be hard to cover up.
    • The characters would have to decide and discuss an acceptable target; quest participants don't have enough detail knowledge of the world.
    • If you're looking for the ideal, something like a prominent merchant leader opens his briefcase to begin a meeting with the Mizukage and a brick of heroin falls out
    • Or alternately, the son of a big landowner gets whacked out drug, makes a fool of himself publicly, and is discovered with LSD in his pocket. Stuff like that.
  • They don't even have to look that guilty; it can be a "very likely this is a setup".
    • The point is that the Mizukage has to make an immediate call to either investigate further because this was obviously illegal or that no investigation is needed because she had been planning to legalize this stuff anyway.
    • For our purposes, it almost doesn't matter which she picks. Even a "it stays illegal" means that now the distributors we're selling to know that this will be high value because of its illegality but dangerous to sell and can plan accordingly.
  • If we can choose a target, Keiko could go out with Panashe and Zephyr's reach tonight to make the plant.
    • Or Hazou could do it using sleight of hand, while henged as another ninja with his bandana showing.
    • Does Noburi have the necessary drugs in his kit?
    • Alternately, maybe we should openly present the plan to Karina as a benefit to 'her business' and ask for drugs to pull it off with. She might appreciate the moxy.
    • Or could steal the drugs from her sample case, since we'll be constantly hauling it around for her. Or could go buy drugs from one of the people she sells them to after she leaves at a mark-up.
  • If the other two are hard "hell no" we can let it drop.

EDIT LOG:
  • Edit Batch 1:
    • Adding an offer to facilitate pangolin trade with Grandma Karina. What reason does she have to refuse another market?
    • Editing contingencies for "if another team shows up" to concentrate on protecting our own client and not starting a fight rather than assuming talking our way out of it.
    • Editing combat contingencies to avoid earth dome against teams from hidden Rock.
    • Adding contingencies to protection from poison.
  • Edit Batch 2:
    • Removed plan to trade with the pangolins
    • Added "Hazou's crazy idea".
 
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Roomba said:
To add my three cents to the plan meta-discussion.

The main problem with having shorter plans, is that as you pass certain thresholds, they simply become suboptimal. Not just because they'll award less XP, which is something we can change, but they'll lead to worse outcomes. And this isn't a question of QMs interpreting them unfavourably. Let me give an example:

After entering the second event marsh, we voted to "Build a fort". As it turns out, the concept of a fort was of limited usefulness in that situation unless executed in a fairly specific way. So the QM writing the update had to either have Hazou decide that the fort would be useless, and not do it; or have the fort built in some manner, which may not be optimal or what the players imagined when voting for the plan. @eaglejarl decided on the latter, which led to some dissatisfaction when an enemy group exploited it effectively. I don't at all consider that to be his failure, but rather that of the playerbase.

Ultimately, execution details are what good planning is made of. Not necessarily because said details need to exist in the plan itself, but because they need to inform the broader points. If you want to "Build a fort", you need to think about the implementation. What is the fort for? How does it accomplish its goals? Does it have any weaknesses? Can we counteract them somehow? This means that while having shorter plans may make them easier to read and improve voter turnout, it won't necessarily make them easier to write. Not as long as we like winning.
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To put on an adversarial hat here, the fort was not a failure of the playerbase. We said "build a fort", eaglejarl was like "...uh, I did the math, that was a stupid idea, here's the actualization of your stupid idea, have some lightning." I do consider this to be a failure, though not necessarily eaglejarl's failure: rather it's a failure of the expectations built into this quest as a whole.

I'll say it without sugarcoating: The expectation that "If you want to 'Build a fort', you need to think about the implementation. What is the fort for? How does it accomplish its goals? Does it have any weaknesses? Can we counteract them somehow?" is ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is that I think Roomba is successfully expressing the attitude/culture of the thread when he say this. These details are not interesting, or to the extent that they are interesting they're interesting to relatively small subset of the playerbase who both a) Care and b) Have the time to do something about it.

