Inactive [LP CYOA] Overlord

[Nevill]

Ah, but I also said that I only find a certain brand of evil appealing.

Dio's lust for MOAR POWAH always seemed to me like a fool's errand. In the end, what did he get? He threw his family, his fiancée, his allies, his position and finally himself into a grinder in the hopes to squeeze just a bit more, but never, not once in his life, was he content. There is always someone more powerful than you, unless you are a God (and maybe even then). So he pursued Godhood fo millenia, and how did he meet it? An old, ugly, crippled, dying man. He had his five minutes of glory, and was swiftly taken down by the heroes. He sacrificed everything he had, and he still achieved nothing. There is not a single point in his life that you could call a victory, since none of these 'victories' had meaning outside of the greater goal.

Come to think of it, this is a punishment in itself.

Now, a hero or a villain who takes pleasure in the very act of living, whose goal is simply to have one hell of a life, that hero would be nigh impossible to defeat. You could kill them, perhaps, but in the end they would still have their wish fulfilled.

I want a character who can see merit in this line of thought.

 

[asxetos]

BA.
The fall will be glorious!

 

[Baltika9]

Then we disagree on the character we want, which is fine. Dio's drive is one of the few things I appreciated about the man, it's good other character traits that we fucked up on, and he still came out pretty good, all things considered (a nobody rising to the position of Imperial Chancellor and then ascending to a higher plane of existence, and he did reach godhood in the end, even if it was short lived). Just because we screwed up an ambitious character once doesn't mean we can't try again.
Now, focusing less on our past mistakes, I see CA as a man who perpetually wants to better himself and be more than what he was yesterday. Not just more land, more money, more women, MORE POWER. He wants to be more because he can.
And I honestly find the idea of a peasant nobody seeking to carve his name into legend very attractive.

 

[treave]

How about these descriptions?

AA. The Righteous Leader: Noblesse oblige. Nobility has its obligations, and its obligations are to the people that support it. As a member of nobility, you feel bound by honor to do the most amount of good wherever you can, whenever you can.

AB. The Ruthless Highborn: From birth, a noble’s life is and will always be about power. To neglect this fact would simply be to neglect your birthright. What else do you have in life, besides to climb to the top where your rightful place is?

AC. The Wealthy Hedonist: Money and women are the two biggest pleasures a man can have in life. As a wealthy noble, you are well-positioned to partake of both. And as a talentednoble, you know how to put your mind to work to partake more of both.

AD. The Prodigious Wastrel: Life is too precious to be wasted on things like hard work and dangerously hard work. Really, just because you have talent doesn’t mean you need to exercise it to be happy.

BA. The Orderly Knight: The knightly code of the Order of the White Falcon is something you live and die by. Protect the innocent: that will always be your foremost duty. You do not mind sacrificing everything to carry it out.

BB. The Ambitious Squire: The Order of the White Falcon’s long tradition means that it has its place in the power structure of the Seven Kingdoms. You joined the order for it to serve your purposes. Not the other way around.

BC. The Carefree Cavalier: The knighthood frowns on vulgar, mercenary expressions from its squires, and a squire that boozes and whores is a rare sight indeed. You are, by all accounts, a rare sight, and it is only your talent that has kept you in the order till now.

BD. The Complacent Servant: A better life was what you sought, and a better life is what you have gotten. That’s all you wanted, really. The only thing keeping you here is some vague sense of loyalty to the knightly code, particularly the part about not being yellow.

CA. The Reformed Killer: Living a life of bloodshed, under your master’s tutelage you turned over a new leaf. You have killed too many people to make amends easily, but perhaps saving more blood than you have spilled would be a good place to start.

CB. The Grim Warrior: You started life at the bottom. You refuse to stay in place, and going back to where you once were is out of the question. You will not settle for anything less than the pinnacle, and you will use all of your skills – bloodily, if you have to – in order to succeed.

CC. The Greedy Mercenary: You want it all. Your years as a child was marked by scarcity, and you are determined never to let that happen again. You will enjoy life as much as you can, treat it as a fun journey, and never look back.

CD. The Reluctant Pacifist: Life is too short to waste on doing things that will only get you embroiled in more bloodshed. Your bloody childhood has taught you as much. You can only wish that your days of fighting are behind you.

DA. The Just Academic: Your studies have taught you what is right and what is wrong. You will not coop yourself up in the tower when there are people that require your help. People that would surely benefit from lengthy lessons on the theories of life.

DB. The Scheming Scholar: Even in the academy, there are politics. It is inescapable, and you know you need every bit of patronage you can muster to come out on top. As a scholar, increasing your political influence would be the best way to advocate your thoughts.

DC. The Criminal Mind: You just couldn’t escape your merchant roots. It started off as an experiment in item duplication and an exploration of economic theory, but soon you found yourself running a thriving counterfeit and smuggling operation. And you were hooked.

