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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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MMKII said:
On the contrary its to her benefit to beat our face in next round to make up for her embarassing defeat.

One angle here that Shika is playing is that this could be a way to setup Hyuga v Goketsu Round 2 but more publically and with more odds stacked against us (read: looks amazing when we win).

Having a Cheat Eyes user in the enemy ranks is going to be a pain in the ass though.

Edit: This is assuming of course we arent trapped in some spooky ass Super Genjutsu
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Yeah, but as I said she's aware of Shikamaru's motivations. Him convincing people to team up against us will obviously be some kind of trap, even if she can't sis's out the details. I suppose this "fended us off" business might convince her we betrayed him and that he's changing sides, though.
 
I don't trust any of this. Shikamaru's plan is by no means guaranteed to work; it relies on manipulating the enemy in a very transparent manner, and can easily be derailed by even a little bit of their agency. A lot of what he's using to support his reasoning is conjecture rather than fact - that word halves will be worth points, for example. I'm also very suspicious of his analysis of Ren's motivations, as he cannot possibly have all the facts necessary to make a confident prediction there.

My feeling is that he's only projecting confidence and effectively strongarming us into supporting his risky bid at getting first in the ranking. It's not such a bad deal compared to the alternative of having to oppose him, but I don't like being effectively blackmailed by our supposed allies. It doesn't bode well for the future.

That said, with how the Nara have been written in this quest thus far, it's possible that he's correct about everything just because, which is a bit frustrating. I guess we'll see, not like we have a choice in the matter.
 
Roomba said:
That said, with how the Nara have been written in this quest thus far, it's possible that he's correct about everything just because, which is a bit frustrating. I guess we'll see, not like we have a choice in the matter.
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Escusi? Are we talking about the Nara that have a conspiracy theory that Hazou is a competent mastermind? Those Nara are right just because?
 
eaglejarl said:
This, for the record, is that thing that I proposed in QM chat and then shortly thereafter saw in the thread.


It's OOC information, but what the hell: Part of the reason is that a smaller group looks less threatening and therefore makes y'all more willing to talk. The other part is because she was the failsafe in case there was a fight, but I won't say more about the plan there.
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Shes clearly poised to Shintenshin the fuck out of Keiko so as to remove the Pangolins in case of a fight, then.



Roomba said:
I don't trust any of this. Shikamaru's plan is by no means guaranteed to work; it relies on manipulating the enemy in a very transparent manner, and can easily be derailed by even a little bit of their agency. A lot of what he's using to support his reasoning is conjecture rather than fact - that word halves will be worth points, for example. I'm also very suspicious of his analysis of Ren's motivations, as he cannot possibly have all the facts necessary to make a confident prediction there.

My feeling is that he's only projecting confidence and effectively strongarming us into supporting his risky bid at getting first in the ranking. It's not such a bad deal compared to the alternative of having to oppose him, but I don't like being effectively blackmailed by our supposed allies. It doesn't bode well for the future.

That said, with how the Nara have been written in this quest thus far, it's possible that he's correct about everything just because, which is a bit frustrating. I guess we'll see, not like we have a choice in the matter.
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We still have the option of punching him out when it comes to the tournament itself.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Alternatively, Shikamaru might've meant 'all the Mist Genin except for the ones specifically sent to face you to appease Mist war-hawks' and omitted the second half as obvious enough to not bother with.
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Just pointing out, this is a very Nara thing to do. Look back at our conversations with Shikaku and think about that. Pretty sure he's playing it straight here.
 
So obviously we need to begin thinking of contingencies for what to do if Shika betrays us in Round 2 or something derails the keikaku.

Yknow, just in case enemy agency blah blah and all that.

Im thinking something with explosives.
 
Cariyaga said:
Escusi? Are we talking about the Nara that have a conspiracy theory that Hazou is a competent mastermind? Those Nara are right just because?
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I think you might be confusing our little running joke with what Shikaku actually believes.

To qualify my statement, and this is primarily referring to Shikamaru during the exam, I sometimes feel like what he says is decided via a process of working back from the facts. That is, his reasoning is constructed so that it gives the correct conclusion, irrespective of whether that is really the most likely one given information available to him. Reasoning from incomplete information is inherently probabilistic in nature, so everyone is wrong at times by necessity; I get the feeling that Shikamaru just rolls a 20 every time.

I don't know that I can qualify this properly, it's more a vague impression, and I realize that I'm being unfair to the QMs here. Sorry for that, guys. But I do find this chapter frustrating, for this reason.
 
rkyeun said:
I should point out that one of the major consequences of flipping less thans and greater thans in a (merely three-dimensional) calculus equation is that the affected volume becomes inverted. As in, instead of an explosive seal detonating everything in a fifty yard radius, it detonates everything outside that radius. In the universe. But since seals are ten dimensional or more or something, this might also include the explosion happening indefinitely into the past and future. I believe we have been warned:
Do not intentionally cause sealing mishaps.
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We know that can't happen. Because if it did happen this universe would have already have been not existed.

Time travel is hard.
 
Velorien said:
The more experienced a sealmaster is, the slower they are to make assumptions about the rippling consequences of sealing failures. Or did you think your grue vote would have no... side effects?
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I mean, I assumed that it wouldn't have side effects which were explicitly targetted against us since we were doing it as a favor for Kagome you guys. :p
 
Velorien said:
The more experienced a sealmaster is, the slower they are to make assumptions about the rippling consequences of sealing failures. Or did you think your grue vote would have no... side effects?
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One side effect that Ive noticed is that aspirin sales on the east cost of the states have dropped about a quarter percentile the last few weeks.

Cant possibly be what youre talking about though, since that doesnt make life more difficult.
 
MMKII said:
One side effect that Ive noticed is that aspirin sales on the east cost of the states have dropped about a quarter percentile the last few weeks.

Cant possibly be what youre talking about though, since that doesnt make life more difficult.
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It in fact makes life easier, as they were able to sell their stocks in Bayer before the prices plummetted. :p
 
Roomba said:
I think you might be confusing our little running joke with what Shikaku actually believes.

To qualify my statement, and this is primarily referring to Shikamaru during the exam, I sometimes feel like what he says is decided via a process of working back from the facts. That is, his reasoning is constructed so that it gives the correct conclusion, irrespective of whether that is really the most likely one given information available to him. Reasoning from incomplete information is inherently probabilistic in nature, so everyone is wrong at times by necessity; I get the feeling that Shikamaru just rolls a 20 every time.
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Coming from an RPG background, this is actually the recommended tactic for a GM to roleplay a character smarter than themselves. In a word, cheat. Use information you have access to as GM and then work out some rationalization for how they could have reasoned to it.
 
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