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1. I will never require any teenager within the town limits of my empire to choose a single faction to devote themselves to for the rest of their natural existence. Furthermore, since the risks always have a nasty tendency to outweigh the rewards (and it rarely ends well), there will not be any such factions in the first place. (Of course, there are other ways to find out what drives them.)

2. I will always make sure my Legions of Terror have plentiful supplies of winter uniforms.

2A. Following up on that, I will never invade a country where said uniforms would be necessary to survive in the winter.

3. Unless it is an absolute last resort, I will not hide out in my grandmother's basement. Eventually I'll have to go to the bathroom, and chances are the old bint will find out and rat me out to The Hero's pals.

4. If I have a project to create a defense system that makes defending my invaded territory/colony easier, I will treat the workers well and give them their well-deserved occasional vacations, food and wages. This may cost more, but this will save me the even larger cost of being labeled as an evil tyrant and given and Historical Villain Upgrade in the future.

5. My mooks will learn how to fight in large groups to further reduce the chance of being affected by the Conservation of Ninjutsu.

6. My Legions of Terror will never wear name tags. What was it you said about tattoos again?

7. I will imprison any Fanboys and Fangirls because they often cause problems.

8. If I ever get into a debate with the hero, I will assume that the hero is a skilled debater and I should treat him as such. Avoid using fallacious arguments and do not be afraid to point out and explain the fallacy (especially Ad hominem and Poisoning the well fallacies).

9. It might not even be a good idea to usurp the throne of my noble half-brother (see original Rule #3). If one of my trusted advisers or lieutenants suddenly informs me it’s a mad scheme… they can probably find far better uses for an iron mask. Besides, I might actually need his help later on.

10. When punishing my minions, I will not kill them (with the expectation of a heel-face turns) or spam the agony beam as they tend to lower morale and cause Mistreatment-Induced Betrayals.

11. Continuing Rule #2 if the heroes have a Team Pet that is small enough to crawl through the ventilation ducts I will add surveillance cameras in the ducts.

12. Going Go-Karting with The Hero and other assorted cast is always a good idea. Morale is boosted if the Evil Overlord is seen doing something actually human and having fun for once.

12A. Unless it's more than just Go-Karting...

13. The plexiglass to be used for the visors on my soldiers’ helmets (see Rule #1) will be anti-scratch and anti-glare. Something called Crizal, perhaps?

14. I will keep a record of all previous structural renovations to all my buildings. If I acquire a new one and only if I plan on keeping it, I will have professionals and 5 year old kids scour every nick and crevice, just in case there's some secret passage or a basement that wasn't in the original plans.

15. I will regularly train with an Old Master (or two) and make sure my Legions of Terror regularly train with a variety of Old Masters themselves. After all, how do you think they became Old Masters?

16. I will not pass off my opponents as all Card Carrying Villains or otherwise Always Chaotic Evil. Instead, I will paint them as well-meaning but misguided. That's easier for the public to swallow.

16A. Heck, I will do this even if I am Obliviously Evil or not evil at all.

17. I will simply push the hero into the shark pool instead of hanging him above it.

18. Dating is a risky prospect. The song goes: “A pretty face can hide an evil mind.”

18A. Of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with The Hero dating.

19. No matter how remote the possibility may be, I will always keep in mind the possibility of a god, gods or god-like entity existing and assisting the hero, a la The Odyssey.

20. If the Hero is beginning a transformation sequence, I will either shoot the Hero as s/he is undergoing it or increase my weapon's power as it occurs, rather than merely standing and gawking at it.

20A. Alternatively, I would withdraw while he's distracted with said sequence. Eventually, he'll turn back into his normal form, convinced that the battle has ended. At which time I shall have him shot dead from sniper range while his transformation powers are on cooldown.

21. If I threaten to destroy the beautiful princess's hometown/city/planet if she does not give up critical information, and this pressure results in her giving up said information, I will not destroy the hometown/city/planet anyway. I Gave My Word. Of course, this automatically invalidates if she gave me false info.

22. I will not do Sex Slavery ever. Power Is Sexy; there are probably millions of women in my kingdom who will happily jump into bed with me.

23. I WILL leverage any relationships the brooding Anti-Hero on the verge of a Face-Heel Turn is in to my advantage, especially if they are part of a monastic order that forbids romance/marriage.

24. My base of operations will be a nondescript average-sized building with no visual displays of any sort. Rest assured, a legitimate business where you rent out your quarters will not hesitate to rat you out if The Hero and his pals come knocking.

25. I will train My Dragon to snap me out of atemper tantrum.

26. If through some method, I have obtained my second in command or other allies by manufacturing a tragedy that caused them to join me, I will never ever reveal to them that I was the one behind it, no matter how loyal I think they now are (See rule #189). That is just a free Heel-Face Turn waiting to happen

27. I will never ever tell destructive weapons to converge on my position. This is particularly true if a) the units destroy based on certain criteria no matter what, or b) the units are just forces of destruction that destroy everything no matter what. Even if the hero is at my location, I will not say this: anything can happen in the time between my summons, and the time the units arrive. Circumstances may occur such that I, or something in/on/around me that I don't know about/can't immediately remove/can't reach, wind up fitting the profile of my weapons' target, and if I state my position, I've guaranteed that my own weapons will chase me down wherever I go. Instead I will summon them to a fixed position that I know I can flee in an emergency, that isn't dependent on where I am.

28. My planetary-destruction weapon can be tested just as well by firing it at a desolated, uninhabited planet.

29. If La Résistance is on the verge of overthrowing me, I will not break out the nukes/planetary bombardment/Death Stars/whathaveyou. Chances are, if they've gotten that far, the populace probably supports them and breaking out the aforementioned weapons would only increase that support. I will instead try to negotiate a deal whereby I am allowed to live in relatively affluent exile, or just flee the kingdom.

30. I will NEVER personally supervise any high-profile construction, especially if it's for military purposes. I prefer NOT to give La Résistance excellent chances to kill me, thanks.

31. I will not forbid any school, camp, campaign, or community organization under my jurisdiction to ever have a public show. Good PR is not always overrated.

32. Under zero circumstances will I hotwire – or encourage anyone else to hotwire – any musical instrument for the express purpose of disposing of The Hero. Neither Murphy's Law nor Finagle's Law play favorites.

33. I will ALWAYS have no less than 3 Outside Context Villains to get the call on speed dial whenever necessary.

34. If the hero has a very strong compulsion to never take a life, then I will take full advantage of it. Though of course, you never know when a semi-pacifist hero will snap and make an exception for me.

35. Considering how it usually turns out, I will not waste any time when I encounter the hero. I will immediately try to kill him on sight without delay; I will not take him prisoner, nor have any conversation, nor will I use any slow means of killing him.

36. If I ever decide that retreat is a good option, I will attempt to salvage as many high ranking officials and appropriate mook squadrons with me. This ensures that I will not look like a jerkass to my minions and that I might legitimately care about their well being. Boosts morale, even while we're all running away.

37. Related to Rule 44: Before hiring any Bounty Hunters, I will make absolutely sure that no one within in my own ranks has the skills to carry out the same task. Hired Guns run the risk of being paid to turn against me if The Hero can offer them more money than I can.

38. An accountant and / or purser is never a bad idea.

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61. While having a motif is nice, and many make for some badass armor designs, they also make it easier for the hero to identify where I have influence. Therefore, I will forgo having a motif and keep my operations as nondescript as possible.

62. When designing my personal suit of armor, I will take note of actual body armor. I'll probably actually want to take some cues from SWAT teams in that regard, too.

63. I will try to force the Good Guys to use Weapons of Mass Destruction, or use them first. The stigma attached to such weaponry will turn otherwise-neutral parties to my side.

64. Corollary to Rule #158: While the hero is likely to be surprised by the recipe for Grandma’s Potato Salad the first time, it also creates an uncertain situation. On the one hand, it could increase my standing among the masses. On the other, I could be boosting the morale of the hero and his allies.

65. I will never torture anyone just to demonstrate how evil I am. This is a Bitch Alert waiting to happen.

66. If all other security precautions fail and The Hero and his companions confront me, I will immediately rectify whatever it is that caused them to band together. Any families that were killed as collateral damage in my expansion campaigns will be buried with high honors and any razed towns, hamlets, cities, biodomes or whatever will be reconstructed. Either this will convince the heroes that I do have a heart (pffffft!) or they will otherwise just back down at the attempt to make amends.

67. When installing security systems in my fortress I will remember that fish eye lenses can imbue security cameras with fields of vision in excess of 180 degrees, thereby removing the possibility of an infiltrator sneaking by them when they're turned the other way.

68. If I install radio jammers or any form of machine that interferes with communication, I will keep them inside my base, in a locked room, filled with poisonous gas and the odd booby trap. I will ensure that they cannot be destroyed by simply having their screens punched out. Rather, anyone who attempts to do that will be electrocuted.

69. I will allow my mooks to have regular contact with their families, so they will not turn on me due to loneliness. In fact, if costs allow, I will house their families in the same building as my mooks, so that they can never be used against them by an Anti-Hero.

70. The best way to avoid being killed by a Hero is to ensure that I'm not the bloke with a bullet in his head. Having an identical clone, a mind-controlled twin, or else a puppet that is my public face is insanely useful. Alternatively, having some sort of inverse-shield that actually strengthens me every time someone tries to shoot me may be considered.

71.When it comes to my Legions of Terror, I will ensure that all the Head Mooks will have a friendly rivalry with each other. That way, they will compete for my attention but not get vicious enough to fight internally.

72. Each and every person that works for me will have several microphones and GPS trackers on them, so that I can always know where they are and if they are plotting against me.

73. Every mook entering my service will have a thorough background check to ensure that they have no hidden grudges against me, my staff, or my predecessors.

74. I will believe in the spirit of emulation. If someone who works for me does well, they will be rewarded. This boosts morale and encourages them to work harder. Punishment should usually be death, unless it would severely harm PR to do so. Then it should merely be a reduction of salary or deprivation of privileges.

75. Before imprisonment, any captives will be given a thorough and complete cavity search by someone who is not sexually attracted to them in any way. Any guard disgusted by this duty will be summarily executed and replaced with a more willing employee.

76. If the heroes send someone utterly ridiculous but that is capable of defeating any powerful villain because of it, i will send my most pathetic, clumsy minion against him. After all, if the Rule of Funny is what allows such a being to come on the top, nothing is fairer than to exploit the ridiculousness of the situation and gave him a taste of his own medicine, pitching him against someone that's more silly than he is, leading to his defeat since it's funny that way!

76A. Indeed, depending on how strong the Rule of Funny is tied to the very fabric of reality, I may conquer the world by simply sending my most idiotic mooks against the most competent heroes in the world.

77. If a technique can defeat me once, I will learn it.

78. I will not trust any single point off any of the preceding lists alone to render me Genre Savvy.

79. If my Mad Scientist creates a new model of mech or robot armor I will have a mook use the new model and have him fight my strongest and most trusted lieutenant in the next most recent model. If my lieutenant wins I shall order the scientist to improve the new model and I shall destroy the model my lieutenant was using.

80. Should I have the hero tied, disarmed and at my mercy, I will not untie him, give him back his weapon, and engage him in a duel just to prove my superiority. I will instead simply chop his head off.

81. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and order the hero's execution in a forced brawl against several wild beasts instead of just shooting him, I will immediately have him shot if he overcomes the beasts.

82. I don't care how cool it sounds. I will always have my gun cocked before going after the hero.

83. After reading every item of the Evil Overlord List until they are etched into my memory, I will erase all traces of said lists, track down all parties who contributed to the list and eliminate them. I will then wear a mask of stupidity and track down any aspiring Evil Overlords and if I deem them dumb enough to fall for my facade, but competent enough to achieve a measure of success and pose a threat to mankind, recruit them to be a part of MY Legion of Terror, while playing the role of THEIR minion. During this time, I will scout any prospective heroes and arrange it so that all heroes and Overlords-in-Training meet up for a death match and eliminate each other for me. I will not waste any time in letting survivors catch their breath, executing them on the spot. I will bring guns, dagger, dirks, swords and shuriken to every encounter, have allweapons doused in poison and use any means at my disposal to ensure an advantage over allies and foes alike. After the dust settles, I will have my personal band play my theme song as I am declared Evilest of Evil Overlords.

83A. Also, anyone who's reading this in hopes of learning to be an Evil Overlord has a pistol to his skull. I am not gloating. Your brains just splattered your monitor.

83B. And any hero who's reading this in hopes of learning how to stop an Evil Overlord's plot has a pistol to his skull. I am not gloating. Your brains just splattered the monitor. Bitch.

83C. I'm going to flay, chop up in a meat grinder, and burn down the bodies and drop the ashes in a volcano of all prospective Overlords and Heroes too, just to ensure they aren't resurrected to take revenge.

84. I will never, I repeat, NEVER, stop and make idle conversation, small talk, chit chat, gossip, etc. with the hero should I come across him. Should our paths cross, I will shoot him, stab him, poison him, choke him, drown him, decapitate him, flay and mutilate him, burn him, chop him up and use any and all supernatural powers I have to all around erase his existence from behind and ask questions later. Should we meet face to face, and he/she is destined to stop me and kick my ass (be it in that order or no), I will avoid one-on-one confrontation and instead send all of my forces at him at once and then follow the above procedure while he/she is distracted or wounded or both.

84A. However, if I meet The Hero in a place where neither of us can harm the other, e.g. the Spirit Realm, I will covertly tell my minions to go to their location and capture their physical body, while I distract them by talking about my beliefs/ how my day is going/ my TragicBackstory. If any seeds of doubt can be sown into their mind, it will give me yet another advantage should things go pear-shaped.