Such nitty-gritty design details are not the stuff of riveting decision-making, they're niche optimization problems. On the whole I don't think we should need to waste time on them. If the QMs see something like "build a fort" and can't conceptualize how to do it after a minute of thought then that's the point where they say "Optimizers! Deploy!!!" and ping the thread for concrete designs. The onus should not be on the playerbase at large to get into the weeds for every suggestion.

Roomba said:
That said, maybe there is a good limit. Tomorrow I'm going to conduct an experiment to edit down the current winning plan to certain word counts, see how much important information is lost at each threshold.
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I'd caution you on how to go about this "editing down" of word counts. Trimming hanging clauses or the like isn't going to be the solution here. "Word count" is a stand-in for "complexity" as we've been using it: keeping the same plans with fewer actual words (probably sacrificing some clarity) isn't going to solve anything except maybe making the plans looks a bit less daunting at first glance—and that lack of dauntingness will be a lie. If you cut down the word count by trimming/eliding entire sections then great. If you do it by cutting out unnecessary "thats" then not so great.
 
Kurkistan said:
To put on an adversarial hat here, the fort was not a failure of the playerbase. We said "build a fort", eaglejarl was like "...uh, I did the math, that was a stupid idea, here's the actualization of your stupid idea, have some lightning." I do consider this to be a failure, though not necessarily eaglejarl's failure: rather it's a failure of the expectations built into this quest as a whole.

I'll say it without sugarcoating: The expectation that "If you want to 'Build a fort', you need to think about the implementation. What is the fort for? How does it accomplish its goals? Does it have any weaknesses? Can we counteract them somehow?" is ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is that I think Roomba is successfully expressing the attitude/culture of the thread when he say this. These details are not interesting, or to the extent that they are interesting they're interesting to relatively small subset of the playerbase who both a) Care and b) Have the time to do something about it.
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I tried to think of how I would be writing a plan for the latest update in a typical quest, and I'm realizing the answer would be, "You wouldn't write one at all because there would be no vote because there's no interesting decision points here."
 
Kurkistan said:
To put on an adversarial hat here, the fort was not a failure of the playerbase. We said "build a fort", eaglejarl was like "...uh, I did the math, that was a stupid idea, here's the actualization of your stupid idea, have some lightning." I do consider this to be a failure, though not necessarily eaglejarl's failure: rather it's a failure of the expectations built into this quest as a whole.

I'll say it without sugarcoating: The expectation that "If you want to 'Build a fort', you need to think about the implementation. What is the fort for? How does it accomplish its goals? Does it have any weaknesses? Can we counteract them somehow?" is ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is that I think Roomba is successfully expressing the attitude/culture of the thread when he say this. These details are not interesting, or to the extent that they are interesting they're interesting to relatively small subset of the playerbase who both a) Care and b) Have the time to do something about it.

Such nitty-gritty design details are not the stuff of riveting decision-making, they're niche optimization problems. On the whole I don't think we should need to waste time on them. If the QMs see something like "build a fort" and can't conceptualize how to do it after a minute of thought then that's the point where they say "Optimizers! Deploy!!!" and ping the thread for concrete designs. The onus should not be on the playerbase at large to get into the weeds for every suggestion.
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Thanks for this reply. I think you're expressing the opinion of a significant number of readers of this quest, and it's good to have it out in the open.

That said, the point of this discussion is to reduce the mental entry barrier to voter participation. However, I don't think we want to reduce it to zero, which is what I think you're advocating. I don't think there's much value in a plan to "Build a fort" if, as you say yourself, the plan maker hadn't "taken a minute to conceptualize how to do it". What does this plan mean, and what do the votes mean? Not much. Your solution of having a QM ask the "optimizers" to clarify, just shifts the problem elsewhere - now everyone who voted to "Build a fort" are suddenly also giving carte blanche support for whatever the optimizer cabal cooks up. What if if turns out the fort is a bad idea, period? Should the result be what eaglejarl ended up doing?

