DoofQuest- a Disney Villains Victorious CK2-Style Quest

[Retrueno]

I am aware that the other Kings wouldn't care about us hiring the Fearsome Five, well, other than thinking that we are nuts for willing associating with people with a connection to Negaduck. The issue is that the Fearsome Five don't really seem, well, discrete. Doom would certainly take advantage. Doom is going to be back in the Intrigue game soon, since he did kill Hawk. Furthermore, what would Doof think? Why would he do something that risks bringing a member of the Fearsome Five to Doofania, where Vanessa lives.

Click to shrink...

No, what I meant is that the other Kings wouldn't know that we hired them, the same way we don't know who they hire and if the other Kings don't know the general public wouldn't too.

Though I agree that they aren't discrete and that they'd probably have quite some problems with some of our Hero Units, I don't think this is unmanageable (like, look at Jumba for example).

Basically, what I'm trying to argue is that, while hiring one of them wouldn't be great it wouldn't actually put us in a worse position by just hiring them.

 

[Olivebirdy]

Being a murderer is the definition of having a body count. What the fuck?

Click to shrink...

I mean, he's deeply insane, but that doesn't make him not a murderer.

Click to shrink...

Megavolt is not a murderer because murder requires intent. Megavolt was killing in defense of the helpless (machines).

That sounds like it would make people less willing to work for us. I mean, great! We've imprisoned a guy who we reached out to hire because we don't like him!

Click to shrink...

One of the things about being considered a mass murderer is that people don't particularly mind when you get betrayed. 'Doof sold out someone he hired!' 'Yeah, but he was in the Fearsome Five.' 'Oh right.'

Putting him in contact with Drossel is an absolutely horrid idea. He is insane and she is highly impressionable.

Click to shrink...

We'd put TECHNOR in charge of the diplomacy roll.

I would much rather buy fusion power from Khan.

Click to shrink...

Doesn't have the narrative strength of having them together in a heroball. It's a direct application of synergy, that matters and will count more than just having TECHNOR at full stats.

Russ is biased towards Toons, Megavolt is a Toon. I think he'd deal well rather than be disgusted. And again, Megavolt is insane, not evil. That matters.

Yes, we'd need to keep Megavolt out of the sight of humans using technology, at least until we have some mitigation of his issues.

Megavolt is a good unit to have. He complicates things, but he's narratively interesting and useful. Now, you can absolutely count him as Disaster, but that's still only 1/30.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Edgy arguments aside...

@Made in Heaven , I have a simpler, more pragmatic question.

If a hiring process accidentally gives us a hero unit we don't actually want, which could conceivably happen, could we have something like a Personal Action option to just... fire them? Right now all our heroes are people we'd want to keep on payroll, but if at some future time a hero unit becomes a liability, I don't see why Doof couldn't just tell them to go away. Admittedly they might react to the firing by becoming a hostile supervillain in our territory or whatever, but at least then we could dissociate ourselves from their actions.

 

[Stratagemini]

Megavolt is not a murderer because murder requires intent. Megavolt was killing in defense of the helpless (machines).

Click to shrink...

Murder only requires intent to kill. Even an Insanity plea will only give you "Yes he's a murderer, but for reasons of mental health she shouldn't be held criminally culpable for his actions." You can actually get convicted of attempted murder even if your plan had 0 possibility of working. Similarly, defense of others is not a defense to murder everywhere, and even if it was, it requires that other actually be in danger. Machines aren't.

Now, you may be able to argue insanity based off his warped view of reality and inability to understand the criminality of his actions. It's worked on stupider cases before (like that Affluenza kid). But the problem with hiring Megavolt isn't a legal issue, it's one of PR. If people discover we have Megavolt working for us it'll make them really nervous.

Now, there's a couple of possible ways we can deal with that. Like a PR campaign to show up the issues with his trial and how he's really insane and shouldn't have been convicted. But again, this dude has a body count and also, we're not giving him treatment, we're sending him out on missions. So that's not a great idea?

