Unaligned Player
Agony that desires to meet Extinction
- Location
- Adrift between sanity and madness
- Pronouns
- Shrug
[X] Action Plan: Voices of the Out
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
zap lunch
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Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Content review's never coming back because it exposes the Directors to legal liability for anything they approve.
As for the latter, I'm willing to consult.
- Location
- Why would this be required?
Ironically Hazo caring more about what his murder would do to Keiko's mental state than his death by her betrayal would make her feel way worse. It's the little details that really make the despair stingI love the fact that you're worried about what it would do to Keiko, not what it would do to Hazō. (i.e., kill him)
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
By the way: @huhYeahGoodPoint , I'm not sure when you intended to close voting, but the total is currently:
5 : Firebird Five
5 : GIS
1 : Combat
1 : Some combination combination
For the record, I expect to see a second chapter. No wussing out.
5 : Firebird Five
5 : GIS
1 : Combat
1 : Some combination combination
For the record, I expect to see a second chapter. No wussing out.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
If it takes me three weeks or months to update, well, that would be completely in line with my other stuff
slightly more seriously if I ever get far enough ahead of my studying and clear out the other stuff on my backlog I'll probably do it
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
See, that's not so bad. A little quid quo pro and both our lives are better, ne?
- Location
- Potato land
I know it's a bit late at this point, but keep in mind that we're essentially asking Ami to reveal Mori clan secrets to us. Offering her a significant token of trust in return sounds fair to me. As is, we're kind of being cagey about what we've actually done to let the Out invade our brain, while expecting her to shower us with Forbidden Lore out of the goodness of her heart. A bit of quid pro quo wouldn't hurt here, you know.
The problem here is more that knowledge about Kurosawa sealing potential is probably much easier for Ami leverage politically than knowledge about the Mori Voice is for us. I do think that if we got Ami to promise not to abuse it, she would keep that promise.
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
Would she?
Not trying to argue here, this is a genuine question because I am drawing a blank on whether Ami has displayed that her word can be trusted. But I also cannot come up with an instance indicating otherwise.
We know she has a system of favours that - as far as we can tell - she honors though I am not going to kid myself and pretend that founding the KEI ninja doesn't further her goals in some form either.
Which essentially leaves the question of what made you think Ami's word can be trusted? Was there something specific in the story or is it based on her (outwardly at least) fulfilling the favor we were owed?
All that said, we are also in a situation where we don't even know whether the information Ami could provide about Hazou's condition is valuable to us or not. And as long as we don't know what we are getting, I don't feel comfortable revealing Kurosawa secrets to her because I still do care about Hana's well-being. And not souring relations with the Mizukage also seems like a smart thing to do.
E:
To put it differently:
We are risking a lot more than Ami would be if we traded clan secrets.
If she wanted to, she could use this to blackmail us into doing whatever she wanted because she knows Hazou is still attached to his mother.
On the flipside, what could Hazou realistically do with Mori clan secrets? He has less ways to inferface with people in Mist but even if he could do that, would he? He knows how much Ami matters to Keiko so getting her into trouble after Keiko herself suggested we meet Ami is really, really not going to go over well with Keiko herself.
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Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
She can be trusted because if she isn't to be trusted then her whole system falls apart.
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
How confident are you that this is actually the case and not a situation where we just don't hear of people who got screwed by her? It's not like we talk to many people who had dealings with Ami and she only needs the reputation of being trustworthy - which for someone who seems to be able to do anything she sets her mind to seems easy enough to do.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Not in Konoha it isn't. SHe's still a foreign nin.
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
Right, but that isn't really relevant, is it?
What are the sources we know from that Ami has an allegedly trustworthy favor system going on? Ami herself, possibly Keiko (though I might be remembering that wrong) and OOC information related to AMI ninja.
The former two are clearly not an unbiased source and the latter is based in Mist.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
If betraying promises was a usual part of Ami's modus operandi, I would assume that her closest operatives would know about that.
- Location
- Kiev, Ukraine
Azai Jin is also deeply biased and may or may not only see the facáde Ami presents to him. We don't know enough about their relationship to tell certainly.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
How do you imagine this to work? He's one of her closest associates, she trusts him to run one of her main plots while she's away. If Ami frequently betrays people, either he would know about it from having worked alongside her on countless occasions, or she's working very hard to keep it a secret from him. If she's working to keep it a secret, it means the knowledge would negatively impact his loyalty to her. If she's used to betraying people and her closest associates would be alienated if they learned that, she's running her operation ridiculously, uncharacteristically sloppy.
