Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Kiba · Dec 5, 2019

That's why it's a good idea to offer reasonable multiple choices that we players can see, representing in-universe 'reasonable' decisions that Hazo would make. Rather than listing twenty options, list four or five. Be it something we can actually vote on.

Something like this:

[X] Work with the Hokage to contain Orochimaru.
[X] Accompany Mari to the tower to make a deal on the Shimura estate.
[X] Do both.
~~[X] Threaten the hokage.~~

Or something like this:

[X] Work the refugee problem.
[X] Go to the commander's tent and help out. And listen for political and strategic information.
[X] Accompany Mari on business to the MC.
~~[X] Go tell Rock ninja to GTFO.~~

Except with better options, because I can't think of any. I should add that to my suggestion for reforms.

Anyway, these options will better inform the players the reasonable range of choices and give us additional contexts. A crossed out option can represent the dumbest possible things we can do. If we voted for that, that's on us, and there will be a lot of salt regardless.

This way, we attenuate the high variance outcome of the system away from dumber actions, because for whatever reason, we don't always know what's absolutely stupid.

Rhodes · Dec 5, 2019

eaglejarl said:
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.

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 ~~Idiocy~~ 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:

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.

There's more and those aren't perfectly ordered, but you get the idea.

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.

...and turned this into "Naruto is now our close ally and will back us up against all other threats, including those from people he grew up with / around." The QMs are thinking "Hang on, you met this kid like, what, 6 weeks ago?" but the players are thinking "Sure, he'll help us extort the Hokage into giving us a summoning scroll." (Note: There's a lot more context to that particular story that I don't want to get into right here because this is already long and rambly. Some of that context is important and helped to shape the players' beliefs, meaning that I'm being unfairly flippant in my summary here. Take it for the indicator that it's intended as; I'm happy to discuss it separately if anyone is interested.

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?

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.

Have you considered using more structured votes? Instead of just asking players what to do now, you could instead request that we make plans adhering to a certain timeframe and addressing objectives that Hazou (the character) believes are important and should be addressed. I think something like that might help with both the pacing issues we ran into during the Hokage elections arc, and help make player votes a bit more focused (and therefore less likely to veer off into killbox or lighthouse territory). It would also help express Hazou's agency while demanding a certain amount of agency from the players as well.

Lailoken · Dec 5, 2019

eaglejarl said:
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.

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 ~~Idiocy~~ 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:

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.

There's more and those aren't perfectly ordered, but you get the idea.

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.

...and turned this into "Naruto is now our close ally and will back us up against all other threats, including those from people he grew up with / around." The QMs are thinking "Hang on, you met this kid like, what, 6 weeks ago?" but the players are thinking "Sure, he'll help us extort the Hokage into giving us a summoning scroll." (Note: There's a lot more context to that particular story that I don't want to get into right here because this is already long and rambly. Some of that context is important and helped to shape the players' beliefs, meaning that I'm being unfairly flippant in my summary here. Take it for the indicator that it's intended as; I'm happy to discuss it separately if anyone is interested.

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?

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.

It really seems pretty simple:

IF: Hazou reasonably would be expected to have contraindicating knowledge the hivemind reasonably would not:

Interrupt. Substitute character's best attempt to fulfill objectives without being a solopistically presumptive nutjob.

ELSE:

Proceed as specified.

The point of giving Hazou agency is to compensate for an interface failure where the hivemind cannot know the full context of the world the character inhabits. The patch should be exclusively focused on that. If the players vote to bring Ino flowers in commiseration of the loss of her mother, but Hazou can be reasonably expected and the hivemind cannot be reasonably expected to know that bringing flowers on a full moon is flower-speak for "I just defecated on the graves of your ancestors", he should substitute a socially appropriate method of demonstrating the same sentiment.

If the plan has Hazou prying his eyes out of his skull and attempting to insert stolen Hyuuga bulbs, no interrupt should occur, because the expected results of impromptu field-neurosurgery should be simultaneously obvious to both the character and the hivemind.

Rafin · Dec 5, 2019

eaglejarl said:
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?

If you're too busy to tell us our mistake, aren't you also too busy to write the update? You can't really write a chapter in which Hazō makes a glaringly bad mistake without having clearly noticed said mistake in the plan.

And regarding the when you should inform us and when you should let us do our mistake, here is what I have in mind:
Imagine 2 Hazōs. One that is the meatpuppet with limitations and one which is your character if this were suddenly a novel instead of a quest. The first one relays his plan to the second one, trying convince him. If the second one's is "haha no, are you stupid" or worse, don't go with the plan and tell us to fix it instead. If the second Hazō's response is anything more ambiguous, then actual Hazō goes through with it instead, though with a bit more caution and insecurity depending on how ambiguous the second Hazō's approval of the first one was.