A focus on player agency has always been one of the fundamental values of this quest, and the QMs have reasserted it on many occasions. In the spirit of no sugarcoating, not everyone has to like this, and not all quests have to operate the same way. If the solution to our problem is to get rid of what makes this quest unique, then it's not worth it to me, at least.

Kurkistan said:
I'd caution you on how to go about this "editing down" of word counts. Trimming hanging clauses or the like isn't going to be the solution here. "Word count" is a stand-in for "complexity" as we've been using it: keeping the same plans with fewer actual words (probably sacrificing some clarity) isn't going to solve anything except maybe making the plans looks a bit less daunting at first glance—and that lack of dauntingness will be a lie. If you cut down the word count by trimming/eliding entire sections then great. If you do it by cutting out unnecessary "thats" then not so great.
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I'm going to look at every bullet point and section in the plan through the lens of "Can we reasonably expect our team to figure this out without us holding their hands?", and delete anything that passes. Probably consolidate some of them in the process.

Briefvoice said:
I tried to think of how I would be writing a plan for the latest update in a typical quest, and I'm realizing the answer would be, "You wouldn't write one at all because there would be no vote because there's no interesting decision points here."
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Which... begs the question, why are you writing these plans if there's nothing interesting to decide? Honest question.
 
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Roomba said:
Which... begs the question, why are you writing these plans if there's nothing interesting to decide? Honest question.
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Comes back to two things, which I mentioned earlier in the thread.

1. Prior practice says that if no plan is voted in, Hazou will do something stupid/insane.

2. Nothing good will happen to Hazou if the players don't come up with a superior plan (in detail) to what he would generically think of on his own. He won't score well in the chuunin exam, won't advance to the tournament, won't get to do interesting things. Or at least, so is my understanding.
 
Roomba said:
Thanks for this reply. I think you're expressing the opinion of a significant number of readers of this quest, and it's good to have it out in the open.

That said, the point of this discussion is to reduce the mental entry barrier to voter participation. However, I don't think we want to reduce it to zero, which is what I think you're advocating. I don't think there's much value in a plan to "Build a fort" if, as you say yourself, the plan maker hadn't "taken a minute to conceptualize how to do it". What does this plan mean, and what do the votes mean? Not much. Your solution of having a QM ask the "optimizers" to clarify, just shifts the problem elsewhere - now everyone who voted to "Build a fort" are suddenly also giving carte blanche support for whatever the optimizer cabal cooks up. What if if turns out the fort is a bad idea, period? Should the result be what eaglejarl ended up doing?

A focus on player agency has always been one of the fundamental values of this quest, and the QMs have reasserted it on many occasions. In the spirit of no sugarcoating, not everyone has to like this, and not all quests have to operate the same way. If the solution to our problem is to get rid of what makes this quest unique, then it's not worth it to me, at least.
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I appreciate your openness to the discussion, I realize this "yer all wrong!" approach of mine has the capacity to ruffle some feathers.

I'm not advocating that we go down to zero; perhaps the limit of it, especially compared to current plan patterns. As an example, I baked up a plan for the initial fort-building period (still bitter it wasn't voted in... :whistle:) which I honestly think would have been perfectly fine for us to roll with. At least as a template. Gets our intent across, gives some seeds for the means by which we accomplish it, and provides some details/contingencies to build on. A plan of that type will never ever ever win right now.

