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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Pharos said:
How?



If we want to add Snowflake to Hazou's polycule, Snowflake needs to like and be comfortable with Akane and Ino more than anything. We already know Snowflake likes Hazou and Hazou likes Snowflake -- any real chance for a relationship with Snowflake is built on connecting Snowflake to Akane and Ino.

So for anyone that wants Hazou x Snowflake, I think we should have dates or outings introducing Snowflake to Akane and Ino. More Ino than Akane, but both of them together would be best.

This would also make it much easier to eventually add Snowflake to the polycule -- we want a situation where Snowflake is close with Akane and Ino and Akane&Ino are the ones that propose adding Snowflake to the polycule. The reverse situation, where Hazou becomes closer with Snowflake before approaching Akane&Ino about it, is not going to go over very well.
(I repeated Akane and Ino so many times I was tempted to shorthand it to A&I. But that sounds like T&I, and we don't want to introduce Snowflake to T&I.)
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IWAIOTISADTIOTFGMKAFAIAOAPLTR!
 
I wouldn't expect any Kei ninja to hit S-rank. You need some kind of trick to elevate you to those ranks. Sakura isn't training with Tsunade so she won't get there. Since Gai died Lee and TenTen won't pull it off. Haru and Akane are now Goketsu. The one other leaf genin who got marginally far in the chunnin exams didn't take us up on seal training. Maybe the rest of that crew could but odds are really low. Plus if they do start performing well under Kagome we can scoop them up
 
Did we ever get an answer about whether or not we would need to burn an adoption slot to adopt an academy student? I know it was declared that just summarily adopting all of the them would provoke a united response of, "fuck the rules, hell no", but what about just Hanoka?
 
Lailoken said:
Did we ever get an answer about whether or not we would need to burn an adoption slot to adopt an academy student? I know it was declared that just summarily adopting all of the them would provoke a united response of, "fuck the rules, hell no", but what about just Hanoka?
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We would need to burn a slot, yes.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
My first counter-thought is that downgrading Consequences might conflict with extant lower-grade Consequences, such as if Hazou gets himself a new Moderate just as his Severe hits the downgrade range, but honestly that doesn't seem like much of a problem at all.

My other thought is that things could mechanically stay the same and the QMs just choose to play it up less and less the closer we get to the end-date. I think we've already been seeing that, actually, Hazou still requires a cane but his physical and mental deficiencies have been mentioned less often and less severely now as compared to when they were fresh and new, which narratively jives with the idea that he's slowly recovering and you can just extend that all the way down to normal with the last week or so showing minimal narrative effects.

At the end of the day the QMs also don't want to create the dissonance you're working to solve, but it's not really my business if it gets resolved on the mechanical or narrative side of things. If all we need is for the QMs to remember to make the recovery feel gradual instead of abrupt, then that's fine in my book.
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Sure, we could just fudge the numbers as we get closer to the date, but wouldn't it be better just to not have to correct the die in the first place? It could end up being a big deal if there's actual combat roles close to the experiation date of consequences. Would you drastically fudge the numbers to better reflect the narrative or would you let the player live and die by the actual mechanics? IMO, it's better to take care of it before it's a problem rather than hope we never have to deal with it.
 
eaglejarl said:
Chapter 479: Science and Starlight
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What on earth is starlight supposed to mean?
eaglejarl said:
"Morning, Nobs," Hazō said around the jaw-cracking yawn that Noburi's had induced. "'Buttcrack of dawn'? It's nine o'clock and I've been awake for three hours already, so I don't have a lot of sympathy. I talked to Asuma earlier about how the Gōketsu can best help, and he put me on Kagome-sensei training duty.
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:(

Yay for massive, full-time commitiments that were designed to have gigantic oppurtunity costs.
eaglejarl said:
"Hang on, what was that about Yuno?"

"She thinks I should have sacrificed myself to Orochimaru instead of letting Mari distract him with Kei. I'm not sure if she's lost respect for me or what, but it's definitely not good. Oh, and she was fully expecting me to punish her for speaking her mind, so that's fun."

"Uh..."
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Good on you for focusing on your wife right away!
eaglejarl said:
"Yeah. Anyway, I'm about done with this shit. Yes, what Mari did bothers me on an instinctive level. On a rational level I recognize that Mari was under field conditions with no time to think, but she still came up with a great plan that saved everyone. And she put herself in harm's way in order to keep the rest of us safe. Are there other things she could have done? Sure. Would those things have worked? Who knows. If Mari had offered any of her own techniques or knowledge—Truth Lost in the Fog or whatever—then Orochimaru would have had both of us standing right there in front of him, so why wouldn't he take both? Could she have lied straight to Orochimaru's face and completely made something up? Not the way to bet, and I trust the infiltrator jōnin to know whether she could pull it off.