85. Blood Knight though I may be, I will not attempt to best the Hero in single combat just to prove that I'm superior. If I have him at my mercy, I'll just kill him. He can't prove he's superior to me if his head is at my feet.

86. My Legion of Terror will be equal opportunity employer but all applicant Mooks will have to pass a competency and physical aptitude test and will be placed in positions fit for their results. However, all of them will be given health benefits for them and their families, including life insurance so that low ranking mooks will have an incentive to go on suicide missions.

87. I will build my fortress so that in the event that the alarm is raised, there will be a hall that my elite defense mooks are instructed to enter that has no windows, the entrance and exits automatically shutdown and no way to sabotage the hall. All Mooks will be instructed to shoot back to back and any mook that shoots facing one another deserves what he gets (if they don't die, they will not be killed but suffer a fatal accident).

87A. My Mooks will be given special headgear to protective from concussive/flash bangs, smoke bombs, and poison/noxious gasses so as not to be caught off guard and the hall will be specifically designed to immediately respond to any fires and or vapors that arise in the hall, instantly erasing them but not lasting long enough to give the hero and his gang any advantage should they possess certain elemental affinities.

88. Much to my disgust, I will acknowledge it's a valuable skill to Know When to Fold 'Em.

89. In the event I forget that holding the Idiot Ball is a Bad Thing and decide to place the hero in a Death Trap instead of executing him cleanly and quickly, I will watch the whole thing and have a squadron of my Legions of Terror on standby to gun down the hero if he escapes.

90. When building my evil Fortress'O'Doom, I will make sure that the room holding all my weapons and/or explosives is a) always locked, guarded and watched and b) not right next to or under my main room of doom.

91. If the land around my fortress is populated by giant worms, mutant insects or rabid zombies, I will put all my troops through a strict training course on how to avoid or kill them in event of a breach.

92. When I have all the tunnels rigged with mines, pit-traps or swinging blade traps, I will make sure to inform my troops of the fact that there in the tunnels there are mines, pit-traps and swinging blade traps.

93. I will remember that Even Evil Has Loved Ones and plan accordingly. I will not give my minions any reason to resent me and will in fact encourage Minion Shipping so that if the hero kills one or more of them, there is always someone with a very good reason to want the hero dead. I will engage in Villainous Friendships with my minions and especially my Dragon and lieutenants. I will engage in Unholy Matrimony rather than use a harem. Being able to call upon the Power of Love and the Power of Friendship is nothing to sneeze at.

94. Before engaging in my Reign of Terror as a Villain with Good Publicity, I will hire an Obviously Evil vizier/advisor/chancellor/prime minister who is also The Starscream and about as competent as the Trope Namer. I will put him ostensibly in charge of the most unsavory parts of my Empire without actually giving him any real authority. He will make an excellent fall guy and I will endeavour to allow the Hero to "free" me from the influence of my Evil Chancellor who has obviously been the cause of all this tragedy that has occurred behind my back.

95. Once the Hero starts killing off large numbers of my Mooks, I will periodically hold mass memorial services for them with open caskets and grieving relatives for all the world to see. I will deliver an eulogy and shed a Single Tear for my slain comrades. This will paint me as A Father to His Men and the Hero as a Sociopathic Hero. I will also provide bursaries for the education of surviving dependants, medals to honor the fallen and gratituities to feed their surviving parents and widows. If there are any orphans (especially if both parents worked for me), I will raise them in an Orphanage of Love and see if I can convince some of them to become Tyke Bombs. I will use these in my elite guard and the Hero can explain to them why Daddy and Mommy had to die just for doing their jobs.

96. If my Mooks are armed with deadly insta-death laser weaponry, I will design the guns to be so complicated that no person who isn't trained in the use of such a weapon can use them. That way, I can prevent my enemies from using the guns of my fallen Mooks in battle.

97. If I hear the Hero's theme music, and it's not a Dark Reprise, I will not keep fighting. I will get the hell away, because the Narrative Gods have decided against me.

98. I will not form a settlement atop a Hell Gate if the only way to appease said Hell Gate is to periodically force twins to murder each other. Someone will inevitably try to escape and send everything on a merry path to Hell.

99. If for any insane reason, I plan to stage a dramatic appearance and defeat a Humongous Mecha, I will not spend months constantly perfecting the mecha before I send it out. This thing is supposed to be beatable, isn't it?

100. Absolutely none of this applies if I am the "villain" of Civilization or Empire Earth. I can be as brutal as I want, and as long as I'm a competent leader who can keep my empire moderately happy I can be as brutal and genocidal as I see fit. NOTE: Only applies if I am facing enemies I would not normally see, for instance Americans as the leader of a tribe of Asians in the Stone Age..

101. If I ever split my soul into multiple nearly-indestructible pieces to become unkillable, I will make one of those pieces a part of a deep space probe.

102. I will not pull the plug on a group of genetically-engineered super-soldiers just because the first one turned out smarter than I expected, especially if it means killing a batch that's already half-finished. The prototype likely won't appereciate me scrapping his bretheren just because I got cold feet, and could express his displeasure in some VERY counterproductive ways.

103. If The Hero is ever dangling off the edge of some edifice over a pit of death or something similar, I will not waste time trying to stomp on his/her hands. I will shoot them. Better yet, I will shoot HIM.

104. None of my Mooks will be wearing helmets in my presence. I will not hire a Mook that hides his/her face. Any Mook that refuses to take of their helmet will be shot immanently.

105. If I find myself in the situation of Rule 154, I will let the Hero rescue me. But then I will consider Rule 68 before following up according to Rule 154.

106. Whenever I use magic, I will ensure that destroying the source of it will not completely reverse its effects, and that only an opposite spell will undo the previous one.

107. All jails and prisons will have maximum security, with every inmate locked alone in their own cells (almost) all the time.

108. Any prisoner who is a skilled martial artist or possesses superpowers will be physically restrained as much as possible.

109. If I find myself attempting to conquer an insignificant blue planet, my first thoughts are not going to be firebomb the surface or send masses of mooks to harm the population; that is just asking for a team of pesky heroes to fight back. Instead, I will communicate with the leaders of this little world and see whether I can assimilate them into my empire peacefully. If it doesn't work, then I break out the army.

110. While launching all my forces at a 'defenseless' planet can be an effective means of conquering it, it can leave the inhabitants resorting to more '''drastic''' measures. Hence, if I am expanding my empire and come across a new inhabited planet, I will deploy small scale skirmishes to test the local defences, while simultaneously learning about the planet's culture and philosophies. I will also ensure that my navy is outfitted with defenses against potential weapons the natives may use against me.

111. If the heroes command the power of the natural elements, I will devise an armor immune or resistant to those elements or be capable of absorbing the power for my own use. If said armor drains the power of the heroes in the process, even better. I will also ensure that I am the only one who can wear the armor, and that it won't selfdestruct if it absorbs an excess of energy.

112. If my minions are convicted criminals or prisoners, I will not free them all simultaneously to take out the heroes. Instead, I will see if the job can't be done with a simple sniper, and if not I will release the prisoners one at a time from the least likely to attack me to the most likely.

113. If I end up kidnapped by pirates who hold me to ransom, and the pirates end up kidnapping the hero(es) as well, I will work together with them to escape captivity. I will not at any point attack them, except in self defense, in order to keep up the pretense of the Enemy Mine. Once I am free, I will make an example of the pirates from the comfort of my Fortress of Doom, before I carry on with my evil plans.

114. If I invite the hero to dinner, I will not attempt to kill them with poisoned food, drink or any other methods that could potentially be used against me. Instead, a trained (and loyal) sniper will have their crosshairs on the hero at all times; so if the need arises, they can be eliminated efficiently. After all, I invited the hero to dinner for a reason. If I wanted to kill them, they wouldn't have made the courtyard.

115. If I serve a God in a realm with multiple Gods and multiple alignments, my efforts will go towards advancing my Lord's plans and goals. If this means aiding the other Gods with their insignificant problems, but an outcome from it could benefit my own interests, I will help them. Doubly so if the aid undermines another Gods agenda. It will also mean they owe me a favor, which can be very beneficial when my Lord enacts his plan.

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1. Although I will make backup plans for my possible death, I will not design this part of the plan to be a core element.

2. My retirement plan will have enough challenges to keep me occupied. Too many accomplished villains grow bored with victory, and go back to fighting battles they've already won out of nostalgia.

3. I will make sure that I have one person in my evil council whose job it is to argue against anything suggested. He will not be punished for disagreeing with me, so as long as he has reasonable arguments.

4. Before I curse anyone, I'll make sure it isn't broken by true love's kiss or something easy like that. I'll either use one that can't be broken or, better yet, one that can only be broken by having me willingly kiss them.

5. If I must use mind control, I'll ensure only I can remove it of my own free will, and that killing me will cause all the affected to die horribly.

6. If I brainwash someone into becoming my sleeper agent who forwards my evil plans without their knowledge, I will not have the brainwashing wear off when my sleeper agent finishes the last task I gave them. They'll simply return to an initial state where more instructions can be provided.

7. If I capture and brainwash one of the heroes, I will not send them back to their companions with instructions to lead them into a trap, or backstab them. Instead, I will seize the opportunity to order my new slave to turn around, then execute them.

8. I'll never outlaw smiling, hugs, flowers, or "being nice". I might not like any of that stuff, but ruling a whole country of assholes and people forced to be assholes will just make everyone annoyed and miserable, cause rampant crime and vandalism, and lower property values.

9. Professional butt kissers will not be promoted, as they only give animosity to other henchmen. Butt kissing will only be used as a tie breaker if the butt kisser is as loyal, intelligent, and effective a leader as the other candidate.

10. If I have a monstrous form, I'll ensure the transformation lasts a fraction of a second so I won't be attacked while doing so. If I have more than one, I'll use the most powerful form and kill everyone before something bad happens.

11. After destroying the home planet of the only race that can possibly challenge me, I will order the entire star system scanned for escape pods before doing anything else. I will also kill the only survivors instead of letting them work for me.

12. I will never casually assume the heroes won't employ some of their more morally questionable options because they're too good for it. If all goes according to plan, there's a good chance they'll treat my decisive victory as the final straw.

13. My Legions of Evil will not conceal their faces, and they will all wear helpful "Hello, my name is..." nametags so I know who to punish if they step out of line.

14. If I decide to destroy a town, I will make sure that I've burned it completely, so that no one survives. I'm a villain, after all... I'm not supposed to be nice.

15. If I see an escape pod leaving a vessel I have just commandeered, I will destroy the escape pod, even if there doesn't appear to be anyone on board.

16. If I'm about to lose a civil war, I may negotiate with the rebels, allowing them to take over in exchange for granting me immunity to prosecution, and living in a luxurious exile for the rest of my life. Hopefully there's always the chance that the rebels will run things so badly that loyalists will beg for my return.

17. I will read up on other useful guides, and use their tactics when a situation occurs which makes the tactics contained in this list ineffective or counterproductive.

18. I will not be focused on avenging petty injustices in my childhood, as this will make me appear to be rather pathetic instead of respectable.

19. I won't invite private citizens into my fortress while executing the final stages of my plan.

20. If a new employee, passing traveler, or guest I've invited bests me at a simple game I would normally win, I will interrogate and kill them immediately. That man (or woman, or teenager) is an enemy spy.

21. All rooms in a base, including bathrooms and even my own personal bedroom, will be bugged with a vast surveillance network of hidden cameras and microphones.

22. I will jam all wireless communications and radio frequencies in and around my fortress. Any outward communications will be done via direct, wired communications through monitored channels.

23. If I intend for my nemesis to unwittingly activate my superweapon during a PR stunt, I will secretly be carrying a second remote trigger for the superweapon. If the crowd starts to panic over an exciting entrance by the hero, I will activate the weapon and hightail it out of there.

24. Despite how impressive it may be, I won't keep my shark in a giant glass tank, particularly when I try to drop henchmen who failed me or visiting heroes in there. Six-inch-thick portholes can be just as dramatic.

25. If my plan involves replacing powerful leaders with clones, I won't waste time by waiting for all my targets to be replaced before disposing all the originals at once. Instead, I will kill each one as he/she is being replaced.

26. If my plan relies on the assistance of the gambling addict, I will kill him when he's no longer useful. They are easy to control, but can become greedy quickly. And they tend to gamble with everything, especially with Evil Overlords and Death.

27. I won't ever reveal my plans to the hero, especially when he plays a crucial role in it. If he asks me, I will lie all about it; or should I tell the truth, he will be killed immediately.

28. If my men find an otherwise innocuous item that contains an advanced system or mechanism in a guest's or employee's room, I will confiscate ALL items from the room, regardless of how innocent they seem.

29. I will resist any urge to taunt my enemy during my escape. For instance, if flying away via helicopter, I will not stop to wave goodbye at them.

30. Despite any similarities they have, I will not keep an enemy alive because they resemble a lost family member or friend. As much as it would break my heart, it would be far better to just kill them immediately.

31. If my plan involves derailing a high political figure, I will kill him once I am finished with him, not keep him drunken and embarrassed in the dilapidated building right next to my fortress.

32. The keycard I use to activate my superweapon will be the swipe-and-withdraw kind, not the kind that has to be kept in the machine to keep it activated. I will take the keycard with me so nobody else can deactivate it.

33. I will make it clear to my security precisely who I've invited to PR events. As such, if nobody I've invited is under the age of twenty, all teenagers and children are to be turned away at once regardless of whether or not they have a ticket.

34. All trucks entering and leaving any of my secure installations will be searched top to bottom, on the inside AND on the outside.

35. All sentries guarding my deathtrap obstacle course will check that all dead bodies really are dead. Preferably by stabbing the body in the back.

