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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Oneiros said:
You know if we would have invited Ren this entire situation could have been avoided
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IIRC we didn't predict Zabuza would crash the party and attempt to reveal sensitive information that Ren could have* prevented due to being his superior officer, nor did we predict any class of situation where Ren would be vital to preventing a massive fuckup but Jiraiya (or any of the other high-ranking figures, like Ami) could not. So I don't see why, even in hindsight, we should have invited Ren.

*I mean...I don't think Ren is sufficiently badass enough to actually stop Zabuza if he really really wanted to, especially since Zabuza is kinda-sorta going against Ren's plans and/or wishes by doing this stuff anyway...but hey.
 
faflec said:
*I mean...I don't think Ren is sufficiently badass enough to actually stop Zabuza if he really really wanted to, especially since Zabuza is kinda-sorta going against Ren's plans and/or wishes by doing this stuff anyway...but hey.
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She could have given Jiraiya permission to intercede without causing a diplomatic kerfuffle.
faflec said:
So I don't see why, even in hindsight, we should have invited Ren.
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Well in hindsight it's a way to get all the kage into one room... which also might end up making this significantly worse.
 
Cariyaga said:
She could have given Jiraiya permission to intercede without causing a diplomatic kerfuffle.

Well in hindsight it's a way to get all the kage into one room... which also might end up making this significantly worse.
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My point is that if a spontaneous random Master who can make everyone take their opinion seriously asks what our plan would be if Zabuza showed up at the party and tried to reveal that Leaf ambushed Mist and got all their ninja killed...I would argue that it wasn't at all a likely thing to happen, and therefore not something worth planning against. This is because Zabuza has so many other ways to getting the news out before this party, such as during the finals, or by speaking to some of the war hawks privately; and also because IMO it seems heavily OOC for Zabuza to act this way, given his thoughts in his various interludes. Part of me is still thinking that Zabuza was going to announce Akatsuki was responsible, not Leaf, though (again) still strange of him to act so confrontational to Leaf about his announcement.
 
I'm just pointing out that there are valid reasons we could have invited Ren even without this being a thing.
 
faflec said:
Part of me is still thinking that Zabuza was going to announce Akatsuki was responsible, not Leaf, though (again) still strange of him to act so confrontational to Leaf about his announcement.
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What do you think about the possibility that he sided with the anti-alliance faction of Mist politics, and is acting on their orders? That way, some of it makes sense: why he is going against Ren, why he is acting out-of-character, why is he trying to destroy the alliance... Doesn't quite explain why he is doing it here and now, though, in a suboptimal way.
 
Noumero said:
What do you think about the possibility that he sided with the anti-alliance faction of Mist politics, and is acting on their orders? That way, some of it makes sense: why he is going against Ren, why he is acting out-of-character, why is he trying to destroy the alliance... Doesn't quite explain why he is doing it here and now, though.
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Even doing it...it goes against his thoughts in his interlude:
Velorien said:
Zabuza had nothing to say. Missing-nin were traitors. It was a fact plain as day. Shinobi life was about sacrifice. You sacrificed your life every time you went out on a mission, and if you were skilled enough, and lucky enough, then at the end you got it back. If one day the village decided you weren't going to get it back, that was its prerogative. To refuse such a mission, or to abandon it, was to turn your back on the nature of shinobi life itself. Zabuza was regularly ordered on high-risk missions, and if one day the Mizukage assigned him a mission with the expectation that he wouldn't be coming back, then Zabuza would still go. He was a loyal shinobi, maybe not to the Mizukage, maybe not to the corrupt, rotting edifice that ruled his village, but to the true ideal of Mist that would outlive them both. Zabuza would still go.
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Ren is the Mizukage, as elected by whatever council of clans' equivalent they have; Zabuza ignoring Ren's orders means that not only is he refusing to acknowledge Ren's position, but also the clans' right to choose their Kage.

...maybe he snapped and wants to play for the hat himself? I dunno, random thought.
 
Cariyaga said:
I'm just pointing out that there are valid reasons we could have invited Ren even without this being a thing.
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This is true, we even discussed the kind of lines of thought we would've needed to go through in order to convince Hazou to go through with it. But we decided against it because we knew that even if Hazou could bring himself to invite Ren, it would detract from the enjoyment of Game Night.

The fact remains that we didn't know that her presence would have any importance beyond how enjoyable Game Night ends up being, so there's nothing to be gained by reflecting on our actions there. "Unknowable circumstances may make the correct decision turn out badly" is a good lesson to learn but gives us no useful information on how to behave in the future, nor does it give cause to accuse our previous decisions of bad judgement.