Another option is to Hide him. Give him a secret identity and use him as a deniable asset not connected to us. that might be an issue if others figure out he's our minion? but Xanatos did something similar with The Pack in canon, didn't he? Other kings are successfully hiding bigger secrets, like the fact that Syndrome wanted to commit Cape Genocide. With that said... Doof isn't exactly... subtle, or good at lying. And presumably our current employees would have issues with Megavolt.

BUT. We don't actually have to use him. We can get him TECHNOR therapy and improve him and then can HEROBALL Megavolt with TECHNOR, Lizzie, and a fourth cape for what's probably ridiculous synergy.

 

[MrCogmor]

I expect that Mirage could randomly recruit bad units in the sense that they have mediocre stats like the Birthday Bandit. I don't expect Mirage can bad units in the sense that they are murderhobos (or otherwise have strong personal agendas opposed to Doof's own).

1. You'd need some pretty convoluted reasoning to justify such a decision in-character
2. Highly wanted criminals are not easy to get a hold of for obvious reasons. Mirage wouldn't have their contact information or the ability to simply track them down.
3. It would also be hard to justify a murderhobo treating the offer as sincere and deciding to commit to a 9-5.

Remember just because we have a card for someone doesn't mean they are in the rolodex of potential hires. We have a card for Shego.

 

[TheGleeman]

Edgy arguments aside...

@Made in Heaven , I have a simpler, more pragmatic question.

If a hiring process accidentally gives us a hero unit we don't actually want, which could conceivably happen, could we have something like a Personal Action option to just... fire them? Right now all our heroes are people we'd want to keep on payroll, but if at some future time a hero unit becomes a liability, I don't see why Doof couldn't just tell them to go away. Admittedly they might react to the firing by becoming a hostile supervillain in our territory or whatever, but at least then we could dissociate ourselves from their actions.

Click to shrink...

Exactly this.

Yes, we are a supervillain (at least somewhat), but we are also a *legally-recognized employer* with all the responsibilities and priviliges that status implies. Just like say, LOVEMUFFIN could walk up to us and formally resign after hitting big negative Loyalty, we would be well within our rights to ask LOVEMUFFIN into our office and formally fire them after becoming irrevocably dissatisfied with their performance or behaviour.

We don´t have to "make an employee vanish" if their actions end up greatly tarnishing our reputation...we can simply and *completly legally* give them the boot and officially condemn their actions.

Sometimes, the legal way is the easier and better way, guys.

 

[MrHobbit]

No, what I meant is that the other Kings wouldn't know that we hired them, the same way we don't know who they hire and if the other Kings don't know the general public wouldn't too.

Though I agree that they aren't discrete and that they'd probably have quite some problems with some of our Hero Units, I don't think this is unmanageable (like, look at Jumba for example).

Basically, what I'm trying to argue is that, while hiring one of them wouldn't be great it wouldn't actually put us in a worse position by just hiring them.

Click to shrink...

There is very much a difference between Jumba and the Fearsome Five. Jumba does not have a reason for our heroes to dislike us because we hired him. Members of the Fearsome Five have plenty of reasons for heroes to not like us for hiring them. Also, depending on how bad it goes, why would DEI employees not, just, leak it? Hiring one of the fucking Fearsome Five is something which would make many of our faceless employees concerned at the least.

[SNIP]

Click to shrink...

It is murder, insanity does not mean that someone is not a murderer. Also, there is the whole PR side of things. No, they would first think that we are nuts for hiring a member of the Fearsome Five and vastly lower their opinion of DEI simply because they aren't insane enough to work for a guy hiring them. Then they would remember that Doof is the one who reached out to the guy and then subsequently imprisoned him. The fact that Megavolt is there would mean that he would be making an impression on Drossel.

Russ absolutely loathes Toon murderers, thinking of them as a disgrace to the Toon name. Now, the Fearsome Five are not Negaduck bad, but they are closer than anyone else on our Rolodex. Also, Wasabi would probably get a significant Loyalty malus.

Yes, let's keep Megavolt away from humans using technology. That will work so well. Especially because Doof is a learning based hero and tinkers with inators every day.

I expect that Mirage could randomly recruit bad units in the sense that they have mediocre stats like the Birthday Bandit. I don't expect Mirage can bad units in the sense that they are murderhobos (or otherwise have strong personal agendas opposed to Doof's own).

