Long, long time ago. At film set not so far away. Lived Evil Overlord... And no single Hero. The End

51. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.

52. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I’ll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.

53. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary. 54. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legion of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.

56. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owners manual.

57. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.

58. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.

59. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: This also applies to passwords.

60. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?" I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.

61. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.

62. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of this nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.

63. I will see a compentant psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be disadvantageous.

64. If I must have a computer system with publicly available terminals, the maps they display will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.

65. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints and then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.

66. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.

67. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they’d better save my life again.

68. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.

69. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.

70. If I decide to test a lieutenant’s loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.

71. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon, instead of using my unstoppable super weapon on them.

72. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.

73. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.

74. I will instruct my Legion of Terror to attack the heroes en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

75. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)

To be continued...

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