12 KiB
[RT][FF][HF] Marked for Death, Interlude: The Backup Heir
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Author: u/oliwhail Omake-Maximizing AGI*
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Score: 19
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Created: 2017-01-19T22:20:24
Post:
Comments:
u/scruiser [+9] CYOA (6 hours later)
I didn't reply to the earlier update when this first came up, but wow the Quest Masters are lucky that they player base took the nerf with such even stride. I mean the players went from being near even with Jounin given a good match-up relative to their specialties and teamwork, to "lol maybe close chunin, power-curve is a secret lol". Keep in mind that they players had gradually transitioned from barely surviving to maybe we will try to do some good in the world and now they are back to barely surviving levels of strength. Add in the explosion of consequences from a seemingly minor word choice and pushing a little bit too hard on an issue and I would be raging if I were a player. Of course, I binged through the quest as if it were a story, so looking back on it, there were a lot of near death encounters were wrong move would mean a dead main character and there were quite a few choices that seemed questionable that nearly went horribly wrong that the players pulled out of and recovered from, so they are probably more used to it then I am as an outsider.
Anyway, even the justifications for the nerf felt a little gamey... ordinary village genin would probably be doing a bunch of D-ranks and the occasional C-rank so it seems justifiable that a bunch of genin with strong bloodlines who are training non-stop and fighting for their very survival constantly should increase in skill multiple times faster, and be mid to high chunin level now... whatever that means. I know they are only taking broad strokes from canon, but all those Rookie team made it through the first two stages of the chunin exam without being literally slaughtered, and these characters seem a lot more competent than them, so they ought to be like low chunin level at least.
But anyway, I'm a reader, not a player. I should probably go back to letting this story buffer in large sections so I can binge through it and avoid painful cliffhangers. On my binge through, I barely noticed power-level, only that they gradually become more capable and confident in themselves. I guess I at least hope that the nerf won't set them back in the narrative of the story, although there latest flub certainly did, but looking back they had a lot of near flubs and bumps. (Actually, ignoring narrative and thinking realistically, I am really surprised Jiraya didn't kill them off them after the hot springs incident. By now he must think of them as his dangerous rag-tag wildcard team when he really need deniable assets with firepower and he doesn't mind the risk of them setting off political landmines.)
Edit*: I went back and double checked, there was more reasoning and justification since I last checked (I had only seen the first threadmarked post on the nerf and the initial player reactions). It's not quite as bad as I first thought, although it still looks pretty demoralizing. The characters are good within their respective bloodlines, so at least it isn't a narrative retcon inducing level of nerf. I suppose as a mere binge reader I won't mind once I distance myself from the players and go back to viewing it as a particularly sprawling and open-ended fanfiction.
Edit 2*: Found a better and more moderate summary by an actual player I actually think that the balance nerf makes the problem that high magic introduces even worse, because as the players are now unable to match Jounin in fair combat as a team, they will turn to even more seal muchkinry and work towards world breaking power even harder with more focused specialization. Nerfing the overall magic system, as the player pointed out, only slows the approach of this problem.
Edit 3: Found two solutions I like:
3 Use Aristotelian physics. Make jutsus and seals act towards ends, rather than based off of means. Make seals and jutsu be "achieve a result" rather than "affect the world." Basically, handwave all physics related to chakra and embrace the unphysical aspect of magic. So, substitution conserves what people generally THINK momentum is, not what momentum actually is. What people generally think momentum is is fairly undefined and changes depending on the interaction. This lets you make substitution such that it will never produce city killers, because it doesn't directly interface with known physics. For another example, Air points are exactly as meaningless as they sound, and using them for forms of propulsion etc. are impossible. Explosive seals don't release shockwaves, they just have destruction, injury, and building destruction zones. Make each jutsu work off these sorts of principles, where they achieve a result, and attempts to munchkin that result just result in the jutsu not working (or doing something entirely different).
4 Let the players find the exploit. Handwave away the fact that pretty much any exploit that the players are likely to find, a ninja in Marked for Death likely would have found earlier, and let the players essentially win the quest (or destroy the world).
And... at this point I should probably just post to the Wednesday world building thread rather than post here because I am getting more into World building problems in general.
u/themousehunter [+5] Sunshine Regiment (19 hours later)
I felt jarred by the "explosion of consequences from a seemingly minor word choice".