---

Here's the initial "build a fort" bit of the plan:
Radvic said:
Part 2) Securing a Fortress
  • Reunite with our Team and some Leaf nin, especially a Hyuga and Akane
  • Go to one of the proctors, and build a fortress around them (or near them if they object)
    • Use MEW & an engineering pangolin to construct a defensible location
    • Use non-lethal explosives to make defenses (use 20 LBFs max)
    • Construct a hidden room/area where Hazou can churn out party seals
      • Have Hazou begin party seal production
      • Have Akane ready to put party seals in the casings of the official proctor seals
  • Have several Leaf genin on guard, especially at least one Hyuga to prevent unconventional infiltration methods (e.g. underground tunneling) Offer to split our profits evenly with Leaf-nin who help us, but encourage them to roam if it doesn't look like there's much to do at the fort. Offer to act as a base of operations.
  • Consider building a waiting area for customers?
    • Provides some mild comforts in the swam (MEW furniture) and concentrates potential enemy presence
  • Consider asking the proctor about points usage (e.g. will the team or individual with the most points at the end win? Can points be used or redeemed for anything? Can we spend points for information?)
    • Consider brainstorming these sorts of things with thinkers like Keiko, Shikamaru, and Shino
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The key line here seems to be "Use MEW & an engineering pangolin to construct a defensible location". Player intent is clear. The breakdowns, IIRC, were in mechanics (not enough chakra to do a lot of MEW) and in-world knowledge (general uselessness of static defenses in the MfD-verse). Once these breakdowns were brought to the hivemind's attention (after some gnashing of teeth) a workable fortress model was duly provided to the QMs. But if I was voting for this plan I wouldn't care about the hows of fort-construction methodology, I'd just care about the general intent to bunker down in a single location for the length of the exam.

There's a difference between "build a fort" being a bad idea because it's mechanically/in-world infeasible (initial result) and it being a bad idea strategically. People voting for plans that do/don't include "build a fort" should be able to just worry about the strategic level. An idea being simply infeasible is quite a different thing from it being unwise, and the initial fort design we ended up with was definitely in the "infeasible" bucket. We never should have come to that point, and if we ever do then the whole thread should bend over backwards to correct/retcon it, rather than rolling with it and leaving everyone to suffer from lightning-death.

--

With regards to fears of giving carte blanche to the "optimizer cabal" (nice term, I'll have to use that some time) to come up with fort designs or the like if it ever becomes an issue, I'm afraid I've got some bad news: That's what we're doing right now:
  • The voting population of the thread is in the single digits and coinsistently consolidates on consensus-based mondo-plans, so that's looking pretty cabalistic right there.
  • Look to the fact that plans are edited willy-nilly to adjust to criticism/suggestions/technicalities.
The cabal is now. And it's not that bad, honestly, at least in terms of retroactive minor changes to technical details that have no bearing whatsoever on general tactical/strategic thrust of a plan.

---

To wrap up, none of this is to say that we should never have highly-detailed parts of plans. Just that it should be the exception rather than the expectation. Radvic's plan that I referenced earlier, for instance, had a fairly in-depth "Develop Sealing Safety Procedures for infusing and researching seals. Use whenever doing infusions or research" bit too it, with sub-bullets and everything. This is better than just having a single "Develop some safety procedures around sealing research" line in a plan and leaving it at that, since the QM's are left well and truly rudderless from the get-go there.
 
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Briefvoice said:
2. Nothing good will happen to Hazou if the players don't come up with a superior plan (in detail) to what he would generically think of on his own. He won't score well in the chuunin exam, won't advance to the tournament, won't get to do interesting things. Or at least, so is my understanding.
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"Nothing good" is probably a little strong. Hazō will do reasonable things, he simply won't perform above the curve and won't receive more than average XP at most. The hivemind is smarter than Hazō, after all.

Personally, I feel myself on the horns of a dilemna, trying to balance all of the following:

0) I'd like to have barriers to entry for the quest that are low enough to grow the playerbase so that we aren't dependent on one or two high-involvement people. At the same time I don't want something so trivial that the current extremely high-quality community gets drowned out in a wave of SB-style infinite-September types.

1) Players must have agency, and that means that both positive and negative consequences to player choices must be on the table. We've agreed that Hazō is a separate character with his own judgement, and we've agreed that Keiko and Mari (when available) check over and improve all plans. Even granting those things, having QMs fix every problem or optimize every choice feels like a cheat -- if there's no possibility of negative consequences from a plan, what's the point? Why don't we simply write a story where Hazō always makes the best possible choice instead of a quest where players can win or lose?