36. If the hero escapes from me, I will order a full investigation on him. As a part of that, I will interview everyone in my organization to see if they know him; this includes the trained assassin I've hired.

37. If the trained assassin I've hired refuses to kill the hero, I will interrogate them. If the assassin fails to give a good excuse, they will be executed immediately.

38. I will always try to aim for the head with every shot. If this is not possible, I will gun down the enemy first, and follow up every downed enemy with a head shot.

39. I will not fund any lengthy, high-budget, venture capitalist project, such as a hotel in space. Despite the boost in PR that I desperately need, it may well come back to bite me if it starts running over budget and starts to eat away at my vast funds.

40. When I calibrate the controls for the superweapon to my handprint, I will immediately lock down the controls to ensure that nobody else can access the controls and disarm it or – even worse – detonate it where it will have no effect.

41. I will always consider the best assassination techniques for every situation. For example, if I want to eliminate a vehicle near one of my installations while holding a New Year's Day PR event, the fireworks can easily disguise the flash and sound of a rocket launcher.

42. I will not have the hero unwittingly set the final phase of my plan in motion if the only reason for doing so is my own personal amusement.

43. I will remember who has the bargaining power at all times. Even if the hero has the object I need to launch my evil plan and is threatening to destroy it, it won't matter as long as I have his girlfriend.

44. I will run an evil clandestine organization, and my identity will remain hidden. The hero can't stop who he doesn't know, and it's far more intimidating for the masses for the identity of the evil one terrorizing them to be a mystery.

45. When me and the hero are fighting over a powerful object, if for some reason, even though I've apparently beaten them, they stand up, with a badass look in their eye, and say something like "you want the MacGuffin, TAKE THE MACGUFFIN!!!", I will immediately jump into my escape pod, flee, and blow up the base post haste: I clearly don't understand the power I was dealing with, and me taking the hero up on their offer would have resulted in my death.

46. Codewords - if my officers are captured, they will be instructed to say something like "everything is A-OK" or something similar, that sounds reasonable and normal. This will be the cue to send in the elite shock troops, shoot on sight, and flood the corridors with knockout gas, as said codewords will only be said in times of durress, and the actual "everything is ok" signal will be something like "Situation Normal, reporting back in 5".

47. If, for any reason, I decide to employ ninjas, I will make sure that they, contrary to my normal Legions of Terror fight the Hero one on one. And by 'fight,' I mean use every dirty trick in the book and anything they can think up to kill the Hero before he even knows they are there and only fight as a last resort.

47A. I shall also only hire one of them at a time, all from the same clan, and maintain a professional relationship and respect for the traditions of said clan, even if their beliefs clash with your own. (As a side note, should relations with said clan sour, the clan's lair shall be firebombed and any survivors hunted down and executed.)

47B. Related to the firebombing issue, I will never ever EVER deliberately attack a ninja clan because I think they might be working with the hero. I will instead do everything possible and within reason to recruit them to my side instead. (Alternatively, I will frame the Hero for the firebombing.)
In addition, I will make sure that any ninjas I employ are not possessed by any Eldritch Abomination that they might lose control of in a tense situation.

48. I will not be a sociopath or a social isolate. Being able to model my enemies' thoughts and feelings in my own mind is useful. Thus, in my evenings, weekends and holidays I will maintain a healthy, reasonable social life with several friends and hobbies. Besides, it's always important to leave a good impression in the community.

48A. If the President of the United States can do it, so can I!

49. I will never deploy an infantry invasion against an enemy replete with wizards, witches, arch-mages, mahou shoujo, or any other form of magic-users. While in tech-heavy universes, specifically ethnocidal viruses are difficult to create, the equivalent magical effect is dirt easy. More than one aspiring Overlord has found his/her-self magically thrown continents away from their target, their armies battered and maimed, due solely to the magical equivalent of a semi-permeable cell membrane.

49A. From someone who tried that: and if it conveniently turns out that only one person is the specific key to the area-effect weaponry or defenses, I will not drug, disable, or mind-control him in a complicated infiltration plot. I'll just kill him as soon as I get close.

50. Rather than using my vast propaganda machines to teach the population at large, and thus my prospective enemies, to fear and loathe me, I will use it to teach them the values of pacifism and nonviolence. Idealistic nonviolent activists are far easier to kill than real heroes.

51. If I have a four-part plan,I will make sure to have a fifth part.

52. My bases will have extremely strict safety requirements and I will have regular tests of failsafes. Keeping my mooks safe improves moral, makes sure I don't lose them needlessly, the Hero will not be able to push them off ledges, easily tamper with my machinery, and the destruction of my base would be more likely to leave more of my troops alive to fight another day.

53. While factories spewing pollution add a wonderfully villainous ambiance, I will bear the cost of mitigating and preventing the environmental damage if there are any local nature spirits or guardians that can be persuaded by heroes to attack me. A few acres of land and unsustainably harvested timber are not worth an invasion by Ents.

54. If I ever try to convince the hero to join me, I will have polished my debate skills enough to win the argument and leave the hero in doubt, even if I cannot turn him yet. I will ensure the hero is unable to return to his friends for moral support and strengthen his resolve. Once the Hero has come over to my side, I will make it my first priority to kill him/her anyway possible. Whether his defection is genuine or not, this is an ultimately better result than my situation before, or than it might become if the hero betrays me.

54A. Also, I will keep a tight lid on who knows the hero is dead. My trusted allies might be allowed to know, but if any of them seem shocked or dismayed, then I will execute them in secret. As for the hero's friends, I will only tell one of them at a time when we are alone. My goal will be to inspire raw feelings of vengeance, that will be their downfall, rather than resolve, which would be mine.

55. I will not, repeat, will not install a MuffinButton on any of my ships.

56. I will never answer my own doorbell, I remember how that worked out for Gerald Bull. That's why I have minions.

57. If I can revive fallen elites in my army, I will remember not to send them against the hero for revenge; instead they will resume their original mission while the hero is miles and miles away.

57A. Alternately, I will teach them to cover their weaknesses...as giving them new powers may provide an opportunity to be defeated again.

58. If I am successful and get the chance to make a wish that can come true, I WILL be as specific as possible when doing so... Eldritch Abominations or Artifacts of Doom I could use for this purpose could try to play the game of Hijacked by Ganon or Jackass Genie.

58A. Addenum, I will ensure that if at any time I can have a wish granted by such a being, I will have the wish in writing from my team of lawyers. Their job is to screw others over, and prevent me from being screwed, after all.

59. If I ever obtain powers over time, I will go to the past and either A.) Kill the hero as a baby, or B.) Go back to the time after the Dinosaurs went extinct, less chance of opposition (aside from Native Mammals), and therefore easier to take over.

60. If I should end up holding the hero in my tech-based telekinesis, I will not just casually toss him in to a wall and leave with out bothering to check if he survives. I will instead crush him with the aforementioned telekinesis until he resembles a smooth jelly.

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81. If I build a secret room into a house, it will be underground, not behind a secret wall where anyone with a blue print or a decent sense of dimensions and spatial relations can spot it.

82. I will also make sure the plucky comic relief cannot find the secret room by stumbling around and tripping into it.

83. My security cameras will be placed in such a way that the hero cannot be out of sight by standing directly under the camera mounting.

84. Just in case a hero has someone to take the bullet for them, I will always have an extra bullet more than I need to execute heroes. Furthermore, I will capitalize on the time it takes the hero to hear the rescuer's last words to line up my next shot and kill him.

85. Local bands will be screened for magical instruments they just happened to find at a garage sale or the local pawnshop. Any band that has one, I will hire immediately to do my theme music, thus adding the awesome power of rock to my arsenal.

86. If the end of my rule is inevitable, I'll search for a way to fake my death, establish a cult promising my messianic return, and preserve my body until the world is once again ready for me to take over.

87. I will order all copies of the Evil Overlord List, and all subsequent derivatives, to be destroyed with the exception of a master copy which will remain in my safe deposit box for reference.

88. My soldiers will wear devices that will sound an alarm if they are completely motionless or fall flat.

89. If possible and necessary, I will turn myself into a powerful and free-willed undead who can resurrect after being killed again, such as a lich. This way, I'll just keep coming back. Of course, my soul jar will be under heavy guard in a secret room, with doors that only be opened from inside.

90. Should I decide to split my soul, I will NOT keep the parts in unique and glorious items. Instead, I will use grains of sand in the Sahara and the Atlantic Ocean, and a small chunk of ice in the Arctic. And a screw on one of NASA's deep space probes.

91. My soldiers will immediately destroy any towers and church steeples they encounter, as these are great sniper-blinds.

92. I will not torture or kill the hero's friends in front of him. This increases the chance that his hidden powers will activate and kill me. I will take special care not to provoke the hero after I have won the fight.

93. I will have a large group of highly-trained snipers guarding all sides of my fortress from any conceivable angle. One third of them will have laser sights. The rest will have scopes.

94. All powered armor, mecha walkers, and battleships (both of the seafaring and spacegoing variety) will have point-defenses, even if such measures are largely worthless. Better safe than sorry.

95. Rule #4 will not only be my personal guideline, but also an official policy for all soldiers. There will also be a policy to always shoot a body twice.

96. Rather than use an obvious evil fortress, I will base my activities out of a reasonably-sized office suite that hosts a variety of offices for more legitimate businesses. The heroes should be hesitant to attack when there are so many innocent bystanders.

97. I will not employ huge three-headed dogs who can be won over with honey to guard my ultimate weapon. Instead, I will employ small and fluffy squirrels, who just so happen to be vicious carnivores, and will massacre the hero before he realizes his folly.

98. I will never tell any of my henchmen that "I don't pay you to think." Yes, it's true that people who think too much might be a threat to my authority, but if I wanted a mindless robot, I'd make or hire a mindless robot.

99. If I have a genie's lamp, I won't let the hero trick me into becoming an "all-powerful" genie, if it would cost me my freedom.

100. I will fool the heroes by building a false headquarters, misleading them into thinking that this is my personal base of operations. Once they enter expecting a climactic showdown, they will instead be locked inside with explosive booby-traps to level the entire building.

101. Should I ever meet the hero, I will instantly pretend to be my own "good twin", then offer to lead them to my "evil twin's" lair. My soldiers will "kidnap" me when we approach, and thus lead the hero and his party into a trap.

102. I will never try to make any deals with demons. As tempting as it is to have an evil magical being grant my greatest wishes, nothing can be worth the price of my soul or anything just as important.

103. Should I foolishly sign a contract with a demon anyway, I will hire a ruthless lawyer to help me take advantage of any possible loopholes so I wouldn't have to pay my end of the bargain, and ensure that the demon can't try any similar trickery.

104. I will ensure that my henchmen and servants get to throw fun parties when they're off duty. Also, if the hero walks in on a group of people playing charades where someone is impersonating a goose, he will think twice about it being his nemesis's fortress.

105. If a person carrying an oddly-colored sword walks into my kingdom, I will take a vacation elsewhere until that sword is out of my kingdom and not make any friendly or unfriendly overtures to the wielder. If the sword is black, I will move to another dimension and never return.

106. If I'm ever at the mercy of the Hero, I will share any (real or false) stories about my unhappy childhood. If the Hero is empathetic towards apparently sympathetic villains, he would at least spare my life.

107. There will be no architectural elements in my bases that can provide alternate pathways for intruders - no catwalks that go nowhere but provide footholds, no entirely pointless machinery to climb, no convenient handholds that serve no obvious purpose besides being convenient handholds.

108. Even if all my advisers agree that no one could survive that blow I have just dealt to the hero, I will still chop his head off for good measure.

109. If I'm ever seriously injured, I will fake being knocked stupid.

110. All robotic duplicates will be built to look and act like the real thing. Any robot that says something like "Good morning, I am most definitely your sister, and not a clone designed to spy on you" will be sold for scrap.

111. In a sealed and airtight room, I will have all my minions wearing gas masks stand next to bright red barrels labeled "DANGER: EXPLOSIVE!". When damaged, the barrels will release a non-flammable, non-explosive poisonous gas that will kill anyone not wearing gas masks.

112. If I create mutant super soldiers, I will not make the prototype my trusted lieutenant, as prototypes have a tendency to go insane. After field tests prove successful, I will kill the original and clone more stable and advanced versions.

113. Playing ominous music that screams finality, nice as it is, tends to give the heroes the resolve to continue all the way through my citadel and confront me. Instead, when they invade, I will begin playing elevator music, which is much more likely to exhaust and depress the heroes.

114. When hiring new troops, I will tell them that their stealth ops uniform is neon pink. Anyone who tells me how impractical that is will be promoted immediately.

115. I will take a fairly neutral stance on transhumanism. It will not be mandatory, nor will non-modified citizens be discriminated against. It will also not be illegal to undergo cyborgization or bio augmentation.

116. If I foolishly accept the hero's love interests' offer to become my consort, I shall never stop being suspicious of her, no matter how much time passes. Should she ever ask me about my weaknesses, I will lie.

117. If one of my lieutenants turn out to be a traitor, I will kill him, cut off his head, impale his head on a stake, and nail a sign on said stake that reads: "I do not tolerate double-crossing back-stabbers", for such people tend to be more trouble then they're worth.

118. I will never ever try to take over the world by playing a children's card game.

119. All shady biological experiments will be reported as being ethical and voluntary, even if it isn't.

120. I will never write an autobiography based entirely in truth.

121. If my minions find a parasitic creature draining energy from the entire planet, I will not give into my urge to use it to run my superweapon. I will instead try to kill it.

122. I will create a centralized licensing and registration system for all weapon manufacturers. All arms sales will be registered and tracked.

123. I must remember that in the grand scheme, there isn't such a thing as immortality; I can be invincible, ageless, or both, but there will always be a way to shatter the magic and kill me. I will always keep this in mind no matter how assured my victory is.

