Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Dictator4Hire · Aug 19, 2016

Kiba said:
For ourselves or for the Elemental Nations?

Ourselves first and foremost; we can't help others if we can't support ourselves.

Kiba said:
I am not going to harp on about the free market or anything, but monopolies are often inefficient.

So long as they make money and/or resources for us to use, it honestly doesn't really matter to me.

Kiba said:
If they're causing massive problem for everyone else, then they need killing. Otherwise, leave them alone.

Eh, I guess we can leave that up for a vote if such a situation ever arises. Agree to disagree in the short term at least?

Kiba said:
Any merchants who's inept enough to get disrupted by superior competition should get dropped like stone.

Agreed; we want competent people and then we should give them the means to be even more economical. That's one of the cornerstones of the ME plan: our slimey bastards have an edge over other slimey bastards and by the laws of the free market destroy their rivals for dominance, making both us and our merchants rich.

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

OliWhail said:
What confuses me is that we aren't [chakra boostng]. Nobby's presence makes long term boosting a much more viable strat.

Rereading the chapter, I notice I am confused. The sequence of rolls makes it seem like we notice pursuit, and then tacmov to try to put extra distance behind us so we can slow down and hide our tracks/set up traps again. But we just roll the same 15d. Is this a "you're running for hours, boosts don't last that long" issue? What's behind this decision, @Velorien?

Velorien · Aug 19, 2016

OliWhail said:
Rereading the chapter, I notice I am confused. The sequence of rolls makes it seem like we notice pursuit, and then tacmov to try to put extra distance behind us so we can slow down and hide our tracks/set up traps again. But we just roll the same 15d. Is this a "you're running for hours, boosts don't last that long" issue? What's behind this decision, @Velorien?

I don't understand the question.

Kiba · Aug 19, 2016

Dictator4Hire said:
Ourselves first and foremost; we can't help others if we can't support ourselves.

So long as they make money and/or resources for us to use, it honestly doesn't really matter to me.

My philosophy is simply: "Don't be a douche."

If we ended up creating monopolies because we're SUPERIOR PROVIDERS, that's fine with me.

If we're crushing our competitors so we can provide goods at higher price to extract more rent, then I question what we are doing.

Velorien · Aug 19, 2016

Chapter 93: The Call of the Hunt
by @LadyofPain

"Remember," Mugiwara-sensei said. "Our opponent took down a jōnin, and fended off another one long enough to escape. We have to assume that they have multiple jōnin as well, and maybe Bloodline Limit holders. Kotsuzui, I want you and Kirisaki to take your soldier pills now. Kashiwagi, use your ability on Kirisaki once we're in range. Shiina, tell the others to rendezvous at Point B."

Kenji winced as he swallowed the oversized pill, feeling the excess chakra burn through his coils like badly-refined shochu. He'd be feeling that one in the morning – at least assuming he'd be around to feel anything at all. He knew he should be happy to finally get some action – the team had been getting impatient sitting around in Kazemachi training their base skills while Shiina worked away at her Technique Hacking. Then, out of nowhere, there was a major event that forced them to actively plan their next actions, with a significant degree of risk if they made too many mistakes.

But all Kenji could think was that this mission was bound to end in casualties, and that it would be his fault. Somewhere in the back of his head, he'd been convinced that the team should be investing the majority of their time training in mobility instead of situational awareness, and had persuaded Mugiwara-sensei of the same. Now, they were going to catch up to the enemy, and some horrible jōnin-level trap would be sprung upon them. It was probably going to be Kirisaki, he knew, the one with the weakest senses, but also the one who had such a bright future in medical ninjutsu.

No, he was being morbid. They'd trained exactly for a situation like this. They'd be fine. His diagrams had covered plenty of situations that were... sort of... like this one. They'd be fine.

-o-

Noriko: Awareness said:
14d100 = 620

Enemy Sealmaster: Sealing said:
?d100 = 720

The explosion sent Noriko flying. She slammed hard into a tree, narrowly avoiding being impaled by a thick branch. Dazed, she muttered "son of a bitch. If it hadn't been for the Rock Skin Technique…"

"Are you all right?" Ichiro ran up to her. "If you're hurt, we can get Kirisaki to—"

"Just a scratch," Noriko reassured her fellow chūnin. "We need to go slow, though. Whoever set these up is the craziest paranoid maniac I've ever seen. Maybe he's the jōnin, with skills like that. If we rush to follow the trail, we'll be splattered all over the scenery."