I understand if you're trying to make a different point here, but I got a crawling feeling in my head when I read your posts that felt like you were trying to accuse the decision to not invite Ren as being in bad judgement because of the unknown and unknowable circumstances that led to the Zabuza interrupt. If so, I strongly disagree. If not, I apologize for wrongly misunderstanding your benign intentions.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
I understand if you're trying to make a different point here, but I got a crawling feeling in my head when I read your posts that felt like you were trying to accuse the decision to not invite Ren as being in bad judgement because of the unknown and unknowable circumstances that led to the Zabuza interrupt. If so, I strongly disagree. If not, I apologize for wrongly misunderstanding your benign intentions.
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When I brought this up it was actually more of a critique of Hazō than the player base. He has decided to ostracize a powerful ally over a silly grudge. By doing that he has given up w bunch of leverage. Where as the thread mostly agrees that he is being dumb from my perspective
 
faflec said:
Even doing it...it goes against his thoughts in his interlude:
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How so? He literally states he isn't loyal to the Mizukage or to the "rotting edifice that rules Mist", he is loyal to the True Ideal of Mist as defined by himself. Maybe he decided that the anti-alliance faction represents that ideal better than Ren, or maybe, as you're suggesting, he decided that he'll serve it best by assuming direct control.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
This is true, we even discussed the kind of lines of thought we would've needed to go through in order to convince Hazou to go through with it. But we decided against it because we knew that even if Hazou could bring himself to invite Ren, it would detract from the enjoyment of Game Night.

The fact remains that we didn't know that her presence would have any importance beyond how enjoyable Game Night ends up being, so there's nothing to be gained by reflecting on our actions there. "Unknowable circumstances may make the correct decision turn out badly" is a good lesson to learn but gives us no useful information on how to behave in the future, nor does it give cause to accuse our previous decisions of bad judgement.

I understand if you're trying to make a different point here, but I got a crawling feeling in my head when I read your posts that felt like you were trying to accuse the decision to not invite Ren as being in bad judgement because of the unknown and unknowable circumstances that led to the Zabuza interrupt. If so, I strongly disagree. If not, I apologize for wrongly misunderstanding your benign intentions.
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Oh, no, I'm not critiquing our ignorance of this black swan. I would rather us have invited Ren, but that's for the other reasons, not for the sake of retrocausal Zabuza attacks. :p
 
Noumero said:
How so? He literally states he isn't loyal to the Mizukage or to the "rotting edifice that rules Mist", he is loyal to the True Ideal of Mist as defined by himself. Maybe he decided that the anti-alliance faction represents that ideal better than Ren, or maybe, as you're suggesting, he decided that he'll serve it best by assuming direct control.
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It also says that refusing to turn down a mission, even one where he won't come back from, would go against the nature of shinobi life; I read that as what Zabuza is truly loyal to, which would mean that he'd be loyal to Ren, who is his superior officer.
 
<reads plan>

Wow, OK. That's a plan.

I'm still calibrating how I'd expect it to go down, but I'd put greater than half chance it makes things nontrivially worse. Some basic observations:
  • It's transparent to observers that we have something to hide, and adds credence to Zazabu.
  • It interferes with Jiraiya and other... more competent... individuals dealing with the situation.
  • Being "enraged" at Zubazu is like 9/10 on the Bad Ideas scale, second mostly to careless sealing research.
  • None of this looks like it actually helps in the short-term, unless the QMs are nice (which they might be).
  • I don't see how this would help things in the medium- or long-term.
  • I put nontrivial chance on the reveal actually being mostly-acceptable stuff about Akatsuki, mostly because Velorien was writing for a twist.
  • Nothing accounted for other-character agency, not even something like "follow Jiraiya's lead if possible, otherwise..."
  • Buzaza isn't an idiot.
 
Veedrac said:
<reads plan>

Wow, OK. That's a plan.

I'm still calibrating how I'd expect it to go down, but I'd put greater than half chance it makes things nontrivially worse. Some basic observations:
  • It's transparent to observers that we have something to hide, and adds credence to Zazabu.
  • It interferes with Jiraiya and other... more competent... individuals dealing with the situation.
  • Being "enraged" at Zubazu is like 9/10 on the Bad Ideas scale, second mostly to careless sealing research.
  • None of this looks like it actually helps in the short-term, unless the QMs are nice (which they might be).
  • I don't see how this would help things in the medium- or long-term.
  • I put nontrivial chance on the reveal actually being mostly-acceptable stuff about Akatsuki, mostly because Velorien was writing for a twist.
  • Nothing accounted for other-character agency, not even something like "follow Jiraiya's lead if possible, otherwise..."
  • Buzaza isn't an idiot.
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The part where we interrupt Zabuza is described as 'Contingency' and qualified with 'if Jiraiya can't stop Zabuza and we're out of time to figure anything else out', so I don't think we're going to get in the way of Jiraiya hypothetically springing into action from Sunohara's message and politely telling Zabuza to shut up and go away.

If we do end up doing it, it's a gutsy, risky play, but it's the only thing Hazou can meaningfully do without incriminating Leaf. If we just go on about the value of peace between the villages and all that fun stuff, we play into our previously-established persona of 'radical peace-loving idealist' from our fight with Keiko. If we end up having to use it, it might work, and if it works then Jiraiya's got a chance to play it all off as us being stupid again.