Click to shrink...

Megavolt and the Pack are actually in our Rolodex. It is a straight up random hero, if we pass the coin flip, we then have to hope that the random hero we get isn't a bad one, like Megavolt.

 

[EnigmaOfLife]

If we get an absolutely awful villain and we can't fire them for some reason. There's a simple solution to fix our problem. Well actually two possible solutions.

First we can send them into Oregon. Bill CIpher or any of the horrors within will hopefully eat them for breakfast and thus we will no longer have to worry about them.

We can also send them into Florida and let them get mind-controlled by Doris. This is a non-lethal way to deal with the problem however it would add to Doris's army.

 

[MrCogmor]

Megavolt and the Pack are actually in our Rolodex.

Click to shrink...

Where is that stated?

 

[MrHobbit]

Where is that stated?

Click to shrink...

In the Recruit from your rolodex option.

[ ] Hyena

[ ] Megavolt

[ ] Wolf

[ ] Jackal

Click to shrink...

 

[Simon_Jester]

@Olivebirdy , would you mind withdrawing the whole "just because he's killed a bunch of people doesn't mean he's a murderer" thing? It's a counterproductive stance to take, kind of misses the point, and is on legally rather shaky ground.

The relevant point remains that we don't necessarily want to hire a guy who's killed several people, and that he's a PR nightmare waiting to happen even if we somehow manage to fully reform him, and God help us if we don't.

BUT. We don't actually have to use him. We can get him TECHNOR therapy and improve him and then can HEROBALL Megavolt with TECHNOR, Lizzie, and a fourth cape for what's probably ridiculous synergy.

Click to shrink...

Uggh. It sounds like vastly more trouble than it's worth to "improve" him, honestly, for all the reasons you just discussed.

 

[Lab_Accident]

There is very much a difference between Jumba and the Fearsome Five. Jumba does not have a reason for our heroes to dislike us because we hired him. Members of the Fearsome Five have plenty of reasons for heroes to not like us for hiring them. Also, depending on how bad it goes, why would DEI employees not, just, leak it? Hiring one of the fucking Fearsome Five is something which would make many of our faceless employees concerned at the least.

Click to shrink...

I think you worry way too much about PR and how we will imediately get destroyed if we step a single foot out of line. Shego is around obviously running a mercenary business out of her territory, with criminal capes running around with not even the pretense of being fought. Syndrome used to use any flimsy excuse to murder (super-powered) people. Bellwether is out-and-out running an authoritarian persecution regime in her city. By and large, what Kings do in their own territory gets completely ignored.

 

[Stratagemini]

Uggh. It sounds like vastly more trouble than it's worth to "improve" him, honestly, for all the reasons you just discussed.

Click to shrink...

right, sure. but my point wasn't that we should get him. it's that if we do get him, it's not all bad.

 

[MrHobbit]

I think you worry way too much about PR and how we will imediately get destroyed if we step a single foot out of line, Shego is around obviously running a mercenary business in her territory, with criminal capes running around with not even the pretense of being fought. Syndrome used to use any flimsy excuse to murder people. Bellwether is out-and-out running an authoritarian persecution regime in her city. By and large, what Kings do in their own territory gets completely ignored.

Click to shrink...

It is not obvious to the average person that Shego controls the states that she does on the map. Hell, she runs Drakktech like a business. The villainous capes do get fought, by heroic capes. Syndrome killed the supers when he could blame it on Omnidroid glitches. While Bellwether almost certainly hasn't gone to that extreme simply because even Doof would have noticed that.

For the most part, Kings aren't really thought of as the Man in Charge by the common people and they keep it that way by keeping things on the down low.

 

[TheGleeman]

I expect that Mirage could randomly recruit bad units in the sense that they have mediocre stats like the Birthday Bandit. I don't expect Mirage can bad units in the sense that they are murderhobos (or otherwise have strong personal agendas opposed to Doof's own).

1. You'd need some pretty convoluted reasoning to justify such a decision in-character
2. Highly wanted criminals are not easy to get a hold of for obvious reasons. Mirage wouldn't have their contact information or the ability to simply track them down.
3. It would also be hard to justify a murderhobo treating the offer as sincere and deciding to commit to a 9-5.

