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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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faflec said:
Here's a shitty plan.

[X] Action Plan: Sealing Contracts
Word Count: 295

Run ideas through the clan first.
  • Negotiate with the Daisho:
    • First visit: Bring sake, and a letter requesting to discuss artistry.
      • Goals:
        • Reference collaboration and sealing abstractly.
        • Build rapport, and reinforce Goketsu as authorities and not ex-missing nin.
      • Topics:
        • His poetry, and our desire to learn (read up on his books beforehand).
        • Our propensity for 'ink drawings' (seals). We've heard you're interested?
        • Value of respective families.
    • Second visit: Negotiate the deal.
      • We offer:
        • Preferential seal trade terms, including:
          • Discounted seals.
          • Agreement to only sell certain seals to the Daisho.
          • Commissioned seals.
        • Offer to train his children in Sealing if they're inclined, or train clanless ninja for them to adopt.
      • We want:
        • Adoption slot(s).
        • Other:
          • Seals.
          • Technique scrolls.
  • IFF we get a Daisho adoption slot, adopt Haru and his family.
    • Invite him over, tell him how the clan works and his role in it. If he accepts, get paperwork filled out and submitted.
    • Teach Haru the Pangolin Training Technique. Inform him of the Pangolin agreement.
  • Skysliders:
    • Regularly check in and getting progress reports.
      • Contribute any ideas or inspiration you think might help (such as your insights on updrafts from way back in Mist)
      • Test their prototypes at safe low altitudes.
    • Raise morale:
      • An inspiring speech never hurt.
      • Set up a prize for getting a functional prototype design: a sizeable sum of money or a personal favour from us.
  • Misc.:
    • If we have more decoded spy notes, bring them to Asuma.
    • Spend some time with Yuno so she feels included, keeping in mind her cultural traditions.
    • Have Noburi talk to Haru's father about restarting his business.
    • Spread the word about our storage seal bank to merchants and farmers; they can hold seasonal produce and sell it out of season for better prices.
    • Perform Ami-style training daily.
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Other options to ask of the Daisho: Any contributions they make to the competition be under Gouketsu Hazou's name.

Also, it has been made clear to me that, contrary to my prior beliefs, not everyone was on board with handing Jiraiya's sealing notes over for the competition.

Pluses:
  • A large bonus to our chance of getting the dog scroll
  • General improvement to Konoha's forces
  • Quicker notes on all of his seals for our own deployment.
  • The possibility of others figuring out "flip it upside down" moments that we wouldn't. Note also: We'll get the first crack at doing so.
Minuses:
  • Giving up Jiraiya's legacy.
  • The view of others' as seeing us doing the former.
  • Destruction of OPSEC on high level seals that could catapult us to greatness.
Personally, a large part of the reason I don't care for keeping OPSEC on the seals is because, well... we haven't gotten anything out of them yet. If we look at them after Kagome's done decoding them, and there's things of value greater than the dog scroll there for us but only if we don't break OPSEC, I'll fall on the other side.
 
eaglejarl said:
VERY low turnout, and the last few haven't been great shakes either. Any ideas what's going on? Are people simply losing interest in the quest?
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0) This just seems to happens on Fridays sometimes, I've noticed.

1) The current direction consensus seems to be "Pursue the reasonable mini-sidequest first and get it done. Dot our I's and cross our T's while doing so." While reasonable, it doesn't really lend itself to much discussion or controversy.

2) Our general location on the gameboard is a bit muddled at the moment, AFAICT. Lotta stuffs been going on and I'm not quite sure which of our two dozen or so plot threads are still in the "To-do" bin, which of those have been resolved, and which are more "HDK this is a plot thread." This makes it difficult to figure out next moves when you add in the main confounding factors (It is through sheer force of will that Hazou and Mari haven't both just declared the next 2-3 months a wash and decided to take a vacation to a tropical island, social interactions between ninja seem to be inherently adversarial (and thus draining and mostly pointless) most of the time, we're still soft-banned from doing sealing stuff, etc.)

Like if you look at the roster, the current summary is sort of akin to:

Hazou- presumably free to execute plans, but don't necessarily expect much if it really gets down to the wire. Simultaneously quasi-grounded

Keiko- Out of the village, pretty much no longer a party member anyway.

