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A Villain In A World Of Heroes

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Cassanove_Clown said:
Don't have such a boring plan, and I won't have to call it as such. *chuckles* and I didn't necessarily mean an explosive ending, just something better than "mediocrity". My personal belief is that we should focus on resource building. Build an empire become a Queen. We may not be able to win against a Hero, but I've heard nothing about the ability of a Villain against regular civilians. Win a war or two, and the hearts of those around us, and simply build our kingdom into something mighty. Subterfuge, and the like, should be a key in winning this. If a villain can't win on their own, they bring friends. I'm almost certain that the MC isn't the very first person wronged by a Hero. If the moral ambiguity of the Hero is to be believed that Hero's can indeed be evil and cruel, why is it to be believed that a Villain can't likewise be good-natured and kind. Destined to fail does create a sense of futility that normally fuels hatred and fury, but the better part of a smart persons brain would concede to the fact that our goal is to in fact not become the very monster we seek.
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Okay, so you want Cedra, 14, just had her father killed, to take over a country, one explicitly defended by heroes, through war, somehow bypassing all of the allied countries and the will of the people, unless you believe that we can somehow convince everybody to revolt against a government reinforced by a plethora of beings who of regularly fight creatures on par with Godzilla and win. We have a hard enough time planning how to take out one hero. This will be ridiculously difficult to even justify thinking about IC, much less trying to pull off.
Cassanove_Clown said:
Has that been expressly denoted as the correct route? I can understand your want to believe so, but it leaves too much area for error. My examples so far have been far grander than I would personally go, but this, as I've said, is plain mediocrity.
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My plan is very flexible, and doesn't really have any conditions which could be considered a failure. My plan is fishing, your plan is bear hunting using your own body as bait in hopes that you'll be able to use the corpse of the bear in order to lure a cougar to fight a dragon. Heroes can literally defeat armies of normal people, and since there's no way that a hero would acknowledge us as their rightful ruler we wouldn't have anything that could deal with him.

Cassanove_Clown said:
Who's to say that simply telling our story to a legitimately kind Hero wouldn't cause him to aid us in our endeavor? I suppose this has probably been asked before, but I simply don't feel like reading over 92 pages for this kind of information. As for that fact, what does it say against a Hero fighting another Hero? Are they immediately denounced as a Villain, or do they retain their Hero status? Is there a way for a Hero to become a Villain, or is it something they innately can't lose?

Personally, I believe seeking the help of other Hero's in this matter. There's something innately "Good" about Heroe's, right? And I'm sure it wouldn't be too much of a problem finding a Hero either prideful enough, or Kind enough to help us. Prideful Heroes I assume would look at a Hero who enacts cruelty in a disdainful way.
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No, there is nothing innately good about heroes. They are explicitly, in this setting, just people with plot armor and ridiculous power. And while innately good people exist who are heroes, I doubt that they'd be willing to go against somebody who is likely a veteran hero for the sake of a single little girl, no matter how cute. Hence the subterfuge and building up of a friendship between us; when we tell him about the guy, we won't be "The poor peasant girl asking for help", we'll be "his close friend and band member who he has fought many times side-by-side with for his own gain, so he kind of owes it to her to go along with her quest for once".

Cassanove_Clown said:
Also, on another note, didn't the MC gain any friends or family at all during their time in town? It was said that the Father of Cedra was known for fixing a plethora of shirts and other items of clothing. Certainly there are some people outrage at the fact that a Hero killed him, otherwise the MC also lives in a world filled with mindless people who only feel what they're told to feel.
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Nope. Apparently we just stayed inside the shop and did boring, non-creative things like staring at the ceiling all of our childhood, when we weren't watching our father work leather.
 
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chocolote12 said:
Okay, so you want Cedra, 14, just had her father killed, to take over a country, one explicitly defended by heroes, through war, somehow bypassing all of the allied countries and the will of the people, unless you believe that we can somehow convince everybody to revolt against a government reinforced by a plethora of beings who of regularly fight creatures on par with Godzilla and win. We have a hard enough time planning how to take out one hero. This will be ridiculously difficult to even justify thinking about IC, much less trying to pull off.
My plan is very flexible, and doesn't really have any conditions which could be considered a failure. My plan is fishing, your plan is bear hunting using your own body as bait in hopes that you'll be able to use the corpse of the bear in order to lure a cougar to fight a dragon. Heroes can literally defeat armies of normal people, and since there's no way that a hero would acknowledge us as their rightful ruler we wouldn't have anything that could deal with him.

