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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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@Jello_Raptor I like your plan so here are some things I would add to it:

Noburi related:

We need to know why Yuno is considered "cursed." Noburi should be concerned about his fiancee; he knows nothing about her about her past or why she has been ostracized. Maybe the village had a very good reason to brand her as cursed. Maybe they are assholes who didn't give the poor girl a chance for some stupid reason. We need a more complete picture of Yuno than relying on outside knowledge like "OMG canon!Yuno killed her parents and became a super-psycho! Yuno's gonna kill all of us and make Noburi her love-prisoner!"

I'd also add in an Akane section where Hazou reminds her that letting in village ninja past our defenses is a bad idea. At worst, Yuno the yandere now knows how to get past our defenses to a sleeping Noburi and could potentially kidnap him. We probably need to give her more social dice to stop being so naïve, but for the moment have her ask herself before she does something, "Would Hazou-sensei approve of this?" before doing something related to the village ninja.

I'll try to think of more, but I wholeheartedly approve of taking as much time as we can to simply talk things out. This arc has been moving far too quickly for my tastes. No more training until we know what our group wants to do. I can get behind that.
 
Twofold said:
Yes, we do need some better protocol than "leave a letter to the post office". I was thinking about having the post office guy send the letter to another intermediary, with a different code-phrase from each team member that only they know. The intermediary's instructions would be to send the letter to Jiraya in a month(?) unless he gets all the code-phrases sent to him by the post-office guy. If there's another way to contact Jiraya we might consider also having another similar letter to be sent by a different route for extra security.

This way, even if one us gets compromised the villagers still can't intercept the letter reliably.
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There was some talk awhile back of modifying PMYF so that we could seal a note with a months-long timer. That way we could trigger the release mechanism and have some months before the note would appear for the postmaster. It wouldn't solve the problem of having to have all of us nearby to decide whether or not the letter gets sent, but it would ensure that the postmaster himself couldn't prematurely open the letter before we are ready.

There's no need to blindly trust the postmaster; he is loyal to Jiraiya, not us. If he thinks we are withholding vital information from Jiraiya (i.e. another band of missing-nin are trying to take-over the world again) he will open the letter before we want him to.
 
Dictator4Hire said:
There was some talk awhile back of modifying PMYF so that we could seal a note with a months-long timer. That way we could trigger the release mechanism and have some months before the note would appear for the postmaster. It wouldn't solve the problem of having to have all of us nearby to decide whether or not the letter gets sent, but it would ensure that the postmaster himself couldn't prematurely open the letter before we are ready.

There's no need to blindly trust the postmaster; he is loyal to Jiraiya, not us. If he thinks we are withholding vital information from Jiraiya (i.e. another band of missing-nin are trying to take-over the world again) he will open the letter before we want him to.
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We could ask Kagome if he has any easily-modified time-delay seals.
 
Dictator4Hire said:
There's no need to blindly trust the postmaster; he is loyal to Jiraiya, not us. If he thinks we are withholding vital information from Jiraiya (i.e. another band of missing-nin are trying to take-over the world again) he will open the letter before we want him to.
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Just have Kagome place a nice sealing booby-trap on the letter (and mention it to the postmaster). Just make it crappy enough that an experienced sealmaster like Jiraya can crack it. We might even leave instructions how to do it coded with something only Jiraya would know. Maybe use Mari's personal time with him as a key somehow?

EDIT: Actually, it would be pretty OOC for both Jiraya and Mari to not have agreed on actual codes beforehand in case we need to contact him. We could just use those.
 
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Dictator4Hire said:
@Jello_Raptor I like your plan so here are some things I would add to it:

Noburi related:

We need to know why Yuno is considered "cursed." Noburi should be concerned about his fiancee; he knows nothing about her about her past or why she has been ostracized. Maybe the village had a very good reason to brand her as cursed. Maybe they are assholes who didn't give the poor girl a chance for some stupid reason. We need a more complete picture of Yuno than relying on outside knowledge like "OMG canon!Yuno killed her parents and became a super-psycho! Yuno's gonna kill all of us and make Noburi her love-prisoner!"

I'd also add in an Akane section where Hazou reminds her that letting in village ninja past our defenses is a bad idea. At worst, Yuno the yandere now knows how to get past our defenses to a sleeping Noburi and could potentially kidnap him. We probably need to give her more social dice to stop being so naïve, but for the moment have her ask herself before she does something, "Would Hazou-sensei approve of this?" before doing something related to the village ninja.

I'll try to think of more, but I wholeheartedly approve of taking as much time as we can to simply talk things out. This arc has been moving far too quickly for my tastes. No more training until we know what our group wants to do. I can get behind that.
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Added those things. Quotation has changes in bolded orange.

I'd appreciate more copy-and-pastable suggestions from people. Just because I'm going to be busy for the next few days. I'll pop in often, but not have much time to do it.

Jello_Raptor said:
[X] Action Plan: Poor Communication Kills

This entire plan should take no more than a few hours immediately after the meeting. Once the scenes are done update should end and allow us to vote on further action.