She carefully adjusted her uniform, trying to slide the torn portions so they were as invisible as possible. If Kirisaki saw how clumsy she was… well, earning his respect was hard enough already. No matter what she did, he still didn't see her as a woman. Feeling the burn of a blast that could so easily have been fatal, Noriko promised herself that once this mission was over, she'd ask him out on a date, and damn the consequences.

-o-

Enemy team: Stealth said:
?d100 = 433

Someone else: Stealth said:
?d100 = 557

Team Mugiwara: highest Awareness said:
14d100 = 584

"Got them," Kenji grinned. "Whoever they've got at the back must be lousy at hiding their tracks – or maybe they're just shaking in their boots at the thought of facing us. I guess I was wrong to worry."

"Stay alert," Mugiwara-sensei rebuked him. "This could be a trap. And I'm more worried about that other presence you noticed earlier. We've crossed over into Leaf without permission, and our superior numbers might not count for much if those intruders turn out to be Leaf spies with a patrol team backing them up. We need to intercept them before they can join up, and we need to have a plan ready by the time we do."

Enemy team: Tactical Movement said:
?d100 = 511

Unknown ninja: Tactical Movement said:
?d100 = 550

Slowest team member: Tactical Movement said:
?d100 = 693

Mugiwara-sensei showed that predatory grin she wore when everything began to come together in her head. Kenji involuntarily shivered.

"We're going to catch them before they can join up with the others. Remember your training. Kashiwagi, use your Bloodline Limit. Shiina, get the Wind Devil Mk3 Technique ready, with chakra boost. Kenji, you know what to do."

-o-

You have earned 5 XP, and +1 XP for @cetashaun's "A Very Orochimaru Chrismas" omake.

-o-

You are about to engage an enemy team of unknown power, with another closing in. What do you do?

Voting ends Sunday 21st of August, Eastern Standard Time.

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

Dictator4Hire said:
Ourselves

This seems at odds with the "improve the world" long-term strat. In your mind, is this something we'd be doing for a few months to build some funds and then switching to a cooperative mode, or..?

Velorien said:
I don't understand the question.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm curious about the mechanical and/or story reason we aren't running while boosted, since it was my impression that Noburi's presence made that a more viable strategy for us than for a typical team.

Dictator4Hire · Aug 19, 2016

Kiba said:
My philosophy is simply: "Don't be a douche."

If we ended up creating monopolies because we're SUPERIOR PROVIDERS, that's fine with me.

If we're crushing our competitors so we can provide goods at higher price to extract more rent, then I question what we are doing.

I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't go out of our way to harm anybody innocent. However, there is also a plot going on in MfD that we have no idea about that may or may not harm us in the future. By extorting as much as we can as fast as we can via monopolies that are juuuuuust affordable enough not to bleed customers dry, we can better prepare for whatever may or may not happen.

Of course, we can always pick and choose which markets, if any, we want to push to their limits once we have a monopoly. It will all vary based on what we actually need the ME to do and in what timeframe.

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

[jk] Action Plan: This is Lame, We Should Go Home Now

Velorien said:
Whoever set these up is the craziest paranoid maniac I've ever seen.

That's our guy

Kiba · Aug 19, 2016

Dictator4Hire said:
I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't go out of our way to harm anybody innocent. However, there is also a plot going on in MfD that we have no idea about that may or may not harm us in the future. By extorting as much as we can as fast as we can via monopolies that are juuuuuust affordable enough not to bleed customers dry, we can better prepare for whatever may or may not happen.

Of course, we can always pick and choose which markets, if any, we want to push to their limits once we have a monopoly. It will all vary based on what we actually need the ME to do and in what timeframe.

Still being a douche.

Velorien · Aug 19, 2016

OliWhail said:
Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm curious about the mechanical and/or story reason we aren't running while boosted, since it was my impression that Noburi's presence made that a more viable strategy for us than for a typical team.

It is. However, it's a clever idea that I don't believe anyone has put in a plan, so it would be inappropriate for me to pre-empt the hivemind.

Oh, lest there be any ambiguity, the above is an omake (at least for this MfDverse), and nothing in it should be relied on as strategic information.

