uju32 said:
No, you need to be better.
Especially when dealing with enemies, or people already on their guard.
You seriously overhype social.
And all things in friendly territory, with plentiful backup if things went south.
Very different from planning to engage active hostiles with diplomancy and no physical backup.
I have said it before, I will repeat: we have been operating with training wheels.
And the training wheels will come off.
Furiko flat out said she's pretty much doing this Quest on Easy mode. And it doesn't change the fact that everything in this Quest so far has been overwhelmingly social. If Furiko wanted to do lots of combat, it could have happened. Instead, it as a long exercise in world building.
If what?
We just graduated from the academy dude.
Operation Nabiki was our very first C-rank.
Which does not invalidate that instead of something like the Wave mission where combat features prominently, Furiko instead threw us into pure social, and therefore the updates are overwhelmingly social. Still are in fact.
You can say all you want about how we're only just starting out, fact of the matter is social is the overwhelming front runner and combat far back, and any hopes it's gonna change so far look to be just that: hopes.
And I do not dispute that it will play an important part.
But warfare will have its place here, as judged by the fact that the GM gave us warfare applicable feats.
Maybe, maybe not. Seriously, I know it's Naruto, but over nearly a year Furiko has written huge amounts of social, not very much combat. I think her preferences are pretty clear.
I say it will take much longer than being a 13 year old.
I seem to recall Lupin doing the master thief thing as a teenager from what Furiko has said, so I'm pretty sure you're underestimating.
I assert again, that if you intend to play diplomancy as a primary tool to deal with enemies, you need to be either packing the Charisma of Naruto, the mind rape eyes of Itachi.
Or just be a clever bastard. So many characters in fiction can get by on
Failing that, a big enough gun to give you cover when diplomacy fails.
The neutral to friendly people we have met so far are not a reasonable benchmark for what/who we will need to deal with.
Considering the subject matter Furiko seems to prefer to write (seriously look at how many plot arcs there are focusing on interacting with the little people, we went on damned vacations and celebrated birthdays as a kid for entire arcs) I do think they're gonna be the overwhelming majority.
So far, we have basically not had to face opposition; all the people we have socialized with have been neutral at worst.
That is not something to rely on.
Even if the GM has been playing this on Easy mode.
I rely more on the fact that the GM wants to see Lupin win, truthfully.
I remember Ino not having a choice because combat had already failed.
And she had alternatives.
I do not intend to be in a situation where diplomacy fails, and not have heavy duty combat skills to fall back on.
Yeah, like it'd have made a difference against Kakuzu. Point is, talking our way our of shit even against ludicrously stronger opponents is viable, and you don't need mind rape or Naruto charisma to do it.
We are 12, soon to be 13.
We just graduated the academy a few months ago.
We have done ONE C-RANK.
And oh that choice of C-Rank, Furiko chose the one with investigation, social interaction, and talking to people over something like the Wave arc with training montages and boss battles.
The writing is on the wall.
That one C-rank escort/guard job devolved into an A-class escort, diplomacy, infiltration and counterassassination mission,.
This ended up in a final battle that involved hundreds of people, a large number of ki-adepts, most of the underworld of Tanzaku Gai, and a freaking goddess.
The body count was in the wheelbarrows of men and body parts.
And guess what? It was just a one post affair in the battle and its aftermath.
We the players didn't even actively participate. It was practically a cutscene and we didn't even need to make decisions for the outcome to be decided.
That's the precedent set for our missions going south.
We've been given notice.
And I've noticed that for that mission going south we had to put in pretty much no effort to survive.
Seriously, reread that scene and look at how brief it was. Then look at all the many social interactions and see how long those are.
Do the math.
Your opinion.
I disagree.
No, not my opinion, truth. Social interaction has dominated all other things in this Quest.
Strongly disagree.
The fight DID occur, we were just using a goddess' POV while Team 5 got stuck in.