124. Before pursuing immortality, I will make sure I can turn it off when I've had enough. Ruling my empire for a thousand years would be awesome. Outliving the solar system and being stranded in a universe that will eventually die would decidedly NOT be awesome.

125. If I beat the heroes to any sort of magic artifact that doesn't involve my own plans, I'll destroy the thing on the spot, not throw it into my dungeon in an easily accessed spot, the only exception will be if destroying the artifact will remove my powers.

126. I should note the heroes rarely if ever disrupt my plans as soon as they're getting off the ground. If I delay my plans I can take my sweet time fortifying my fortress, training my legions of evil, and kicking as many puppies as I want.

127. If the power of love is an actual, metaphysical phenomenon in my universe, I will have my minions paired off and sent out as battle couples.

128. The corridor leading to my artifact of doom will be full of highly visible and sweeping laser beams, that will distract intruders from the grid of invisible laser beams; as well as the sound, heat, and motion detectors.

129. I will improve on every other villain's ideas and potential villain's ideas, including but not limited to this list.

130. Should I attain victory, I will remember that it will become boring eventually, and remember to stop myself from creating my own new nemesis just to keep me entertained; sports and video games work just as well to keep me occupied when there's nothing else to conquer.

131. I will not deny or undermine the effectiveness of cake-based cooking songs as a form of torture.

132. If I am competing with many other villains over the fate of the world, I will remember to paint myself as the least of all the evils, as this is great for propaganda, along with making temporary alliances with heroes if that should ever become necessary.

133. If I rise to power by replacing my boss, I will not lash out if my former leader returns, odds are whatever helped him cheat death could turn me into a puddle of molten flesh in an instant. Instead, I'll return to serving him until I find what his weakness is, and then direct the heroes to it so I can take him out when I get the chance.

134. I will not use a horde of tiny killing machines to pacify a planet. Especially if the item that makes them ignore my troops has to be calibrated every so often.

135. If I use any sort of long and complex deathtrap, I'll make sure that in case of escape, I will personally implement it. That way, when the hero thinks he's been smart and escaped through the absurdly spacious sewer, or wherever it may lead, I will be waiting. With a gun.

136. If I absolutely must have brainwashed henchmen, I will not give them the keys to my inner chambers.

137. Before I send my assassins to kill someone, I will give them bags full of hair trimmings collected from the local barber shop, or other random genetic material, to contaminate the crime scene with.

138. I will prevent the creation of potential heroes by appointing their families to important positions in my government, and molding any would-be heroes into my right-hand men.

139. I will remember that the power of hope is not the exclusive virtue of the good guys.

140. Self-preservation will always come before the plan, if I fail and everything starts to come down around me, I will not let pride get the better of me and go down with the ship or commit suicide, I'll drop what I'm doing and escape immediately.

141. I will never underestimate the advantages of good intel and high power sniper rifles. It may not be chivalrous or fair to shoot the hero in the back from miles away but I am more likely to succeed this way. If it does not work I will carry on trying at random intervals.

142. I will never, ever create technology that can bypass all security and lay bare the secrets of everyone, and drive the users insane so they can be controlled more easily. That shit not only gets you nowhere, it usually ends with rebellions and your creations being used against you.

143. I will endeavor to use reason to combat enemy tactics. For example, if a book must be banned because it is enemy propaganda, I will explain why to the public and point out passages that directly oppose the empire's values, or explain the possible consequences of people reading the novel.

144. I will give all possible military aid to allied nations, so that the hero will have trouble finding allies there who oppose me.

145. If I must kill someone and I know that the public will inevitably hear about it, I will explain why I did it and why it was unavoidable, placing emphasis on any treason, rebellion, or other detrimental aspects of the victim's life.

146. I will not live in my fortress, instead, I will hide in my grandmother's basement and have my fortress presided over by a robotic replica of someone I hate. This robot will do all the dirty work and, with luck, get killed by the heroes while I am safe to watch them hack it up.

147. I'll watch out for any fake heroes, if someone threatening my regime dies quickly enough that I say "That was too easy", I'm probably right. I'll investigate the family ties related to the person I just killed, and deduce which one will most likely grow up to be the revenge-seeking hero.

148. I'll also watch out for any sidekicks, if my spies reveal the leader of the band of heroes coming for me doesn't have a reason for wanting my death besides my generic villainy, I'll direct my resources away from him to the others and try to find out who the real hero or chosen oneamong them is.

149. I will always assume that my evil plans can fail at any given point, whether it be anywhere from before it begins to moments before its completion, and plan accordingly. Also, I will keep Murphy's law in mind.

150. I will do my research and ensure that my opponent does not believe in an entity that grants him multiple lives. If so, I will find a way to get rid of his additional lives before facing him. After all, finding out only during a battle usually leads to unpleasant surprises and death.

151. If I steal something of value from the hero, I won't upgrade it for my own personal use, eventually the hero will wind up taking it back, and he will have an upgraded item made with my resources.

152. If the entire party of heroes has been captured and imprisoned, they will be locked up separately, their pet who could help them escape will be isolated, and the smartest guards (or at least ones with some common sense) will be assigned to watch them.

153. I won't try to kill infants, especially that one prophesied to defeat me. I won't fall into the trap of trying to kill a kid who otherwise wouldn't be a threat until I make him one. Instead I will raise the child as my heir, and I'll fulfill the letter of the prophesy by having him beat me at a kid's game or sport.

154. In the event that the hero enters my lair, I will disguise myself as a butler, have my butler disguised as me, and once he kills the butler, and has his moment of triumph, I will kill him with a simple shot to the back of the head.

155. I will remember that my special forces who have never lost a battle, can still be defeated. Too many Evil Overlords have relied too heavily on them and are soon left with no elite warriors after the Hero eventually kills them.

156. I will not underestimate an enemy army just because we have outnumbered them. They may still have a chance of prevailing.

157. If I'm draining life energy from people, harvesting organs, or extracting bodily fluids from corpses, then I will make sure to do the grisly work in a clean environment out of sight. While it may be useful to have corpses laying around to instill an air of fear... I should at least be able to keep things neat and tidy when necessary.

158. Guards will always carry a list with names and descriptions of people who are allowed entrance. Allowing in anyone who's not on the list will result in execution. Anyone who refuses to believe their names aren't on the list, and insists "there must be some kind of mistake", will be interrogated outside the premises.

159. If I ever find myself in a situation where me and my enemy are standing at opposite ends of a room with guns aimed at each other, I will skip over the dialogue and just shoot him in the head before he causes any more trouble.

160. If my demise is inevitable, and there's nothing I can do to save myself, I'll attempt to face death with dignity (or at least hide the shame). Nothing's more humiliating than revealing oneself to be a pathetic coward or a sore loser in their final moments.

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1. I will allow my henchmen to submit suggestions for possible weapon upgrades. Being on the field, they'll know what we need, and there's no sense letting the heroes exploit the same weakness over and over again.

2. If my evil plans involve immersing myself in the lifestream, I will first dip a toe in to see what happens. I will also wait an hour after eating to enter.

3. Female minions will be given more protective equipment than metal lingerie. Why that's necessary is detailed here.

4. Failure will be punished by demotion and a round of brainwashing, rather than summary execution. Dead minions can't fight. Besides, brainwashing is fun!

5. When assembling teams, I will go through everyone's backstories to check for possible sources of conflict. If one of the potential members happens to blame another for the tragedy that ruined his life, they do not work together.

6. I will make it clear that anyone caught browsing a dirty magazine, playing a video game, talking on his mobile phone, or napping while on duty will be fired. Out of a cannon. Negligence is what allows heroes to slip in.

7. I will have guards trained to recognize moving bushes and cardboard boxes.

8. I will not use radiation or any radioactive materials in my lair; it is expensive enough to make specialized suits to resist radiation from Material X.

9. I will make sure factory by-products and mine tailings are properly disposed of. Living in the middle of Mordor, while great for atmosphere (figuratively of course), just screams "He's fuckin' evil!!!".

10. If I am running a minor dictatorship, I will not challenge a military superpower that could crush me easily.

11. If the idiot ball is a physical object, I will take steps to weaponize it. I will also take steps to contain the weapons-grade stupidity seeping out of the weapon. It just won't do to have minions forget that the skinny end is the one that hurts (or you keep the ring and throw the ball).

12. Whenever I temporarily leave my palace, I will make sure to put someone competent, but not too ambitious on the throne in my absence. I will make it clear that I'm coming home, and the kingdom is on loan, not a gift. And if he fucks it up, I'll fuck him up.

13. If I am ever bottled, I will ensure that I am either unconscious or have some kind of entertainment. Also, if someone has released me demanding power, I will not kill them immediately, instead I will use their knowledge of the new time period, and give them a high position when I regain my authority.

14. If I am dying and I wish to continue my plot by digitizing my mind, the supercomputer better have access to the Internet or video games so I will not be bored in my confinement to a machine, and I can create a copy or escape elsewhere.

15. If I have to create a computer virus, I will also create an anti-malware program to circumvent the use of it on my own machinery.

16. Chimeras are a no go, even though it may seem interesting to mix and match creatures and play with life in general, they are still beasts and highly unpredictable.

17. If it becomes necessary to escape from my base when it's under attack, I will have my troops yell out sentences like "Prepare the escape pods", "Power up the teleport", or "Unlock that elevator to the center of the Earth". While they do this, I will silently walk out through the fire exit.

18. I will study the hero's abilities and use training, magic, or science to create henchmen who are able to counter certain attacks or have superpowers of their own. That way, I will have minions that are not only immune (or at the very least resistant) to the hero's attacks, but ones that will use the hero's own tricks against them as well.

19. If the hero is adept at stealth, improvisation, or acrobatics, I will force them to fight in an open and barren field.

20. I shall use emotionless, non-humanlike robots against heroes who use fear, social engineering, or psychological tactics.

21. To handle those frustrating stealthy heroes, I will construct the interior of my fortress out of a kind of durable yet extremely creaky wood (covered in fireproof paint, of course).

22. I will remember that long-range artillery and high-altitude bombers are a good part of any evil army and stock up. That way, I have the option to kill the hero in a massive area bombardment, rather than only sending infantry that will probably get slaughtered, or helicopters and tanks which can be hijacked.

23. I will regularly go on hunting trips and kill animals and monsters that are manageable within my current level of personal combat prowess. Not only will I get to broaden my horizons by doing something other than being an evil overlord, but I will get an influx of experience.

24. I will not use a door-lock system that deactivates when the hero kills everyone in the room. Instead, when s/he kills the last person, the room will collapse and/or become a vacuum.

25. I will make all my minions pass psych eval and IQ tests. Idiot minions generally forget orders, and respond to such orders as "Kill her" or "Strap him down" with "But datz mean, boss!". Insane minions will only be allowed if they're of the amusingly mad type, and kept the fuck away from anyone or anything important.

26. I will not give my favorite/firstborn kid a cool theme name like "Mordryd" and my other kids throwaway names like "Jimmy". Given the amount of bickering evil children are prone to, Mordryd's probably gonna get a pen in the eye and the minions are gonna have to learn how to serve a guy named "Lord Jimmy" with a straight face.

27. I will make sure to keep my priorities in order: preserving my life and safety, maintaining my reign of terror, conducting my evil plans, and defeating the hero.

28. I call them "mooks", but really, they should all be highly-trained badasses.

29. Access to any important area of the base will require at least one of the following: a full palm scan, retinal scan, key card, voice recognition, or a 9-digit password. The scanners will be programmed to tell if someone is dead, in case the hero tries to carry a corpse to the scanner.

30. I will make sure that any mercenaries or bounty hunters I hire do not have any odd quirks to get in the way of their objectives. Nothing is more disappointing than learning that they didn't do their job because there was a wounded animal nearby and he "had to nurse the poor thing back to health".

31. Alternatively, I will offer a bounty to any henchman who captures the Hero. The bounty will be offered to all who assist in this capture. I will however, pay in goods other than cold hard cash, to prevent inflation.

32. If I must offer a bounty, I will spread it evenly among the henchmen should one find him, as well as giving them a greater reward than a civilian. This has the added benefit of being a great campaign for henchmanship, increasing my evil army.

33. Or, I will tell my henchmen that once the hero is dead before me, they will all get a bonus this year. This will prevent the potential of squabbling and fighting each other for the rewards while ensuring they don't try and skimp me on the killing him part.

34. If I offer to pay someone, I will keep the vow, and I won't kill them once they are no longer useful.

35. If my R&D team invents a bomb that can't be defused, I will get them to develop an ICBM that can't be re-targeted.

36. My fortress will have background music playing at all times. When the alarm rings and combat begins, a rock or metal soundtrack will play.

37. I will keep all new weapons top-secret until I develop counter-measures against them.

38. If I am accountable to a superior, and I have failed him, I will not blame my failure on my minions or colleagues, nor will I ask for a paycheck or a raise. This often leads to my execution, as a common trait of traitors is that they care more about themselves than their employer. I will instead take full responsibility for my failure.

39. If one lone scientist warns me that my latest plan will unleash horrifying forces upon me, I will put him on my top advisory committee instead of trying to discredit him.

40. Rather than trying to fulfill prophecies, I will stay the hell away from them!

41. Given a choice between killing a specific high-ranking enemy with a 30 megaton ICBM, and a gun, I'd choose the gun. It does put me in danger, but it's the only way to bypass his plot armor.

42. Unless I am sure that there's a long lost moral to the story, I will refrain from pointing out any contradictions, grey areas, or other weaknesses in the hero's moral code. Odds are that the author put more thought into rebutting my complaints than the complaints themselves.