No, there is nothing innately good about heroes. They are explicitly, in this setting, just people with plot armor and ridiculous power. And while innately good people exist who are heroes, I doubt that they'd be willing to go against somebody who is likely a veteran hero for the sake of a single little girl, no matter how cute. Hence the subterfuge and building up of a friendship between us; when we tell him about the guy, we won't be "The poor peasant girl asking for help", we'll be "his close friend and band member who he has fought many times side-by-side with for his own gain, so he kind of owes it to her to go along with her quest for once".

Nope. Apparently we just stayed inside the shop and did boring, non-creative things like staring at the ceiling all of our childhood, when we weren't watching our father work leather.
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That's sounds pretty boring as well.

Regardless, it was all exaggerated example up until this point. Your plan relies pretty heavily on the idea that we'll both find a friendly Hero, and convince him/her to get us to tag along. That's the room for error I'm talking about. This is pretty heavily implying things that haven't yet happened, which leads to an inconclusive plan.

Personally speaking, counting on the help of someone we've yet to actually met, is a very bad idea. How much do we currently know about the world we live in, aside from "Da Rulez" that have already beenn painted in big gold letters that read "If thou art a Villain, thou shalt not win". Knowing the political and economic surroundings may indeed help us in our quest to kill a hero.
A few questions still sit in my head, though. Are there legitimate tiers for Heroes? Does a Hero get more powerful simply over time, as a passive ability, or is it something that they start with, being able to crush mountains with their fists? How has it shaped the society around them? What is their role in all of it? Excuse my rampant questions, but again, I very much don't want to filter through 92 pages of votes for the useful bits.
 
Cassanove_Clown said:
Are there legitimate tiers for Heroes? Does a Hero get more powerful simply over time, as a passive ability, or is it something that they start with, being able to crush mountains with their fists?
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All variable.

Cassanove_Clown said:
How has it shaped the society around them? What is their role in all of it?
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They are like demigods. You obey their will, so they don't want to kill you. Sometimes they take over countries.
 
You know, given how Fate seem to be a tangible force in this 'verse, I wonder is there another force, older and greater that we can tap into (except the dice gods, those guys are both dicks and saints at the same time)
 
Dark Ness said:
All variable.


They are like demigods. You obey their will, so they don't want to kill you. Sometimes they take over countries.
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Then certainly people live not to respect the Heroes, but in fear of them...

I see. Very interesting. When facing the gods, brute force is absolutely the worst idea possible. When facing a Demi god that can kill countries....

I personally believe learning more about our adversary is a necessity. Learning who he's affiliated with, who he's made enemies with, what his motivations are. These are necessary in order to take him down, in any possible way. Following his trail and learning more about him is what should be the main focus, not how to take him down. Prepare first, and then move on to the possibilities.
 
When brute force doesn't force, then you're not using enough brute force. After all we "just" need enough power to blast a metaphorical concept (Fate) out of existence
 
Ehorin said:
@Cassanove_Clown

how dare you call our plan boring! you didn't read my omakes did you? go do that...
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Is it a boring Omake? I'm saying much of this in light of itself, honestly. I realize the attempt here, but it's still pushing mediocrity and that is something I simply can't get behind. Regardless, link please?

Edit: Also, don't have such a boring plan if you don't want it to be called boring. :p
 
linkies for omake's written by me here
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...-a-world-of-heroes.18001/page-51#post-3633249
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...-a-world-of-heroes.18001/page-69#post-3714999

I like the first one better personally... I should mention that they are not interconnected and that all omake can be found by threadmarks as well

EDIT: while looking for these I discovered something very very sad, there are only THREE Omake in the whole thread! my two and one called "Lone Ranger".
 
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Cassanove_Clown said:
Regardless, it was all exaggerated example up until this point. Your plan relies pretty heavily on the idea that we'll both find a friendly Hero, and convince him/her to get us to tag along. That's the room for error I'm talking about. This is pretty heavily implying things that haven't yet happened, which leads to an inconclusive plan.
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Implying what? Our plan needs three things: A hero who is okay with us being a member of the party, the ability to survive his adventures until he counts us as a friend, and the ability to track down that guy. We've got the seeds of 2, are working on 3, and will presumably find 1 before we encounter that guy. If we get near that guy before acquiring 1, we will back off from him until that is accomplished, because we won't be doing anything useful otherwise. Your plan requires a whole ton of variables, assumes that Cedra could somehow pull off a revolution (unless that was just an over-the-top example, then nevermind) or something equally audacious, and could in anyway build up a network of people willing to work against that guy. That's the point of my plan's subterfuge; nobody wants to fight a hero except other heroes and their friends, so that's who we're going to recruit, and Heroes and their friends don't like fighting each other because it's dangerous, so that's why we're going to ingratiate ourselves for several story arcs before bringing it up. I'm playing the slow, boring game that is more likely to win in the long run.

