Overlord's Orders XVIIb

[James Gryphon]

For questions/comments, consult the commentary.

The Rules
We will have an overlord (or overlady), who will be all powerful and control the game.
Everyone else will be a servant of theirs to do his or her bidding, which will be a new assignment at the beginning of each phase.
The game begins by the Overlord issuing a task, sending out their servants, and then summoning everyone before them and questioning them about whether they got the thing they wanted.
Any given round may have anywhere from a developing storyline and plot to pure and simple tasking. At times, the gamemaster (Overlord) may deviate from the general pattern and do something different at the end than just another task.

Game terminology:
"Game" or "round" refers to each individual, distinct game (OO I, OO II, etc.).
"Phase" refers to an individual segment of the game.
So: Each round consists of several phases, with a diminishing count of player from phase to phase.

Example Phase:
Let's say the Overlord might have wanted a jeep to use.
Stage 1: Introduction
The Overlord sends out their servants on a task and they return, and the Overlord will question their servants and ask them why they failed to bring them the thing they wanted (which will happen; no one succeeds).
Stage 2: Defenses
Players can then blame their failure on some random thing (like maybe an elephant destroying the jeep) or someone else in the game; anything to shrug themselves off from fault.
Everyone can then blame someone, themselves, keep silent, or introduce some sort of new feature that happened while acquiring the item (in this case, a jeep). Eventually, the Overlord will process the information and decide who failed.
Stage 3: Punishment
The person chosen to have failed by the Overlord is then thrown out, vaporized, or something creative, by the Overlord's orders. The idea is to not be this person, and to survive as long as possible.

Don't overflow the phase. Player defenses will be judged on quality, not length or frequency.

Inter-game rules: The winner of any round is given host-ship of the next game. This can tie in with them going from servant to overlord, or it can be original.

General Guidelines:
Free roleplaying, or game spam, is fine. This means having yourself eat a banana, talk about the weather or river dance.

Whenever someone says something about an event, it becomes fact. It is what happened. If someone says an elephant destroyed a jeep, then anyone calling that person a liar is for certain lying; the jeep was destroyed by an elephant. What's up for telling by someone else is, for example, who set the elephant on the jeep. Also, a character doesn't know what someone else's motives were in doing or saying something -- they can speculate on those motives, but saying about someone, for instance, that "they meant to kill the Overlord" is not automatically factual.

Godmoding pertaining to persons should be restricted to some extent, just try to keep things with at least a hand in plausibility. Powerplaying is allowed. However, it cannot affect players between tasks. For instance, you cannot have a servants contract a disease and be unable to speak, or even die. You can have them be sick during the task, but you cannot impede them during the Sessions before the Overlord.
Normally, the Gamemaster will have technology restricting servants to a base during the game to prevent physically roleplaying and keep the game focused on its purpose. Overlords can power play.
The servants are not aware of the Overlord's personal name, or of events that took place in previous rounds, unless the Overlord states otherwise.
You cannot use an excuse like being brainwashed or cloned during the task. You are you - and you are responsible for what you did wrong.
All posts after the game begins should contain IC text; there should be no posts that are only OOC chatter.
No "backseat moderating". You may ask the Overlord whether someone else's post violates the rules, but do not tell that person, whether by making an OOC comment or PMing them, that they are in the wrong. The Overlord is responsible for managing the game.
Remember to keep things civil, stay inside the board rules, keep all hands and legs inside the game until it comes to a complete stop.

Also: I've noticed that a lot of people have turned to trying to make other players disloyal, rather than inept or insane. There's only so many times I can hear "He tried to kill you, master" before it gets old, and it isn't a very good attack to begin with. For this round only: All players should be assumed to be basically loyal to the Overlord.

Past Overlords:
Overlord's Orders I - Taggerung_of_Redwall
Overlord's Orders II - James Gryphon
Overlord's Orders III - DanielofRedwall
Overlord's Orders IV - Matthias720
Overlord's Orders V - Redwall Musician
Overlord's Orders VI - Tiria Wildlough
Special Holiday Round 2012 - Taggerung_of_Redwall
Overlord's Orders VII - Matthias720
Overlord's Orders VIII - Romsca
Overlord's Orders IX - rusvulthesaber, James Gryphon/Tiria Wildlough
Overlord's Orders X - Taggerung_of_Redwall
Overlord's Orders XI - James Gryphon
Overlord's Orders XII - Jasper
Overlord's Orders XIII - LT Sandpaw
Overlord's Orders XIV -  Delthion
Overlord's Orders XV - Soren the Warrior
Overlord's Orders XVI - Mhera, James Gryphon
Overlord's Orders XVII - Izeroth
Overlord's Orders Special Round II - James Gryphon

Sign-ups:
1. Grododile (Defending 'finalist') Knocked down a bottomless pit
2. Jasper (The one and only)
3. Fatch of Southsward (Striking back) Scrambled eggs
4. Matthias720 (Gunning for a third) Counting change
5. Jukka the Sling (Concerned citizen) Rocked out
6. Hickory (The Ent) Went out with a BANG
7. a crumb (Of bread)
8.
9.
10.