Remember just because we have a card for someone doesn't mean they are in the rolodex of potential hires. We have a card for Shego.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I think that Mirage at least would be smart enough to not consider some people viable options for recruitments.

I think you worry way too much about PR and how we will imediately get destroyed if we step a single foot out of line. Shego is around obviously running a mercenary business out of her territory, with criminal capes running around with not even the pretense of being fought. Syndrome used to use any flimsy excuse to murder (super-powered) people. Bellwether is out-and-out running an authoritarian persecution regime in her city. By and large, what Kings do in their own territory gets completely ignored.

Click to shrink...

The difference is that Shegos goons are simply superpowered thugs. They march in, beat people up and get things done.

Guys like Megavolt or Quackerjack are genuinely off their rockers and will cause huge destruction or harm just *because*.

 

[Lab_Accident]

It is not obvious to the average person that Shego controls the states that she does on the map. Hell, she runs Drakktech like a business. The villainous capes do get fought, by heroic capes. Syndrome killed the supers when he could blame it on Omnidroid glitches. While Bellwether almost certainly hasn't gone to that extreme simply because even Doof would have noticed that.

For the most part, Kings aren't really thought of as the Man in Charge by the common people and they keep it that way by keeping things on the down low.

Click to shrink...

It is obvious for people that live in Shego's territory. It is obvious when Shego is an internationally wanted criminal that doesn't even bother with having a non-villainous face for her company. It is obvious when super-crime doesn't get suppressed on her say so (and legally speaking, heroic capes are still criminals as well). It is obvious when there's a superhero school floating around Middletown. It is obvious when Shego goes out and single-handedly blasts down a crime fortress and police doesn't even bother pretending to do something about it.

The Masquerade doesn't stop people from noticing tha the megacorps have ridiculous amounts of influence and do profoundly sketchy shit on the regular. At best, they do their best to ignore it, but they're not blind.

Yeah, I think that Mirage at least would be smart enough to not consider some people viable options for recruitments.



The difference is that Shegos goons are simply superpowered thugs. They march in, beat people up and get things done.

Guys like Megavolt or Quackerjack are genuinely off their rockers and will cause huge destruction or harm just *because*.

Click to shrink...

Oh, I wasn't advocating for recruiting those guys. It's just because we are constantly catastrophizing about PR when we filled an entire city with smog and terrible art-deco architecture and nobody even bothered complaining. Doofenshmirtz spent an entire summer doing whatever he felt like with inators and nobody did anything about that (except a platypus). There is a lot of leeway on the Masquerade, and we should stop acting like everything will cause the US to come down on us like a ton of bricks. Gridlocked people know when to keep their heads down and ignore stuff.

 

[Olivebirdy]

@Olivebirdy , would you mind withdrawing the whole "just because he's killed a bunch of people doesn't mean he's a murderer" thing?

Click to shrink...

Yes, I would mind. He's not a murderer, maybe legally and PR-wise he is, but from his perspective he's a gritty hero, killing to rescue people from slavery. There's an ethical component to this, and ethically, I don't think he's a murderer, whether or not the courts will see it the same way.

The relevant point remains that we don't necessarily want to hire a guy who's killed several people, and that he's a PR nightmare waiting to happen even if we somehow manage to fully reform him, and God help us if we don't.

Click to shrink...

Yes, I'm not trying to convince you to want to hire him, I'm trying to convince you that he's not a sheer unmitigated disaster that should be avoided at all costs. The possibility of hiring Megavolt shouldn't keep people from playing the Mirage Gacha, since he's got his good points and is a 1/30 chance to boot.

 

[MrHobbit]

It is obvious for people that live in Shego's territory. It is obvious when Shego is an internationally wanted criminal that doesn't even bother with having a non-villainous face for her company. It is obvious when super-crime doesn't get suppressed on her say so (and legally speaking, heroic capes are still criminals as well). It is obvious when there's a superhero school floating around Middletown. It is obvious when Shego goes out and single-handedly blasts down a crime fortress and police doesn't even bother pretending to do something about it.