43. If my death will trigger whatever nonsensical force causes my evil lair to collapse, I will make sure this also applies with all imperial public structures such as aqueducts and mine shafts (just like my lair, I built most of them anyway). And I will remind the heroes that killing me will mean years of drought and mineral shortage to millions of people.

44. Better yet, in addition to the above, I will have a doomsday device that detonates upon my death. This will make it far more difficult to defeat me.

45. If the hero has a particularly gentle, nice, and sweet companion, I will not torture or otherwise provoke him/her. I will, however, attempt to keep some genuinely nice, gentle people around who are loyal to me personally.

46. The first thing that my Legions of Terror learn as part of their training will be that standing perfectly still and out in the open during a firefight is not going to help their life expectancy. Cover exists for a reason!

47. If body armor cannot protect my minions, I won't issue it. What's the point?

48. If I manage to capture one of the heroes, I'll figure out what kind of weakness allowed me to capture this one at first. Then perform other methods like psychic interrogation, DNA scanning and computer simulations for further discovery on their weaknesses and abilities. This data will then be present at the next advisers meeting for analysis and exploiting it.

49. I will have minions search out every weapon merchant in the land and either employ him or buy out all his stocks. With any luck the heroes will have no access to equipment above the starters.

50. I will refrain from using the standard supervillain insults. "Imbecile" and "You fool", lower minion self-esteem, and while they get the point across, are cliche.

51. If I have other means to gain control of the kingdom than to force a princess to marry me, I'll go with this plan instead. Also, I'll make sure to remember that "princess" is not synonym to "first beauty in the country" or to "perfect wife for evil lord."

52. A backstabbing wife can be dangerous to have around, but she can provide necessary training. If I never relax in her company, I'm less likely to relax when the hero comes to assassinate me.

53. I will pretend to care for my minions to keep morale up, but in reality I will be sure that I do not, in any way, care about them. That way, I won't go crazy should they turn against me.

54. If I'm not already batshit insane, I will at least pretend to be so I can plead insanity at my trial (If I get one, hopefully the hero will take pity on a "poor madman" and follow due process).

55. I will have a suggestion box outside my office. This doesn't necessarily mean I'll read anything the mooks stuff in there, but it will raise morale.

56. Mooks will have their libido suppressed to nil while on duty, regardless of gender. My armies are at war, and while we're at it, they cannot be distracted by trivial matters such as sex.

57. If the green rocks my mad scientist team is using in their research causes horrendous mutation or death, but also can be used to do magic, I will make sure to have the devices powered by it be bulletproof and make uniforms insulated against its radiation before having what amounts to little more than a bottle of the stuff and a handful of wires strapped to someone's arm.

58. The architect who designed my dungeon, its traps, and its escape routes is doomed from the moment he signed on. As are any external service personnel I absolutely must hire to provide upgrades, such as the poor sod who put in the central A/C.

59. I will regularly train for combat with my most loyal and skilled henchmen. It's always important to sharpen my abilities, especially if I haven't gotten much personal experience in fighting.

60. I will make myself look as human as possible. While looking demonic, angelic, or animalistic will make me look more intimidating, it will also make it easier for the heroes to kill me if the time comes.

61. I will plan according to my budget. If I do not have the money to design and mass produce the kind of technology required for many of the above precautions or if I don't have the good managers required to supervise my minions and make sure they actually follow protocol at all times, I will try to find a less expensive option and fix what I can.

62. Any idea which crosses my mind which seems to only be there because I think it would be cool, regardless of practicality or good sense will be ignored. Yes, developing bands of minions to act to popular character types would be pretty neat, but I wouldn't want to be distracted from my overall plans by the little things.

63. If a minion or civilian suggests something that is halfway decent, I will give him the credit for a good idea, rather than just stealing it. That way, if it fails, I can finger-point.

64. I will offer top-notch dental and medical benefits, as well as a GI's Grant. Loads of people sign up for that sort of thing.

65. If for whatever reason, I need to talk with the hero while holding him at gunpoint, I will use three highly trained marksmen. One to shoot at him from the front where he expects it, one to shoot him after he dodges the first bullet, and one with a machine gun to completely obliterate the corpse.

66. All weaponry that can overheat and explode in my face will have a temperature-operated failsafe, that will render the weapon completely inoperable if removed or tampered with, except for repairs and upgrades.

67. My doomsday devices will not have a lengthy charge-up time, and will have a countdown timer just for show. They will be ready to use as soon as the hero waltzes into my control room. In addition, the conspicuous "off" button will activate the device immediately.

68. If I take up playing an instrument, I will stay away from the ominous pipe organ.

69. I will frequently pretend stupidity. If the hero is genre savvy, he or she will be afraid and think twice before attacking. If not, I get an easy kill.

70. I will bring recruits into my army by funding their education at my nation's top school, thereby ensuring they are intelligent and capable of quick thinking.

71. I will always value a small force of capable people (read: able to cause more than a few minutes' setback to the hero) over a vast army consisting largely of weaker mooks.

72. I will never wait with renewing whatever it is that sustains my life, but will do it as early and as often as possible.

73. If I must sacrifice a virgin every full moon, then there will be a harem of virgins kept well fed and treated but always prepared in different locations. Holding off the search until the last minute will just make me do something really stupid, like go after the hero's girlfriend merely out of desperation.

74. If my mad scientist creates a bunch of fully sapient monsters, with the emotional capacity for holding grudges, I will make sure that they aren't discriminated against. It would be disastrous if they betrayed me because I let them be treated as sub-human.

75. Any secret agents or otherwise heavily trained soldiers from a distant land will be considered threats to my power.

76. If I have to poison someone's drink, my drink will be a different color than my target's poisoned drink. Or I can use a poison I am already immune to, or barring that, have an anti-toxin ready ahead of schedule. The latter two options prevent the hero from trying to switch them.

77. If I must transform into a monster as a last resort, I will actually test it for combat performance before fighting the hero. If the form ends up hindering me instead, it will not be used.

78. Before I turn myself to the dark side, I'll find out if it does in fact have the overwhelming power that it promises. If it turns out that the greater power will leave me at a huge disadvantage to the forces of good, then I will choose instead some other means to make my reign of evil a reality.

79. I will always remember the motto: "Overkill is good, overconfidence is not." If I kill a hero, I will not relax until I detonate his body to pieces, incinerate the pieces, fling the ashes into outer space (or better, into another dimension), and exorcise the site.

80. Loud alarms in my base are reserved only for when an approaching army is sighted. If a lone enemy is sighted, a silent alarm will be raised and guards will simply patrol (but not appear to notice) the intruder, instead using the patrols to force the enemy into the dungeon, where they will be met with by my Elite Guard.

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81. If I hear a suspicious sound coming from somewhere in my fortress or just outside my camp, I will send out three henchmen to investigate: one in the direction from which the sound was coming, two in the opposite direction.

82. If I do not get updated on the situation within a reasonable timeframe, I will have the area under heavy guard, with powerful weapons prepared in case of sudden hero encounters.

83. I will build more hospitals. The doctors and medics will treat soldiers first, and civilians second. This means I'll lose less soldiers, civilians will have more incentive to join my forces, and my subjects will be far more loyal. It isn't evil in nature, but it allows me to further my evil cause(s) more easily.

84. I will make the first Friday of every month "Funny Hat Day". Not only will it raise morale of my Legions of Evil but the hero will think twice about posing as one of them when they have to wear a hat made out of fake fruit.

85. I will observe the hero and their potential love interest. Should there be any possibly belligerent and unresolved sexual tension, I will plan to vilify the hero to their love interest. These tactics will be subtle so that they don't find out and become a couple with the power of love.

86. I will consider the pros of being a black, gay, Jewish woman. Such as being able to paint the hero and his companions as sexist, racist, homophobic anti-Semites.

87. I will not hire a busty bombshell as my second in command. They may be aesthetically pleasing, but I shouldn't be choosing someone based solely on appearance rather than merit.

88. The borders of my realm will be well guarded with checkpoints and preferably a 50+ feet high wall with motion sensors. Said sensors will be linked to a number of machine guns. Any outage in the motion sensor grid will be treated as an emergency.

89. Incentives will be offered should someone find a legitimate flaw in the security system, be it from a minion or civilian.

90. Should the hero somehow enter my realm, I will NOT allow him and his party to carry on while I plot his demise. He shall instead be greeted by an airstrike.

91. I will find alternate means of dealing with any enemy who would become more powerful if killed.

92. I will make certain that my squad of superpowered evil minions aren't particularly weak to each others' powers. While this can be useful in containing rebellion, there are many power-assimilating heroes out there. Alternately, I will pair each minion with the counterpart that strengthens/heals them.

93. If the super-empowering substance I possess has a possibility of horrible side effects, I will neither force a minion to take it, nor try it myself. I will instead wait for version 2.0.

94. As an alternative to Rule #167, I will hire both the programmer and the kid and make sure that they work as a team. Not only will their combined ideas increase my computer systems' security, but the hero will have to man the keyboard himself.

95. I will hire a complete lunatic as one of my advisers, but the first idea that he has to defeat any of my enemies will be treated as a last resort. If unsuccessful, he will be dealt with in a manner that will ensure that he can never help the hero (even by accident) in any way.

96. An alternative to Rule #2: I will keep the air vents large, because crawling through there makes a lot of noise; so when the hero tries to escape, I can just have my men shoot at the sound. Also realistically, the air ducts will simply break under his weight, providing amusement as he tries to spy on my plans.

97. Another alternative to Rule #2: I will keep the insides of my air vents at lethal temperature extremes. This function will only be disabled when they must be repaired and I will check the identity of the repairman.

98. I will not wear my badass sunglasses at night. While they do look awesome, they will impair my vision though. Unless I'm working on something brightly lit for my evil plans, I have demonic glowing cat eyes that allow me to see in such darkness, I'm confronting someone who can mesmerize me by eye contact, and/or I'm in Alaska or Antarctica around the time of year when the sun is out all the time.

99. My motives will always appear to be sympathetic. The reason is simple. If the hero thinks that I'm just misguided, they'll try to talk me out of whatever I'm doing, instead of constantly trying to kill me.

100. I must never underestimate any hero. I will always assume they're a threat, even if they're stupid/silly/naive/dead. And I will expect my underlings to assume the same.

101. I will assume the hero is genre savvy, even if he has been shown to be an idiot hero as that could just be a ruse to make me feel too secure in my victory.

102. If my opponent really is an idiot hero, then they will have an intelligent but cold ally that the hero will rarely listen to. I will kill this person before the hero can teach them about instinct and friendship, since after they learn about that, they will become a realistic threat to my plans.

103. Before my rise to glory, I will kill all of my past mentors/teachers and replace them in their schools with substitutes and explain that said mentor/teacher went abroad to study. I will also make sure to silence all witnesses.

104. I will leave various communicators laying in the ground where ever I go that ring any theme tunes associated with me when they sense the vibrations of people's footsteps. If answered, it will explode.

105. If behind an unbreakable force field with my enemy trying to get in, I will also pay attention to all other degrees of vision. Chances are my unbreakable force field is, on the contrary, breakable, and it just so happens something ready to break it is nearby.

106. Should time travel become available, I shall send a team to my parents when I am an infant, and proclaim a fake prophecy that I am a chosen one. They will also launch a propaganda campaign about my false prophecy, scoring publicity and making my path to power easier.

107. Another time travel team will be sent to the pasts of any heroes and other enemies, where they will use any means possible to ensure that they won't grow up to become a threat to me. Whether this involves killing them, or covertly changing their lives will depend on what's more convenient.

108. But when using time travel, I will make sure that what I am doing will not cause undesirable consequences or a time paradox. If I cannot be absolutely sure of that, no matter how tempting it may be, I will not use time travel at all.

109. I won't trust people who constantly change sides. They are just as untrustworthy as they are (un)predictable.

110. My secret password will not be something ridiculously easy, such as 1-2-3-4-5. It's too obvious and the hero will probably try that option, if only to get it out of the way.

111. I will consider using improvised weaponry.

112. If the hero wishes to try and disengage the main generator he will have to enter a chamber that is flooded with radiation. The radiation will only be vented with my expressed permission.

113. When my henchman says, "No one could've survived that fall," I will reply, "Why don't you find out," and push him over after the hero.

114. I will maintain a healthy sense of humor about all aspects of my life. Then, if the hero attempts to goad me into making a rash mistake by mentioning something that might be a sore topic for me, I will simply laugh, say "You got me there!" and shoot him. Between the eyes. Twice.

115. My lieutenants will be expected to have read Sun Tzu's The Art of War and The Thirty-Six Stratagems. But of course they should have plenty of field experience, as ruperts that learned all they know from books tend to think everything goes exactly as planned.

116. If I'm fighting a hero whose family, friends, or loved ones I murdered, I will not taunt them by telling them "So-and-so begged me to spare his/her life". That's more than just flirting with death, that's raping him.

117. None of my officers will be professional tennis players.

118. My Legion of Doom will never go out into battle with money or valuables in their possession, especially if they have a knack for dropping all of this when they die.

119. If my Legions of Doom manage to put one of the heroes in a state where he attacks his allies rather than them, they will be instructed not to attack said hero until all his friends are dead or he is no longer in said state. The same thing goes for if they manage to render one of them unconscious.

120. I will make use of a suit of animated armor or other robotic double, while I am somewhere else - preferably a bunker in the ass-end of Siberia or some other hellishly inhospitable place that would take a massive amount of preparation to get to.

121. Before I order the death of someone trying to reveal my dark secret, I will first consider the the level of deniability I have. If the revelation will only be believed by crazy conspiracy theorists, it would actually work to my advantage. However if the person planning to do this is the Hero, I will have them killed immediately, as they will inevitably get their hands on the evidence.