Radvic · Aug 19, 2016

Velorien said:
at least for this MfDverse

Glad to know there's a backup plan for story continuing if we die

*returns to saving phone battery*

astergremlin · Aug 19, 2016

Right now, what sort of things could we do that would lead to TacMove (to put distance between us and the enemey/get away) getting re-rolled? (if any)

MadScientist · Aug 19, 2016

*Reads Misstep*

Right.

So... that's a thing.

Okay, we have four categories of response here:

Run.

Fight.

Hide.

Parlay.

As far as running goes, we probably won't make much progress. Maybe we could start employing PMYF every so often to get speed boosts. I don't know how much that would help, or how many PMYF seals we have to work with. Let's shelve running for now.

Fighting seems pretty bleak. Each team will probably have at least one jonin, and we have maluses. We have "minutes, but not many" before enemies arrive, so we could set up traps, in which case it's Akane and Kagome's time to shine. We could try to fight the teams one at a time, but we have no guarantee that the fight will end quickly enough for us to be done before the other team arrives.

Onto hiding. We could disguise ourselves as Cloud border patrol, as someone else noted. But Kagome has Deception 2. So that probably won't work. We could bunker down in a MEW fortress, but would we get it done before enemies arrive? We could just hide in a shrub somewhere, but Hazou has Stealth 9. 'Nuff said.

Parlay would shift the balance to either good chance of winning or definate loss, depending on how it goes. If we can get to the Leaf patrol, use Jiraiya's password, and they recognise it and accept that we're his minions, then we're golden. But if the chain breaks on any of those links we're in a much worse position.

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

(Y'all, do we know if explosive tags have a specific time after activation that they go off, or is it adjustable? To what maximum time? @Velorien @eaglejarl?)

@MadScientist I am very wary of J's password. It was stated he'd be pissed if we ever had to use it, and probably more so now than other times. He might just kill all of us but Keiko.

Plan Framework: Boom Zoom
- Wait for the HS patrol to be closing in, throw a wave of explosives back and PMYF in a different direction from our current one.
- Chakra boost and run
- Repeat as needed until too low on chakra or kunai to continue, then figure something else out

Plan Framework: Boom Zoom +
- Everyone make a clone (to keep scents consistent)
- clones continue running, we either hide (henge into wilderness objects) or PMYF a random direction and then follow Boom Zoom

Plan Framework: Boom Zoom ++
- Everyone make two clones, one set henge as wilderness objects holding explosive tags to set off if investigated, the other set keep running, we PMYF a different direction and then follow Boom Zoom

Any of the above could maaaaybe potentially be followed by the below, depending on timing, or we could do the below right now. Or do them in the opposite order.

Plan Framework: Zoom Boom
- Divert course towards the Leaf patrol, stop in a clearing and set sub targets all around
-Try to time it so the HS patrol is right on our tail when Leaf gets there
- Social skills people henge into leaf nins, others hide
- Act prepared to fight, seem relieved when leaf arrives and start to explain what's happened
- Stupid box goes off, sub out selves, sub in leaf nin corpses
- Sneak/dash off as confrontation happens

Velorien · Aug 19, 2016

OliWhail said:
(Y'all, do we know if explosive tags have a specific time after activation that they go off, or is it adjustable? To what maximum time? @Velorien @eaglejarl?)

It's adjustable, up to 5 seconds.

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

Velorien said:
it would be inappropriate for me to pre-empt the hivemind.

*takes a deep, conflict-avoidant breath*
I don't know how to feel about that, honestly.

While I appreciate the respect for player agency in this statement, and I will of course respect word-of-QM, given the use of similar strategies before (to get to HS in the first place), the emphasis on getting the hell out in the plan, and the very very high likelihood I put on the hivemind voting yes on a "should we expend chakra for boost, given Noburi?" poll, it seems... not entirely consistent.

This almost seems like the kind of issue that other team members (usually Keiko, but she's admittedly out of commission for thinking duty) would point out, and then the party would do it and we'd get an XP penalty for not accounting for it.

Briefvoice · Aug 19, 2016

[jk] Spilt into three groups. At least two people will probably survive.

....but maybe the fact that we won't do that is our advantage, because many ninja teams would. Therefore if our pursuers see something like that happening, they'll assume it's real. Is there a way to leverage that?