I read the story-only thread and it seemed to escalate unbelievably quickly.
u/ZeroNihilist [+6] (20 hours later)
Yeah, I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for the story since then. I looked up the winning plan and apparently the wording was:
- Talk to Inoue and later Jiraiya about Kabuto
- Talk to Inoue about Kabuto and bringing his behavior up to Jiraiya. Either 1. Kabuto's supposed to be doing everything he can to find out about all of you, and is supposed to be very good at it, even if that means indirectly, maybe, threatening Akane. 2. Kabuto isn't supposed to be doing any of these things and Jiraiya might be able to help or will find the information valuable.
- If given the green light, talk to Jiraiya with Inoue so she can give her impressions as well. Stress that whether it is option 1 or 2 Akane is very precious to our team and we are willing to go pretty damn far to keep her safe.
I guess the plan may have been ambiguous, but it seems to me that the charitable interpretation would be to discuss the whole Jiraiya planned dialogue with Inoue, including the last bit.
I don't blame the QMs for it, because they were very faithful to the plan-as-written. That doesn't make it a satisfying outcome, especially since it could have been prevented with something like "Then Inoue realised that Hazou was about to say something stupid—because she's incredibly skilled at that sort of thing, which is why Hazou ran the plan by her in the first place—and stopped him, just like she does with Kagome all the damn time."
u/None [+2] (20 hours later)
The QMs are trying not to be too charitable or too harsh.
u/scruiser [+3] CYOA (20 hours later)
The QMs should have given minor consequences for Kagome's many many very specific and very lethal threats to serve as a warning to the players I think. And/or minor consequences or warnings from Inoue about mouthing off to Jiraya.
u/Radvic [+3] (23 hours later)
I think the reasoning was basically that Kagome is known to be crazy and doesn't fulfill his threats, but Hazou is competent and makes complex schemes to achieve his desired results. Further, he provided arguments for why he'd need to attack a Leaf higher up, rather than just shouting "I'm going to kill you!" That and potentially "there's more going on in the background you don't know about." One way this was foreshadowed was all the times that Hazou said something vaguely insulting or disrespectful to Jiraiya, Inoue tensed, and the only reason we didn't immediately die was that Jiraiya chose not to kill us. That said, I was still pretty saddened by the result (since it eliminated much of what we had gained in the past 4 months IRL or so). Ultimately, I wasn't careful in how I worded the passing action plan, and it costs us months of work.
Part of what the players (at least, what I) like about Marked for Death is the importance of being incredibly precise about many, many things (XP expenditure, how much to boost in combat, conversational paths to pursue, missions to accept, etc.) and the knife's edge balance that such aspects create. If the QMs just gave us gracious rulings everytime, it would feel like they were just making us auto-win. That said, I still wish Hazou had realized saying he'd fight Kabuto was dumb. Or that Inoue had realized what Hazou was going to say and stopped him. But I'm unsure how much of that is just wishful thinking vs. a desire for a realistic interpretation of our action plan.
u/scruiser [+2] CYOA (a day later)
Inoue tensed, and the only reason we didn't immediately die was that Jiraiya chose not to kill us.
Yeah, that is true. Makes me wonder way the players didn't start trying to be more respectful sooner. Still seems like Inoue would give a stronger warning at some point... maybe she did and I didn't notice as I've only read through once.
Kagome is known to be crazy and doesn't fulfill his threats
That still implies they are willing to read context into threats enough that Hazou shouldn't have come across as threatening as he did, which make me go back to thinking that their is a bunch of political stuff going on and Hazou just managed to provide the final straw and a good pretext.
Part of what the players (at least, what I) like about Marked for Death is the importance of being incredibly precise about many, many things
Yeah, the players seem way to meticulous for me follow, I really need to go back to letting the story buffer so I can binge read and not worry.
u/None [+2] (16 hours later)
Emotionally, the nerf didn't feel as bad as the escape from Hot Spring, but that's just me.
u/Cariyaga [+4] Kyubey did nothing wrong (51 minutes later)
Ooh, shit. Well, we just caused the fourth ninja war to accelerate.
u/InfernoVulpix [+2] (a day later)
I must say that I quite like the name our team's been given, the 'Cold Stone Killers', though I don't understand it entirely. I know that the 'killers' comes from the way we killed Joutarou and our missing-nin status in general, and that 'stone' likely refers to the MEW we used to kill Joutarou, but the only reasoning for 'Cold' I have is to contrast with 'Hot Springs' or just for effect. Still, I've heard Team Uplift and, while it's fitting given our intentions, it feels slightly out of place for some reason, whereas Cold Stone Killers is not only somewhat appropriate, but makes it feel like our team's considered important, which is always a nice feeling even if it makes us more likely to be hunted and killed.