Noburi- Should be spending all of his time and energy looking over summoning training stuff (@faflec did we put that anywhere?) and if not then what the fuck are we doing lol

Mari- Is still shards of Previous-Mari wearing a Previous-Mari Suit, and theres not much glue to be seen.

Kagome- Went to go KERSPLODE a bridge, has a lot of homework to do when he gets back.

Akane- Also on a bridge run at the moment.

So it seems like the reasonable thing to do is to secure some of those adoption slots, adopt Haru, go interact with our other two adoptees some more, interact with Yuno, adopt or marriage all of them in, so that we have the four of them on call to do projects or help Hazou and Akane with stuff.

3) [What Paperclipped said. ]
 
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Paperclipped said:
Personally, I feel the pacing has been weird. On the one hand, things are happening, so plans can't cover a long period of time. On the other hand, the most immediate thing in the timeline is two months away, which at the current time-per-update is just about forever. That makes me feel like the value of an individual plan is pretty low - compounded by the fact that I also feel like we can't get a whole plot for a single contest submission done in a single plan, making it seem like the features of the quest format make it harder for us to succeed in the contest.
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Fair points all. I wish I had more control over pacing, but I don't. When plans consist of five-ish meetings I don't have the option to say "and then six months went by...."

One option would be for the plan to list a bunch of objectives and say "keep going until these are all done or six months", but that has some failure modes, especially when there's a lot going on. The primary failure mode is that the QMs will get complaints unless the outcome is absolutely optimal, so if we don't think of the best solution to a problem (etc) then everyone ends up unhappy. It's fine when the thrust of the plan is "go into the wilderness with Naruto, kill the critters, then do research until X is done", but when you are interacting with dozens of other characters then it's harder.


MMKII said:
0) This just seems to happens on Fridays sometimes, I've noticed.

1) The current direction consensus seems to be "Pursue the reasonable mini-sidequest first and get it done. Dot our I's and cross our T's while doing so." While reasonable, it doesn't really lend itself to much discussion or controversy.

2) Our general location on the gameboard is a bit muddled at the moment, AFAICT. Lotta stuffs been going on and I'm not quite sure which of our two dozen or so plot threads are still in the "To-do" bin, which of those have been resolved, and which are more "HDK this is a plot thread." This makes it difficult to figure out next moves when you add in the main confounding factors (It is through sheer force of will that Hazou and Mari haven't both just declared the next 2-3 months a wash and decided to take a vacation to a tropical island, social interactions between ninja seem to be inherently adversarial (and thus draining and mostly pointless) most of the time, we're still soft-banned from doing sealing stuff, etc.)

Like if you look at the roster, the current summary is sort of akin to:

Hazou- presumably free to execute plans, but don't necessarily expect much if it really gets down to the wire. Simultaneously quasi-grounded

Keiko- Out of the village, pretty much no longer a party member anyway.

Noburi- Should be spending all of his time and energy looking over summoning training stuff (@faflec did we put that anywhere?) and if not then what the fuck are we doing lol

Mari- Is still shards of Previous-Mari wearing a Previous-Mari Suit, and theres not much glue to be seen.

Kagome- Went to go KERSPLODE a bridge, has a lot of homework to do when he gets back.

Akane- Also on a bridge run at the moment.

So it seems like the reasonable thing to do is to secure some of those adoption slots, adopt Haru, go interact with our other two adoptees some more, interact with Yuno, adopt or marriage all of them in, so that we have the four of them on call to do projects or help Hazou and Akane with stuff.

3) [What Paperclipped said. ]
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+1 Informative, thank you.

Here are the current plot threads that I can remember being discussed recently:

  • Arrange for extra adoption slots
  • Adopt Haru and Noda
  • Get Yuno married to Noburi
  • Ensure Noburi is getting his Summoner training (NB: He is.)
  • Have a glider built
  • Win the competition
  • Research ARS
  • Research chakdar
  • Acquire a Summoning Scroll (aka "Find a Summoner that you don't care about, kill them and take their stuff")
  • Get various businesses running (Haru's father's, the Naked Jaybird, etc)
Those are the things I can remember being discussed recently, although I'm sure there are other things I'm not thinking of. There are a couple of other items that don't really need anything done but still get discussed -- the storage seal bank, the iron mine, etc. The gold mine gets honorable mention, since it might not exist and I can't remember a single mention of it in player discussion.
 
