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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Lailoken said:
"Hey Shikamaru, if you tell me how to beat you in our fight you not only won't have to continue fighting, but I'll make Hazou come over and feed the deer for you for a week so you can sleep in."
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*deer summoning scroll acquired*

SHIKAKU: How cunning.

E:

@Noumero: Small rephrasing suggestion:

Keiko: During Event Five, her pangolins accompanied ISC in combat. Anything worth sharing?

I have had my fair share of characters treating Hazou like an idiot because he made sure the obvious things were pointed out and I am not in the mood of having to read about another misunderstanding about how we think Keiko is stupid at this point.

The phrasing allows for her to either tell us she hasn't thought of it yet and that she will look into it, or that she already did so without making her feel dumb.
 
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Noumero said:
But I already did...? Oh, right, I forgot to do the blue text shtick to show it. I apologize: it's been a long time since I last updated a plan, and I'm out of practice.
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*checks*

Hmm. Must have been my phone taking a while to submit the reply. Thank you for your patience.
 
Noumero said:
So, we need to defeat ISC. Let's brainstorm.

@Lailoken's idea has merit. Shikamaru couldn't be certain he will defeat Keiko, which means we may negotiate ISC's surrender by offering diplomatic concessions. Said concessions would be smaller — probably significantly smaller — than whatever they'd get from the boost to reputation from winning the tournament/defeating Keiko (otherwise we wouldn't have an incentive to not fight). Given that we know Keiko would be emotionally compromised on the day of their fight, and since we paid minimal-to-no attention to the tournament preparations (as opposed to ISC, who went all-out), I think we should seriously consider doing it.

I don't think we will, though. Which means... Ugh, combat tactics. I find them so troublesome.

I suggest we implement @Lailoken's firestorm idea in combination with game-theoretic coercion, after running the whole thing by Jiraiya. We could test the bombs in the Seventh Path, fine-tune their AoE. Keiko then drops one in the area during the speech as a demonstration, convinces Shikamaru to forfeit. It'll probably work.


Woodworking 100.
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The best way to ruin ISC's day is to totally mess up the Nara ability to chart the combat ahead of time and prepare everything they need. The way they chart everything ahead of time is by extrapolating from a target's known powers and tactics to infer, using Yamanaka psychological profiles, what they will do in reaction to any given stimulus.

Accordingly, to wreck them you need to adopt strategies you haven't used before that they have no way of predicting, and react to their moves in ways you haven't reacted to similar moves before.

So Keiko needs some ways of applying her capabilities that she hasn't used before, or at least not used at times that the Nara could have heard about them. Ideally she'll put together a portfolio ahead of time of weird and unexpected solutions to problems to pull out as needed, since I don't think she's very good at being spontaneous with that sort of thing. Not like Hazou or Naruto.

In a battle with ISC it may occasionally be the case that making suboptimal but unexpected moves is actually the optimal strategy because it gets the battle off of their planning flowchart. Attack when you should retreat. Retreat when you should attack. Attack sideways when you'd attack directly, or attack directly when you'd attack sideways. That sort of thing.

In short, we need to put Captain Kirk in command of the Enterprise when the enemy is expecting Commander Spock.
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
The best way to ruin ISC's day is to totally mess up the Nara ability to chart the combat ahead of time and prepare everything they need. The way they chart everything ahead of time is by extrapolating from a target's known powers and tactics to infer what they will do in reaction to any given stimulus.

Accordingly, to wreck them you need to adopt strategies you haven't used before that they have no way of predicting, and react to their moves in ways you haven't reacted to similar moves ever before.

So Keiko needs some ways of applying her capabilities that she hasn't used before, or at least not used at times that the Nara could have heard about them. Ideally she'll put together a portfolio ahead of time of weird and unexpected solutions to problems to pull out as needed, since I don't think she's very good at being spontaneous with that sort of thing. Not like Hazou or Naruto.

In a battle with ISC it may occasionally be the case that making suboptimal but unexpected moves is actually the optimal strategy because it gets the battle off of their planning flowchart.
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Against, non-Nara ISC, perhaps, but I'm not clear on how effective the Nara are at spot-planning (or Shikamaru, more specifically).
 
Cariyaga said:
Against, non-Nara ISC, perhaps, but I'm not clear on how effective the Nara are at spot-planning (or Shikamaru, more specifically).
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Even if they are good at spot planning, you've effectively taken away all the options that rely on preparation ahead of time to be effective. (Which appears to be most of them, Shikamaru has been relying heavily on careful and precise preparation to win his bouts so far. That makes sense, since his innate powers and abilities are a bit one note. Except for wood release, if it's real and not faked with storage scrolls or the like.)
 
faflec said:
Clearly the correct play is for Keiko to use the Pretty Pink Pony technique. /s
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Nah.

KEIKO: I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm a double summoner.

SHIKAMARU: What?

KEIKO: Gouketsu Clan Secret Technique: Summoning Technique!

A cloud of smoke appears, obscuring Keiko from view.

SHIKAMARU: ...That cannot be legal.

KEIKO: It's not my fault that my father is the greatest sealmaster in the world.

The smoke slowly clears, revealing two figures standing on either side of her.

HAZOU: What is --

NOBURI: -- your will, Summoner?

KEIKO: Get him.
 
KaGoGoGadgetMe said:
@eaglejarl this fight was super satisfying to read, great job.
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Thank you!

Sentient Tree said:
Choji picking her up was the effect of either a block or possibly a grapple (although I'm unsure if there are rules for grappling in this system
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A Block, yes. Grappling is generally "I use taijutsu to create a Block against that person doing anything."

Tua said:
I have had my fair share of characters treating Hazou like an idiot because he made sure the obvious things were pointed out and I am not in the mood of having to read about another misunderstanding about how we think Keiko is stupid at this point.

The phrasing allows for her to either tell us she hasn't thought of it yet and that she will look into it, or that she already did so without making her feel dumb.
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Social awareness: Level up!

This, folks, is how you change Hazō's characterization over time.
 
eaglejarl said:
Social awareness: Level up!

This, folks, is how you change Hazō's characterization over time.
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Epistemic status: Pondering.

I feel... that it may be the case that the hivemind's dissolute parts plays strongly against this kind of characterization-changing thing. It's not a sure thing, but I believe part of the issue may be that we have these kinds of epiphanies often, but they get lost in the shuffle of different planmakers making every plan, and reminders -- and memories -- are fallible.

I believe we've tried planmaking guidelines before and they didn't especially work. Does anyone have other suggestions?
 
Cariyaga said:
Epistemic status: Pondering.

I feel... that it may be the case that the hivemind's dissolute parts plays strongly against this kind of characterization-changing thing. It's not a sure thing, but I believe part of the issue may be that we have these kinds of epiphanies often, but they get lost in the shuffle of different planmakers making every plan, and reminders -- and memories -- are fallible.

I believe we've tried planmaking guidelines before and they didn't especially work. Does anyone have other suggestions?
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do it often enough to be a pattern lmao
 
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