I mean, obviously he knows only the facáde Ami presents to him; that is her modus operandi. But he's well-positioned to see discrepancies between that facáde and her actual actions, and if he doesn't, it's likely because the mask resembles her actual face well enough.
- Location
- US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Man. This story is really really hard to read for me. It bounces back and forth so hard from being really entertaining, to being really frustrating. Sometimes the things the team does and says are just so retarded and unbelievable that it breaks me out of the story entirely. This whole scene with Hazo threatening Kabuto to Jireya and getting the team imprisoned is so sudden and off tone it's immersion breaking. I can only guess that it's been chosen to give Hazo absolutely no character agency at all, and follow the quest votes to the letter, even when the voter doesn't perfectly consider tone or circumstance. The thing that's killing me is while a reader may not do so, there's no way a trained ninja in the tense and dangerous situation Hazo is in, wouldn't.
The flapping from hyper-competent to face-palming ineptitude gives me whiplash.
The flapping from hyper-competent to face-palming ineptitude gives me whiplash.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
That was, in fact, precisely the case. It's been relaxed a bit by now, but it's still tight enough control that we can get Hazou to do some very out-of-character and out-of-context things. This led to a conversation about that recently that went nowhere, as they usually do.
Whether Ami can be trusted depends on how much power she gave us (via Keiko) over KEI from her favor. Although since the favor she gave us was for us helping Keiko who she knows Hazou loves perhaps it doesn't have the full weight of a favor we gained through doing something we wouldn't have done. We don't really know what social agreement the KEI ninja agreed to when joining, although we can guess from the speech Ami/Kei/Naruto gave to convince ninja to join.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
You get the 2000 IQ moves along with the big dummy moments.
IMO the former moments outweigh the later in enjoyment (compared to disjoyment) and frequency.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fair warning: This is a little lot rambly, disorganized, and may not actually come to much of a point. Still, it's late and I'm feeling all poetical and like this is an important topic, so bear with me.
The context
The original intent of the quest was that Hazō was a meatpuppet of the hivemind, with the only restriction being that they could not deliver OOC information to him, such as the fact that Nagato lived in Rain and was working on the Moon's EyeIdiocy Plan. (He wasn't, because the MEP was stupid and we refused to have it in our game.)
The incident you're referring to ("the killbox") was the cause of that changing; people got grumpy with us for having Hazō do what was in the plan without applying his own agency, so the QMs and the players discussed it, had a vote, and agreed that okay, now Hazō was a character with his own agency and he would sometimes refuse to follow through on certain parts of a plan based on in-character knowledge that was not available to the players because they aren't part of the universe. Likewise, he might do things that were not in a plan.
The problem in teal deer
How do we balance Hazō's agency against the players' agency?
The problem in detail
The point of a quest is to let the players have agency and, through that agency, the right to take satisfaction in their successes. In order to take pleasure in success, there must be the possibility of failure, since there's no pride to be had in winning a one-person race. If Hazō (i.e., the QM writing that update) fixes every mistake the players make and only allows your successful ideas to go through...what's the point? At that point you aren't reading a quest, you're reading a novel where the author will occasionally listen to suggestions from the peanut gallery.
There's a spectrum of approaches on how an author / playerbase could approach this. Among the options:
Beyond that, it's not just the "there must be a chance of failure for success to matter" thing. If the QM regularly modifies or ignores the plan, where are the limits on that? Can I decide "The players want to go have meetings with Hinata and Shino to foster inter-clan political relations, but that sounds friggin' boring. I'd rather he go out in the woods and punch dangerous animals, then bring the carcasses back and sell them for tons of money"? It's a successful and reasonable strategy that will benefit the players...but it's not what they voted for. Is it cool for me to do that? Can I gut the entire plan and fulfill just the bullet points in a way completely distinct from what the players decided on?
