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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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I've been in a sleep deprived haze all week, so I've only just now realized that the touching, emotionally heartfelt update between Hazou and Akane was all from Velorien, and that most of the action plan was experiments... For some reason, that makes me love the chapter all the more :)
 
A friendly reminder that back at the start of the quest, there was very serious debate as to whether we should've taken Akane with us when escaping the Liberator camp - and to be honest, leaving her was probably the safer, more rational course of action.

@eaglejarl @Velorien do you recall if you had any concrete plans for the character at the time? Did you consciously push the players towards interacting with her more? I'm kind of curious to what extent, from your perspective, player decisions come as a surprise necessitating the invention of completely new story threads, vs something you plan for in advance and are ready for. @Velorien are you secretly plotting ways to push us into adopting Kayano Aya?
 
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Roomba said:
A friendly reminder that back at the start of the quest, there was very serious debate as to whether we should've taken Akane with us when escaping the Liberator camp - and to be honest, leaving her was probably the safer, more rational course of action.

@eaglejarl @Velorien do you recall if you had any concrete plans for the character at the time? Did you consciously push the players towards interacting with her more? I'm kind of curious to what extent, from your perspective, player decisions come as a surprise necessitating the invention of completely new story threads, vs something you plan for in advance and are ready for. @Velorien are you secretly plotting ways to push us into adopting Kayano Aya?
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I can't say I had any concrete plans for Akane, no. She certainly wasn't earmarked in advance as a party member candidate, much less a love interest, much less someone as close to the heart of the narrative as she is now.

I don't think I generally push the players towards interacting with specific characters. Characters I want to write tend to either take the initiative themselves (like Ami) or occasionally turn up on-screen doing their own thing without player agency (like Hanabi). Of course, now you have me thinking about how I'd do something like that...

Most of the time, we figure out characters' backgrounds and motivations and such, but we don't lay detailed plans for the future. Those are invariably disrupted, undermined, wrecked, or derailed into something more interesting. The hivemind is very much in the traditional RPG gamer mould in terms of blatantly ignoring plot hooks and instead doing things no QM could possibly have seen coming. That means it's a much better idea to keep track of what the world is doing in the background until the players interact with it, and wait for the explosions to start before figuring out who survives.

No comment on the subject of Kayano Aya, though all the key information needed to evaluate the possibility is already there.
 
Velorien said:
Most of the time, we figure out characters' backgrounds and motivations and such, but we don't lay detailed plans for the future. Those are invariably disrupted, undermined, wrecked, or derailed into something more interesting. The hivemind is very much in the traditional RPG gamer mould in terms of blatantly ignoring plot hooks and instead doing things no QM could possibly have seen coming. That means it's a much better idea to keep track of what the world is doing in the background until the players interact with it, and wait for the explosions to start before figuring out who survives.
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I'm really curious what are some plot hooks we failed to follow up on and what are some unexpected things we did?
 
Oneiros said:
I'm really curious what are some plot hooks we failed to follow up on and what are some unexpected things we did?
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eaglejarl said:
It's gone very differently than I expected. The original conception was "Build a Village Quest", wherein y'all were part of a nascent Hidden Village and would have a secure base to fall back on between missions. I was looking forward to a nice mix of fight-y missions, diplomancy missions, trade missions, etc. Arcs would have been neatly self-contained as individual missions, there would have been a relatively stable cast of characters with room for romance / rivalry / friendship, and there would have been teachers and resources available. Instead we've ended up with "Missing-nin, Every Hand Against You!" quest. The cast is effectively the six of you plus a rotating blur of NPCs, you're always strapped for resources, and finding teachers is nearly impossible.
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RandomOTP said:
I'd like to imagine that this is what having an older brother is like.

(Edit: obligatory "not that I see you as an older brother, just the general tone of that post was aggressively positive and heartfelt and that's what most people seem to agree that older brothers are like")
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As a member of NGI (Noogie Givers International) I am pseudo-legally obligated to mention that anyone, regardless of gender, age, race, sexuality, nationality, religion, political affiliation, ideology, disability, astrological star sign, Myers-Brigs personality type, opinion on the Oxford comma, opinion on pineapple on pizza, if they believe the eagles could have flown the fellowship into Mordor, if they believe that the moon landing was faked and/or that the earth is flat, preferred ordering of pouring milk on cereal(,) and how they pronounce "gif" with enough training, certification, blood, sweat(,) and tears can become a licensed Noogie Giver.

It's such a grueling calling we really can't afford to turn anyone away.
 
