6.2 KiB
[FF][RST] Marked for Death, A Rational Naruto Quest -- Chapter 54: Recovery
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Author: u/eaglejarl *
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Score: 14
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Created: 2016-07-03T14:03:01
Post:
Comments:
u/blazinghand [+5] Chaos Undivided (9 hours later)
"Kagome is paranoid, but he's a genius at sealcrafting. We would not have survived the tapirs without the defenses he constructed."
...
"I don't think he's crazy," Kei said. "Insanity is defined as a set of one or more maladaptive and uncontrollable behaviors. Kagome's paranoia is highly adaptive."
Kagome is possibly my favorite character for these reasons. On some level he might be the only sane missing-nin we encounter. He knew it was only a matter of time before those stinkers sicced tapirs on them and was prepared. He made everyone make camp an extra hour out. His terrifying explosive beach buoys of instant seemingly unnecessary death saved them from the chakra jellyfish. They'd be lost without him.
u/Cariyaga [+3] Kyubey did nothing wrong (23 hours later)
Yeah, as much as I like him for, uh, his him-ness, he's actually a massive freaking credit to the team. He also means that we the players don't have to spend the first 90% of the time after updates accounting for our paranoia, which is nice. :D
u/eaglejarl [+3] (a day later)
It's a shame. I always enjoyed watching y'all go nuts. :>
u/Cariyaga [+2] Kyubey did nothing wrong (a day later)
Now we only need to spend the first 80% of it accounting for paranoia. The other 10% goes to panic-induced procrastination.
u/hoja_nasredin [+4] Dai-Gurren Brigade (a day later)
Ok, I notice this get posted quite often.
I understand I sound a little bit as a jerk but can you sell it to me? What are strong point of this story?
u/Jello_Raptor [+7] The Last Tool User (a day later)
Some background: It's a quest, where people (largely from the rational fiction community) vote on the actions the characters take between each update. It's also written by some of the luminaries of this community, who seem to have put a lot of effort into the worldbuilding and making the non-player characters act rationally. (The original work is a shonen that shines as an example of profoundly irrational writing, making this even more impressive.)
Selling it: So, as a reader, the story is pretty enjoyable. Due to the player and randomness driven nature of the quest, there's no plot immunity and the tension is therefore pretty high. The world building is well done, creating good reasons for why the world is how it is. There are many smart participants in the quest, so the main characters generally act intelligent. The writing is good, with good characterization and imagery.
Issue is, the story is still pretty early and we've not gotten to the serious munchking yet. We're also still pretty low on the world's power hierarchy and there's no coherent theme or strong hints of a long term plot arc. This is probably pretty par for the course for a rational quest, since starting out as a weakling in an internally consistent world means you don't have narritivitium to help push things along. However, it also means that there's no easy hook I can point to to convince you that the story itself is interesting.
Of course that's all looking at the story as a reader. If you're a player (contributing to the discussions/planning/voting) there's an entire extra layer of fun. The community is amazing, a pile of really smart people having stimulating discussions. There's a surprising level of decency, kindness, and a strong assumption of goodwill, much more than many other forums I've seen. It's one of the best practical examples of people working together rationally that I've seen.
You also don't have to read the whole thread to join, just the updates and the posts after the last update. We recently had someone new propose a plan and win a vote before their first dozen posts in the thread.
u/hoja_nasredin [+4] Dai-Gurren Brigade (a day later)
Ok, you convinced me. It is amazing so far. Sucks that the village hidden in the swamp idea got trashed. I really looked forward for that village.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (2 days later)
I was a little bummed about that too, yeah. Still, it's been fun even without it.
u/Cariyaga [+2] Kyubey did nothing wrong (2 days later)
Yeah, if I'd been more active at the time I'd have voted for staying. I'd have loved to be involved in building a village rather than traditional missing nin life -- It's part of why I'm pushing for either Ninja United Nations or Village Hidden in the Heavens.
u/oliwhail [+1] Omake-Maximizing AGI (2 days later)
Porque no los dos? :D VHiH is really more a stepping stone for us to do extended periods of jutsu and sealing research safely until we can put up a sustainable orbital platform anyhow
u/Cariyaga [+1] Kyubey did nothing wrong (2 days later)
It'd certainly be a lot easier to be considered impartial if you were literally above it all
u/Cariyaga [+1] Kyubey did nothing wrong (a day later)
Enjoy the ride!
u/eaglejarl [+4] (a day later)
How to make a Marked for Death:
Take 6 ninja wizards, mix them with a death world, and have their leadership betray them. Add a dash of intrigue and a splash of threateningly powerful non-humans. Season with diplomacy, tense combat, a paranoid explosives expert, and a team mom who is a lethal assassin / mistress of illusion. Shake well and serve twice per week alongside a very active community.
Makes about 150,000 canon words and a dozen or so omakes.
u/Cariyaga [+3] Kyubey did nothing wrong (36 minutes later)
Yay! ...I always forget that the other members of our team are actually pretty reasonable.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (31 seconds later)
Intra-team bonding now that we aren't in hillbilly ninja town any more.