Emstar · Dec 5, 2019

I have proposed an in-depth analysis already to patch this issue. See below:

MMKII said:
We best stop threatening motherfuckers for the foreseeable future.

hYGP · Dec 5, 2019

(X) Firebird Five: Kagome, Mari, Lee, Honoka, Neji

6

"Gai-sensei! Today is a most youthful day!" Lee exclaimed, beginning his most youthful warm-up for the day: ten thousand one-finger pushups, one thousand per finger.

"Do you know why, sensei?" he asked Gai. "It is because one week from today, we will begin a most youthful expedition with Hazou and Neji!"

To prepare for the next stage of the warmup, Lee increased the strength of his resistance seals under his youthsuit. One thousand star jumps with a resistance of two thousand, without cracking the ground.

"We'll bring the spirit of Youth to new places and times, to hear Hazou describe it! In fact," Lee said, breathing just a hair too heavy for this stage in the workout, "we will even be able to bring the spirit of Youth to people we once knew!" His resistance settings weren't high enough. He needed to be more youthful - everyone was counting on him to be as youthful as possible.

When the resistance hit ten thousand, Lee nodded, and began his set of one hundred perfect straight punches.

"That's right, Gai-sensei. Hazou said that the journey was to bring back the dead, and if there is anybody youthful enough to do it, it's Hazou," Lee said, struggling to hold form.

A hot wetness rolled down his cheek, and Lee knew why his form was off.

"Gai-sensei, I'm coming for you," he said, raising his arm to catch his tears.

The granite inscription of Maito Gai's name did not respond.

It had become an old habit, Neji reflected, to come back to the dusty chambers of the Hyuuga libraries, diminished as they were from their peak. Here, he was unlikely to be disturbed, and here he had acquired a staggering breadth of knowledge - knowledge he had once been unappreciative of. Like the mold that Neji occasionally had to purge, however, the place had grown on him. Here was calm, and here was understandable, after ten long years of his assignment here. He could tell the position of every scroll on the wall, and condense the knowledge contained within any one scroll down to one sentence or expand it out to an entire day. Neji even grew to appreciate the musty smell of the air as he meditated on his past, on the great hatred that had collected at his center, and the task ahead.

When he activated his Byakugan to complete the meditation, he blinked in shock.

"Lady Hanabi, Lady Hinata, I apologize," Neji quickly said, rising to bow at a right angle. "I should have prepared refresh - "

"Cousin Neji, there is no need for that," Hinata said, matching his bow. "You do not need to be so formal around your cousins."

"Like she said," Hanabi said, pouting slightly.

"A-ah. I apologize," Neji said, bowing again.

"What did we just say, Neji?" Hinata asked bemusedly, eyes twinkling. Hanabi, behind her, continued to pout and fidget, averting her gaze.

"I understand, Hinata," Neji sighed. "Well, then - "

Hanabi suddenly leapt out and hugged Neji.

"Gah?" Neji sputtered.

"Don't die, Neji. I won't forgive you if you do," Hanabi glared, holding onto Neji tightly. Neji awkwardly patted back, alternating between glancing at Hanabi's menacing glare and Hinata's beatific smile.

"Make us proud, Neji," Hinata nodded. "I know you can."

For the first time in years, the great ball of hatred loosened.

"Aww, Honoka, why'd you have to go?" Sayaka complained. "If you're not around, Ino-sensei is going to be extra hard on us, you know?"

Honoka held up one finger as she continued to devour Yua's patented meat stew. At the rate she was going, she'd be able to leave Chikako's three bowls in the dust - not that it would deter Chikako from trying to keep up anyway. Also, Yua made delicious meat stew, and Honoka wasn't going to waste any by letting it grow cold.

Finally, she gulped. "'Cause I'm so cool Hazou-sensei and Kagome-sensei asked me to go with them and blow up a bunch of stinkers," Honoka casually shrugged. "Also, just between us, Kagome's real worried about the whole thing, and wants someone else to help," she conspirationally whispered.

"'S not fair," Chikako said between gulps. "You get to go with Hazou-sensei and Mari-sensei, and meanwhile we're stuck with Ino-sensei."

"Who's stuck with who?" Ino asked, sidling up the side of the counter.

Sayaka and Chikako instantly turned their best innocent smile at Ino. Ino scoffed, and flicked her ponytail to the side. "Girls, I perfected that technique. Did you really think I was going to fall for it?"

Sayaka nudged Honoka, who also turned an innocent smile at Ino - albeit with her soup spoon still in her mouth.

Ino sighed, smiling. "You little hellions, it absolutely does. C'mere," she said, threateningly extending her hands towards her genin's hair.