Scene 1: Inoue's Information
  • Before the debrief: Everyone makes sure the only people around are Inoue, Keiko, Noburi, Kagome, Akane, and Us. Minimize chance of external eavesdropping as best each of us can.
  • Let Inoue debrief us off screen unless she has something new to add.
  • We want to see how everyone reacts.
  • We react to the news of Kannagi's betrayal by dispelling, then we act as the the thread approximately has.
  • Mention possible options of "Burn it all", "Run away quickly", and "Roll with it until we have the scroll, then one of the first two".
  • Ask everyone what they think about those options, both how amenable
Scene 2: Needling Noburi
  • Make sure this is private only Nobby and Us listening.
  • Ask him how he's feeling about all this.
  • Ask him how he would feel about the following options:
    • Run away immediately, leaving Yuno behind
    • Run away but take Yuno with us. Does he think she's reliable? Does he actually want to be in a relationship with her?
    • Letting the marriage go through and staying.
    • Finding some way to disrupt the marriage while still staying. (Politically incredibly bad).
  • If he seems amenable to advice:
    • Point out that arranged marriages do happen and if both parties are reasonable, willing to compromise, and care about each other's well-being then love will often come in the long term.
    • If those things aren't there then it's really difficult to create happiness and stability.
  • Do you know why Yuno is considered cursed? If not, what is your guess? Also, could you ask her next time you get the chance?
Scene 3: Keiko Concerns
  • Talk to Inoue privately about Keiko's mental state.
  • Mention what she said to us, and our concerns about:
    • Takahashi worsening her depression.
    • Takahashi suborning her loyalty.
    • That we fear her crush on Inoue might now be her strongest tie to the team.
  • Ask Inoue what we could do about this. Mention following options and ask for her opinion on them:
    • <Looking for contributions on specific remedies for Keiko's mental state>
    • Spend more time with the party. A N-days-on N-days-off schedule with Takahasi.
    • Find some way to give her active leadership again, some task which forces her to worry about our well-being.
    • Bad Option: genjitsu mind-fuckers
    • Bad Option: play into the crush to tie her deeper
Scene 4: Kagome's Catastrophes
  • Talk to Inoue and Kagome, again privately.
  • Ask both of them about their estimate of our tactical and strategic combat position.
  • How capable are we of destroying this place? How much time would it take for Kagome to deploy explosive seals all over town, enough to obliterate everything/kill most people?
  • How capable are we of an assasination? against Takahashi? other leaders? could we make it look like an accident?
  • How effectively can we run away? Kill pursuers?
Scene 5: Akane Assessment
  • Talks to Akane, again privately.
  • Mention that she shouldn't have brought Yuno into the base. What if she sneaks in at night to steal/stab Noburi?
  • Try to be a little less trusting of people she doesn't know well or who don't have the trust of the entire team.
  • Ask yourself "what would Hazou do?" when dealing with non-group members.
  • Be kind and understanding about it.

The update needs to end no later than 8 in-game hours after Inoue gets back, allowing us to vote again. We should also schedule this update so we have some time to talk to Keiko/others immediately afterwards (Immediately afterwards in game time, two updates from now in external time).


I want to make sure that if we run, we take the entire team with us. That means knowing how they feel about things and gathering more information on their mental state.

We have very little to lose by doing this and the information we gain can allow us to keep the team together no matter what option we choose next.


Edit 1: Changed "Proto-Plan" to "Plan". Added an explicit call for people's opinions in scene 1. Added note to leave some time to talk to Keiko/others. Added some explanation/justifications to the rear end of the plan.

Edit 2: Voted for own plan ...

Edit 3: Added some options for helping Keiko to Scene 3

Edit 4: Added note to ask Nobby about Yuno's cursed status. Added Scene 5.
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Hmm. It strikes me that... well, I'm not sure how much the QMs enjoy being... assigned what to write, such as it is, in the form of scenes like that. I mean, in this case it's kind of justified as there are very specific things we NEED to get out of the way, but try to keep that in mind? That being said:

[X] Action Plan: Poor Communication Kills

However, I would very much like us to send a kill-switch letter as we have discussed, somehow.
 
Jello_Raptor said:
Added those things. Quotation has changes in bolded orange.

I'd appreciate more copy-and-pastable suggestions from people. Just because I'm going to be busy for the next few days. I'll pop in often, but not have much time to do it.
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I think outright saying "What if Yuno is a psycho" to Akane won't help as much as "That was a bad idea, sorry".
Also, I'm not certain getting Noburi to ask Yuno about her 'curse' would go well; I think I'd prefer Mari find out discreetly. But it could be fine, not to mention prime Bonding Time. I'm just not sure Yuno even knows.
 
Cariyaga said:
Hmm. It strikes me that... well, I'm not sure how much the QMs enjoy being... assigned what to write, such as it is, in the form of scenes like that. I mean, in this case it's kind of justified as there are very specific things we NEED to get out of the way, but try to keep that in mind? That being said:

[X] Action Plan: Poor Communication Kills

However, I would very much like us to send a kill-switch letter as we have discussed, somehow.
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Agreed. I don't want to restrict their writing in a way that makes it less fun for them to write. I don't think it'll help much but I changed "Scene" to "Conversation" in the section titles to get rid of the implication that they have to have only those scenes. If there's something else that'll help our QMs without compromising the plan I'd be happy to add it.