How are we going to acquire information about that guy anyway? Do we know his name? No. Will he notice somebody following in his trail and asking questions about him? Yes. Do we have the money to hire rogues and such to learn about this guy discretely? No.

And another thing. This "boring" you keep throwing out left and right. What metric are you using for it, hmm? Are we going by Hendersons, here? Because if you want to pull of the same feats as That Guy Who Kills Psionics I'm afraid that you're out of luck.
 
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munchkinomatic said:
Basically, this is more "mook with a big dream" quest than a bonafide supervillian quest
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I realize this, which is why we should dream big instead of mediocrity.

chocolote12 said:
Implying what? Our plan needs three things: A hero who is okay with us being a member of the party, the ability to survive his adventures until he counts us as a friend, and the ability to track down that guy. We've got the seeds of 2, are working on 3, and will presumably find 1 before we encounter that guy. If we get near that guy before acquiring 1, we will back off from him until that is accomplished, because we won't be doing anything useful otherwise. Your plan requires a whole ton of variables, assumes that Cedra could somehow pull off a revolution (unless that was just an over-the-top example, then nevermind) or something equally audacious, and could in anyway build up a network of people willing to work against that guy. That's the point of my plan's subterfuge; nobody wants to fight a hero except other heroes and their friends, so that's who we're going to recruit, and Heroes and their friends don't like fighting each other because it's dangerous, so that's why we're going to ingratiate ourselves for several story arcs before bringing it up. I'm playing the slow, boring game that is more likely to win in the long run.

How are we going to acquire information about that guy anyway? Do we know his name? No. Will he notice somebody following in his trail and asking questions about him? Yes. Do we have the money to hire rogues and such to learn about this guy discretely? No.

And another thing. This "boring" you keep throwing out left and right. What metric are you using for it, hmm? Are we going by Hendersons, here? Because if you want to pull of the same feats as That Guy Who Kills Psionics I'm afraid that you're out of luck.
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I throw out the word boring so exclusively for this because that's exactly what it is, boring. Little tact put into it, relying on chance and things that have yet to happen. You're trying to work with things you've yet to do and yet to see or experience. You're working on chance with the brief clues that it might work. I essence, it's a plan that's also bound to failure.

From what I understand, we don't know any heroes. And on the brief chance that we find a hero that either won't want to kill us the moment they see us, and who also don't mind letting a relatively weak and insignificant person in comparison to their adventuring group (Which is assuming that adventuring is a favorite pastime of Heroes, considering the fact that it would be more for sport than anything else, based on what I've seen so far.), and then slowly gaining their trust as we attempt to keep up with their MIGHTY POWAH! long enough to convince them to kill our Arch-Enemy.

So far I'm not seeing much more than speculation on your part. You're assuming that we'll meet a hero, assuming he'll let you in the party or give you the time of day, and assuming that eventually he'll trust you. The thing that I disagree with in this plan is that is has less variables than anything I could think of, but simply assumes that the answers we want will be the answers we get. This is bound to lead to failure because variables don't seem to be taken into account other than in passing notions. At least based on what I'm seeing, I could entirely be wrong.

Success is one part having a plan, and one part knowing that plan could fail entirely. And I wasn't actually hinting at a revolution. Based on what I've seen, that would be an idiotic thing to try.

If I were to think of anything off of the top of my head, however, I would find a kingdom that is ruled by a Hero, and use subterfuge to have them set their sites on our Target. Though, finding things out about our particular target would be necessary in doing so, as it's unknown who he's affiliated with and who we'd be pissing off by meddling in his plans. Also, the man we're trying to kill has already shown the ability to be damaged but cursed flames. If we were to find a way to do it ourselves, it's possible the burn the bastard alive. If anything, not to kill him, but give him the punishment of eternally being on fire.

Or something like that, I'm not really paying attention to all of this.
 
Cassanove_Clown said:
Then certainly people live not to respect the Heroes, but in fear of them...
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Sometimes they respect them, there are genuinely good heroes out there.
munchkinomatic said:
Basically, this is more "mook with a big dream" quest than a bonafide supervillian quest
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For now, yeah. But, you can definitely reach supervillian levels.