Ami was cutting her way through opposition as was Asuma.
Kiba almost died/got crippled.
Ino was forced to kill two people, despite her best efforts.
Everyone in that battle racked up more kills than Kakashi did in his first three fights in canon.
So no, you just weren't paying attention.
Seeing as we the players had to do NOTHING for that battle....yeah, I'm not taking that as a sign that we need our A-game cause no effort was required of us. That wasn't difficulty, that was "Right, missions' mostly over, here's the final battle, and now that's over too, now let's see who you want to interact with before ya go."
No.
I wasn't a player then.
But that isn't that game.
This is a ninja quest.
You will notice that Ino was the only member of her crew born in Konoha.
You will notice that Ino's shtick has been thievery and stealth shenanigans from childhood forward, to the point where her devotion to it caused a rift between her and Chouji.
More to the point, that was an example of how willing Furiko is to radically change the name of the game. Why do you think she won't do that here, cause we've got a headband? Nah. She'll do what she wants and will continue to trample canon as she sees fit.
I will point you to our first encounter with Asuma, and how he punked us when we tried to steal his cigarettes.
And I will emind you that Furiko said that the only reason we failed is cause we went for the cigarettes specifically, if we'd gone for his wallet we'd have gotten away clean. We coulda punked him.
Or how Itachi stomped us through our S-class thought shields.
I recall that being the fine print of the nature of our concealment.
They may not be PCs, but Age and Treachery counts for a hell of a lot.
And I do not see the GM putting us up against people who we can punk at leisure.
No, but we tend to reign supreme at our specialties.
I do not believe that is accurate.
Both the Yuki and Hougetsu were suspected to be extinct, for good reason.
Not following; this certainly doesn't seem to be the case here.
Zabuza's loyalties have not had more than a tangential effect on major plotlines so far.
But if you'd assumed about him, you'd be wrong, and sooner or later you're gonna assume on something big and it will bite you.
In the future?
Maybe.
Now? I'm yet to see it.
Rain sent teams to the chuunin exam, like in canon, but aren't allied, like in canon.
I'll give you Kankuro,
Occam's Razor suggests canon is in effect until disproven;
That is not a valid use of
Occum's Razor at all. Occum's razor prefers simpler explanations with minimal assumption, and assuming ALL of canon is valid until disproven is a lot of assumptions, and a lot of bad ones when Furiko keeps turning it on its head.
Furiko certainly isn't rebuilding the entire setting from scratch.
The broadstrokes remain the same, as do a lot of the details, simply tweaked or expanded on.
It's recognizably the Narutoverse, of the Naruto time period.
Not from scratch, but she deliberately adds on the setting or subverts it as a matter of course in order to deliberately play against our expectations.
See, for instance, Kankuro and his lack of face paint. Assuming that was there, turned out not to be wise. A minor point, but proof of how Furiko uses our preconceptions against us.
I fully expect to see more changes as we go on, but you are asserting way more changes to canon than is in evidence.
And you're assuming characters who have never appeared on-screen still having their fingers in the pie.
Find me a citation that says he doesn't.
No. Burden of proof is on showing something is true. If you will claim Tobi is out there plotting, first prove he exists. Otherwise it's practically a baseless accusation.
It'd work better in a setting where Furiko is not converting and upgrading from the base material and going out to surprise us with curveballs.
Kakashi still ended up with a Sharingan and his canon character, Minato still died with his wife, Naruto still ended up as jinchuuriki.
Occam's Razor applies unless the GM indicates otherwise.
As is her prerogative.
No, Occum's Razor says the hypotheses with the least assumptions is likely to be best amongst other hypotheses, stop bastardizing that principle.
It doesn't mean we get complacent, or even expect the plot to follow stations of canon.
But it does mean that major forces and factors do not change without notice.
Ame changed. We only got notice because we asked. Otherwise, we'd be oblivious.
Assuming canon IS complacency.