2) There is usually not time once I start writing to be asking for clarifications. Even if there is, only a handful of players will see the request in time to provide clarifications and what they say won't necessarily reflect the will of the group who voted for the plan.

3) If I try to interpret the plan myself, people are likely to get bent. Personally, I don't believe that static defenses are useful against ninja in the MfD world, but the players' approach to the event was very much dependent on a fort, so I did my best to work with that choice. When I did the math I realized that a 12-person fort built out of MEW was extremely chakra-intensive, so I interpreted "build a fort" to be "create a platform and a curtain wall, which is the most that Hazō can do with the amount of chakra he has and about 30% (50%? I don't recall) of Noburi's". To my mind this was a reasonable compromise -- it defended against chakra beasts, gave good sight lines, and would offer basic cover against an initial salvo of explosives / direct-fire jutsu / weapons / etc. The inhabitants could then leave the fort in order to maintain mobility. The player base, however, had wanted to turtle up and were livid that I had not created something that would work with that strategy; personally, I feel that this was unreasonable, but I'm not sure what a better and more realistic solution would have been. I suppose I could have simply said "nope, no fort" but that seems likely to have been even less popular.


If anyone has thoughts on ways to balance all this, I would really appreciate hearing them. The current system works, but it definitely isn't optimal and I wish I knew how to improve it.
 
It occurs to me that we don't just have to do either "guard Karina" or "assassinate proctors". So long as we have two people on guard, our third member can be doing whatever other stuff is useful.

So: Is there anything we can think of that might be more useful for the third member to do than use that same time playing assassin?
 
eaglejarl said:
3) If I try to interpret the plan myself, people are likely to get bent. Personally, I don't believe that static defenses are useful against ninja in the MfD world, but the players' approach to the event was very much dependent on a fort, so I did my best to work with that choice. When I did the math I realized that a 12-person fort built out of MEW was extremely chakra-intensive, so I interpreted "build a fort" to be "create a platform and a curtain wall, which is the most that Hazō can do with the amount of chakra he has and about 30% (50%? I don't recall) of Noburi's". To my mind this was a reasonable compromise -- it defended against chakra beasts, gave good sight lines, and would offer basic cover against an initial salvo of explosives / direct-fire jutsu / weapons / etc. The inhabitants could then leave the fort in order to maintain mobility. The player base, however, had wanted to turtle up and were livid that I had not created something that would work with that strategy; personally, I feel that this was unreasonable, but I'm not sure what a better and more realistic solution would have been. I suppose I could have simply said "nope, no fort" but that seems likely to have been even less popular.
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It's unfortunate that our examples keep going back to the fort debacle (and I'm partially to blame for this), but to dive into it again:

I think part of the problem there was the follow-through. The bolded part here, for instance, wasn't really communicated. When the fort was attacked we made a plan that was based on turtling, then only after the vote was called and the update written did Nara (read (or at least my reading at the time): the occasional author avatar) go like "you're very stupid" and we were thrown out into the wilderness.
-As a minor nitpick, the plan post-attack also included using implosion seals to clear the mist through compressing the mist into water, which was then... pointless since it gave us all of half a second of visibility and we should have just thrown regular explosives, since no such compression happened.

In all the entire post-attack plan was made worthless primarily by miscommunication between the QMs and the playerbase, and that was a bit irritating.

EDIT: Bleh, never mind, it's not topical and doesn't add to the discussion. It's more helpful it to say that I think talking about the fort debacle is not a productive route, since there were confounding factors.