122. For similar reasons, if practical I will actively try to make myself one of the stock villains of crazy conspiracy theorists. Somebody planning to control the world will find that the perfect hiding place is within the Freemasons or Catholic Church.

123. Remember, boys and girls, there's no shame in the groin attack. You are a bad guy, after all, nobody expects you to play fair.

124. If my opponent starts to ramble on or transform, I won't just stand there stupidly and wait for them to finish. I will shoot them while they're still vulnerable.

125. I will never harm the loved ones of a hero I underestimate and leave the hero free. They will prove to be fanatically loyal and very dangerous, and will embark on a roaring rampage of revenge against me. No matter how much I underestimate the hero I will kill him first, then kill all of his relations right afterwards, just in case he is the wrong hero.

126. My Legions of Doom will not use melee weapons if there are there are plenty of firearms lying around, especially if the hero is using guns without mercy. It's just dumb and suicidal otherwise.

127. I will place political prisoners in the same cell blocks as regular criminals. That way if the hero decides to start releasing inmates indiscriminately, I can go on TV and publicly demand to know why he thought it was a good idea to put serial killers and multiple rapists back on the streets.

128. I will also hire several assassins, equip them with poison daggers, and have them masquerade as prisoners. When the hero shows up to throw open the doors of the prison, their job will be to discretely stab him/her on the way out.

129. I will not allow minions to strap explosives onto themselves for when things go south. This just leads to trouble when I'm trying to execute them, and makes them more vulnerable.

130. If I decide to destroy an entire town, I will remember to kill any children who would grow up to seek revenge against me.

131. If the hero gives me a box that he claims contains an object I really want, I'll make sure the box isn't empty before I let him go.

132. If I make a bargain with anyone, I will do my best to actually hold up my end; lest it come back to bite me in the ass later. They only time I will backstab anyone is if I can kill everyone involved who could conceivably get back at me.

133. All minions (or at least as many as is practical) will be required to know basic first aid.

134. I will be an equal opportunity employer.

135. I will not give away my backstory or plans for world domination to the heroes. They can either figure them out on their own or die trying. I have a country/megacorp to run, I have no time to give exposition.

136. If my evil plan involves an ancient artifact of great power, I will take the time to study all information about it; If granting the hero a weapon capable of defeating me is the only way to obtain the artifact, I will pass it up for another artifact of similar power. In addition, I will look for an artifact that comes in one piece instead of several.

137. Before sending demonic shapeshifters to infiltrate the enemy, I will make sure that no animals or children are able to see through their disguises. They will also be trained to refrain from any kind of nonhuman behavior.

138. If I am an attractive female overlord, I will dye my hair red before encountering the hero, if it isn't already red. Heroes want redheads, after all, so I can distract him long enough for me to kill him.

139. If I am an attractive male overlord, I will merely open my jumpsuit during such an encounter for the same effect.

140. I will use holographic doubles for traps and ambushes.

141. I will make sure that any invisibility devices do not stop working at awkward times.

142. If I am female, then I should not overuse the privilege of claiming the hero is "misogynistic", and under no means will I objectify myself.

143. Minions will be able to gang up on enemies and attack relentlessly, and not sit around waiting their turn to fight.

144. If the hero falls over, the minions will shank the SOB. He'd get them if they fell down, so why be so fucking nice?

145. Robots will have their battery packs securely fastened at all times, and electrified. That way, if someone tries to swipe the power core, they just hurt themselves.

146. Robots will not be linked to a central computer. Instead, they will operate on a hive mind with me at the center. Rather than shutting down if I bite it, they will go into Revenge Mode.

147. I will play creepy music when my most horrifically disfigured minions attack the hero, as well as flood the corridor with hallucinogens. That way, I only need to play the song to reduce him to a gibbering wreck.

148. I will not use an ominously evil tower. Ostentatious lairs are what get stupid overlords killed.

149. Combat uniforms will have no eye-catching colors, regardless of how good red-on-black or florescent green on black looks. Camouflage was invented for a reason.

150. I will not have any bases that are underwater. The potential disaster would be far deadlier than the destruction of a normal fortress.

151. I will run thorough background checks on anyone applying to join my security forces, and root out any possible spies.

152. I will not use an army of the living dead. Zombies are far more trouble than they're worth, unless their curse isn't contagious, and I can keep them under my full control.

153. I will not use minions who desert, defect, or out-and-out panic when their leader dies. If my soldiers can't be loyal in the first place, putting them under control of a slave driver is just going to make trouble.

154. As an alternative to Rule #67, should we have a security system that shorts out so often that my guards begin to become jaded to it, I will inquire after something more robust.

155. If I wear a supervillain cape, it will be easily detachable so it won't cause any deadly accidents.

156. If an underling ever asks why I don't simply shoot the hero there and then, and I don't have reasonable answer, they may be right and shall be rewarded. But only after I simply shoot the hero, should it be possible to do that very soon.

157. If I learned that hero was raised in a certain orphanage that he still considers home, I will not send my legion to run it down. Instead, I will "offer" to fund the place and reorganize it - using my catchy theme song as the orphanage's anthem is the very first step.

158. I will never assume that the hero is incapable of winning, as this is something they're known for doing (with some occasional exceptions aside). I won't underestimate how a combination of their bravery and determination along with sheer dumb luck will often allow them to triumph.

159. If possible, I will avoid having me and my forces engage the hero in direct combat, as this usually won't end well. Whenever circumstances permit, I'll focus my efforts on assassinating the hero in as secretive and unexpected a manner as possible.

160. It has been scientifically proven that nothing good can come out of leaving a hero alive for as long as possible. Any options for needless conversation or trying to take him prisoner will be thrown out, he will be killed immediately as soon as he becomes vulnerable.

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1. I will never, under any circumstances, reveal information to any of my enemies that could be used against me.

2. On a regular basis, my guards and staff will interact socially, that way when someone shows up and claims to be the new guy, my guards can answer "I didn't see you at the 8 o'clock meeting" and shoot the intruder.

3. If I ever have a child, I will keep them as happy as possible, as an unloved child would likely betray me and defect to my enemies. I will also groom them to be the next overlord, and let them choose their spouse.

4. I will always try to pretend being the "hero". That way I can disguise myself as a well intentioned extremist trying to fight the "villain".

5. All flammable and explosive objects will be disguised as something completely innocuous. This will fool the hero into taking cover behind them in a firefight, and then KABOOM!

6. Whenever a vehicle leaves (or enters) my evil fortress, I'll make sure to check every single item inside properly. Furthermore, I'd stab all items, that can handle being penetrated by my pitchfork.

7. If, by any chance, I'd have to interrogate the hero, and a slap in the face isn't enough, I wouldn't even bother, it's just not worth it. I'd rather hire an expert.

8. If I am facing down a heroic priest or monk, I will never pause to taunt him with such words as "Let your God smite me if you cannot," or "Where is your God now, hero?" That's just tempting fate.

9. If the Hero mowing down my Legions of Terror wouldn't last five minutes against my own unholy might, I will invest those five minutes.

10. I will not use slave labor for any task better suited to machinery.

11. I should try to keep unemployment to a minimum. Keeping my subjects impoverished is fine, but if they have no jobs, they'll be more likely to revolt and assist the heroes.

12. I will offer unemployed people work as soldiers in my armed forces. If they refuse, I will remind myself that I'm evil and have no use for bums on welfare, and arrange for them to find "employment" elsewhere.

13. If I have a monster too tough for the Hero's weaponry to hurt, I will never put it in an area with weapons, devices, or explosives which CAN hurt it.

14. An unfamiliar weapon is difficult to fight against. Therefore, my own weapon will be rare and ill-known - or better yet, my own invention in the first place.

15. I will not use a ritual to grant great power to a few select Doom Troops when I can use the same ritual to grant great power to ALL my Doom Troops. If it's safe, I'll also grant this power to myself.

16. I will have traps on any surface the Heroes can reach and step on - including the walls and ceiling, depending on their powers.

17. I will constantly have several useful, but superfluous plans in motion, with much less security than my actual plans. If they succeed I shall turn a profit, if not then the hero has just wasted valuable time stopping them.

18. I shall also remember to give these plans just enough security that the hero never says "This is too easy."

19. Whenever I take over another country, I won't force them to give up their culture and follow mine. Instead, I'll simply introduce my customs and they will catch on soon enough.

20. I will keep all my underlings well paid and give them good working conditions to avoid disgruntled workers being led by the hero into a rebellion. This will include a dental plan.

21. I will remember that any enemy soldiers that are not the Hero or in his company are incapable of reliably capturing or killing me. Therefore, I will face an entire army instead of facing the Hero if I am given the alternatives.

22. I will know that the best defense is the status quo, so I will use it against the hero and do everything in my power to maintain it.

23. I will not name my feline companion animal something frilly, feminine, starting with 'Mr.' or even something remotely good and totally not evil, like Sir Fluffernutter.

24. I will NOT be a blood knight. It makes no sense to drag out fights against the hero just so I can enjoy the fight. That's what gets foolish overlords killed.

25. If I am holding the hero's girlfriend hostage in exchange for a powerful artifact and the hero ACTUALLY follows through with things, I won't be stupid and try to kill her and him both just because I feel like it.

26. My evil minions will never say "Its probably nothing" with any serious meaning. Instead it will be code-words for "The hero is here, sound the alarm and bring in reinforcements!"

27. I will hire a live band to play my theme song during my moment of glory.

28. If the hero utters any stupid and cliche catchphrase, I will shoot him immediately.

29. Regular appointments with my psychiatrist will be scheduled. Split personalities and other forms of mental illness can lead to my downfall.

30. Any potential lieutenants must also pay my psychiatrist an annual visit. Anyone diagnosed with disorders that might interfere with their duties will not be promoted. Anyone diagnosed with megalomania or the like will be shot before they try to overthrow me.

31. I will not drink. It impairs judgment. Or do drugs. It's only useful to pretend to be high. Anything else gives the hero an opportunity to shoot me.

32. If my guards are equipped with poison, it shall be a mixture of no less than 18 different samples that cannot cancel each other out. Also, said poison will only be applied to bullets, not put in a bottle or syringe that is carried.

33. My Legions of Doom will also be instructed to carry the antidotes to any poisons they use in a securely locked container. I don't want the heroes curing the poisoning by just beating my minions.

34. I will not make my organization a serve-or-die type. If that happens, people get resentful and help the Hero. If they wish to leave, they may, if they don't say a word about it. However, it will be made clear that should they violate the non-disclosure agreement, their lives are forfeit.

35. I will not send henchmen on impossible missions. Nor will I become incensed and kill them if they fail, if such a mission is ever necessary.

36. I will not have any friends that I actually value. That way, I won't go batshit insane if my so-called "friends" turn on me and do anything like getting rid of all my henchmen in my paranoia.

37. My minions will be taught to get along with each other to the point that they can use the power of friendship against a more heroic group of true companions.

38. If I ever decide to have dinner with the hero, I will not attempt to poison him through the food. There are far too many things that could go wrong. Instead, I will rig the room with lethal booby-traps. Or even something simple like a poisoned tack under the hero's seat. Not such a childish prank now, is it?

39. My prison will be as far away from my primary base as physically possible. The base will have cells for temporary confinement, but all prisoners will be transferred to the main prison as quickly as possible. Their equipment will be sent to a different facility even further away.

40. I will not rape anyone, ever. Doing so is a one-way ticket to a karmic death, and those are never pleasant. Besides, if I want to be a competent overlord, I have to be able to control my primal urges.

41. If I have a wife or girlfriend, I will remain faithful. The wrath of a royally pissed woman is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and I'd rather not face it. I'm not having my plans shot to hell because I couldn't keep my pants on.

42. If my marriage does go sour, I'll do my best to end it amicably and leave my wife with a decent alimony, to make her less tempted to help the hero. Or just quietly kill her.

43. I will use any means available to get the hero to cheat on his love interest, thus making the woman scorned his problem.

44. My plans will not involve animals when it is not really necessary. I will not drop the hero into a snake pit when a pit of poison-coated spikes will be just as effective, and a lot cheaper.

45. Despite how cool it would be, I may have to refrain from creating weird hybrid animals, as it would be incredibly expensive.

46. If I have hypnotic or mind control powers, I will keep my weapon ready just in case my control is broken.

47. I will not disregard any potential threat simply because it's just a kid, as they may turn out to become a kid hero.

48. Anyone who poses a threat to me will be quietly unpersoned, and their disappearance will be blamed on the rebels.

49. If I am ever face-to-face with the protagonist, I will only give my villainous speech to him/her when they're disabled or killed.

50. My guards will be specially bred to remove their sexual inclinations, thus closing the loophole provided by Rule #84 that seems to be under the impression that gay guards don't exist.

51. I could just use robot guards, of course. But make sure that the robots are actually robots, and don't dream. And I'll make sure they can't be reprogrammed without retinal clearance from my top roboticist, my head of security, and myself.

52. I will have the retinal scanner disguised as a finger-print scanner. If anyone puts, say, the severed hand of my head of security up against it, it will spectacularly explode.

53. My scientists will put in the extra time to proof any mind control devices against love or friendship.

54. I will store the plot coupons in a single place. The door that needs the coupons to open will be between the hero's starting location and myself. Ha.

55. If I develop a superweapon to use against the heroes, its first public use will be against the heroes. Any tests will be made in out-of-the-way locations against people that will never be missed, so the heroes will have no warning and no chance to develop a counter-measure.

56. I will never depend on superweapon plans that were posted on the Internet.

57. I will take anger management courses. That way, when the hero taunts me and runs, I will not become enraged and blindly chase him right into a trap.

58. I will design my computer password system so that the third failed attempt to log in will route the user to an apparently legitimate database full of misinformation. Then I can laugh quietly at them as their entire organization prepares to counter my non-existent schemes in Antarctica.