Changes made based on suggestions this last page.
faflec said:
Here's a shitty plan.

[X] Action Plan: Sealing Contracts
Word Count: 295

Run ideas through the clan first.
  • Negotiate with the Daisho:
    • First visit: Bring sake, and a letter requesting to discuss artistry.
      • Goals:
        • Reference collaboration and sealing abstractly.
        • Build rapport, and reinforce Goketsu as authorities and not ex-missing nin.
      • Topics:
        • His poetry, and our desire to learn (read up on his books beforehand).
        • Our propensity for 'ink drawings' (seals). We've heard you're interested?
    • Second visit: Negotiate the deal.
      • We offer:
        • Preferential seal trade terms, including:
          • Discounted seals.
          • Agreement to only sell certain seals to the Daisho.
          • Commissioned seals.
        • Offer to train his children in Sealing if they're inclined, or train clanless ninja for them to adopt.
      • We want:
        • Adoption slot(s).
        • Other:
          • Seals.
          • Technique scrolls.
          • Assistance with the contest.
  • IFF we get a Daisho adoption slot, adopt Haru and his family.
    • Invite him over, tell him how the clan works and his role in it. If he accepts, get paperwork filled out and submitted.
    • Teach Haru the Pangolin Training Technique. Inform him of the Pangolin agreement.
  • Skysliders:
    • Regularly check in and getting progress reports.
      • Contribute any ideas or inspiration you think might help (such as your insights on updrafts from way back in Mist)
      • Test their prototypes at safe low altitudes.
    • Raise morale:
      • An inspiring speech never hurt.
      • Set up a prize for getting a functional prototype design: a sizeable sum of money or a personal favour from us.
  • Misc.:
    • If we have more decoded spy notes, bring them to Asuma.
    • Spend some time with Yuno so she feels included, keeping in mind her cultural traditions.
    • Have Noburi talk to Haru's father about restarting his business.
    • Spread the word about our storage seal bank to merchants and farmers; they can hold seasonal produce and sell it out of season for better prices.
    • Perform Ami-style training daily.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
@eaglejarl Whatever happened with those salterns. I know that one chapter finally had us do a proof of concept to our family, but has anything happened since then in the background?

In general I think that I have kind of lost any overview when it comes to a list of assets, contacts and running political gambits that the Gokētsu Clan currently has. Every now and then Mari or someone will mention this or that thing that she has accomplished, but is anyone on the player side actually making a list? And that's without even mentioning all the process that gets done based on stuff in our plan, but is off-screened.
 
Voting is closed.
Adhoc vote count started by eaglejarl on Jan 18, 2020 at 9:28 AM, finished with 121 posts and 14 votes.
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eaglejarl said:
  • Get Yuno married to Noburi
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My impression was that Noburi wanted some time to think about this? I guess I'd have to go back and check. Would be good to have a conversation with him about that.
Also to add to the 'our place on the board is confused' thing - it's also not too clear to me what the state of the other leaf clans is. Everyone's recovering from the disaster still, and we don't want to push on them too early (Shika basically told us to back off anyway because optics lul). So that removes many possible plans that would be based on building closer bonds with other clans.
 
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Anderkent said:
Shika basically told us to back off anyway because optics lul
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Add to the confusion: a lot of conversations, conclusions, and whatnot that were previously had while Hiashikage was a thing are now way more up in the air now that Asuma is the Hokage and decently friendly towards us.
 
eaglejarl said:
Fair points all. I wish I had more control over pacing, but I don't. When plans consist of five-ish meetings I don't have the option to say "and then six months went by...."

One option would be for the plan to list a bunch of objectives and say "keep going until these are all done or six months", but that has some failure modes, especially when there's a lot going on. The primary failure mode is that the QMs will get complaints unless the outcome is absolutely optimal, so if we don't think of the best solution to a problem (etc) then everyone ends up unhappy. It's fine when the thrust of the plan is "go into the wilderness with Naruto, kill the critters, then do research until X is done", but when you are interacting with dozens of other characters then it's harder.
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What's especially awkward is that it doesn't feel like we have much control over the pacing either.