EDIT 2: Okay, down to the meat, sorry for the multiple edits.

eaglejarl said:
3) If I try to interpret the plan myself, people are likely to get bent. Personally, I don't believe that static defenses are useful against ninja in the MfD world, but the players' approach to the event was very much dependent on a fort, so I did my best to work with that choice. When I did the math I realized that a 12-person fort built out of MEW was extremely chakra-intensive, so I interpreted "build a fort" to be "create a platform and a curtain wall, which is the most that Hazō can do with the amount of chakra he has and about 30% (50%? I don't recall) of Noburi's". To my mind this was a reasonable compromise -- it defended against chakra beasts, gave good sight lines, and would offer basic cover against an initial salvo of explosives / direct-fire jutsu / weapons / etc. The inhabitants could then leave the fort in order to maintain mobility. The player base, however, had wanted to turtle up and were livid that I had not created something that would work with that strategy; personally, I feel that this was unreasonable, but I'm not sure what a better and more realistic solution would have been. I suppose I could have simply said "nope, no fort" but that seems likely to have been even less popular.
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I think the problem for the fort was primarily communication. Ideally the fort would have been nixed and/or redesigned before voting finished. In the worst case maybe even delay the update to figure out the problem.

Given that instead the problem (or at least the depths of it) was only really discovered in the middle of writing—and that that writing went forward—communication after the update was insufficient. In particular the bolded part, was not communicated, so far as I can recall. Thus the post-attack plan revolved around turtling up when that was never going to be feasible; this was another case where we could have used some mid-plan or even post-plan communication from the QMs.

I'm not saying that the only problem was the QMs being big meanies who never talk to us. Or maybe not just that. But this wasn't simply a matter of the playerbase being obtuse.
 
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eaglejarl said:
1) Players must have agency, and that means that both positive and negative consequences to player choices must be on the table. We've agreed that Hazō is a separate character with his own judgement, and we've agreed that Keiko and Mari (when available) check over and improve all plans. Even granting those things, having QMs fix every problem or optimize every choice feels like a cheat -- if there's no possibility of negative consequences from a plan, what's the point? Why don't we simply write a story where Hazō always makes the best possible choice instead of a quest where players can win or lose?
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My thoughts on this:

1. Players should always be choosing the general direction of Hazou's actions. To cooperate or to be selfish. Who to make friends with and who to be ignoring. What sort of interest to pursue and what sort of ninja he will be. Over time this will lead his life in particular directions, some of which may be thought of as winning and some of which may be thought of as losing. (But then, to take the 'glimpse of another universe' where he became Orochimaru's students, that was neither a win nor a loss compared to where he is now, just a different path.)

2. There should be room for specific flashes of inspiration in plans. Skywalkers! The decision to make his own seals in the swamp Event. Going to see the Yakuza. Trying to make friends with Haru. Some of these may be winners, some may not. But if there's no specific flash of inspiration type idea, it shouldn't be necessary to go into extraordinary detail.


3) If I try to interpret the plan myself, people are likely to get bent. Personally, I don't believe that static defenses are useful against ninja in the MfD world, but the players' approach to the event was very much dependent on a fort, so I did my best to work with that choice. When I did the math I realized that a 12-person fort built out of MEW was extremely chakra-intensive, so I interpreted "build a fort" to be "create a platform and a curtain wall, which is the most that Hazō can do with the amount of chakra he has and about 30% (50%? I don't recall) of Noburi's". To my mind this was a reasonable compromise -- it defended against chakra beasts, gave good sight lines, and would offer basic cover against an initial salvo of explosives / direct-fire jutsu / weapons / etc. The inhabitants could then leave the fort in order to maintain mobility. The player base, however, had wanted to turtle up and were livid that I had not created something that would work with that strategy; personally, I feel that this was unreasonable, but I'm not sure what a better and more realistic solution would have been. I suppose I could have simply said "nope, no fort" but that seems likely to have been even less popular.
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I really don't know what to make of the fort business. As you describe it, it seems reasonable to me.

But the first time around, building that fort resulted in a nighttime ambush where a lot of NPCs ate an AOE lightning bolt and Hazou was left in a desperate situation. The second time around, worked great and no one dared attack! Did we do something different in our plans, or was it the game system differences, or did you just flip a coin to see if there would be a mass attack or what?
 
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