The three of them ducked their heads and covered their hair - leaving Sayaka and Chikako wide open for Ino's headlock, which both girls protested loudly.

Honoka braced herself. If she was excluded, then -

Ino winked at her.

"Go get 'em, tiger. You have my blessing," Ino said.

Honoka gaped for a second, before nodding.

"I won't let you down, sensei!"

Hazou pulled his facial muscles into a smile, and adjusted his internal ocular muscles. A departure celebration was certainly within expectations, but a gathering of hundreds of people within the Goketsu Main Hall was on the higher end of said projections. Hazou would be surprised, if he wasn't certain that this was Yuina's way of making a point. The speech had been a close thing, but ultimately not a problem - not nearly so much a problem as what came after.

What came after, of course, was nearly everybody with a stake in the project coming to tell him off, in their best formal clothes.

"Really, Hazou? Taking Mari, Kagome, and Honoka, and leaving me all your hard work as head?" Noburi said. "That was just downright cruel, bro," he said, shaking his head as he planted his hands on his dress uniform. His smile and slight laugh told Hazou a different story, as did Yuno's eye roll and light cuff to the shoulder. "You'll do great, Enno," Yuno said, in her disturbing smile. "Won't he?"

"You'll do great, Noburi," Hazou said, nodding his head. Noburi would, he was sure.

"Yeah, count on it, bro," Noburi smiled, offering his fist. Hazou bumped back.

"Regardless of his delusions of grandeur, Noburi is correct," Keiko said, rolling her eyes. You are leaving us with the operations of your many projects, without your assistance. While I do not want to gainsay Yuina's abilities, the teams, Village, and...clan will be less for your passing, Hazou," Keiko nodded. Shikamaru, standing next to Keiko, took his hands out of his pockets to sign my compatriot has said the necessary words and I signal my agreement.

As Hazou turned his head and braced his footing, Akane was already in motion. Even knowing it was coming, Hazou was still rocked back by the strength of her bonecrushing hug. The sensation of a dozen different feelings passed through his body, as he accepted the hug from someone whose trust he had knowingly discarded all those years ago. His own perfect muscle memory made for long recollections of poor justifications for hurting someone who he had - and still did, to some small extent - feelings for.

"Don't die, Hazou," Akane said heavily, sniffling slightly.

"I won't," Hazou said, patting Akane's back.

As expected, Yuina was next, so he turned to preempt her.

"Yuina, I'll be counting on you," Hazou said, placing his hand on her shoulder.

Yuina grinned a sharp grin and nodded. "I will, Hazou. You don't need to worry about that," she said, eyes misting over just slightly. "That said," she hesitated, glancing over at Akane.

Akane nodded, eyes already closing from happy tears.

Yuina hugged Hazou. "Come back, Hazou. We need you."

"Come now," Hazou replied, smiling, as his gut roiled in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of Akane, "don't sell yourself short. You helped prepare for my retirement, right?"

"It's not the same," Yuina insisted, hugging Hazou as tightly as a civilian could. "I need you."

The shock knocked Hazou into autopilot - he suspected that Yuina also cared for him, but he wasn't expecting Yuina to say that at this point. He almost didn't register Yuina pulling back, and out of the way of the second woman to wrap him in a bonecrushing hug that night: Hana, hugging Hazou tight with all the strength of a kenjutsu-spec jonin.

"I'm so proud of you, son," she whispered, crying into his shoulder. Hazou instinctively hugged back, before very carefully cracking open his eyes in panic - Mari and Hana, to his knowledge, still hadn't resolved their issues, and one reintroduction could end in just as great a disaster as the last time they met. Keiko and Yuina quietly signaled that the issue was dealt with, as Hana tapped deeper into her sense of self and hugged Hazou even tighter.

"I'll come back, momma," Hazou said. "We'll bake cookies again, with Papa," he quietly promised.

"Promise, cricket?" Hana said, in between soft sobs.

"Promise, momma."

Marked For Death Voyage: Even if the Way is Far

The sensation of Universal Travel was impossible to describe, even for Hazou - all his metaphors seemed to fail to encompass the entirety and enormity of what had just occured. It was the sense of an infinite series collapsing to zero, the emotion of instant becoming eternity and vice versa, the taste of transcendental color and sound. It was an infinity, and it was nothing. It was nauseatingly debiliating, and it was the calmest Hazou had ever felt.

Kagome, Honoka and Neji's retching noises indicated otherwise.

Still holding his breath, Hazou opened his eyes.