"Kei and Yuno are having lots of fun playing after-action commander, tearing Mari down with all these ideas that they are coming up with under calm conditions with plenty of time to think. Of course, they don't come up with the things that we could have done, like reverse summon to the Seventh Path for a couple of days while you and Shikamaru went to Asuma and asked him to field-deploy Orochimaru. No, it's only the things that Mari should have sacrificed, or that I should have sacrificed. And, of course, I can't say that to either of them because it will just make things worse."
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Well I guess we know how Hazō feels about all this. He's making some pretty good points, too.
eaglejarl said:
"Will do. Thanks." He drank the water and promptly dumped all the chakra it provided him into conjuring masses of granite that rose up from nowhere, fell over because the logs they had been cast atop were not stable enough to support them, and disappeared half a minute later. "Nine times. Damnit, why can't things be consistent?"

"The universe hates you? Here, drink up so you aren't more useless than usual, then let's go get some food."
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Feels like a strong hint that we might not want to look into this further.
eaglejarl said:
"Hm?" Hazō said, from where he was shuffling through storage seals. "Oh, right. I was realizing that there is a special thing that I've done with Akane but I've never done with you, and I thought it was time you had the chance to enjoy it too."

Ino's expression became guarded. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Don't worry, I've had a lot of practice and I'm good at it. You'll love it. Akane, I thought it would be even better if you were with us. I'm sure you'll love the expression on Ino's face when it happens. And this time I remembered to bring a couple mattresses so we'll all be comfortable."
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I don't think that we have deceit high enough to get Ino back to actually troll her back.
eaglejarl said:
Akane was trying desperately to keep her face serious so as not to ruin the joke. Sadly, the Junior Goddess of Youth was terrible at lying, or even at pretending.
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Ah, right. How low is Akane's normal Deciet exactl---

HOLY SHIT WE HAVE AKANE FOOMING AND AREN'T EVEN PLANNING ON RAISING HER DECIET ABOVE EIGHT?!
eaglejarl said:
"I know what it means, you goof," Ino said, poking him lightly and sticking out her tongue.

Hazō moved with ninja speed, one hand coming up from below to tap a finger on Ino's tongue before she could pull it back. The heiress eeped and jerked away, then glared at him reproachfully while her two sweethearts laughed.
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awwww this is adorable
(but how come Hazō gets ninja speed and Ino doesn't?)
eaglejarl said:
They were half a mile in the air and Leaf was a far-off dollhouse below them. More importantly, the sun was a burnt umber fingernail on the horizon, the last of its rays about to vanish. The three sweethearts were lying atop a pair of mattresses and underneath a pile of blankets heavy enough to crush eggs. All three of them were propped up on their elbows, blankets tucked in tight around them so only their faces were exposed as they watched the sun set and the night reclaim the earth. Hazō was in the middle, Ino and Akane pressed tight against his sides both for contact and for body heat in the frozen air.
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I wonder if (assuming/pretending we won't drastically reinvent military doctrine in the mean time) a not insignificant portion of Leaf's ninja will die early from cancer from spending so much time high in the air, like pilots and flight staff do IRL. Probably not, very few of them will live long enough for it to matter. Then again, the ones that do long enough will probably be the powerful ones that you really don't want to lose from cancer.
eaglejarl said:
soupçon
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a very small quantity of something
huh
eaglejarl said:
"GM had fun" XP: 2
  • +1 for scene: Chakra measurements
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Eagle had fun trolling us. Yay?
 
Oneiros said:
It's almost as if there is a reason why I want the first detour for everyone to be deceit
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I now support having Akane raise deceit ASAP. I'm not sure about how the pyramid math works for making it be an actual detour (won't be viable if it needs to be 40 or something, plus the rapid rise in skill is a bit of a red flag) but we definitely need to raise it above the single digits
 
Eisenhelm said:
since my teacher started talking about "the secret".
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I'm really hoping that the teacher is one of the guys from Cracking the Cryptic on YouTube. ("Here is a secret that we only share with people we like very much: Every row, column and box of a Sudoku contains the digits 1-9, and when you add up the numbers 1-9 you get 45.") (Sidebar: I strongly recommend CtC. Lots of fun regardless of whether you like Sudoku.)

Shrooms said:
Wishful Thinking
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I like this a lot, but I'm confused by the ending. Is Mari dead or not?

