How saccharine. But I don’t think it counts as a unique angle either, that’s a very standard plot outside of Cheliax.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t think I can improve on my admittedly vague plans by trying to think of something more unique. The classics are classic for a reason. Maybe I could make them more unique by trying to improve on them, but the plan was vague in the first place for a reason, too: I hate planning. So the story would be more unique, if we do things your way and it goes according to plan, and it’d have a happier ending, if we do things my way and it goes according to plan…

naaahhhhhhhhh, this is already way too much planning things out in advance for a roleplaying game. How about we just both play things by ear?

I too intend to handicap myself in that way, yes, because to do otherwise would be unfair.

Unrelated thing: give me a Sense Motive check?

Improvising works for me; why change up a good thing?

After all, only a crisis produces real change.

The last time I used the line Lyvina said “skill issue” and Kroft “I think whoever you’re quoting meant it to be descriptive, not normative.”

Gods, they sound so annoying. I’m sorry you have to put up with them.

Which isn’t to say they’re wrong about this specific thing.

What’s number twenty-seven on the list of

The Top 100 Things I'd Do
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached?

27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.

I don't feel like this really engages with the reasons why people might only have one of something. Magic items are expensive, and each of them you make or buy is a different one that you can't. 

I can follow the advice about carrying backup weapons, but there's a reason why only one of mine has the mega-enchantments on it and it and it's not that I wouldn't love to have another. 

Twenty-eight?

28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.

What if your pet monster is free range but you keep it geas'd?

I think that breaks the general spirit of the rule, which is meant to keep you from a karmic death.

Karmic death? 

No matter how evil the villains are, the good guys can't just kill them: heroes are supposed to be better than that. They need to stay pure and noble (or innocent); role models, exemplars of solving their problems without resorting to bloodshed. If they take another person's life, no matter how justified, they will lose their moral edge, but when the villains are just arrested and hauled away by the police, this isn't satisfying. For one, they have a tendency to escape. For another, the mundane workings of the criminal justice system seem woefully inadequate to hold or to punish a really evil villain. We, the viewers, want to see real justice administered, and we don't trust human hands (or at least not ''heroic'' human hands) to administer it.

So, the writers arrange for the villain to die in a manner that is completely their own fault, or, at least, obviously not the hero's. If they die right in the act of attempting to kill the hero, this gives a particularly nice karmic zing. If they attack after being defeated and then spared by the hero, this is one of the rare circumstances where the hero can dispatch the villain personally and still come across as blameless.

Note that this only applies if the villain is clearly human or the setting's equivalent. If they change into some kind of monster, they are no longer protected by this trope: the hero might hesitate to kill another human, but a mutated, horrendous beast is fair game — doubly so when the villain took this form for the sole purpose of murdering the hero. The trope may still apply if the villain's inhuman nature somehow allows him to escape justice at the mortal heroes' hands; in such a case, their doom would come from a completely unexpected quarter, such as previously abused minions finding and shattering the villain's Soul Jar to avenge themselves, without any involvement from the heroes whatsoever (and the minions possibly not even pulling a Heel–Face Turn) and if a Karma Houdini finally becomes the receiving end of this trope, this is Karma Houdini Warranty.

It's more common in Western markets, as a result of heavy censorship and the general reluctance among writers to feature their character (usually in a show with a younger demographic) doing such acts as killing, especially if they're underage. Occasionally known by the older demographic as "getting one's comeuppance." Given that there is a certain charm to Self Disposing Villainy, this trope can show up in works that allow the hero to kill people; it's just that it's much more common for it to show up in situations where the hero has a no-kill policy for one reason or another.

This trope is less common in more cynical works, where the good guys using lethal force is not only more expected but the refusal for a hero to kill comes off as naive at best and irresponsible at worst.

Karmic Death is an example of Death by Irony. Disney Villain Death, The Dog Bites Back and Just Desserts are subtropes. This trope is the opposite of Karmic Jackpot.

Compare Asshole Victim, Hoist by His Own Petard, A Taste of Their Own Medicine and Karmic Butt-Monkey. See also Cruel Mercy. Adaptational Self-Defense usually involves this. The Killer Becomes the Killed is a Crime and Punishment Series variant.

You kill people all the time, so presumably my story isn't from a "Western market"? 

It's not in a market at all, really: there are only four readers. 

Although also, the censorship TVTropes is talking about is different from the kind in Cheliax. Leastwise in my corner of the West, and... eliding present or potential controversies... there's fairly little that it's illegal to write, it's just that some venues or publishers might ask you to get a rating from the Motion Picture Association of America or ESRB, and parents won't let their kids read you if your rating is too high, which limits your audience.

I'm gathering that your country has very low state capacity. I hope you don't die in the fighting when you're conquered by one of your neighbors.

...Was what I said really that funny? 

A little.

The country I'm from has the most powerful conventional military on our planet, but that's hardly relevant to the question, since both of our neighbors have been allies and friends of ours for a hundred years and more. If there was a war it'd be because our head of state went insane and decided to invade one of them.

I do wonder what would happen to you if "Cheryl" died, though. Would she continue directing you from the afterlife? Would that be end of your telepathic connection to the other three?

Is your country so much stronger that there's no chance of your dying in the insane conquest? Well, I guess even if you did, they'd just raise you, you're too strong to be left dead...

My talents may have been exaggerated by the cooperative hand of fate.

What was that?

I'm not in the military and I wouldn't be asked to march on Canada or Mexico.

But talking about real-world wars is depressing me! Can we get back to the Evil Overlord List?

Sure. What's number twenty-nine?

29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.

That's most of why I'm wearing green - the infernal reds and blacks in my wardrobe can wait in there until it's safer to take the mask all the way off.

What's number thirty?