An alien vista presented itself before him. Where Nagi Island was surrounded by ocean on all sides, a great expanse of glowing green hills extended in one direction as far as the eye could see. Not only that, the sky was colored wrongly - instead of a blue sky, the sky was colored in the permanent light of the aurora, with slight shimmers rolled throughout the sky. Out of curiousity, Hazou lifted his arm, and waved it in front of his face, and then brought his fingers to reflexively cast Dispel. A reminder about his drained reserves warned him off from that measure, but Kagome's muttered "stupid world travelling, don't know why I agreed to this stinking thing" convinced Hazou that he probably wasn't in a genjutsu.

The alternate world was real.

They had punched through to another world.

The Universal Travel had succeeded.

Hazou then noticed three things very quickly: The hills were rolling towards them at a visible rate, the ocean was draining alarmingly fast, and the aurora was plunging downward at a shockingly fast rate.

"Everyone, activate your GUTS suits! Neji, tell us about the incoming!" Hazou barked out, digging into his emptied chakra reserves for the smallest spark. His vision grew faint, and the feeling of everything but the drain from the suit faded into the distance. At the edge of passing out, Hazou heard the characteristic whine of the ANGEL S7 Engine spin up, and suddenly chakra began pouring back into his body.

As fast as he could, chakra tendrils shot out to kickstart his team's engines. With every second, Hazou cast out his GUTS suit's sensors to the limit, as he pumped everything else into the tendrils. Not that the sensors felt necessary - half a mile away towards the plains, a mole the size of the former Hokage Tower burst out of the ground and bared its fangs, while the orange shell of a crab the size of a clan compound emerged out onto the drained ocean bay and clicked its claws together. The aurora did not do anything quite so obvious, but Hazou was certain that the shimmers in the air was the precursor to a massive lightning-wind jutsu, because of course they would be.

Hazou cursed. Only Neji and Lee's engines had restarted. He only had enough time and chakra to do one thing.

() Use defensive expendables.
() Focus on starting everyone's GUTS suit.
() Kill the threats with Neji and Lee.

Rafin · Dec 5, 2019

Lailoken said:
If the plan has Hazou prying his eyes out of his skull and attempting to insert stolen Hyuuga bulbs, no interrupt should occur, because the expected results of impromptu field-neurosurgery should be simultaneously obvious to both the character and the hivemind.

I disagree. This puts the burden on the QMs to judge what is and isn't "glaringly obvious" to us. So even in this case Hazō should not go through with it.

Though even better would be if in either of your examples the QMs just tell us why they think we are doing something really stupid without spoiling the exact results, and allow us to either vote in a new plan or double down.

Veedrac · Dec 5, 2019

eaglejarl said:
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.

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 ~~Idiocy~~ 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:

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.

There's more and those aren't perfectly ordered, but you get the idea.

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.

...and turned this into "Naruto is now our close ally and will back us up against all other threats, including those from people he grew up with / around." The QMs are thinking "Hang on, you met this kid like, what, 6 weeks ago?" but the players are thinking "Sure, he'll help us extort the Hokage into giving us a summoning scroll." (Note: There's a lot more context to that particular story that I don't want to get into right here because this is already long and rambly. Some of that context is important and helped to shape the players' beliefs, meaning that I'm being unfairly flippant in my summary here. Take it for the indicator that it's intended as; I'm happy to discuss it separately if anyone is interested.

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?

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.

I have two qualms with this framing.

First, it's wrong to paint this as a black-and-white fuck-up-or-not thing, where failure only comes from doing particularly stupid things, and not doing that means we win. The challenge this world presents comes primarily from its cutthroat nature, where every mission comes with a risk of death, and politics moves in hostile ways. Hazō and co. need to perform well above average just to stay afloat; it's perfectly reasonable for us to lose not by any blatant error, but a simple failure to perform above expectations.

Secondly, in my opinion the recent Naruto issue was only in small part from Hazō going in with the wrong foot. Most of the issue was that Hazō didn't read the air at all. When Hazō says "I guess Naruto not being on board will mean some changes to the plan," it feels things have gone beyond natural consequences of having a poor plan, and into rubbing-it-in territory. The update could very reasonably have had him course-correct slightly before the first word spoken in the update, and there would have still been consequences, but more in-line with what one would expect from the setting.

cc @Velorien since I don't want to criticize behind his back

Lailoken · Dec 5, 2019

Rafin said:
I disagree. This puts the burden on the QMs to judge what is and isn't "glaringly obvious" to us. So even in this case Hazō should not go through with it.

Though even better would be if in either of your examples the QMs just tell us why they think we are doing something really stupid without spoiling the exact results, and allow us to either vote in a new plan or double down.

Note that the only standard I've invoked so far is "reasonable".

I'm not familiar with any human society where prying ones eyes out of their own skull and summarily severing the optic nerves was not a naively "glaringly obviously" bad idea.