The Masquerade doesn't stop people from noticing tha the megacorps have ridiculous amounts of influence and do profoundly sketchy shit on the regular. At best, they do their best to ignore it, but they're not blind.

Click to shrink...

They do recognize that the more blatant megacorps do have more influence, but in general people believe that the Federal Government is still In Charge. Most are not aware that the megacorporations exert as much control as they do.

Despite you openly declaring yourself Supreme Overlord of the Two-And-A-Half-State Area, the United States remains under the control of its primary governing body… at least in theory. In practice, the leaders of the megacorporations dotted around the map exert more power than the federal government can muster, but the average civilian wouldn't suspect anything is up. The government puts much effort into keeping its own weakness secret, and the powerful in Gridlocked mostly oblige them. No king wants to be fighting in an all out war, and so they're more or less willing to do things subtly. Even most of your citizens probably see you as a joke or a parody villain rather than an actual dictator.

Click to shrink...

Yes, I would mind. He's not a murderer, maybe legally and PR-wise he is, but from his perspective he's a gritty hero, killing to rescue people from slavery. There's an ethical component to this, and ethically, I don't think he's a murderer, whether or not the courts will see it the same way.

Click to shrink...

That is still murder, regardless of if he believes it is right. We might as well say that Negaduck isn't a murderer because he thinks he has a right to kill people!

 

[TheGleeman]

It is not obvious to the average person that Shego controls the states that she does on the map. Hell, she runs Drakktech like a business. The villainous capes do get fought, by heroic capes. Syndrome killed the supers when he could blame it on Omnidroid glitches. While Bellwether almost certainly hasn't gone to that extreme simply because even Doof would have noticed that.

For the most part, Kings aren't really thought of as the Man in Charge by the common people and they keep it that way by keeping things on the down low.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, the only people actually knowing that Kings are the *true* Men in Charge of their turf are the upper echelons of the US Government and the other Kings, although some "Mundanes" like *friggin Goofy* might get wise of the fact on their own.

Oh, I wasn't advocating for recruiting those guys. It's just because we are constantly catastrophizing about PR when we filled an entire city with smog and terrible art-deco architecture and nobody even bothered complaining. Doofenshmirtz spent an entire summer doing whatever he felt like with inators and nobody did anything about that (except a platypus). There is a lot of leeway on the Masquerade, and we should stop acting like everything will cause the US to come down on us like a ton of bricks. Gridlocked people know when to keep their heads down and ignore stuff.

Click to shrink...

The smog is mainly visual because pretty much every lamppost comes with its own purifying unit and as for the architechture style mishmash, personally I would have coded the various styles to specific "trades" for the purpose of better navigation.

For example, in my mind administrative and social service buildings like fiscal departments, PDs, hospitals would get the functional Brutalist treatment, while houses of art like museums would get Art-Deco´ed up.

That way even people who can´t be bothered to learn street names would be able to navigate by context alone.

 

[Lab_Accident]

Hey, I just realized: every time Doofanian architecture gets brought up on interludes by non-Doof people they describe it as "confusing, labyrinthine, and impossible to navigate". What if we filled the entire place top-to-bottom with traps in case of invasion? It would be pretty on-brand for Doof, and since we've been investing on turning DEI into an unassailable fortress, might as well expand it into a city-wide effort.

Coyote has a personal for that, and Company Retreat is coming up. Do we have any urgent Coyote personals? Also, Lizzie has a personal for building tunnels which would go well with that.

 

[Mattman324]

Because that's how the actions have been?

Click to shrink...

No, Critical Successes have had a variety of effects, and not all of them are immediately "the thing has bigger numbers." A crit got us a non-negative Agent Russ on an action that had nothing to do with recruitment, and the same thing happened to give us Janna. I think critting Dinosaur Domestication with Jumba gave us more research options, too.

Hell, by that logic, critting Flubber might give us another hero.

Flubber sucks. I do not personally like it. I do not want to spend all the actions required to fool with it. It is a PR nightmare and an action sink both.

Not to mention the blessed uburnium tech path that we have. Uburnium is better than Flubber for energy, and the particle accelerator required for it's synthesis is more likely to be useful in dimensional breaching than anything Flubber could do on that front.

Click to shrink...