[Groddil]

Seeing as how the last round ended just before I won , I better join up.

[Jasper]

Behold the Overlord! May I serve him forever and on.

[Fatch of Southsward]

Hehehe... 

[Matthias720]

Sure. Why not.

[Hickory]

I'm here, but with Matthias and Jasper present we'll see just how long I can hold out...

[James Gryphon]

Thank goodness. I wondered if we'd ever get enough signups.

Six is slim, but I'm willing to go with it. Game'll start tomorrow (Friday, June 30) night.

[a crumb]

Hmm, I'll play. Should be fun.

[Jasper]

Fatch and I are on vacation until next weekend, internet will be shady, and we didn't bring our laptops. Could we possibly wait until we get back? Bad timing, we've been available the rest of the summer, just not this week. Will post here the day we get back. (7 or 8 days from now, so sorry!)

[James Gryphon]

What I'll probably do, without postponing OO, is have a warmup phase, to introduce the Overlord and the setting and get people into the swing of the game. If anyone else wants to join during this time, until after the warmup is complete, they're able to do so. I was thinking of doing this anyway, to allow people to have an extra phase to make up for the smaller number of players, so perhaps it works out.

[James Gryphon]

Warmup phase underway. If you want to join, feel free to post about it here and you'll get into the game as soon as the warmup's over.



Unbeknownst to the world at large, in a sprawling underground complex right below one of the world's largest cities, a certain fellow lived, most usually thinking up new things to do with his money.

He already had more of it than he knew what to do with. But he wanted more. While rich, he was not yet the richest, and there's no title that grates on the great more than being the second best at something. He was always on the lookout for new means, no matter how absurd, to deepen the pile of gratuitous wealth that he had inexplicably acquired over the years.

This man of mystery had many names and titles, but vain as he was, he preferred the majestic. He was currently styling himself as "Overlord", and as the well-drilled underlings of his labyrinthine ACME Corporation knew, it was best that anyone seeking to curry his favor use his preferred title, or such like unto it, quickly and frequently.

Right now, the self-titled tyrant sat in an ornate chair a little too big for him on cushions filled with hundred-dollar bills, and reviewed his most recent batch of loyal minions. He nodded with approval. This was the finest crop that he had seen in a while, if he didn't say so himself. He had no doubt they would be an interesting group to work with.

Seeing the looks of confusion on their faces, he thought it was high time to shed some light on the situation. "You've all been brought here because starting now, you're going to start working on the special, secret assignments in our company. I've been assured you have a lot of creativity and a wide range of capabilities, so you'll most likely be doing all kinds of different things. Wherever I want something new, you'll be at point making it happen. I look forward to seeing what all you can come up with."

"Today, you'll be opening up and running our newest proxy business, MacDougal's Faster Food. It's in a convenient part of town in a great test market. If things go well we might launch a chain nationwide, not to mention you'll be looking at a big bonus in your next check. All of the stocking and cooking work is done by robots, so you just need to work the registers, deliver the food, and keep things clean and maintained. Don't let ACME down!"

~ Some time later... ~

"All of the food and drink stock, gone. The whole dining area, filthy. And not a single sale!"

The Overlord shook his head with disbelief. "We haven't gotten the surveillance cameras hooked up yet, so I just have hearsay to go on. Is it true that you really put out signs inviting the whole town for 'Free Food on MacDougal's'? And what's this I heard about a food fight, and you refusing to take money from customers?"

He sighed. "All that potential down the drain... one of you had better speak up."

[a crumb]

"Really," a crumb began speaking, "this whole mess began because Matthias decided to rig up one of the robots to serve as a cleaning robot. He said something about less of a workload for himself. He just beat one of the cookers over the head with a banana until it was nonfunctional, and began reprogramming it. The rest of us were just cleaning, and everything was going fine. It was a surprise when it happened, but the robot was actually successfully reprogrammed. It roared back to life, screaming like mad, clearly very angry. Matthias had written some sort of emotion into its programming, making it enraged at the sight of any mess. So naturally it began trying to clean Matthias himself, since he was the closest thing to it. Next thing I know, Matthias is hurling banana after banana at the thing. The whole kitchen just shut down, as food went everywhere, just making the cleaning bot ever more angry. Matthias was hitting the rest of us to, given the panic he was in. So Grododile and Hickory starting throwing food back at Matthias, and then at everyone else. The cleaning robot exploded in the end, of course, right in the pantries. That was the end of the whole actually having any food and drink in the whole place, besides what was already out in the main kitchens.

