Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Gaku's issue is with what we did to Haru. Honestly, every named character other than Akane that understands it should have an issue with it, except maybe some random Goketsu civilians than only got name-dropped once. Like, what do y'all think that Noburi's opinion is on it? Or Mari's? Or Atomu's? Naruto's? Shikamaru's? The list goes on and on.
Akane's stance on this is even beyond a fringe radical stance in Leaf and the only reason we went along with it is because of the idealistic stuff Hazo has repeatedly professed to believe at our behalf (and because she's our girlfriend).
We should sell the meat to the tower at pre-famine subsistence wheat rates. Or maybe half of that. Definitely not high enough to make a profit, let alone prices that make sense for meat, but at least it should in some way count against our massive massive debts. Everything else would just make us suckers, like those superheroes that struggle paying bills even after saving the whole city in front of everyone.
We should discuss jutsu for the trade, any ideas?
I think an Alertness boosting jutsu would be useful, especially if it increased Initiative. We could stick to the Dog theme by having it work by boosting the caster's sense of smell. A Stealth jutsu would be useful as well, perhaps a generic camouflage effect, blending colors to help the Dog blend into the grasslands.
- Location
- Yes.
Do we...do we have to do this? What is the purpose of us discussing something Snow is certianly shy about and/or probably doesn't want to talk about?
There might be a way to frame this as being less adversarial, like maybe asking her if she knows who Scarf Guy is and/or who he works for. If Ami's responsible and willing to admit it then she'll say it flat-out here, and if not then we still get her opinion of who it was AND aren't somewhat accusing her of doing this.
I'm not certain that spending our token on helping Yuno and Noburi's relationship is the best idea, especially since Akane is already on the task (and we trust her). Ideally we'd spend the favor on something important like helping to fix Mari's relationship with [take your fuckin' pick]...
Um...
I feel strongly against doing this, though my reasoning is less coherent. I keep thinking stuff like "he's a clan head and has low opinions of civilians!", "asking other clan heads for advice makes us look weak!", "what is the point of even doing this?", and "wouldn't it be smarter to ask Ino or Shikamaru, who are more goal-symmetrical?".
Anyway, I think I would feel better about this if I actually knew what we were looking to get out of the meeting, and why it has to be Sasuke specifically.
- Location
- United States
Marked for Death Administration
Good news! We have played well and turned this quest from a scary romp through a Swamp of Death where we could die at any moment to a successful(ish) clan in the strongest village. There's now plenty of room in this quest for romance, overarching world uplift, research, and family therapy.
Bad news! This means that it's now frequently in our best interests to write plans focusing on tedious meetings, economics, and politics instead of the other cool stuff that the QMs want to write (and we'd prefer to see).
This is a good problem to have (it shows that we have been very successful in this quest) but it is still a problem. We've been increasingly getting penalties from our QMs for writing plans that are boring to write. Additionally, we just had an incident in story where two other characters (Ino and Akane) directly told us to our face that we're doing too many things at once and need to delegate more. As EagleJarl put it, "there's a lot of having the Head Chef chop lettuce."
So, how do we solve this problem?
I propose that we begin taking steps to slowly shift clan affairs/priorities away from direct management until we reach the point where most of the tedious things can happen in the background with Hazō providing big-picture guidance. We can be kept in the loop regarding most matters via bullet points at the end of the update and save actual scenes for more important/interesting things. Many of the economics, management, and meetings that happen in this quest probably don't need to be simulated in the level of detail that they currently are.
This will free up our plans/updates for interesting things like sealing research that we haven't been able to focus on in a while and generally make the quest more fun. It won't completely solve the problem, but it should drastically reduce its impact on the quest.
@eaglejarl, @Velorien, what are your thoughts on the matter? Would this be a good way of reducing the problematic elements of the quest? Is there any modification you would prefer?
So, how do we realistically get to that point?
Things become less obvious here, but one thing is for sure, we need to start delegating more of Hazō's work. Without reiterating too much of what Ino and Akane already argued in a recent update, organizations simply cannot work if the person at the top is directly responsible for these many things at once. There are a couple approaches we can take, but I think it might be smart to model things off the concept of a General Staff. In a general staff system, the top figure sets the overarching strategy and then tasks specific, specialized people with certain facets of its direct implementation. Think of the President of the United States and the Cabinet full of Secretaries that each oversees their own department. The President sets the agenda and the Cabinet implements it. Sometimes the President will personally take part (like meeting foreign Heads of State or responding to a crisis) but most of the day-to-day things are best left to the attention of the people specifically qualified to handle them.