It feels like there ought to be a change we can make to ameliorate this issue but fuck if I know what it is.
 
Anderkent said:
My impression was that Noburi wanted some time to think about this? I guess I'd have to go back and check. Would be good to have a conversation with him about that.
Also to add to the 'our place on the board is confused' thing - it's also not too clear to me what the state of the other leaf clans is. Everyone's recovering from the disaster still, and we don't want to push on them too early (Shika basically told us to back off anyway because optics lul). So that removes many possible plans that would be based on building closer bonds with other clans.
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Noburi might need that good old fashioned, friendly "You're fucking up" conversation. He seems kinda... not ambivalent but certainly more than a little wishy-washy.

We should have a conversation with him about how he feels about her. She's been meeting with Neji and Hazou knows that she'll marry either Neji or Noburi. Noburi needs to stop fence sitting, examine his emotions, and make a decision on whether or not to earnestly pursue her. He might end up breaking his own heart if he doesn't.

To paraphrase one of my favorite authors: "The way I see it, a good friend has one time in his life where he's allowed to be honest and tell one of his friends when he's being a fool. And if he's right? Well, then he gets one more."

(On mobile, sorry for weird spelling or formatting.)
 
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eaglejarl said:
Fair points all. I wish I had more control over pacing, but I don't. When plans consist of five-ish meetings I don't have the option to say "and then six months went by...."

One option would be for the plan to list a bunch of objectives and say "keep going until these are all done or six months", but that has some failure modes, especially when there's a lot going on. The primary failure mode is that the QMs will get complaints unless the outcome is absolutely optimal, so if we don't think of the best solution to a problem (etc) then everyone ends up unhappy. It's fine when the thrust of the plan is "go into the wilderness with Naruto, kill the critters, then do research until X is done", but when you are interacting with dozens of other characters then it's harder.



+1 Informative, thank you.

Here are the current plot threads that I can remember being discussed recently:

  • Arrange for extra adoption slots
  • Adopt Haru and Noda
  • Get Yuno married to Noburi
  • Ensure Noburi is getting his Summoner training (NB: He is.)
  • Have a glider built
  • Win the competition
  • Research ARS
  • Research chakdar
  • Acquire a Summoning Scroll (aka "Find a Summoner that you don't care about, kill them and take their stuff")
  • Get various businesses running (Haru's father's, the Naked Jaybird, etc)
Those are the things I can remember being discussed recently, although I'm sure there are other things I'm not thinking of. There are a couple of other items that don't really need anything done but still get discussed -- the storage seal bank, the iron mine, etc. The gold mine gets honorable mention, since it might not exist and I can't remember a single mention of it in player discussion.
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*Grumble Grumble Grumble*



RandomOTP said:
Noburi might need that good old fashioned, friendly "You're fucking up" conversation. He seems kinda... not ambivalent but certainly more than a little wishy-washy.

We should have a conversation with him about how he feels about her. She's been meeting with Neji and Hazou knows that she'll marry either Neji or Noburi. Noburi needs to stop fence sitting, examine his emotions, and make a decision on whether or not to earnestly pursue her. He might end up breaking his own heart if he doesn't.

To paraphrase one of my favorite authors: "The way I see it, a good friend has one time in his life where he's allowed to be honest and tell one of his friends when he's being a fool. And if he's right? Well, then he gets one more."

(On mobile, sorry for weird spelling or formatting.)
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Velorien said:
As usual, everything was thanks to Akane. It was Akane who'd worded the invitation in a way that would get Hyūga to come even though he was a xenophobe (not that anyone outside Isan had any idea what xenophobia really was). It was Akane who'd led her to this café despite how busy she was. It was Akane who'd smiled and left them alone, with Hyūga in less of a foul mood than Yuno had expected given what she'd heard about their two clans. It made sense, of course. Nobody could really hate Akane. She'd even managed to find a café with no more than three window-side seats and a female proprietor who looked between thirty and forty years of age.
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Can we just ask Akane to marry her already? It solves a lot of problems at once and allows us to get back to civ-quest instead of hyperfocusing on specific autocatalytic subcomponents.
 
faflec said:
something something some time later something something Ino visits the Yamanaka Clan Elders for Out exposure
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Oh, perhaps I was unclear. I don't mean ask Ino to marry her, I just mean asking her opinion on using an arbitrary position of authority to force this specific bondswoman to marry somebody she barely knows for the political convenience of the clan.