I feel that adding another layer to the GM responsibilities doesn't produce a value commensurate with the investment*

*Except with regards to Kagome**

**Because, Kagome.

ContextBot · Dec 5, 2019

@eaglejarl , you should probably spoiler some of your post.

@Absoloot , doesn't know about the recent "problems".

Sentient Tree · Dec 5, 2019

(X) Focus on starting everyone's GUTS suit.
- (X) Have defensive expendables ready to go in case there's an attack someone can't dodge or you don't finish restarting everyone's GUTS suits in time.

Awesome omake, @huhYeahGoodPoint !
I'll just leave this vote here in case you want to do another one.

faflec · Dec 5, 2019

Lailoken said:
I'm not familiar with any human society where prying ones eyes out of their own skull and summarily severing the optic nerves was not a naively "glaringly obviously" bad idea.

KISHIMOTO: *shifts nervously*

Emstar · Dec 5, 2019

faflec said:
KISHIMOTO: *shifts nervously*

My sleep addled mind was quite alarmed by this, as it took it to mean that Kishimoto was nervously attempting an attack on the very cornerstones of reality to make it so that eyeball batteries have never not always been a thing.

Briefvoice · Dec 5, 2019

This message board is full of quests. It is literally a board for the purposes of posting quests. All of them have their own solutions to the agency problem, but attempts to resolve the agency problem for this quest almost never involve reference to, "Do it like Quest X does it."

I understand that the QMs apparently don't read other quests, but it blows my mind that apparently all the most active players don't either.

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.

The strange thing to me about this quote @eaglejarl is that in Marked for Death you have explictly chosen to implement a detailed randomized mechanical system on top of player decision making. Everything has the possibility of failure, even good decisions, if it results in an action the QMs actually roll for!

Have you considered maybe you should just "roll for it" for more things, even things you as QMs think are unlikely but not impossible to work, and at least give Hazou a chance to win by "the blessings of the dice". Especially when it comes to NPC reactions you could chose to randomize them a bit more and say, "Well this is how we QMs think this person will react, but we'll model that by placing that reaction at the most probable points on the probability curve. He could do something different though!"

The ideal situation would be for players to be making decisions where they have an understanding of the risks-rewards that is at least as good as Hazou himself has and then make their plans based on the risks they think are worth taking and what narrative goals they think are worth pursuing. I believe that is the essential "agency" that many players are looking for in quests.

EDIT:

Naruto Reaction Roll

2 - Physically assaults Hazou, inflicting a moderate consequence
3-6 - Throws Hazou out and holds grudge
7-9 - Explains why this seems actively traitorous and throws Hazou out
10-11 - Takes pity and treats Hazou like a ninja having a PTSD episode who doesn't know what they're saying
12 - Fuck Hiashi; this sounds like a great plan once we modify it to make the threats more subtle and less openly treasonous.

Emstar · Dec 5, 2019

Briefvoice said:
This message board is full of quests. It is literally a board for the purposes of posting quests. All of them have their own solutions to the agency problem, but attempts to resolve the agency problem for this quest almost never involve reference to, "Do it like Quest X does it."

I understand that the QMs apparently don't read other quests, but it blows my mind that apparently all the most active players don't either.

If you could point me to something that is roughly as simulationist and allows write -ins on the scale of MfD without it boiling down to "Choose your flavor of victory and the ETA of the inevitable party bus." I'd certainly be interested in reading it.

OliWhail · Dec 5, 2019

Briefvoice said:
I understand that the QMs apparently don't read other quests, but it blows my mind that apparently all the most active players don't either.

Not my fault that most of the other quests I've been into were civ-based

Briefvoice · Dec 5, 2019

MMKII said:
If you could point me to something that is roughly as simulationist and allows write -ins on the scale of MfD without it boiling down to "Choose your flavor of victory and the ETA of the inevitable party bus." I'd certainly be interested in reading it.

puella-magi-adfligo-systema-story-only.9091

In terms of the openness of the write-ins, at least. Most quests are of the opinion that write-ins are bad and destroy quests, so "all write-in quests" are hard to find.

Of course, Puella Adfligo doesn't have a mechanical system backing it either; it's mostly just what the QM thinks will happen in response to the votes, even "science" votes.

There might be a lesson there about so many people being convinced something is a bad idea?

Tua · Dec 5, 2019

Briefvoice said:
puella-magi-adfligo-systema-story-only.9091

In terms of the openness of the write-ins, at least. Most quests are of the opinion that write-ins are bad and destroy quests, so "all write-in quests" are hard to find.

It's an entertaining story to read, that's for sure, but not without its issues.