I'd like to leave the specifics of how this model should be reflected in the Gōketsu to the thread as a whole as I suspect that the Hive is far better suited to the task than I am. I'm not entirely sure how we should categorize certain responsibilities or who would be best suited so certain tasks. All I recommend is that we have asking Ino and Sasuke (if you're wondering why him, click here) for advice on this in our current plans. They would both have unique and valuable insights on how we should proceed and, on a meta-level, asking them would give the QMs a way to directly influence something that will have a big impact on the quest within the confines of the actual narrative.
Thoughts?
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This plan is very minimal, the scenes are somewhat boring, but I think that it's important. I've left a lot of room to expand anything that needs expanding and to add items to the list.
I think that linking the last update for the things on our list might be helpful for the QMs. I'll do some of that at some point.
[X] Action Plan: Housekeeping
Word count: sub-300
I think that linking the last update for the things on our list might be helpful for the QMs. I'll do some of that at some point.
[X] Action Plan: Housekeeping
Word count: sub-300
- Offscreen:
- Karasu/Ami's sealing notes:
- Block out time to decipher, focusing on sealing and DRAGONWAR-relevant lore.
- Tsunade:
- the Dogs are interested in medical jutsu. Can you help?
- Gaku:
- We're planning on delegating work to the clan.
- What resources do you need or want to support this?
- This is not the time for modesty. Your work is vital to the clan.
- Money, staff, ninjutsu,
WMDs?
- Karasu/Ami's sealing notes:
- Asuma:
- We acknowledge our role in the famine and apologize.
- We have a lot of food incoming for Leaf. Do you want us to distribute it or hand it over?
- Were 5SB/ninja wire nets to protect critical infrastructure in Jiriya's notes?
- Kei
- Explicit: this might be monumentally stupid.
- We want to give Naruto Ghost Scales.
- Pro: it's great for Naruto and therefore Leaf, and might help mend fences.
- Con: needs Pangolin approval, we have concerns about secrecy.
- CRITICALLY IMPORTANT: it is your jutsu and you can veto this for any reason.
- Full clan:
- We want to delegate more. We trust you, but we haven't acted like it. We're sorry.
- Here's everything on our list.
- Civilian projects
- Skysliders
- Aqueducts/sewage
- Hard to delegate:
- DRAGONWAR
- Harumitsu
- Necromancy
- CHAOS suits/reactive armour
- Managing Dog relations
- Everything else:
- Mini-chuunin exams
- Canvass' ancestors
- Eyeglasses
- Salterns
- Finding Bear/Kraken/Otter/Kangaroo scrolls
- Haru
- The famine
- We're broke
- Civilian projects
- Who can champion or help with that stuff?
- Everyone please provide your personal lists of responsibilities within a few weeks.
- We've been wrapped up in our own problems and haven't been asking. Again: we're sorry.
- We want to be a leader worthy of Goketsu. Thank you all for your support, especially when we fall short. It means the world.
- Timeskip to Condor Scout report being confirmed.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
@eaglejarl @Velorien That list of jutsu that Cannai asked for, do we have to write it as part of a plan or can we write it separately and link it? If you allow the latter, I'd still advice some size limit to said list though.
Already happened.
Why is this a priority right now? And so many words going towards it as well...
What's the point of asking this? What actionable information would we gain? Is it worth alienating her by showing ourselves as a bumbling idiot with no subtlety? If anything, better ask her if she has any ide who could have done it, instead of accusing her.
I'm okay with asking for advice, but this is beyond creepy and, because we/Hazou is crap at keeping his mouth shut, Noburi might eventually find out and massively resent us for it.
A few counters:
- Sasuke is a kid clan head of a clan made up exclusively of civilians (other than him) that since before joining the academy has been raised by said civilians.
- Looking weak in front of Sasuke exclusively is really not a problem. His hard and soft power are more limited than ours and he damn well knows it.
- Other than getting advice from a clan head that has been groomed to command a clan and had to learn by doing since primary school, we also get to bond a bit more with, well, a voting member of the clan council who is bound to grow up into a ninja of considerable personal power.
- Ino might be a good idea, but Shikamaru lacks energy and is already in over his head commanding a clan that has made acting rationally their primary cultural trait.
When the characters we delegated to do something we wouldn't have and it results in trouble then we will complain to the QMs and they will be annoyed. Example: Mari, Akane and Gaku decide to print a lot of scrip and plunge Goketsu into debt and Leaf into a recession.