HoratioVonBecker said:
I think outright saying "What if Yuno is a psycho" to Akane won't help as much as "That was a bad idea, sorry".
Also, I'm not certain getting Noburi to ask Yuno about her 'curse' would go well; I think I'd prefer Mari find out discreetly. But it could be fine, not to mention prime Bonding Time. I'm just not sure Yuno even knows.
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I think the point needs to be made that Akane is too trusting and anyone she brought in could be dangerous. Mentioning Yuno in particular might be too on point, but I'm not sure how to do it better.

Getting Inoue to do some digging can go in the next plan, I really think we need to limit the scope of this one to a tiny stretch of time. Both to make it easier on the QMs and to give us the chance to recalculate afterwards.
 
Man, I want to see this arc to its fruition. Why do you all want to leave so badly?

I find it a little foolish to think that the Village has NO contingencies for us trying to suddenly skedaddle. We've been brought to think that that would be a great fear of theirs (that we'll disappear and inform the wide-world about them), I don't think it's going to be as easy as disappear with hiding our tracks and a distraction
 
Twofold said:
  • Get out of the village
  • Leave a letter with details about the village to a Jiraya's agent (post-office guy), that is to be sent if we don't return to collect the letter in a given time
  • Return to the village
  • Inform the village that we are tired of their shit, they either play nice with us or they play with the big boys
  • Profit
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Eaglejarl (Team Anko) said:
Orochimaru snorted. "Please," he said. "Don't act the fool. You can't compel a sealmaster summoning sensei; all he needs to do is make the tiniest 'mistake' and you'll be in agonizing pain, or locked away again, or banished to Hell you'll spread yourself and your team across twenty dimensions while his summons hunt down whoever you gave the message."
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Takahashi is ostensibly on our side. If he keeps us and our team in good condition, then he has nothing to worry about. Why, Takahashi-dono, why would you have anything to worry about? We'll be getting out of your hair regardless when you finish teaching Keiko how to summon, right?
 
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@jy3 I haven't actually read Team Anko (Okay, I read few chapters but then dropped it because it didn't hold my interest) so I have no idea what the context is with that quote.

I think our current understanding is that Takahashi actually can't use summons, he just knows a jutsu that is one of the requirements for it. If he introduces lethal mistakes to the jutsu it will kill Keiko but it won't really dampen the threat our team poses to the village. We can still kill him after the fucked up summoning or just tattle about the village to every ninja village we can find. I don't see how giving more weight to our threats would make the situation any worse than it currently is.

I really don't think the summons are omnipotent. I have a hard time imagining how, for example, a bunch of giant toads would go around and fish out a single message inside a cagey informant network created for ninja espionage. It doesn't really seem like a thing that they would be good at.
 
Should we use privately discuss with Noburi, Kagome, and Inoue how Yuno's presence around the fort can be used to our advantage?
Maybe giver her an impression of something that she might take back to the village?

It'd have to be suitably subtle, of course.
 
Dear god I honestly wish we never asked for the damned summon scroll from Jiraya, this whole fucking place has been a waste of time.

Also Hazou has been doing basically nothing but slowly becoming what his whole clan wanted to avoid by not telling anyone about their special talent with Seals.
 
I absolutely hated the way last two votes went.

I expect the price of naivete of voters to be:
  • Keiko's death or desertion - 70%.
  • Noburi's death - 60%.
Congratulations, fellow players, instead of getting marginally stronger, our party just got two times weaker. I hope you are happy.

That said, I still insist on killing Takahashi. I will not support any plans where he is left alive for more than a day.


[X] Action Plan: Assimilation my a-
 
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HyperCatnip said:
Congratulations, fellow players, instead of getting marginally stronger, our party just got two times weaker. I hope you are happy.
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Stop being such a drama queen. How is it any more difficult to escape from the village now than it was in the last three votes?

Also, Assimilation my a- plan doesn't involve killing Takahashi, in case you want to vote like you preach.
 
Can we, perhaps, do something out of the left field, that upsets the applecart of village politics?

For example, suppose, hypothetically, that a member of the Kannagi clan were to murder Yuno. Whether they were framed or brainwashed or manipulated by one of Inoue's genjutsus, or were actually jealous of Yuno's role and thought they could do better with Noburi, is immaterial. Suddenly, Kannagi's main argument for the council seat evaporates, Gasai clan suddenly discovers how much they loved their prodigal daughter all this time, etc..

We, on the other hand, get to act aggrieved again, because our poor, poor Noburi (or whatever his alias is) will never love another.

Or, perhaps, Yuno, in her yanderrific rage, murders a Takahashi.
 
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[X] Action Plan: Poor Communication Kills

I'll be working on making my own stuff presentable now. But the idea of a short (time-wise) update to catch up is appealing.
 
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