I mostly read just the story updates so there is always a chance I missed something but I do remember the QM shooting down @Sentient Tree's battle optimizations for Walpurgisnacht - which, supposedly, is the endgame of the quest. And even though a lot of the conflict does in fact revolve around hostilities, combat is pretty much always guaranteed to go in the player character's favor because her team is just ridiculously OP. The QM asserts that combat power isn't the driving force in the quest but when a lot of the angst is whether the characters will survive Walpurgisnacht this time around rings somewhat hollow.

But the worst part is that things the players post outside of votes actually makes it into the player character's head. Why is this bad? Maybe pointing out that I only found about this after reading the Staff Posts moderating players blaming each other for putting the wrong thoughts into the PCs head even though those happened outside of votes would help show why.

Could you imagine this happening in MfD? Silly one-off jokes aside like Hazou wanting to wear a Youthsuit for real, it would stifle discussion because we'd have to censor ourselves. No longer could we argue for stuff in broad strokes with the expectation that others will take a look and agree or disagree with it so we can collectively come up with something the majority agrees with.

An example:

> Orochimaru is the best, let's join him unconditionally!
> Orochimaru is evil, let's not.
> Orochimaru is complicated. Here is why: <stuff>
> OK, so maybe we need a more nuanced approach.
> How about we probe for information first and then decide?

If at any point one of these posts gets take out of context even though none but the last, refined point made it into the vote then how would that be a net benefit to the quest?

Either way, not entirely sure where I was going with this except, I suppose, to contrast that this quest has a few (unique?) things going for them and that being unlike other quests on this site isn't just a Bad Thing.

faflec · Dec 5, 2019

Tua said:
> Orochimaru is the best, let's join him unconditionally!

VELORIEN: Well I was gonna give you an update on Forbidden Lore, but since you insisted...

Emstar · Dec 5, 2019

Briefvoice said:
There might be a lesson there about so many people being convinced something is a bad idea?

I don't see the inherent problem? It depends on what you're going for.

"Choose options 1-5." quests to me are essentially CYOA books. There is virtually no game aspect to it, but they can make for very engaging stories with a thread-voted-in flavor.

I think the preference clash here ultimately comes down to a fundamental disconnect between what type of quest some folks want to participate in.

I don't just pop in for five seconds to throw a vote for [X] Option B, I can get a whole lot more creative than that. Likewise, I don't see much of a difference between option votes and the following:

Mr. QM said:
Option 1: Stuff Player A could have thought of in five seconds.

Option 2: Stuff Player A could have thought of in an additional five seconds.

Option 3: Thing Player B suggested two days ago.

Option 4: Thing thats been on the backburner for 4 months OOC.

Option 5: Cheeky reference to Nth ongoing plot in Discord channel.

Option 6: Go punch the fuck out of things.

Option 7: Go punch the shit out of things with Keiko/Ami (includes depression and insanity).

Option 8: (Write in of your choice).

Aside:

Personally, I'm here because @eaglejarl and @Velorien manage to knock it out of the park pretty much without fail every single week with the writing, but they've also created a very enjoyable and sometimes quite challenging game for me to play.

But that's it, its a story and a game. There's overlap where one aspect is going to make the other less enjoyable, but theres also overlap where they make each other much more enjoyable. There's a bunch of people who --when asked for their favorite plot relevant events- will probably respond with "Ch 257: Never Break Character. That shit was dope, I've read it 100 times." or "The series of chapters where we mocked that one guy into oblivion before blowing ourselves up and patching the problems up afterwards by seducing that blonde chick that was some straight James Bond stuff." or "When we talked to that crazy chick for a couple chapters and things ended up working out really well!"

There was work that needed to be done for all of that. I don't think it really shines through if you're skipping thread discussion or binge reading the story. If you have some clever idea during the read through of Chapter N thats a posteri validated by the results of Chapter N+1, you're not actually there when someone in thread is like "Here's actually a good argument for why your clever idea might not work." and then you have to grapple with the uncertainty there (or the opposite scenario).

Double aside:

Recently we've also got folks going on about difficulty like:

GenericPoster said:
Difficulty meter too high, please turn down.

Jeez, GenericPoster, would you chill out for a moment?

Not only is the difficulty half the fun, but we're getting close to the tipping point here.

GenericPoster said:
What do you mean tipping point?

Within the next 100 to 200 chapters (hopefully after some faster paced stuff), there will be a tipping point after which the generic "No, Hazou can't have nice things." is just an implausible result. By dint of pure stats, sealing cleverness, or the power of The Friends We Made Along The Way, it'll happen if we make it there.

GenericPoster said:
Ok? I don't see your point. I want to do (insert pet objective), not waste time --by which I mean not spending every moment constantly pursuing my pet objectives selfishly in character to the exclusion of all else--for 100 chapters doing stuff and waiting to have fun later.