- Location
- United States
[jk] Action Plan: Gently as a Snowflake
"Snowflake, I've been bored recently and could really stretch my mind. Could you posible make me some sort of challenging logic puzzle? I think you're the perfect girl for the job. By the way, that ribbon looks really cute on you."
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- Location
- United States
Can you add:
Decipher Karasu letters. Focus on sealing/lore pertaining to dragons.
For the reasons stated here:
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- Location
- United States
The biggest issue I've found with Marked for Management is that we've focused on hitting above our weight class by using radical, paradigm shifting ideas (Skywalkers, Scrip, etc). This tends to work when the hivemind is personally micromanaging it, but also tends to fall apart as soon as we delegate it away. This is probably because we're trying to shove very weird, foreign ideas onto people who have no idea how they're supposed to work or why and then expecting them to be able to manage it successfully.
Imo the only way to really end Marked for Management at the current time is to accept that we will for now be a minor clan with limited reach and wealth and just have to work around that.
Don't wanna do any other stuff.
[X] DRAGONWAR STUFF
Get detail on the stonecarving jutsu. Determine if it's better to level up calligraphy and give a stonecraver a job or just learn the damn jutsu.
Either way, organize a stonecarving contest testing precision and accuracy. The best gets the job either training Hazo or working under Hazo's direction for the Great Seal.
Misc:
[X] DRAGONWAR STUFF
Get detail on the stonecarving jutsu. Determine if it's better to level up calligraphy and give a stonecraver a job or just learn the damn jutsu.
Either way, organize a stonecarving contest testing precision and accuracy. The best gets the job either training Hazo or working under Hazo's direction for the Great Seal.
Misc:
- Distribute Doggos bison to the hungry.
- Consult Keiko on buiding a safe underground farm for high value/fast growing crops. Sunlight Seal + Purifier/Tunnel.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
What's this one again?
- Location
- Europe
I don't think we have any real problems with delegating tasks. The Isan team was originally supposed to be somewhat independent:
But the GM's wanted more involvement from the players:
Our problem was just that our Bank rush team were Akane and Haru, who don't really have the skill for this. Shikamaru, Ino and Ami also weren't super helpful to figure more out.
And then the Isan team broke apart.
We tried to delegate but our members just kinda failed. I guess we could have send Kagome and co for the rift research while Hazou should have stopped Haru with Akane, then we probably would have avoided pissing her off.
But the GM's wanted more involvement from the players:
Our problem was just that our Bank rush team were Akane and Haru, who don't really have the skill for this. Shikamaru, Ino and Ami also weren't super helpful to figure more out.
And then the Isan team broke apart.
We tried to delegate but our members just kinda failed. I guess we could have send Kagome and co for the rift research while Hazou should have stopped Haru with Akane, then we probably would have avoided pissing her off.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Done; I believe these are Ami's sealing notes, but explicitly calling it out is smart.
Asuma said, in the aftermath of the bank run, that he thought that scrip was a good idea and that he wanted to assemble an economic council to talk about that and other ideas, and that he wanted us to sit on it.
- Location
- Yes.
Oneiros, what the fuck!?
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Why would I not post this plan? We've got nothing pressing to do. We've done tons of prep work on this in the past.
It's something cool and exciting. Lets do it!
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I appreciate that you're frustrated, but please stay civil, especially here in the thread.
- Location
- United States
I think one of the biggest things holding our clan together right now is Gaku and our ability to hand off tasks to him/leave him in charge of delegation. It would probably be a good idea to find more secretaries like Gaku and assign them to specific tasks/clan members. There is currently a serious shortage of literate, smart, guaranteed-loyal, and administratively talented civilians that can perform at a level anywhere near where Gaku is. We should start looking now. Could you add a line to that effect?
- Location
- Yes.
My apologies for expressing my frustration in the thread. I will go somewhere else to do so.
- Location
- United States
Feel free to join us in the discord VC! We're talking about how to handle Plan Delegation right now.
[X] Action Plan: Housekeeping
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Unaligned Player
Agony that desires to meet Extinction
- Location
- Adrift between sanity and madness
- Pronouns
- Shrug
I must note that this appears very dismissive and downright insulting towards the hivemind. Was this intentional?
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Just to be sure...you remember that Hazō still has two Severe consequences and is on crutches, right? He'll need to be carried if you want to travel any significant distance.