Risky, gutsy, but the one line to success if this sinks far enough.
 
The plan could have done with more priming Hazou to think things through in the context he was saying it, but shit, if the boy's dumb enough to incriminate himself and Leaf by speaking up out of turn rather than doing as the plan says and drawing on his tournament speech I don't think there's much we can do for him :p
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
The part where we interrupt Zabuza is described as 'Contingency' and qualified with 'if Jiraiya can't stop Zabuza and we're out of time to figure anything else out'
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That's not an exact quote, and doesn't really address my concern anyway. Sure, if Jiraiya fixes things, Hazō's damage is limited, but even that is worse than a "[X] Let the grownups deal with it" plan.
If we do end up doing it, it's a gutsy, risky play, but it's the only thing Hazou can meaningfully do without incriminating Leaf.
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Hard disagree with it being the only workable option. It is gutsy and risky though.
 
Veedrac said:
That's not an exact quote, and doesn't really address my concern anyway. Sure, if Jiraiya fixes things, Hazō's damage is limited, but even that is worse than a "[X] Let the grownups deal with it" plan.

Hard disagree with it being the only workable option. It is gutsy and risky though.
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The way you say "Hazou's damage is limited" implies that the damage he'd do here is worse than what Zabuza would do in a way I simply can't agree with.
 
Veedrac said:
That's not an exact quote, and doesn't really address my concern anyway. Sure, if Jiraiya fixes things, Hazō's damage is limited, but even that is worse than a "[X] Let the grownups deal with it" plan.

Hard disagree with it being the only workable option. It is gutsy and risky though.
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Exact quote:
Noumero said:
Contingency (if Zabuza is about to continue despite the distraction and Jiraiya's efforts):
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To me, this clearly indicates that we should only do it if Jiraiya fails to stop Zabuza and he's about to continue. And I think it does address your concern because if we only implement this if Jiraiya fails to stop Zabuza, then this is a "[X] Let the grownups deal with it" unless the grownups can't deal with it and it's up to us.

For what it's worth, I feel like there's an 80% chance or higher that Jiraiya takes advantage of Sunohara's message to stop Zabuza from continuing. In that remaining 20% or less, I'd really rather Hazou be able to do something, anything, that gets in the way of Zabuza irrevocably destroying any hope of a Leaf/Mist alliance.

And yeah, I may have been exaggerating when I said it's the only workable option because there's probably some sequence of decisions out there in the probability space that could also be relied on in the dire straits where Hazou has to act or everything falls apart, but this is the only one we did find. If you think you know of a different path in the probability space that maximizes Hazou's ability to stop or delay Zabuza from speaking, please tell me so we can remember similar strategies for later.
 
@eaglejarl : remember that it is possible to ask a mod to lock the thread for 24 hours immediately after the update drops.



Is anyone running a book on whether Akatsuki convinced Zabuza to join them when he found them?



Roomba said:
I bet Shikaku will approve!



I will note that obfuscating incompetence is a tried and true disinformation strategy. Having a reputation for being a naive radical is very exploitable in the right circumstances.
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MMKII said:
I'm totally on board with this, but it makes casual social interactions slightly more annoying, and you have to spend some elbow grease framing things the right way if thats your public persona.

Until we can become l33t social spec haxor, it's a decent interim and should prove to be pretty effective.

Uh, also:

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MMKII said:
Arguably the best rep is to be known as a relatively sincere and truthful person who makes good on their deals.
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...you do realize that you're basically describing Rock Lee, yes?
 
Veedrac said:
<reads plan>

Wow, OK. That's a plan.

I'm still calibrating how I'd expect it to go down, but I'd put greater than half chance it makes things nontrivially worse. Some basic observations:
  • It's transparent to observers that we have something to hide, and adds credence to Zazabu.
  • It interferes with Jiraiya and other... more competent... individuals dealing with the situation.
  • Being "enraged" at Zubazu is like 9/10 on the Bad Ideas scale, second mostly to careless sealing research.
  • None of this looks like it actually helps in the short-term, unless the QMs are nice (which they might be).
  • I don't see how this would help things in the medium- or long-term.
  • I put nontrivial chance on the reveal actually being mostly-acceptable stuff about Akatsuki, mostly because Velorien was writing for a twist.
  • Nothing accounted for other-character agency, not even something like "follow Jiraiya's lead if possible, otherwise..."
  • Buzaza isn't an idiot.
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I would just observe that, before the last update, after voting closed, you had expressed derision of the winning plan. And now do so again, after voting has closed, in a way that highlights perceived likely failures in the plan, rather than anything actionable that we can do. While you're welcome to express your opinions, people did put effort into these plans, and if you have such strong opinions on them, may I recommend giving input while plans are being created?
 
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