_The_Bomb said:
Feels like a strong hint that we might not want to look into this further.
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Speaking for myself, I had fun here and wouldn't mind writing more chakra trolling investigation. @Velorien may feel differently.
 
eaglejarl said:
I like this a lot, but I'm confused by the ending. Is Mari dead or not?
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Sorry, thought it would be obvious by CynicalMari's comment, and the title "Wishful Thinking". Mari is imagining this scenario while laying in bed, instead of going to sleep. Essentially, Mari wants to die a hero and be remembered fondly by everyone else instead of live with her family hating her
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Here's my preferred approach to contact with the Bear Summoner:
  • Send another letter with a gift attached: some kind of luxury that Mareo almost undoubtedly can't get where he is. In the letter, be open and honest and say that we wouldn't try to pry the Scroll from a living holder who isn't our enemy.
  • Keep sending letters with luxuries attached, keep being open and honest and trying to find ideological connection.
    • Mareo's unlikely to ignore the luxuries and while nothing's strictly stopping him from taking them and burning the letter I think there's good odds he gives them a read anyways. The luxuries and lack of pressure for anything in return make optimal conditions to draw him just that little bit out of his shell.
    • Mareo likely holds ninja society in disdain and left so he wouldn't have to deal with all the violence and murder and stuff. Coincidentally, we're also disgusted with ninja society and all the violence and murder and stuff. There's good odds we'd have a surprising amount in common if we can get him to respond.
  • If we get a response, we can shift into dialogue form, holding a conversation through relay, and eventually we can work up to 'let's meet in person in Bear Country so we can talk easily' where we can show that we in fact were not planning to trap and kill him or whatever.
  • And then if we get that far we just need to become a Seventh Path drinking buddy or whatever and we'll get enough of his story to figure out where we want to go from there.
Mareo's very prickly and withdrawn right now and his initial expectation of us is very negative. Getting into his confidence is going to be a difficult, drawn-out process and we have to take it slow. Our key advantage is our ability to send him luxuries that'll cause him to not ignore the package. Like, he can say all he wants that he's got no interest in paying attention to Hazou, but if he has the slightest chink in his armor that says 'but he's sending me great stuff so I may as well string him along' then we've got something to work with.
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This feels like the sort of thing Mari should be in charge of instead of Hazō. She's a hundred times better at this than any plan we could write.
 
_The_Bomb said:
This feels like the sort of thing Mari should be in charge of instead of Hazō. She's a hundred times better at this than any plan we could write.
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Not really. It's not hard to write plans that give us winning moves in social situation. Passing them on the other hand can be close to impossible.

I think Vul's plan is a good start. I'm just confused of what people expect to get out of the deal. At best feels like another node in our trade network.
 
Oneiros said:
I think Vul's plan is a good start. I'm just confused of what people expect to get out of the deal. At best feels like another node in our trade network.
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Recruiting him for the Dragon crisis + maybe techniques if he cares about passing on his legacy + relationship with Bears + maybe get his Scroll when he dies in like 5 years or less cuz he's old af in the middle ages
 
Shrooms said:
Recruiting him for the Dragon crisis + maybe techniques if he cares about passing on his legacy + relationship with Bears + maybe get his Scroll when he dies in like 5 years or less cuz he's old af in the middle ages
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100% down with all of those. Was worried that people where gonna try to get the scroll from him now
 
Important information coming from the latest QM discussion:

1) Leaf is small enough that you can reach any point of interest while staying in range of training shadow clones so they don't pop. This is especially good news for Snowflake, who can go anywhere in Leaf under most circumstances. When I find time, I may retcon references to her spatial limitations.

2) Your finances, while stable, are no longer the finances of a major clan. You continue to have plenty of income streams with which to stay afloat and support Gōketsu projects and dependents, but what was left of the enormous fortune inherited from Jiraiya is gone as part of the process that landed you heavily in debt. You can no longer buy "most things short of a country".

3) No large-scale Shadow Clone SOP has been implemented. It seems there's been some confusion about that. It is not physically possible for you to keep a significant construction project secret in a compound full of non-clan ninja. You require builders, materials, and professional expertise. For now, SC training is taking place in the Forest of Death.

4) Note that there is a limit on how much chakra you can buy per day without it being very obvious, and you are already pushing the limits on this, especially if Akane and Kei's clones are doing any training that involves spending chakra. If you want other people to use FOOM, or if you want to engage in other CP-intense projects, you are going to have to make some tradeoffs such as Gōketsu being out of chakra most of the time, increased OPSEC vulnerability, or finding another major source of chakra.
 
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