DD. The Reclusive Researcher: The nobles and their petty games are a real pain in the ass. Hopefully they will leave you in peace for good once you do their dirty work for them. If they continue to test your patience... well, you do not want to hold the capital hostage, but if you have to...

 

[Baltika9]

DA. The Just Academic: Your studies have taught you what is right and what is wrong. You will not coop yourself up in the tower when there are people that require your help. People that would surely benefit from lengthy lessons on the theories of life.

This is just an awesome character concept. The surgeon who refuses to stay in a safe hospital and puts himsf on the front lines where he can help the most people.

DD is fun, too:
"Come with us to stop the Demon Lord."
"Fuck off!"
*sching*
"That wasn't a request."
-
"Sire, as the new Overlord, it is your duty to lead us to greatness!"
"Fuck off!"
*sching*
"That wasn't a request."
-
"Take me, my lord. Love me, ravish me, FUCK-"
"OFF!"
*riiiiiiip*
"That wasn't a request."

 

[Nevill]

AC. The Wealthy Hedonist: Money and women are the two biggest pleasures a man can have in life. As a wealthy noble, you are well-positioned to partake of both. And as a talentednoble, you know how to put your mind to work to partake more of both.

CA. The Reformed Killer: Living a life of bloodshed, under your master’s tutelage you turned over a new leaf. You have killed too many people to make amends easily, but perhaps saving more blood than you have spilled would be a good place to start.

DC. The Criminal Mind: You just couldn’t escape your merchant roots. It started off as an experiment in item duplication and an exploration of economic theory, but soon you found yourself running a thriving counterfeit and smuggling operation. And you were hooked.

I like those types. Didn't expect the last one to turn out a criminal, though.

DB. The Scheming Scholar: Even in the academy, there are politics. It is inescapable, and you know you need every bit of patronage you can muster to come out on top. As a scholar, increasing your political influence would be the best way to advocate your thoughts.

Return of the Shulgi.

 

[Elfberserker]

Wait a minute!
A white Hawk Falcon order!?

We can play as Griffith!?

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Now, hang on a second. I think we need to be clear here:

If this guy is our character and he becomes an overlord, then I'd totally go for AC>*C.

However, if he is our nemesis, the he totally needs to be AA - and not only that, he needs to be a she for maximum tsundere.

It's pretty important that we all understand what it is we're doing here, treave? I would enjoy battling against a noble goody goody far more than, well, me.

Edit: this is cuz of that comment Baltika made on page 2.

 

[Jester]

Now, a hero or a villain who takes pleasure in the very act of living, whose goal is simply to have one hell of a life, that hero would be nigh impossible to defeat. You could kill them, perhaps, but in the end they would still have their wish fulfilled.

I want a character who can see merit in this line of thought.

Sound like Tarquin.
http://oots.wikia.com/wiki/Tarquin

 

[Kayerts]

Seems like there are two ways this can go, wrt the hero's relation to our eventual protagonist: the first is that he's just the antagonist or ancestor of the eventual antagonist, since his character concept appears to have been borrowed from every JRPG Heroic Ancestor ever. The other is that he's somehow subverted during or after his conflict with the Demon Lord, e.g. by falling to vice in the aftermath of his victory, or becoming the vessel of the Demon Lord to imprison him, or perhaps even by being possessed by the DEMON LORDZ and then having the exceptionally poor judgment to answer ingenuously when the new presence in his head asks why he fights.

In either case, it probably makes the most sense to design him not as the sort of character we want to be, but as the sort of character whose ass we want to kick.

 

[Kipeci]

DC. The Criminal Mind: You just couldn’t escape your merchant roots. It started off as an experiment in item duplication and an exploration of economic theory, but soon you found yourself running a thriving counterfeit and smuggling operation. And you were hooked.

I really like the sound of this one! Arcane powers are abused to create a ton of money, which among other benefits provides the means to do some more research with the extra funding, allowing use of more advanced magic...

That, and I think it's best to go with a bit more of an academic character rather than a tough guy. I'd prefer to be perpetrating evil with spreadsheets and grand plans rather than the tip of a sword, you know? A righteous cause works out well for flinging around fists and so on and it's really satisfying to just punch out zhang type folks, but that's rather personal and as a villain I'd prefer if we were a bit removed from the action when possible.

DC > DX > Anything that's not CX. If we are going to need to go with a non-D character, I'd rather it be either a noble of some sort which the knight and the highborn will both function as.

 

[ScubaV]

AC

 

[Rex Feral]

CA>AA>DA

 

[treave]

It's pretty important that we all understand what it is we're doing here, treave?

Well, to really understand what you're doing I'd have to tell you all about what's going to happen in the next few updates. I could say that yes, you (this character) are going to become the overlord (possibly), but the context in which that might happen is important too. If you don't mind spoilers, I'm ok with talking about that.