GenericPoster, you're missing the punchline to the grand joke of "Three rando Genin become missing-nin and walk into the Death Swamp..." ! It ends with "And then the Ninja Deathworld collectively looked on in horror as its iron woobie stood up and started putting on his asskicking boots."

Seriously. Pretty soon, there will not be any "Yes, but..." stapled on to replies. There's going to be points of realization where every major character comes to the conclusion that there is no stopping the Hazou. They will pull a complete 180 from pithy insults or degrading remarks with respect to potential and competence or sham personas and manipulation games to "Holy shit holy shit holy shit what the fuuuuuuuu--" when the true magnitude of their folly and jerkassitude is laid bare.

And as they stare in dawning comprehension and existential horror when faced with the reality that its "Help Uplift, acquiesce, or eventually get 9001% DUNKED ON." , they will look agape at the akashic nexus of this newfound dread and it will invite them to play board games the Friday after next, and remind them to bring desserts before flying off into a random direction to terrify some other unfortunate damned soul. They will spend all banked XP for the next six months on baking, to try to conjure up something resembling a decent batch of cookies to give us at the fated hour of our next meeting.

And lo, sweeter baked goods will never again be had in all the lands.

eaglejarl · Dec 5, 2019

Shard said:
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?"

Rafin said:
If you're too busy to tell us our mistake, aren't you also too busy to write the update?

I think I covered this, but just in case:

The problem with making it our responsibility to veto bad ideas is that (a) we are fixing player mistakes, we're just doing it outside of the update; (b) if we are busy in real life and not paying attention to the thread during the planning stages then we get blamed if anything goes wrong(*); (c) if there are any bad consequences in the update we will then get salt thrown at us along the lines of "Why didn't you tell us that was a bad idea?!"(*)

(*) This is not me being hyperbolic. This is based on four years experience with what happens when there are bad consequences.

Shard said:
1a. Offer this benefit only to plans with a very short length (ex: 100 words or less).

Nitpicking unimportant details: We tried 100 word plans and they don't work. They end up so telegraphic as to be incomprehensible. Still, I take your point and the precise number isn't the important bit.

Shard said:
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.

That would then leave us in the situation of having nothing to write and therefore having to do an interlude...which isn't bad per se, but it does slow down the pacing a lot and we're already getting complaints.

Kiba said:
That's why it's a good idea to offer reasonable multiple choices that we players can see, representing in-universe 'reasonable' decisions that Hazo would make. Rather than listing twenty options, list four or five. Be it something we can actually vote on.

Rhodes said:
Have you considered using more structured votes?

This is basically saying that we should constrain player agency to prevent high-value moves, and that we're implicitly promising that none of these options will lead to bad outcomes.

Lailoken said:
It really seems pretty simple:

IF: Hazou reasonably would be expected to have contraindicating knowledge the hivemind reasonably would not:

Interrupt. Substitute character's best attempt to fulfill objectives without being a solopistically presumptive nutjob.

ELSE:

Proceed as specified.

The point of giving Hazou agency is to compensate for an interface failure where the hivemind cannot know the full context of the world the character inhabits. The patch should be exclusively focused on that. If the players vote to bring Ino flowers in commiseration of the loss of her mother, but Hazou can be reasonably expected and the hivemind cannot be reasonably expected to know that bringing flowers on a full moon is flower-speak for "I just defecated on the graves of your ancestors", he should substitute a socially appropriate method of demonstrating the same sentiment.

This is exactly what we're currently doing.

Lailoken said:
If the plan has Hazou prying his eyes out of his skull and attempting to insert stolen Hyuuga bulbs, no interrupt should occur, because the expected results of impromptu field-neurosurgery should be simultaneously obvious to both the character and the hivemind.

As should the players. If y'all vote something stupid, there should be consequences.

Rafin said:
Imagine 2 Hazōs. One that is the meatpuppet with limitations and one which is your character if this were suddenly a novel instead of a quest. The first one relays his plan to the second one, trying convince him. If the second one's is "haha no, are you stupid" or worse, don't go with the plan and tell us to fix it instead. If the second Hazō's response is anything more ambiguous, then actual Hazō goes through with it instead, though with a bit more caution and insecurity depending on how ambiguous the second Hazō's approval of the first one was.

This is exactly what I said we didn't want to do: Fix player mistakes.

MMKII said:
I have proposed an in-depth analysis already to patch this issue. See below:

Yes, this!

Literally every major problem you've had that I can think of has been because you threatened someone(*). I get it... It's a story in which you're a badass ninja protagonist and you want to be butch and badass. If you wouldn't adopt that attitude in real life without expecting consequences, don't do it here.