Here's an example that actually happened: The players somehow got the idea that the Force Wall seal is reactionless. (I think it was because the QMs made an OOC post that said something along the lines of "if you punch the Wall it does not rip the seals" and the players interpreted that to mean that the force applied to the Wall just vanished. Not sure.) @Jello_Raptor took that idea and ran with it, producing an amazing piece of work that, unfortunately, was based on a misapprehension: Force Wall seals are not in fact reactionless. If the players voted in a plan consisting of "build that thing", how should we handle that? Should we waste an update, perhaps multiple updates, on Hazō trying and failing to build this thing that cannot possibly succeed? Should we write three paragraphs in which he does an experiment that proves it doesn't work like that and then the update ends so that the players can re-vote? Should we do that last idea and then do whatever we want for the next ~3k words? What if "what we want" forecloses some option that the players wanted to do?
What about when the players' ideas of how things work don't match up with those of the QMs? For example, the players took this collection of facts:
What do we do there?
So, yeah. Not a simple question. We try to strike a balance between letting the players earn the credit and letting Hazō not be an idiot. It's hard to pin down exact rules on this since the entire situation is so fluid, but here are some guidelines on when Hazō will ignore or modify hivemind suggestions. THIS LIST IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE. IT IS THE MORE-OR-LESS OFFHAND PRODUCT OF A TIRED BRAIN AND IS INTENDED FOR EXAMPLE, NOT FOR NORMATIVE CONTENT.
Hazō will typically ignore the hivemind...
So, yeah. No good answers. We muddle along. Hopefully this post helps a bit with the framing.
Yeah, it's an issue, and there isn't a good solution.
The context
The original intent of the quest was that Hazō was a meatpuppet of the hivemind, with the only restriction being that they could not deliver OOC information to him, such as the fact that Nagato lived in Rain and was working on the Moon's Eye
The incident you're referring to ("the killbox") was the cause of that changing; people got grumpy with us for having Hazō do what was in the plan without applying his own agency, so the QMs and the players discussed it, had a vote, and agreed that okay, now Hazō was a character with his own agency and he would sometimes refuse to follow through on certain parts of a plan based on in-character knowledge that was not available to the players because they aren't part of the universe. Likewise, he might do things that were not in a plan.
The problem in teal deer
How do we balance Hazō's agency against the players' agency?
The problem in detail
The point of a quest is to let the players have agency and, through that agency, the right to take satisfaction in their successes. In order to take pleasure in success, there must be the possibility of failure, since there's no pride to be had in winning a one-person race. If Hazō (i.e., the QM writing that update) fixes every mistake the players make and only allows your successful ideas to go through...what's the point? At that point you aren't reading a quest, you're reading a novel where the author will occasionally listen to suggestions from the peanut gallery.
There's a spectrum of approaches on how an author / playerbase could approach this. Among the options:
- The MC is a direct avatar. Players can have them transcribe Wikipedia into the game world and that's totally cool. OTOH, you'll have no cultural knowledge and will constantly violate cultural norms.
- The MC is a direct avatar with some limitations -- maybe "no providing OOC information about the canon setting that this is a fanfic of" or "no importing 21st century science" or "no romance because he's a minor and we don't want to risk attracting the attention of the mods since that's unpleasant and disruptive for all concerned even if it's eventually determined that there wasn't anything wrong in the first place." OTOH, this has the same issues as #1.
- The MC does what the players want unless the author thinks it's a mistake, at which point the MC does something else that will succeed instead of failing. Problem: Renders player agency pointless.
- Same as previous point except the actions taken by the MC are not guaranteed to succeed. Problem: The players don't see the alternate world in which their plan was enacted and failed, so if the author has the MC take an action that has negative consequences, the players will probably feel that the QM is screwing them and things would have been fine if the plan had been followed.
- The MC is a person inside the setting and the in-thread discussion is effectively whispers into their subconscious that may, at the discretion of the QM, nudge them in particular directions. This is really just a novel where the author takes suggestions, but at least it's less likely that the MC will be killboxed for threatening a senior Leaf doctor to the face of the demigod who the MC is working for.
Beyond that, it's not just the "there must be a chance of failure for success to matter" thing. If the QM regularly modifies or ignores the plan, where are the limits on that? Can I decide "The players want to go have meetings with Hinata and Shino to foster inter-clan political relations, but that sounds friggin' boring. I'd rather he go out in the woods and punch dangerous animals, then bring the carcasses back and sell them for tons of money"? It's a successful and reasonable strategy that will benefit the players...but it's not what they voted for. Is it cool for me to do that? Can I gut the entire plan and fulfill just the bullet points in a way completely distinct from what the players decided on?