The Old Guard is dead. The majority of the command of the most powerful state dominating the most powerful alliance on the planet are teenage peers. Now might not be the worst time for the guy who used his earned moment of honor to lecture all the world leaders on humanitarianism to occasionally slap them in the face with just how awful the old way of doing things was.
 
Lailoken said:
Oh, perhaps I was unclear. I don't mean ask Ino to marry her, I just mean asking her opinion on using an arbitrary position of authority to force this specific bondswoman to marry somebody she barely knows for the political convenience of the clan.

The Old Guard is dead. The majority of the command of the most powerful state dominating the most powerful alliance on the planet are teenage peers. Now might not be the worst time for the guy who used his earned moment of honor to lecture all the world leaders on humanitarianism to occasionally slap them in the face with just how awful the old way of doing things was.
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Yes, and? Ino's going to think that this is horribly OOC for even Hazou and react accordingly.
 
Lailoken said:
Can we just ask Akane to marry her already? It solves a lot of problems at once and allows us to get back to civ-quest instead of hyperfocusing on specific autocatalytic subcomponents.
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Not to delve too deeply into a conversation about the sexual interests of teenagers, but thus far, they haven't exactly expressed interest in women --let alone each other. In my opinion, we should leave that possibility up to the writers to decide if there's any natural chemistry there before we start drafting wedding contracts.

Edit: This was before my time, but I got the feeling that this was basically what happened to Tenten and Keiko. The authors were like "hey, these two people have some chemistry, let's write and see what happens as a natural result of their character development?" I think that this is what happened, anyway. When I read through to present, that was the feeling I got.

Lailoken said:
The Old Guard is dead. The majority of the command of the most powerful state dominating the most powerful alliance on the planet are teenage peers. Now might not be the worst time for the guy who used his earned moment of honor to lecture all the world leaders on humanitarianism to occasionally slap them in the face with just how awful the old way of doing things was.
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We're new Leaf citizens who haven't really secured their station in their new home. Our relative political and military power is... not currently weighted in our favor. The new Hokage tentatively likes us, and is giving us a chance to prove our loyalty (but we haven't earned that trust yet, nor have we proven our loyalty). The status quo is scrambled, everyone's panicking, and tensions are high.

On one hand: opportunity

On the other hand: let's not rock the boat too much, our position isn't secure enough for that yet.

*shrug*
That's just my opinion, though. I'm just trying to avoid another killbox scenario, so maybe I'm playing it too safely. I mean, the Killbox Incident did result in the skytowers. And the skytowers revolutionized warfare and changed the story quite a bit. So who knows?

Edit: Let's go tell our new friends and allies that everything that their parents ever did was wrong, that their grandparents were stupid, and that the historical figures that they revere were all shortsighted fools. I'm sure that'll lead somewhere interesting. Might even get a fancy new seal out of it like last time.

faflec said:
Yes, and? Ino's going to think that this is horribly OOC for even Hazou and react accordingly.
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That might actually make everyone fear that Hazou's Outter Influence is getting worse, resulting in another restriction of freedoms.

---
Also: when Hazou mentioned hunting Summoning Scrolls to Asuma, did anyone else get the feeling that Asuma was a little discomforted by our casual disregard for human life? I reread it and he seems a little put off. I'm not sure if it's Asuma dealing with adjusting his moral compass to match the role of a Hokage and stifling his own personal qualms about that notion ("It'd be good for the Leaf, I suppose...") or if Asuma was merely disquieted in a different way ("Well... they are the product of Mist. And they're trying...).
 
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faflec said:
Well, that's one way to put it...
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Oh yeah, it'd be completely inhumane and might even get us kicked out of the Leaf, or at least ostracized politically until it's convenient to kill us off because "They were too unlike us to become naturalized Leaf citizens. Whatever Will of Fire that burned in their hearts went out with J-man died."

Just trying to be a little more diplomatic. I know that I can get carried away a little bit and I also know that voting/interaction has been down a little. So, out of a fear of being a contributor to that decrease in activity, I'm trying to modulate my response a little... just in case.
 
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