That's great, but it's also not why this whole argument got started. The argument got started because someone was terrified by the prospect that in theory potentially Ludevine might decide to research Flubber on her own, on the literal one turn where doing that would be mitigated in terms of awfulness.

 

[TheGleeman]

Hey, I just realized: every time Doofanian architecture gets brought up on interludes by non-Doof people they describe it as "confusing, labyrinthine, and impossible to navigate". What if we filled the entire place top-to-bottom with traps in case of invasion? It would be pretty on-brand for Doof, and since we've been investing on turning DEI into an unassailable fortress, might as well expand it into a city-wide effort.

Coyote has a personal for that, and Company Retreat is coming up. Do we have any urgent Coyote personals? Also, Lizzie has a personal for building tunnels which would go well with that.

Click to shrink...

By itlsef a good idea, but we need to make sure that any defense mechanisms we install don´t spring on those not deserving it, like our Heroes/PMC or even worse, *civilians*

Just imagine the PR fallout if a beartrap we laid out as "enemy deterrence" ends up mauling or even outright killing a little kid frolicking through the park...I´d rather not deal with that one, that one.

 

[Lab_Accident]

They do recognize that the more blatant megacorps do have more influence, but in general people believe that the Federal Government is still In Charge. Most are not aware that the megacorporations exert as much control as they do.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, the only people actually knowing that Kings are the *true* Men in Charge of their turf are the upper echelons of the US Government and the other Kings, although some "Mundanes" like *friggin Goofy* might get wise of the fact on their own.

Click to shrink...

Yes, but I'm not saying we should tap-dance on the Masquerade just because. I'm saying we could afford to hire known criminals (yes, even a murderer) and as long as we made even a pretense at plausible deniability, nothing would come of it. Not that we should do it, but we could. Heck, Technor and Lizzie ARE actual criminals!

 

[MrHobbit]

Coyote has a personal for that, and Company Retreat is coming up. Do we have any urgent Coyote personals? Also, Lizzie has a personal for building tunnels which would go well with that.

Click to shrink...

We have the Phantom Blot coming to visit in Jan/Feb, which means Russ will probably need the assistance of His White Roadrunner.

Including heroes, the Phantom Blot rolls 85 in Intrigue. Having the extra Intrigue provided by Coyote will seriously help Russ out.

No, Critical Successes have had a variety of effects, and not all of them are immediately "the thing has bigger numbers." A crit got us a non-negative Agent Russ on an action that had nothing to do with recruitment, and the same thing happened to give us Janna. I think critting Dinosaur Domestication with Jumba gave us more research options, too.

Hell, by that logic, critting Flubber might give us another hero.

Click to shrink...

You are wrong in several aspects. First of all, appeasing the Feds was always going to give us Agent Russ. That was planned. Second of all, Echo Creek was probably going to give us Janna Ordonia regardless if we crit or not, it's just that we did not know it at the time. The DC for investigating Echo Creek seemingly decreased because of the RER 81 we got, which is why Star was noticed in Doofania.

[ ] Appease the Feds
DC 45
For some reason, the Feds are rather unhappy with you for declaring yourself supreme ruler of three states. Trying to find some sort of government stooge to keep around might appease them a bit. It might even prove useful to you somehow, so long as you keep in mind who they're actually working for.

(Reward: ease government pressure, new Hero unit available)

Click to shrink...

[ ] Investigate Echo Creek
DC 65 (Reduced due to ???)

So. There's this weird suburb of LA where a bunch of super magical stuff was happening… up until it abruptly stopped and as much evidence of it as possible was scrubbed from all sources. If you weren't actively looking for magical hotspots you never would have found it. Assign someone to look into it and see if you can find out anything more about what happened, and anyone willing to tell you more.


Rewards: ???

Click to shrink...

 

[Retrueno]

Yes, I would mind. He's not a murderer, maybe legally and PR-wise he is, but from his perspective he's a gritty hero, killing to rescue people from slavery. There's an ethical component to this, and ethically, I don't think he's a murderer, whether or not the courts will see it the same way.

Click to shrink...

Could you just drop it? Being honest, the fact that you continue to insist that someone with a body count is not a murderer makes me deeply uncomfortable.