On another note: Do you want to know what the other artefacts would have been?
 
Cassanove_Clown said:
I realize this, which is why we should dream big instead of mediocrity.



I throw out the word boring so exclusively for this because that's exactly what it is, boring. Little tact put into it, relying on chance and things that have yet to happen. You're trying to work with things you've yet to do and yet to see or experience. You're working on chance with the brief clues that it might work. I essence, it's a plan that's also bound to failure.

From what I understand, we don't know any heroes. And on the brief chance that we find a hero that either won't want to kill us the moment they see us, and who also don't mind letting a relatively weak and insignificant person in comparison to their adventuring group (Which is assuming that adventuring is a favorite pastime of Heroes, considering the fact that it would be more for sport than anything else, based on what I've seen so far.), and then slowly gaining their trust as we attempt to keep up with their MIGHTY POWAH! long enough to convince them to kill our Arch-Enemy.

So far I'm not seeing much more than speculation on your part. You're assuming that we'll meet a hero, assuming he'll let you in the party or give you the time of day, and assuming that eventually he'll trust you. The thing that I disagree with in this plan is that is has less variables than anything I could think of, but simply assumes that the answers we want will be the answers we get. This is bound to lead to failure because variables don't seem to be taken into account other than in passing notions. At least based on what I'm seeing, I could entirely be wrong.

Success is one part having a plan, and one part knowing that plan could fail entirely. And I wasn't actually hinting at a revolution. Based on what I've seen, that would be an idiotic thing to try.

If I were to think of anything off of the top of my head, however, I would find a kingdom that is ruled by a Hero, and use subterfuge to have them set their sites on our Target. Though, finding things out about our particular target would be necessary in doing so, as it's unknown who he's affiliated with and who we'd be pissing off by meddling in his plans. Also, the man we're trying to kill has already shown the ability to be damaged but cursed flames. If we were to find a way to do it ourselves, it's possible the burn the bastard alive. If anything, not to kill him, but give him the punishment of eternally being on fire.

Or something like that, I'm not really paying attention to all of this.
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The idea is that your plan is like a path, and my plan is like a fishing rod. If a hero doesn't bite on the plot hook that we're offering, then we'll switch to another one. There's bound to be at least one naive Hero out there that we can reach, and if there isn't then I suppose we'll simply have to go to plan 2. There's nothing saying that we can't try out more than one plan, you know, other than that I don't like you because you made fun of my plan, you terrible person you. :V
 
chocolote12 said:
The idea is that your plan is like a path, and my plan is like a fishing rod. If a hero doesn't bite on the plot hook that we're offering, then we'll switch to another one. There's bound to be at least one naive Hero out there that we can reach, and if there isn't then I suppose we'll simply have to go to plan 2. There's nothing saying that we can't try out more than one plan, you know, other than that I don't like you because you made fun of my plan, you terrible person you. :V
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Just trying to fit the role of a villain to the best of my ability. ;) If your plan wasn't so boring, I wouldn't have to make fun of it (I'll beat this dead horse until I stop laughing xD)

In spite of all this, I'm not actually trying to imply it's utterly bad, but it relies on chance much more than I'm comfortable with, and as I've said it's brushing mediocrity with wide strokes.

That, and it's not using what we know or have to our advantage, but instead trying to rely on things we don't have yet which is a very bad idea to begin with. Remember the saying "Don't count your chickens until they hatch"? Well there's a very good reason why that is said.
 
Cassanove_Clown said:
Just trying to fit the role of a villain to the best of my ability. ;) If your plan wasn't so boring, I wouldn't have to make fun of it (I'll beat this dead horse until I stop laughing xD)

In spite of all this, I'm not actually trying to imply it's utterly bad, but it relies on chance much more than I'm comfortable with, and as I've said it's brushing mediocrity with wide strokes.

That, and it's not using what we know or have to our advantage, but instead trying to rely on things we don't have yet which is a very bad idea to begin with. Remember the saying "Don't count your chickens until they hatch"? Well there's a very good reason why that is said.
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I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch, I'm going out to search for some eggs in the first place, and then waiting for them to hatch so we can have the chicken fight another chicken. Get your metaphors right when you insult me. :cool:

But yeah, the plan isn't the type of plan where we go ahead without completing the previous steps. To use game mechanics, I'm basically saying to take a 20 (as in, D&D mechanic where you can take a twenty if there's no penalty to failing the roll and spend a few hours for a guaranteed success), whereas you seem to be reading my plan as having consequences if we fail the first time (even though we're going to be searching for heroes that are specifically lawful good and friendly before even trying to befriend them). I mean, our befriending attempts won't even be overt enough to be suspicious! And if they are, we can always mindwipe them and move on to the next town before they realized what's going on! Nobody'll ever see the fact that we're trying to be a member of a Paladin-type Hero's entourage coming!
 