Oneiros said:
I'm really curious what are some plot hooks we failed to follow up on and what are some unexpected things we did?
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Well, back in the days of yore, there was the mysterious shelter in the Swamp of Death. You never solved the mysteries of any of the suspiciously snake-themed cults (or the Hydra Foundation, which was a perfectly innocent medical organisation with no sinister elements whatsoever, and I should mention I had no knowledge of the Marvel universe at the time of writing). You skipped over a whole bunch of stuff in Sarubetsu. You bypassed various Kabuto-related opportunities/dangers, and openings for Leaf politicking. You didn't complete your investigation of the Basement (which is probably for the best). You didn't get involved in the O'Uzu festival. Honestly, there have been so many things it's hard to call to mind.

On the other hand, you created skywalkers (with all that this entailed). You got yourselves killboxed. You revealed clan secrets to Minami Nikkō. You got the yakuza involved in the Chūnin Exams. You caused Team Gai's downfall. You drugged Old Lizardbreath (frankly, half the stuff you did during those exams, we would never have seen coming). You gave the Pangolins skytowers. You went on a date with Ami. You created then cured Darth Mari. You committed treason repeatedly. I think the number of things you surprised us by doing is a lot longer than the list of things you surprised us by ignoring.

Dictator4Hire said:
As a member of NGI (Noogie Givers International) I am pseudo-legally obligated to mention that anyone, regardless of gender, age, race, sexuality, nationality, religion, political affiliation, ideology, disability, astrological star sign, Myers-Brigs personality type, opinion on the Oxford comma, opinion on pineapple on pizza, if they believe the eagles could have flown the fellowship into Mordor, if they believe that the moon landing was faked and/or that the earth is flat, preferred ordering of pouring milk on cereal(,) and how they pronounce "gif" with enough training, certification, blood, sweat(,) and tears can become a licensed Noogie Giver.
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But you are disqualifying those of us who lack blood, sweat(,) and/or tears. Elitism! Bigotry! Flagrant discrimination!
 
Roomba said:
Honestly, after how much you built her up, did you really not expect us to eventually interact with her?
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I take nothing for granted with you people. You could well have attempted to provoke her into engaging with you by going on a date with Keiko instead (obviously, without Keiko realising it was a date, because you have no reason to believe that Ami can speak with the dead).
 
Velorien said:
I take nothing for granted with you people. You could well have attempted to provoke her into engaging with you by going on a date with Keiko instead (obviously, without Keiko realising it was a date, because you have no reason to believe that Ami can speak with the dead).
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[x] Send a letter to Mist asking Mori Ryuugamine out on a date
 
Velorien said:

"So Inoue-sensei, we were talking about our plans for the future. What do you want to do?"

"Future, huh?" Inoue-sensei asked. "No idea. Never did. I mean, I figured I'd settle down eventually—very eventually—if I met the right person, but I never met anyone in Mist who could keep up with me and wasn't taken, and I imagine that would go double for civilians. And really, what was there to do other than to keep taking missions, and get whatever fun I could out of life?
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Sorry to dredge up past posts, but I just re-read that part and it was somewhat relevant to what we were discussing

get well soon darth mari
 
...Okay. If you all (the QMs) make Hazou cut Mari down because she went Dark Side (because Noburi shouldn't have to and Keiko wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it), I'm... well. I don't know. But I do know that Hazou probably wouldn't go on a never-ending bar crawl because A) Goketsu Family Systems, B) Ino would beat the shit out of him, and C) Mari-as-she-once-was wouldn't have wanted that.

Maybe we can keep Grey Lord Mari from turning full Sith? Remind her of the Outer Entities that they have to work against? Remind her of good times? Maybe get Mari more involved in the Goketsu Mining Town? She'd be out of Leaf (just in case she's getting cabin fever) and she'd be able to build an entire culture and craft new traditions... the way that the Swamp Village was supposed to.
 
RandomOTP said:
...Okay. If you all (the QMs) make Hazou cut Mari down because she went Dark Side (because Noburi shouldn't have to and Keiko wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it), I'm... well. I don't know. But I do know that Hazou probably wouldn't go on a never-ending bar crawl because A) Goketsu Family Systems, B) Ino would beat the shit out of him, and C) Mari-as-she-once-was wouldn't have wanted that.

Maybe we can keep Grey Lord Mari from turning full Sith? Remind her of the Outer Entities that they have to work against? Remind her of good times? Maybe get Mari more involved in the Goketsu Mining Town? She'd be out of Leaf (just in case she's getting cabin fever) and she'd be able to build an entire culture and craft new traditions... the way that the Swamp Village was supposed to.
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I expect she'd want it to be Hazou anyways, to be honest...........
Still, I don't think it's gonna come to that. I think she would kill herself before she ever let herself become a risk for her kids.

WE NEED JIRAIYA BACK
 
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