59. I will not listen to the love interest when she says she'll marry me if only I spare the hero's life. The fact that she was not willing to entertain the idea when his life was not on the line suggests her priorities are elsewhere.

60. If I have the ability to turn people into stone, I will smash them all into little pieces. Otherwise, it would just let any old hero who comes along with the ability to free them amass a large army of people who are pissed off at me for the final battle.

61. If I am a young and handsome man, I will purchase leather pants. The resulting admirers will make a useful backup army.

62. If female, under NO circumstances will I or any of my minions wear heels. While sexy, they will always break at the worst possible time, and they impair movement to a significant degree.

63. If I ever need to protect something vitally important behind an array of magical defenses, I will try and incorporate at least one which uses a password or other means of identity verification. Whilst ancient riddles and tests of skill will keep the riff-raff out, they also grant entry to anyone capable of working them out - and heroes tend to be annoyingly good at this.

64. I will never assume the hero is dead without personally finding the body, identifying it as my arch-enemy, and completely destroying it. Only after this procedure will I have him verified as deceased.

65. However in a fantasy or science fiction setting, I will always consider the possibility that death is not permanent.

66. If I must team up with the hero against a greater villain, I won't immediately and impulsively betray the hero after defeating our common enemy. I will patiently wait for a more convenient time to double-cross the good guys.

67. If I must team up with another villain against a greater enemy, I will keep my guard up. When working alongside a similarly despicable person, there's a good chance that they'll plan to back-stab me. I may have to back-stab them first.

68. I will not, under any circumstances, trust some upstart new villain that I've never met; especially when they suggest a plan to take down the heroes that I've never thought of, or that requires finding some new weapon that they guarantee will help defeat the heroes. This plan will inevitably elevate the new guy at my expense.

69. I will avoid any plan that involves releasing a mystically imprisoned, ancient evil. This would most likely result in the above situation, or worse.

70. I will remind myself that my goal is to take over the world, NOT to destroy it. I will watch out for villains who wish to cause the apocalypse.

71. I will use heroes by informing and directing them to my enemies that are more (overtly) evil than I am. Heroes tend to ignore lesser evils when a much larger one looms over them.

72. On top of never gloating, I shall never so much as talk in battle. It's a distraction and any moment I could spend thinking of something to say, I could instead be using to predict my opponent's next move and a respective counter. Cold silence is intimidating as well.

73. If I am ever short on cash but have a handy new invention, and I have the choice between using this invention to steal money in a heist that will bring me into direct confrontation with the hero, and just selling it on eBay for tons of cash and collecting anonymously, I will choose the latter.

74. I will not only allow but encourage my Legions of Evil to paint unique designs on their armor. Not only is it a slight morale booster, but it also makes it easier to identify individual soldiers and thus makes it that much harder for the Hero to impersonate them.

75. If I absolutely MUST use a slow death trap for an execution, I will use it on a hero first. I will not put a nameless redshirt in first, allowing the hero to figure it out. Nor will I put the hero's love interest in the death trap first, as this inevitably leads to a last minute rescue.

76. Of course, it's always much more preferable that I just shoot the hero when I have the chance to.

77. If I'm having audio-only contact with one of my minions, and the connection is suddenly broken, I will treat the situation like a full-scale emergency. It doesn't matter if contact is reestablished right afterwards and a voice assures me that everything is all right and that it was just a minor glitch; I will nevertheless assume that there's now an enemy at the other end of the line.

78. I will not keep a gigantic, man-eating beast that is likely to eat just about anyone who happens to be dumped into its moat or dungeon. If it can't be trained into never trying to eat me, it's not worth the risk.

79. When a noble hero convinces another, less noble hero not to kill me, it is not the right time for me to push my luck. In a situation like that, I will not mock them for being so naive and promise that eventually I'll kill them both. Instead, I will act humble and remorseful for as long as they've got me dead to rights.

80. I will not suddenly start acting evil again once they've no longer got me, either. I will at least wait until they're out of both sight and earshot.

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201. Under no circumstances will I ever, EVER give a weapon back to the hero engaged with me in a duel. Sporting chances are for sissies.

202. All giant serpents acting as guardians in underground lakes will be fitted with sports goggles to prevent eye injuries.

203. All crones with the ability to prophesy will be given free facelifts, permanents, manicures, and Donna Karan wardrobes. That should pretty well destroy their credibility.

204. I will not employ an evil wizard if he has a sleazy mustache.

205. I will hire an entire squad of blind guards. Not only is this in keeping with my status as an equal opportunity employer, but it will come in handy when the hero becomes invisible or douses my only light source.

206. All repair work will be done by an in-house maintenance staff. Any alleged "repairmen" who show up at the fortress will be escorted to the dungeon.

207. When my Legions of Terror park their vehicle to do reconnaissance on foot, they will be instructed to employ The Club.

208. Employees will have conjugal visit trailers which they may use provided they call in a replacement and sign out on the timesheet. Given this, anyone caught making out in a closet while leaving their station unmonitored will be shot.

209. Members of my Legion of Terror will attend seminars on Sensitivity Training. It's good public relations for them to be kind and courteous to the general population when not actively engaged in sowing chaos and destruction.

210. I will not, under any circumstances, marry a woman I know to be a faithless, conniving, back-stabbing witch simply because I am absolutely desperate to perpetuate my family line. Of course, we can still date.

211. All guest-quarters will be bugged and monitored so that I can keep track of what the visitors I have for some reason allowed to roam about my fortress are actually plotting.

212. If my chief engineer displeases me, he will be shot, not imprisoned in the dungeon or beyond the traps he helped design.

213. I will not send out battalions composed wholly of robots or skeletons against heroes who have qualms about killing living beings.

214. I will not wear long, heavy cloaks. While they certainly make a bold fashion statement, they have an annoying tendency to get caught in doors or tripped over during an escape.

215. If a malignant being demands a sacrificial victim have a particular quality, I will check to make sure said victim has this quality immediately before the sacrifice and not rely on earlier results. (Especially if the quality is virginity and the victim is the hero's girlfriend.)

216. If I ever MUST put a digital timer on my doomsday device, I will buy one free from quantum mechanical anomalies. So many brands on the market keep perfectly good time while you're looking at them, but whenever you turn away for a couple minutes then turn back, you find that the countdown has progressed by only a few seconds.

217. If my Legions of Terror are defeated in a battle, I will quietly withdraw and regroup instead of launching a haphazard mission to assassinate the hero.

218. If I'm wearing the key to the hero's shackles around my neck and his former girlfriend now volunteers to become my mistress and we are all alone in my bedchamber on my bed and she offers me a goblet of wine, I will politely decline the offer.

219. I will not pick up a glowing ancient artifact and shout "Its power is now mine!!!" Instead I will grab some tongs, transfer it to a hazardous materials container, and transport it back to my lab for study.

220. I will be selective in the hiring of assassins. Anyone who attempts to strike down the hero the first instant his back is turned will not even be considered for the job.

221. Whatever my one vulnerability is, I will fake a different one. For example, ordering all mirrors removed from the palace, screaming and flinching whenever someone accidentally holds up a mirror, etc. In the climax when the hero whips out a mirror and thrusts it at my face, my reaction will be "Hmm...I think I need a shave."

222. My force-field generators will be located inside the shield they generate.

223. I reserve the right to execute any henchmen who appear to be a little too intelligent, powerful, or devious. However if I do so, I will not at some subsequent point shout "Why am I surrounded by these incompetent fools?!"

224. I will install a fire extinguisher in every room — three, if the room contains vital equipment or volatile chemicals.

225. I will build machines which simply fail when overloaded, rather than wipe out all nearby henchmen in an explosion or worse yet set off a chain reaction. I will do this by using devices known as "surge protectors".

226. I will explain to my guards that most people have their eyes in the front of their heads and thus while searching for someone it makes little sense to draw a weapon and slowly back down the hallway.

227. I will have a staff of competent detectives handy. If I learn that someone in a certain village is plotting against me, I will have them find out who rather than wipe out the entire village in a preemptive strike.

228. I will never bait a trap with genuine bait.

229. If the hero claims he wishes to confess in public or to me personally, I will remind him that a notarized deposition will serve just as well.

230. If I have several diabolical schemes to destroy the hero, I will set all of them in motion at once rather than wait for them to fail and launch them successively.

231. I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality.

232. Mythical guardians will be instructed to ask visitors name, purpose of visit, and whether they have an appointment instead of ancient riddles.

233. If I do outfit my minions with gas masks or scuba equipment I will ensure that the equipment is functional and I will train them to use gas weapons.

234. I will instruct my minions to attack the hero at once if they outnumber him. They are NOT to attack him one at a time.

235. I will fight as dirty as possible when facing the hero.

236. I will also instruct my minions to also fight as dirty as possible and to fight with whatever they can find.

237. I will have all hallways in my fortress randomly shift in decoration and color to negate the possibility of anyone blending in to the surroundings.

238. I will always listen if a child of the members of my inner circle tells me they have something important to say.

Additions made based on fark.com (original source here):

1. When pursuing the hero who is fleeing on foot, my helicopter pilots will not make long strafing runs. This will only allow the hero to take advantage of natural cover and improvise weaponry or utilize concealed armaments. Instead, my pilots will hover close to the hero and fire at will with their automatic weapons.

2. I will never play with any seeming innocuous devices, especially fountain pens, that I confiscate from the hero or his associates.

3. Should the hero escape, I will not send my Legions of Terror on a suicide mission to chase him into an impenetrable asteroid field, burning swamp, or forest of carnivorous trees. My Legions of Terror will instead flank the area if possible, and practice basic marksmanship while waiting for the hero to reemerge. Well-trained troops are difficult to come by, and if they let my enemy escape, then they need more training.

4. Any evil uncles or disgruntled envious half-brothers of mine will not be tolerated. They may be incompetent and not openly sulk or plot against me for years, but they will inevitably try to seize an opportunity in my moment of weakness. They will be summarily executed andcatapulted into a faraway province to prevent them from becoming pesky ghosts that would advise the hero.

5. All staircases will have handrails and anti-slip surfaces.

6. I will create an elaborate decoy lair replete with guards, traps, and a scale replica of my current project. Meanwhile, my actual project will be housed in a nondescript suburban office building.

7. All firearms stored in easy-to-reach closets will be decoys that explode upon use. Furthermore, incompetent henchmen will be issued the same weapons and be instructed never to fire them. When the hero inevitably steals their weapon and tries using it, he will blow himself up.

8. When I finally get around to building my fantasy dinosaur island, I will make sure that the electric fence/defense capabilities of the island are not solely in the hands of one computer built in the mid-nineties. Furthermore, an entire team of qualified engineers will be entrusted with keeping that system operational, rather than entrusting the whole project to a single overweight man prone to temptation.

9. My minions will be well-fed, well-paid, and well-rested. A generous benefits package will garner loyalty, boost morale, and ensure that none of them become disgruntled minions.

10. Any of my trap rooms that are a typical slow death type, such as closing walls with spikes, rising water, etc., will only appear to be slow for the first 10 seconds. Thereafter the process will speed up 100 fold.

11. Any would-be messiahs who set foot in my realm who develop a popular following will be apprehended and provided a secluded life of comfort and leisure.

12. When finally encountering the hero for our Climactic Battle, I will greet him as if he were an old dorm mate. This will surely confuse him.

13. My robot army will not be big, slow-moving, and fashioned with inferior AI. Instead they will be built for speed, agility, and remotely controlled by my army of 15-year-old Korean Counter-Strike players.

14. The halls of my Impenetrable Fortress/Craft will always be straight, and my guards will not be dispatched on winding patrols through the corridors. Rather they will be stationed, four at a time, back-to-back, at every intersection.

15. Any jewelry of power will be fitted with a homing mechanism. Such objects are difficult to come by, and the last thing I need is for it to be lost for centuries in a secluded pond or worse—in the cracks of my couch.

16. I will not do a shoddy job erasing the hero's memory and attempt to trick him into thinking he is my partner.

17. Upon capturing the hero, I will immediately declare a "Take your daughter to work day" to have a significant number of human shields on hand.

18. I will not discontinue searches immediately after the hero has been captured. The searches will continue until I am satisfied that he did in fact travel alone.

19. I will not offer a bounty for the hero's capture. Henchmen have a pesky tendency to fight each other over these rewards.

20. I will use a Restraining Bolt on all my subordinates.

21. I will not have hobbies. They will only be used against me by my disloyal subordinates.

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101. I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me — I'll do it myself.

102. I will not waste time making my enemy's death look like an accident — I'm not accountable to anyone and my other enemies wouldn't believe it.

103. I will make it clear that I do know the meaning of the word "mercy"; I simply choose not show them any.

104. My undercover agents will not have tattoos identifying them as members of my organization, nor will they be required to wear military boots or adhere to any other dress codes.

105. I will design all doomsday machines myself. If I must hire a Mad Scientist to assist me, I will make sure that he is sufficiently twisted to never regret his evil ways and seek to undo the damage he's caused. I will also make sure that he does not have an extremely beautiful and extremely impressionable daughter.

106. If my supreme command center comes under attack, I will immediately flee to safety in my prepared escape pod and direct the defenses from there. I will not wait until the troops break into my inner sanctum to attempt this.

107. Even though I don't really care because I plan on living forever, I will hire engineers who are able to build me a fortress sturdy enough that, if I am slain, it won't tumble to the ground for no good structural reason.

108. Any and all magic and/or technology that can miraculously resurrect a secondary character who has given up his/her life through self sacrifice will be outlawed and destroyed.

