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  1. 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; instead, I'll drop what I'm doing and escape immediately.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. I will give all possible military aid to allied nations, so that the hero will have trouble finding allies there who oppose me.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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 seek vengeance upon me and deal with them accordingly.
  9. If my spies reveal that the leader of the band of heroes does not have a reason for wanting me dead besides my generic villainy, I'll direct my resources away from him and try to find out who the real hero or chosen one among them is.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. I will not underestimate an enemy army just because we have outnumbered them. They may still have a chance of prevailing.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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. Alternatively, I can monologue and just shoot him randomly during the monologue.
  21. 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.
  22. Although I will make backup plans for my possible death, I will not design this part of the plan to be a core element.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. 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.
  28. 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.
  29. 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.
  30. 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.
  31. 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.
  32. 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.
  33. 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.
  34. 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.
  35. 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.
  36. 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.
  37. 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.
  38. 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.
  39. 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.
  40. I won't invite private citizens into my fortress while executing the final stages of my plan.
  41. 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.
  42. 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.
  43. 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.
  44. 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.
  45. 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.
  46. 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.
  47. 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.
  48. 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.
  49. 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.
  50. I will resist any urge to taunt my enemy during my escape. For instance, if flying away via helicopter, I will not stop or lean out to wave goodbye at them.
  51. 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.
  52. 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.
  53. 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. If the hero DOES somehow manage to steal it, it will have fingerprint scanners that will electrocute anyone who is not me.
  54. 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.
  55. All trucks entering and leaving any of my secure installations will be searched top to bottom, on the inside AND on the outside.
  56. All sentries guarding my deathtrap obstacle course will check that all dead bodies really are dead. Preferably by stabbing/shooting the body in the back and/or head. Once this is done, corpses will promptly be gathered up and incinerated.
  57. 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.
  58. 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.
  59. 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.
  60. 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.
  61. 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.
  62. 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.
  63. 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.
  64. 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.
  65. 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 to the masses for the identity of the evil one terrorizing them to be a mystery.
  66. 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 posthaste; 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.
  67. 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 duress, and the actual "everything is OK" signal will be something like "Situation Normal, reporting back in five".
  68. 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, fighting openly only as a last resort.
  69. 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 my 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.)
  70. Related to the firebombing issue, I will never 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.)
  71. 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.
  72. 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.
  73. 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.
  74. 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 them in a complicated infiltration plot. I'll just kill them as soon as I get close.
  75. 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.
  76. If I have a four-part plan, I will make sure to have a fifth part.
  77. My bases will have extremely strict safety requirements and I will have regular tests of failsafes. Keeping my mooks safe improves morale and ensures that sure I don't lose them needlessly, the Hero will not be able to push them off ledges or 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.
  78. 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.
  79. 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 by any means 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.
  80. I will not, repeat, will not install a MuffinButton on any of my ships.
  81. I will never answer my own doorbell. I remember how that worked out for Gerald Bull. That's why I have minions.
  82. 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.
  83. Alternately, I will teach them to cover their weaknesses, as giving them new powers may provide an opportunity to be defeated again.
  84. 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. Ideally, I'll get a legal team.
  85. 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, which will have less chance of opposition (aside from native mammals) and therefore be easier to take over.
  86. 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.
  87. 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.
  88. 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.
  89. 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.
  90. 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.
  91. I will never torture anyone just to demonstrate how evil I am. This is a Bitch Alert waiting to happen.
  92. 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.
  93. 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.
  94. 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.
  95. 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.
  96. 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, a robotic duplicate, or 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.
  97. 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.
  98. 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.
  99. 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.
  100. 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.

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