"Now, as far as the free food thing goes, that sort of flowed from there. Once the cleaning robot blew up, the rest of the robots stopped working. They formed a solid group, and then one stepped forward. It gave a long speech, protesting the working environment, delineating all the concerns he now had that a colleague of his was manipulated, overworked, assaulted, and died in a ridiculously inconvenient explosion. Jukka then had the brilliant idea that all food should be free. I'm not sure how that was supposed to help the situation, but Jukka was sure it would clam the nascent worker rebellion."

[Matthias720]

My leige, I must protest that I am innocent! I would not expect the simple crumb to know the brilliance of my actions, nor to own up to sabotaging my efforts to improve the restaurant. It is true I reprogrammed a robot to perform cleaning duties for me, but that is not the whole story. I am familiar enough with programming that I was able to make the necessary adjustments, but the robot had a bad servo in its head, and a some gentle percussive maintenance was needed to reboot it. A banana was the closest thing on hand, so I improvised. Unfortunately, there must have been a loose wire connection in the robot's head, because when the emotion subroutine kicked in, the joy the robot should have felt went all wrong, and it acted out in rage. I tried to reset it again with another banana, but my aim is poor and it was difficult to hit a moving target. Each time I tried, I missed. The others were no help, and indeed after some prompting from crumb, they started throwing other food back at me. It wasn't until Jasper then grabbed a nearby wrench and proceeded to hit the robot with it again and again, until it finally broke. Fatch, who was trying to boss everyone around, yelled at me to stop throwing food, even though he had clearly seen the malfunctioning robot.

After that, Jukka declared that the best way to get people to come in was through clever advertising. She then proceeded to make the 'free food' signs. She ignored my pleas to reason, and offered any and all food she could to whomever walked in.

[Jukka the Sling]

My lord, as anyone who has done some research can attest, the part of town the restaurant was in is home to a large immigrant population from the nation of Arintalia.  Arintalia is a country with a vibrant and very traditional culture.  Part of their tradition is that the first time they go to a new restaurant, the food is free.  It's a custom hundreds of years old, but hardly anyone over here respects that.  There was already a growing worker rebellion among the Arintalian immigrant population as a result.  I knew we had to win their favor if we were to succeed as a business, so that's why I gave out free food.  I tried to explain my actions to Matthias and Crumb, but Matthias ignored me, and Crumb said, "Who cares about the Arintalian immigrants' feelings?"

[Jasper]

Jasper knelt before the ornate pillows of the overlord, resisting the urge to grab at the bills peeking out of the cushions.

"As anyone could see, oh great, noble and wealthy overlord, I merely did what I could to preserve our investments in the face of horrific servant-ship! After Matthias succeeded in creating a robot capable of destroying the entire restaurant, it was fairly obvious that we could not allow that to happen. Therefore, it is with the utmost pride that I confirm what Matthias has said of me: I stopped a the robot from destroying the store by using a wrench."

"After I heroically deposed of the robot, the other robots quickly rallied to form a worker's union of sorts, complete with a speech. I wanted to crush their dreams and lower their pay until they did their job (as is standard overlord policy) but Jukka insisted that they have their rights. She proceeded to spend the remaining money we were granted on picket signs and torches, and even organized a rally for oppressed robot workers. When very few people turned up, she decided that the best way to attract protesters would be to feed them for free, playing on cultural traditions to attract immigrant groups. Now, up to this point, we had lost our robot workers. This left Matthias (who had cleaned himself up a bit following the food fight, which I naturally had no part in) and I to work nonstop cooking and cleaning, while the crumb, Hickory and Groddil debated on the life span of the fries. (Which they tested by sitting in a circle, watching them decompose.)"

"By the time Matthias and I finished all the orders and exited the kitchen, the protest was in full swing, and we discovered that Jukka was handing out all the food we had prepared to the protesters for free. It was a scene of pandemonium. Groddil was wearing a suit on stage and was waving his fist saying "It's gonna be HUUUUGGGEEE. This restaurant is a disgrace! Help us to make MacDougal's great again!" Meanwhile, Fatch and Jukka were arm and arm in front of the restaurant's air conditioning unit, their hair blowing in the wind, while Hickory sang enthusiastically:

"NEAAAAARRR FARRRRRR, WHEREEEEVEER YOU ARE I BELIEVE THAT THE HEART DOES GO ONNNNN"

"The crowd (who were of very bad taste) seemed to be enjoying the performance, and offered to pay me for it. I quickly moved to accept, hoping to squeeze some sort of profit out of the catastrophe. Naturally, crumb showed up, and insisted that the money was no good to him because he only liked american money, not Arintalian immigrant money. I tried to resist, but the chance was gone."