109. I will see to it that plucky young lads/lasses in strange clothes and with the accent of an outlander shall REGULARLY climb some monument in the main square of my capital and denounce me, claim to know the secret of my power, rally the masses to rebellion, etc. That way, the citizens will be jaded in case the real thing ever comes along.

110. I will not employ devious schemes that involve the hero's party getting into my inner sanctum before the trap is sprung.

111. I will offer oracles the choice of working exclusively for me or being executed.

112. I will not rely entirely upon "totally reliable" spells that can be neutralized by relatively inconspicuous talismans.

113. I will make the main entrance to my fortress standard-sized. While elaborate 60-foot high double-doors definitely impress the masses, they are hard to close quickly in an emergency.

114. I will never accept a challenge from the hero.

115. I will not engage an enemy single-handedly until all my soldiers are dead.

116. If I capture the hero's starship, I will keep it in the landing bay with the ramp down, only a few token guards on duty and a ton of explosives set to go off as soon as it clears the blast-range.

117. No matter how much I want revenge, I will never order an underling "Leave him. He's mine!"

118. If I have equipment which performs an important function, it will not be activated by a lever that someone could trigger by accidentally falling on when fatally wounded.

119. I will not attempt to kill the hero by placing a venomous creature in his room. It will just wind up accidentally killing one of my clumsy henchmen instead.

120. Since nothing is more irritating than a hero defeating you with basic math skills, all of my personal weapons will be modified to fire one more shot than the standard issue.

121. If I come into possession of an artifact which can only be used by the pure of heart, I will not attempt to use it regardless.

122. The gun turrets on my fortress will not rotate enough so that they may direct fire inward or at each other.

123. If I decide to hold a contest of skill open to the general public, contestants will be required to remove their hooded cloaks and shave their beards before entering.

124. Prior to kidnapping an older male scientist and forcing him to work for me, I will investigate his offspring and make sure that he has neither a beautiful but naive daughter who is willing to risk anything to get him back, nor an estranged son who works in the same field but had a falling-out with his father many years ago.

125. Should I actually decide to kill the hero in an elaborate escape-proof deathtrap room (water filling up, sand pouring down, walls converging, etc.) I will not leave him alone five to ten minutes prior to "imminent" death, but will instead (finding a vantage point or monitoring camera) stick around and enjoy watching my adversary's demise.

126. Rather than having only one secret escape pod, which the hero can easily spot and follow, I'll simultaneously launch a few dozen decoys to throw him off track.

127. Prison guards will have their own cantina featuring a wide variety of tasty treats that will deliver snacks to the guards while on duty. The guards will also be informed that accepting food or drink from any other source will result in execution.

128. I will not employ robots as agents of destruction if there is any possible way that they can be re-programmed or if their battery packs are externally mounted and easily removable.

129. Despite the delicious irony, I will not force two heroes to fight each other in the arena.

130. All members of my Legions of Terror will have professionally tailored uniforms. If the hero knocks a soldier unconscious and steals the uniform, the poor fit will give him away.

131. I will never place the key to a cell just out of a prisoner's reach.

132. Before appointing someone as my trusted lieutenant, I will conduct a thorough background investigation and security clearance.

133. If I find my beautiful consort with access to my fortress has been associating with the hero, I'll have her executed. It's regrettable, but new consorts are easier to get than new fortresses and maybe the next one will pay attention at the orientation meeting.

134. If I am escaping in a large truck and the hero is pursuing me in a small Italian sports car, I will not wait for the hero to pull up alongside of me and try to force him off the road as he attempts to climb aboard. Instead I will slam on the brakes when he's directly behind me. (A rudimentary knowledge of physics can prove quite useful.)

135. My doomsday machine will have a highly-advanced technological device called a capacitor in case someone inconveniently pulls the plug at the last second. (If I have access to REALLY advanced technology, I will include a back-up device known as a battery.)

136. If I build a bomb, I will simply remember which wire to cut if it has to be deactivated and make every wire red.

137. Before spending available funds on giant gargoyles, gothic arches, or other cosmetically intimidating pieces of architecture, I will see if there are any valid military expenditures that could use the extra budget.

138. The passageways to and within my domain will be well-lit with fluorescent lighting. Regrettably, the spooky atmosphere will be lost, but my security patrols will be more effective.

139. If I'm sitting in my camp, hear a twig snap, start to investigate, then encounter a small woodland creature, I will send out some scouts anyway just to be on the safe side. (If they disappear into the foliage, I will not send out another patrol; I will break out the napalm.)

140. I will instruct my guards when checking a cell that appears empty to look for the chamber pot. If the chamber pot is still there, then the prisoner has escaped and they may enter and search for clues. If the chamber pot is not there, then either the prisoner is perched above the lintel waiting to strike them with it or else he decided to take it as a souvenir (in which case he is obviously deeply disturbed and poses no threat). Either way, there's no point in entering.

141. As an alternative to not having children, I will have lots of children. My sons will be too busy jockeying for position to ever be a real threat, and the daughters will all sabotage each other's attempts to win the hero.

142. If I have children and subsequently grandchildren, I will keep my three-year-old granddaughter near me at all times. When the hero enters to kill me, I will ask him to first explain to her why it is necessary to kill her beloved grandpa. When the hero launches into an explanation of morality way over her head, that will be her cue to pull the lever and send him into the pit of crocodiles. After all, small children like crocodiles almost as much as Evil Overlords and it's important to spend quality time with the grandkids.

143. If one of my daughters actually manages to win the hero and openly defies me, I will congratulate her on her choice, declare a national holiday to celebrate the wedding, and proclaim the hero my heir. This will probably be enough to break up the relationship. If not, at least I am assured that no hero will attack my Legions of Terror when they are holding a parade in his honor.

144. I will order my guards to stand in a line when they shoot at the hero so he cannot duck and have them accidentally shoot each other. Also, I will order some to aim above, below, and to the sides so he cannot jump out of the way.

145. My dungeon cell decor will not feature exposed pipes. While they add to the gloomy atmosphere, they are good conductors of vibrations and a lot of prisoners know Morse code.

146. If my surveillance reports any un-manned or seemingly innocent ships found where they are not supposed to be, they will be immediately vaporized instead of brought in for salvage.

147. I will classify my lieutenants in three categories: untrusted, trusted, and completely trusted. Promotion to the third category will be awarded posthumously.

148. Before ridiculing my enemies for wasting time on a device to stop me that couldn't possibly work, I will first acquire a copy of the schematics and make sure that in fact it couldn't possibly work.

149. Ropes supporting various fixtures will not be tied next to open windows or staircases, and chandeliers will be hung way at the top of the ceiling.

150. I will provide funding and research to develop tactical and strategic weapons covering a full range of needs so my choices are not limited to "hand to hand combat with swords" and "blow up the planet".

151. I will not set myself up as a god. That perilous position is reserved for my trusted lieutenant.

152. I will instruct my fashion designer that when it comes to accessorizing, second-chance body armor goes well with every outfit.

153. My Legions of Terror will be an equal-opportunity employer. Conversely, when it is prophesied that no man can defeat me, I will keep in mind the increasing number of non-traditional gender roles.

154. I will instruct my Legions of Terror in proper search techniques. In particular, if they are searching for escapees and someone shouts, "Quick! They went that way!", they must first ascertain the identity of this helpful informant before dashing off in hot pursuit.

155. If I know of any heroes in the land, I will not under any circumstance kill their mentors, teachers, and/or best friends.

156. If I have the hero and his party trapped, I will not wait until my Superweapon charges to finish them off if more conventional means are available.

157. Whenever plans are drawn up that include a time-table, I'll post-date the completion 3 days after it's actually scheduled to occur and not worry too much if they get stolen.

158. I will exchange the labels on my folder of top-secret plans and my folder of family recipes. Imagine the hero's surprise when he decodes the stolen plans and finds instructions for Grandma's Potato Salad.

159. If I burst into rebel headquarters and find it deserted except for an odd, blinking device, I will not walk up and investigate; I'll run like hell.

160. Before being accepted into my Legions of Terror, potential recruits will have to pass peripheral vision and hearing tests, and be able to recognize the sound of a pebble thrown to distract them.

161. I will occasionally vary my daily routine and not live my life in a rut. For example, I will not always take a swig of wine or ring a giant gong before finishing off my enemy.

162. If I steal something very important to the hero, I will not put it on public display.

163. When planning an expedition, I will choose a route for my forces that does not go through thick, leafy terrain conveniently located near the rebel camp.

164. I will hire one hopelessly stupid and incompetent lieutenant, but make sure that he is full of misinformation when I send him to capture the hero.

165. As an equal-opportunity employer, I will have several hearing-impaired body-guards. That way if I wish to speak confidentially with someone, I'll just turn my back so the guards can't read my lips instead of sending all of them out of the room.

166. If the rebels manage to trick me, I will make a note of what they did so that I do not keep falling for the same trick over and over again.

167. If I am recruiting to find someone to run my computer systems, and my choice is between the brilliant programmer who's head of the world's largest international technology conglomerate and an obnoxious 15-year-old dork who's trying to impress his dream girl, I'll take the brat and let the hero get stuck with the genius.

168. I will plan in advance what to do with each of my enemies if they are captured. That way, I will never have to order someone to be tied up while I decide his fate.

169. If I have massive computer systems, I will take at least as many precautions as a small business and include things such as virus-scans and firewalls.

170. I will be an equal-opportunity despot and make sure that terror and oppression is distributed fairly, not just against one particular group that will form the core of a rebellion.

171. I will not locate a base in a volcano, cave, or any other location where it would be ridiculously easy to bypass security by rapelling down from above.

172. I will allow guards to operate under a flexible work schedule. That way if one is feeling sleepy, he can call for a replacement, punch out, take a nap, and come back refreshed and alert to finish out his shift.

173. Although it would provide amusement, I will not confess to the hero's rival that I was the one who committed the heinous act for which he blames the hero.

174. If I am dangling over a precipice and the hero reaches his hand down to me, I will not attempt to pull him down with me. I will allow him to rescue me, thank him properly, then return to the safety of my fortress and order his execution.

175. I will have my fortress exorcised regularly. Although ghosts in the dungeon provide an appropriate atmosphere, they tend to provide valuable information once placated.

176. I will add indelible dye to the moat. It won't stop anyone from swimming across, but even dim-witted guards should be able to figure out when someone has entered in this fashion.

177. If a scientist with a beautiful and unmarried daughter refuses to work for me, I will not hold her hostage. Instead, I will offer to pay for her future wedding and her children's college tuition.

178. If I have the hero cornered and am about to finish him off and he says "Look out behind you!!" I will not laugh and say "You don't expect me to fall for that old trick, do you?" Instead I will take a step to the side and half turn. That way I can still keep my weapon trained on the hero, I can scan the area behind me, and if anything was heading for me it will now be heading for him.

179. I will not outsource core functions.

180. If I ever build a device to transfer the hero's energy into me, I will make sure it cannot operate in reverse.

181. I will decree that all hay be shipped in tightly-packed bales. Any wagonload of loose hay attempting to pass through a checkpoint will be set on fire.

182. I will not hold any sort of public celebration within my castle walls. Any event open to members of the public will be held down the road in the festival pavilion.

183. Before using any device which transfers energy directly into my body, I will install a surge suppressor.

184. I will hire a drama coach. The hero will think it must be a case of mistaken identity when confronted by my Minnesota accent (if everyone sounds American) or my Cornwall accent (if everyone sounds British).

185. If I capture an enemy known for escaping via ingenious and fantastic little gadgets, I will order a full cavity search and confiscate all personal items before throwing him in my dungeon.

186. I will not devise any scheme in which Part A consists of tricking the hero into unwittingly helping me and Part B consists of laughing at him then leaving him to his own devices.

187. I will not hold lavish banquets in the middle of a famine. The good PR among the guests doesn't make up for the bad PR among the masses.

188. I will funnel some of my ill-gotten gains into urban renewal projects. Although slums add a quaint and picturesque quality to any city, they too often contain unexpected allies for heroes.

189. I will never tell the hero "Yes I was the one who did it, but you'll never be able to prove it to that incompetent old fool." Chances are, that incompetent old fool is standing behind the curtain.

190. If my mad scientist/wizard tells me he has almost perfected my Superweapon but it still needs more testing, I will wait for him to complete the tests. No one ever conquered the world using a beta version.

191. I will not appoint a relative to my staff of advisors. Not only is nepotism the cause of most breakdowns in policy, but it also causes trouble with the EEOC.

192. If I appoint someone as my consort, I will not subsequently inform her that she is being replaced by a younger, more attractive woman.

193. If I am using the hero's girlfriend as a hostage and am holding her at the point of imminent death when confronting the hero, I will focus on her and not him. He won't try anything with his true love held hostage. On the other hand, the fact that she has been weak, slow-witted, naive and generally useless up to this point has no bearing on her actions at the moment of dramatic climax.

194. I will make several ludicrously erroneous maps to secret passages in my fortress and hire travellers to entrust them to aged hermits.

195. I will not use hostages as bait in a trap. Unless you're going to use them for negotiation or as human shields, there's no point in taking them.

196. I will hire an expert marksman to stand by the entrance to my fortress. His job will be to shoot anyone who rides up to challenge me.

197. I will explain to my Legions of Terror that guns are ranged weapons and swords are not. Anyone who attempts to throw a sword at the hero or club him with a gun will be summarily executed.

198. I will remember that any vulnerabilities I have are to be revealed strictly on a need-to-know basis. I will also remember that no one needs to know.

199. I will not make alliances with those more powerful than myself. Such a person would only double-cross me in my moment of glory. I will make alliances with those less powerful than myself. I will then double-cross them in their moment of glory.

200. During times of peace, my Legions of Terror will not be permitted to lie around drinking mead and eating roast boar. Instead they will be required to obey my dietician and my aerobics instructor.

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