Suppose we pretend to break into two groups. One stays behind and assumes a defensive formation to "hold off the pursuers". Try to get them to at least talk before beginning combat; they can learn more than us alive than from dead bodies, so that gives them incentive to let them talk. Meanwhile the "fleeing team" circles around using stealth and launches a surprise attack.

And of course, all of this has to be done before the Leaf team arrives. Still, they don't know what they're dealing with so they're likely approaching at least a little slower.

Cariyaga · Aug 19, 2016

OliWhail said:
*takes a deep, conflict-avoidant breath*
I don't know how to feel about that, honestly.

While I appreciate the respect for player agency in this statement, and I will of course respect word-of-QM, given the use of similar strategies before (to get to HS in the first place), the emphasis on getting the hell out in the plan, and the very very high likelihood I put on the hivemind voting yes on a "should we expend chakra for boost, given Noburi?" poll, it seems... not entirely consistent.

This almost seems like the kind of issue that other team members (usually Keiko, but she's admittedly out of commission for thinking duty) would point out, and then the party would do it and we'd get an XP penalty for not accounting for it.

Honestly, I was surprised we didn't chakra boost, too. I mean, I understand that's using a resource, but... I honestly didn't expect it to be necessary to explicitly say that.

MadScientist · Aug 19, 2016

We weren't chakra boosting?!

Jashin Christ!

[] Proto-Plan: Run Away Again, And This Time We Mean It

Keep running.

Use chakra boost.

Use PMYF when appropriate for added speed boosts.

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

MadScientist said:
Use PMYF when appropriate for added speed boosts.

We don't know we can use that safely for longer jumps yet, awaiting QM confirmation

E:

MadScientist said:
We weren't chakra boosting?!

'S what I said!

Cariyaga · Aug 19, 2016

If we can level up stealth, bump everyone up to 12, chakra boost away and stealth/PMYF to try to lose them, then repeat as necessary.

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

Tbh I'm ticked at RNGsus for giving us such a crap roll that the 3 extra dice wouldn't have mattered, on average

E: Just rolled 3d100 for shits and giggles. Got 198.

It's cuz I signed away my firstborn, isn't it dice?

Velorien · Aug 19, 2016

OliWhail said:
*takes a deep, conflict-avoidant breath*
I don't know how to feel about that, honestly.

While I appreciate the respect for player agency in this statement, and I will of course respect word-of-QM, given the use of similar strategies before (to get to HS in the first place), the emphasis on getting the hell out in the plan, and the very very high likelihood I put on the hivemind voting yes on a "should we expend chakra for boost, given Noburi?" poll, it seems... not entirely consistent.

This almost seems like the kind of issue that other team members (usually Keiko, but she's admittedly out of commission for thinking duty) would point out, and then the party would do it and we'd get an XP penalty for not accounting for it.

The thing is, it would have been a trivial matter to include "combine chakra boost with Noburi top-ups while travelling" or similar in the plan.

As a QM, I do not think I should be doing the cognitive work of constantly keeping track of player resources and optimising their use at the level of an experienced jōnin and a natural optimiser who has been trained for nothing else for most of her life. I would not be as good at it as the combined forces of the hivemind, and would forget stuff (which regularly leads to a player backlash), it would reduce player agency, and it would be a huge amount of effort.

schlega · Aug 19, 2016

How big is Kagome's biggest directed explosion seal? I'm thinking Kagome on one side, Akane on the other and the rest of the team in the narrow safe zone between them. Boom! Squash!

OliWhail · Aug 19, 2016

Velorien said:
The thing is, it would have been a trivial matter to include "combine chakra boost with Noburi top-ups while travelling" or similar in the plan.

As a QM, I do not think I should be doing the cognitive work of constantly keeping track of player resources and optimising their use at the level of an experienced jōnin and a natural optimiser who has been trained for nothing else for most of her life. I would not be as good at it as the combined forces of the hivemind, and would forget stuff (which regularly leads to a player backlash), it would reduce player agency, and it would be a huge amount of effort.

That's reasonable. As I said, I'm not going to argue the actual situation, I just felt like I should express the thought. *continues grumbling about dice gods under my breath*

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Handsome Gentleperson

Handsome Gentleperson