Here's an example that actually happened: The players somehow got the idea that the Force Wall seal is reactionless. (I think it was because the QMs made an OOC post that said something along the lines of "if you punch the Wall it does not rip the seals" and the players interpreted that to mean that the force applied to the Wall just vanished. Not sure.) @Jello_Raptor took that idea and ran with it, producing an amazing piece of work that, unfortunately, was based on a misapprehension: Force Wall seals are not in fact reactionless. If the players voted in a plan consisting of "build that thing", how should we handle that? Should we waste an update, perhaps multiple updates, on Hazō trying and failing to build this thing that cannot possibly succeed? Should we write three paragraphs in which he does an experiment that proves it doesn't work like that and then the update ends so that the players can re-vote? Should we do that last idea and then do whatever we want for the next ~3k words? What if "what we want" forecloses some option that the players wanted to do?
What about when the players' ideas of how things work don't match up with those of the QMs? For example, the players took this collection of facts:
- Jiraiya was Naruto's godfather, mentor, and friend
- Jiraiya was also the head of the Gōketsu clan and the adoptive father of Hazō et al
- Jiraiya wanted Naruto to join the Gōketsu clan and succeed him as Clan Head
- Naruto and Hazō had met and gotten along pretty well
- We know a lot about the backstory and personality of Naruto-the-character was like in Naruto-the-manga/anime; we liked his character in those media, and he seems to generally have the same appearance and personality here.
What do we do there?
- Tell the players OOC that they're making a mistake?
- Note: If this is suddenly our responsibility then what happens when we are busy and not paying attention to the thread? Are we at fault for allowing the players to make a mistake?
- Have Hazō recognize the mistake in-universe and implement the "extort-the-Hokage" plan except don't ask Naruto to be part of it? The result of that is going to be him getting thrown in a killbox again, assuming Hiashi doesn't simply kill him on the spot.
- Have Hazō recognize the mistake in-universe and completely ignore the plan?
- What do we do with the update?
- Write an interlude?
- Write a real chapter but Hazō is doing whatever we want him to?
- What happens if that chapter produces some negative consequences, or even just interferes with player plans, perhaps just by taking time that they wanted to do something else with?
- What do we do with the update?
So, yeah. Not a simple question. We try to strike a balance between letting the players earn the credit and letting Hazō not be an idiot. It's hard to pin down exact rules on this since the entire situation is so fluid, but here are some guidelines on when Hazō will ignore or modify hivemind suggestions. THIS LIST IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE. IT IS THE MORE-OR-LESS OFFHAND PRODUCT OF A TIRED BRAIN AND IS INTENDED FOR EXAMPLE, NOT FOR NORMATIVE CONTENT.
Hazō will typically ignore the hivemind...
- ...if he has in-character knowledge (generally cultural) that the players do not have and that knowledge suggests that the plan is a bad idea.
- ...if it strongly violates an established part of his characterization. No matter what the players put in the plan, Hazō will not toast marshmallows over the embers of the orphanage-slash-puppy farm that he just burned down.
- ...if it violates a significant current situational element. For example, at one point the players voted for him to go to Yamanaka Neira for counseling, but Hazō was processing too much grief and anger at the time to want to deal with a woman who had been as cruel to him as Neira had been.
So, yeah. No good answers. We muddle along. Hopefully this post helps a bit with the framing.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Possibilities:
1. Veto stupid and suicidal plans in the planning stage. "Threatening the Hokage is stupid. Are you seriously going to spam drugs to contact the Out?"
1a. Offer this benefit only to plans with a very short length (ex: 100 words or less).
2. Hazo will interpret plans in a not-suicidal way unless outright specified. The 'Threaten the Hokage' vote will be interpreted as 'Send Mari to the Hokage' or 'Negotiate with the Hokage'.
2a. Offer this benefit only to plans with a very short length (ex: 100 words or less).
3. You know what, just run with it and let Hazo die and go and reroll new characters.
4. Tell players their plan is obviously crazy after voting has concluded, offer them the chance to pay 10 EXP to revote something more sane instead.
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