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chocolote12 said:
I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch, I'm going out to search for some eggs in the first place, and then waiting for them to hatch so we can have the chicken fight another chicken. Get your metaphors right when you insult me. :cool:

But yeah, the plan isn't the type of plan where we go ahead without completing the previous steps. To use game mechanics, I'm basically saying to take a 20 (as in, D&D mechanic where you can take a twenty if there's no penalty to failing the roll and spend a few hours for a guaranteed success), whereas you seem to be reading my plan as having consequences if we fail the first time (even though we're going to be searching for heroes that are specifically lawful good and friendly before even trying to befriend them). I mean, our befriending attempts won't even be overt enough to be suspicious! And if they are, we can always mindwipe them and move on to the next town before they realized what's going on! Nobody'll ever see the fact that we're trying to be a member of a Paladin-type Hero's entourage coming!
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I don't recall directly insulting you.

I'm saying that acting as though there are no consequences is also bad. Everything has an equal and opposite reaction. That's a fundamental rule in, well, everything. Personally I believe the plan to be a bit lackluster, but not altogether bad. However, I also see the potential for it to fail and bite us in the backside somehow. As these things normally work.
 
Hmm... the big argument about the plan is kind of pointless right now; we should focus on getting into town and learning more about our nemesis.

To whit:
[X] Get cleaned up and head back to town.
-[X] You think there is a river somewhere on the outskirts of the forest.
[X] Head straight towards a clothing store; while not a vain child, you aren't going to be able to buy or sell at any of the good places if you look like a vagabond, a murderer, or both, and the blood will never come out of the clothing you're wearing right now.
-[X] Get something in maroon, to hide future bloodstains.
--[X] If they don't have anything in maroon or something in black that doesn't look terrible/evil, then get something in blue or white. Colors are a big part of how people interpret other people, and blue and white are commonly seen as "good" and "pure" colors; every little advantage will help a little in diverting suspicion when investigating the Prantagonist.
[X] If the stores are closed when we get back, go straight to that room we rented and fall asleep.
-[X] Make sure to lock the door before you sleep, though. Thieves suck.

My thoughts on our future plans:
The way I see it, Heroes are like Campiones; no mere mortal can stand against them, except in this case there are a lot more Heros than just seven in the whole world. (Campiones are from the light novel series 'Campione!') In essence if we, as a mere mortal, want to actually effect anything on a large scale we have to be associated with a Hero. The impression that I'm getting is that Heroes are the only people allowed by Fate to do big dramatic changes; I suspect that a lot of kings are actually Heroes. This means that while we can't rule a country, we can be part of the entourage of a Hero that rules a country, and thus in a position of power. One question however: are villains assigned a special place in the fate hierarchy, or are they just mortals that try to defy Heroes.

Based on these assumptions, I'm going to suggest that our first move after arriving in town be to find a Hero, preferably one just starting out. Serve as a loyal companion, assisting him/her in all of his ventures. Once we are a trusted confidant and party member, we can then start suggesting ventures.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense, I'm sort of tired so I kind of just wrote down my train of thought.
 
Actually, I think the mechanic behind heroes is rather obstuse, here's how I think it work
Opposite of heroes=Villians
Villains=loses
Loses=die.
So doesn't mean that heroes always win, just that villian always lose, and fate will take death as losing. So heroes become powerful demigods because of the side effect of this formula, not the formula itself; For example, if a hero decided to claim the Sword Of Killing Stuff+5, then the guardians of the Sword is guranteed to die, so the artifact is guranteed to fall in his hands, it doesn't stop a scenario like this:
n millions years ago, Cthulhu's unkempt, messy cousin named Bobthulu was sealed away on this planet. The seal require a contractual backdoor to unleash Bob because that's how seals work. So the wizard decided to set a it to a classic virgin sacrafice, but the killing blow must be dealt by a hero, the virgin's life must be taken by force, and she must curse the hero till her last breath. See where I'm going with this? We will still lose, but so does the planet
 
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