 

[Rex Feral]

Come on guys, I want to play an anti-villain

Any villain that is motivated by things like greed or lust for power is bound to become boring soon.

Here, have a trope for free:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlidingScaleOfAntiVillains

 

[archaen]

DD

NSFW

Spoiler

 

[Baltika9]

Please, let's not create heroes by Tvtropes. It's a great reference point, but I want our dude to develop in his own.
Speaking of which, I think that 1D isn't getting a fair shake here. We always pick the martially inclined heroes, maybe we ought to give the mage a try for once.
DD sounds very appealing, too. The reluctant archmahe who got suckered into handling Other People's Problems and can't wait to be done with this crap. Gotta give it some thought.

 

[treave]

Any villain that is motivated by things like greed or lust for power is bound to become boring soon.

Well, single-minded greed, or power for the sake of power, would get old fairly fast, that's true. While that might be interesting for underdog villains, when applied to an overlord it turns him into a one-dimensional villain. It's then up to me to do my best so that the character doesn't become stale 10 updates in constantly going "Mwahahaha how will this benefit me and only me!". I have some ideas about that, but we'll see how it goes.

 

[Jester]

Other DD i guess.
NSFW

Spoiler

 

[profreshinal]

AD>CC>DC>BA

 

[Absinthe]

Can't support the anti-villain idea. The whole point is to play an evil overlord. Once you go anti-villain you end up being a hero by another stripe.

AC>AD

 

[Random Word]

DD

 

[Cassidy]

DA

Let me offer Nazi Occultist a suggestion on the general idea of an overlord that isn't a Stereotypical Villain yet will commit horrible things:


Redpilled Awakened Mage: Your studies have taught you a sense of right and wrong and truths beneath the veil of lies enveloping all existence that would drive those weak of mind to insanity or cowering to back to the darkness of their previous ignorance, including a terrible realization that entire races in the world were corrupted, their children doomed since birth because of the demonic influences and the only way to help them is by annihilating them. You will not coop yourself up in the tower when there are people that require your help, or a final solution. Once all the corruption is cleansed from the world, the future will be one without suffering and without evil, and a superior, pure and all-good mankind will rise from the ashes.

 

[Baltika9]

Tally

Baltika9- DD>CB
Nevill- AC>DC
m4davis- CB
Tigranes- DC
Esquilax- AB
tindrli- CC
oscar- CB
Azira- AB
Jester- DC>DB
Kz3r0- AB
Elfberserker- BA
asxetos- BA
Lambchop19- AC>anything xC
Kipeci- DC>Dx>Anything not Cx
ScubaV- AC
Rex Feral- CA>AA>DA
archaen- DD
profreshinal- AD>CC>DC>BA
Absinthe- AC>AD
Random Word- DD
Cassidy- DA(?)
Grimgravy- DD
LWC1996- DD>CA

Individually:

Spoiler

A - 8 (9)
B - 2
C - 4 (2)
D - 9 (10)

A - 4
B - 5
C - 8
D - 6

By grouping:

Spoiler

AB- 3
AC- 4 (2)
AD- 1 (0)
BA- 2
CA- 1
CB- 2
CC- 1
DA- 1
DC- 3 (6)
DD- 5

I'm open to suggestions, bros. Really curious to try out DD, since we've never played a straight-up asshole wizard with a terrible personality, but I still really want the Grim Warrior, a dude who clawed his way up from the bottom and won't let anything bring him back down. I think Fedor Emelianenko's words sum him up best:

 

[treave]

Rex Feral AA>CA>DA

Hm, the order is messed up. It's:

CA>AA>DA

Jester DD

Is Jester actually voting for DD, or was he just making a DD joke? I couldn't tell. You counted him twice anyway, and missed out Kipeci's vote.

It should be:

Spoiler

Baltika9 - CA>CB
Nevill - CC
m4davis - CB
Tigranes - DC
Esquilax - AB
tindrli - CC
oscar - CB
Azira - AB
Jester - DC>DB
Kz3r0 - AB
Elfberserker - BA
asxetos - BA
Lambchop19 - AC>anything xC
Kipeci - DC>Dx>Anything not Cx
ScubaV - AC
Rex Feral CA>AA>DA
archaen - DD
profreshinal - AD>CC>DC>BA
Absinthe - AC>AD
Random Word - DD
Cassidy - DA
Grimgravy - DD>CB

Sorting individually:

A - 7
B - 2
C - 6
D - 7

A - 5
B - 5
C - 8
D - 4

And the bloc tally would be:

Spoiler

Sorting by bloc:

AA - 0
AB - 3
AC - 3
AD - 1
BB - 0
BA - 2
BC - 0
BD - 0
CA - 2
CB - 2
CC - 2
CD - 0
DA - 1
DB - 0
DC - 3
DD - 3