And yes, I get it. Jiraiya and Tsunade use threats all the time. They are demigods who are also very popular heroes of the village with high reputation. You are not. When you can say the same, you can do the same.

(*) EDIT: Thought of an exception. When you gave away Noburi's secrets to Mindanao and Kagome expressed his concerns about the issue. I don't count this instance, Youthsuitgate, or any other instances that were retconned away because we were convinced we'd made a mistake in simulation. In general, the point stands.

Veedrac said:
First, it's wrong to paint this as a black-and-white fuck-up-or-not thing, where failure only comes from doing particularly stupid things, and not doing that means we win. The challenge this world presents comes primarily from its cutthroat nature, where every mission comes with a risk of death, and politics moves in hostile ways. Hazō and co. need to perform well above average just to stay afloat; it's perfectly reasonable for us to lose not by any blatant error, but a simple failure to perform above expectations.

I am pretty confident I never did that.

Veedrac said:
Secondly, in my opinion the recent Naruto issue was only in small part from Hazō going in with the wrong foot. Most of the issue was that Hazō didn't read the air at all. When Hazō says "I guess Naruto not being on board will mean some changes to the plan," it feels things have gone beyond natural consequences of having a poor plan, and into rubbing-it-in territory. The update could very reasonably have had him course-correct slightly before the first word spoken in the update, and there would have still been consequences, but more in-line with what one would expect from the setting.

So, @Velorien should have fixed the mistake you made by recruiting Naruto into a plan to extort and threaten to murder the Hokage?

Honestly, I have no idea how that plan went through.

ContextBot said:
@eaglejarl , you should probably spoiler some of your post.

@Absoloot , doesn't know about the recent "problems".

Oops. Done, thanks.

Briefvoice said:
Have you considered maybe you should just "roll for it" for more things, even things you as QMs think are unlikely but not impossible to work,

Not a bad thought. Certainly we could stand to do that more for social. For something like the plan I keep spoilering you would have needed an astronomical success, but at least we wouldn't be being accused of being big meanies.

Briefvoice said:
In terms of the openness of the write-ins, at least. Most quests are of the opinion that write-ins are bad and destroy quests, so "all write-in quests" are hard to find.

Most quests are wrong.

Tua said:
I mostly read just the story updates so there is always a chance I missed something but I do remember the QM shooting down @Sentient Tree's battle optimizations for Walpurgisnacht

I don't remember what this refers to... Could you put it in a spoiler for me?

Tua said:
But the worst part is that things the players post outside of votes actually makes it into the player character's head. Why is this bad? Maybe pointing out that I only found about this after reading the Staff Posts moderating players blaming each other for putting the wrong thoughts into the PCs head even though those happened outside of votes would help show why.

Can you point to a time when player discussion had impacted an update in a way that is negative for the players? I'm pretty sure that the only times I've done it have been beneficial the you.

Emstar · Dec 5, 2019

eaglejarl said:
Can you point to a time when player discussion had impacted an update in a way that is negative for the players? I'm pretty sure that the only times I've done it have been beneficial the you.

They're talking about the PMMM quest which is one of our contenders for 2nd biggest (short of signing Brandon Sanderson onto the MfD team [Don't do this I need my fix.] , theres no besting number 1) quest , I think.

faflec · Dec 5, 2019

eaglejarl said:
Can you point to a time when player discussion had impacted an update in a way that is negative for the players? I'm pretty sure that the only times I've done it have been beneficial the you.

Well I mean player discussion is what leads to plans, so I guess technically player discussion has lead to every update negative to the players...

Shard · Dec 5, 2019

There's also the option of simply just letting things play out and let the players handle the consequences themselves (if they vote to kill themselves by Hokage, then yes, they would die by Hokage), and if they so desire, they might collectively vote in a system to constrain themselves. The real issue with this is that it runs into the problem that very rarely, players do a really big collective stupid. Statistically it's bound to happen, given players are not perfect machines possessing perfect information.

Kiba · Dec 5, 2019

eaglejarl said:
This is basically saying that we should constrain player agency to prevent high-value moves, and that we're implicitly promising that none of these options will lead to bad outcomes.

You can allow write-in for players who are crazy enough to make their own plans. And none of these options have to be guaranteed for good outcome, only what Hazo would considered 'reasonable'.

Also, why do you care so much about player agency?

eaglejarl said:
Most quests are wrong.

Most quests are trash. It doesn't mean they're wrong about the format.

Seriously, the killbox incident is basically what I would considered "fat-finger" mistake. The last incident is what I considered "totally misunderstanding the situation" plus being forced to vote between those two seemly bad options. These arise from the choice and ability to make custom plans 100% all the time and doing it 100% of the time.

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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