How would you kill all the good guys, if you were their leader?

[Jon_Dahl]

Imagine any standard fantasy world, such as Greyhawk or Forgottern Realms. There's a gigantic organization of good guys. You a master of evil and you become their leader, because you are the strongest, stronger than any of the guild members, and you want to destroy them. If you destroy them, the world will lose a significant percentage of its defenders of innocents and then you can do whatever you want... almost.

You are basically Palpatine and you want to pull Order 66 in D&D. How would you go about it?

I'm thinking of not giving you more details. You can imagine the rest, but if you absolutely need some info, I can come up with it for you.

[LTwerewolf]

Be intelligent about it. Send them on high risk/reward missions for the guild. If they succeed, the guild becomes more powerful and the mcguffin increases your personal power. If they fail, mission accomplished. Make sure they're replaced by your evil henchmen. Do this over very long periods of time. You can even make the missions seem righteous. Go destroy the lich and bring back his spellbook. You get rid of a threat to your position of power, and now you have a very powerful spellbook. If a few die along the way, so much the better.

[Flickerdart]

Order 66 wasn't Palpatine destroying his own organization. Order 66 was Palpatine using his army to destroy a rival organization (the Jedi Order). Killing your own dudes is stupid.

What I would do is corrupt the organization into decadence and evil. The truest do-gooders will leave on their own, and then I can brand them as terrorists and use the rest of the pawns to wipe them out. Meanwhile, my own legions of evil don't even lose a single man.

If that doesn't work, I can always doff my disguise (did you think I took over Good Guys Inc without a disguise?), bring in my legions, and say "hey, so in the interest of order we're going to remove this corrupt, infighting organization from power and restore peace."

[ATHATH]

I'd slowly turn them into Knight Templars, and label my opponents Commie Mutant Traitors.

Alternatively, I'd hold a big convention, and have hidden "Assassins" detonate several Locate City Bombs.

[dascarletm]

If I've manipulated myself to the top, I assume I don't really want to just kill them. I want to use them, taint them, and manipulate them. This is what I would do.

I hold a celebration in honor of our latest accomplishments of good. I invite the standard affair. However, there is another guest that wasn't on the list. Poison. I usually wear an item granting me an immunity, but it was stolen that morning. Luckily I'm fairly strong and the "standard affair" included a moderately high level priest to <insert good god>. However, many of the common folk, and lesser members perish. This doesn't really cripple the guild but it may look as though it did. I go into my chambers to recover from the debilitating poison. It seems as though I was the target, and I was. My evil persona hired the assassin to poison me and the rest of the guild, with myself as the main target.

I'd hold separate meetings with the lesser leadership telling them, that this must have been an inside job. Only someone within the guild could have such intimate knowledge of our workings to pull this off. I tell them to not say anything, but to keep an eye on the other members of leadership. Also, give me a list of anyone under your purview that has been acting suspicious, or could possibly be tainted by the lure of evil. I tell the leaders I will vet them, and hopefully by giving them new responsibilities it will redeem them, or motivate them to being better people. I give the nonspellcasters goggles of detect chaos, saying they see if people are capable of evil, not if they are.

I meet with the ones on the list. When I meet with them I tell them that I've selected them to help me find those responsible for killing all those innocents. I tell them, "the <kingdom/empire/republic/whatever governing force that is above me> is holding us back by this damn red tape. They only care about the laws, and not for the good of the people. It's only going to lead to more deaths!" Little do they know, I had poisoned the water supply of a poor district in the city earlier that morning. Ah, just in time, a messenger delivering the news. I tell them to investigate. With a little luck, the government will intervene, solidifying my groundwork. At the scene of the crime they will find a bit of torn fabric, the color of the leadership's house colors.

While I am creating my ends-justify-the means squad, I am doubling the guild's efforts to eradicate evil. All of my rivals, will find themselves under constant attack. I tell the members, "Evil never rests. We must not rest as well." I shorten downtime, this increases deaths, but my rivals are finding themselves crippled.

Eventually the guild's "pure" members are beaten and tired, while my enemies are weakened under constant attack. By this point I've proved to my new group of lackeys that the government is corrupt, and the leaders are tainted. The people won't listen, there is only one option. You must overthrow the government. You must bring it down, only in true freedom do we find good. They will comply, and I will be ready to take the throne shortly after the current leaders demise. I tell them that the guild cannot be held responsible if they fail. I alter their appearance and garb. If any wish to back out, they may stay. Little do they know those that stay will find themselves dead.

My first act as ruler? Kill those who murdered the previous ruler of course.

[ExLibrisMortis]

If it's, say, a castle full of level 10 knights or something, I'd just cover the area in persistent widened vortexes of teeth and grind the whole thing to bloody rubble. Close the door before you begin. Chances are, though, that the good guys are not that concentrated, so you need to be subtle about it. Set one part of the organization to spy on another part, set that part to spy on the next part, and so on, until the last part spies on the first part. Then drop a few clues that suggest that there's a mind flayer infiltrator or six, gathering influence and information for a hostile take-over. Give orders to kill on sight, and start casting illusions at opportune moments.

If you're actually a mind flayer yourself, blame some other creature, like aboleth (hard, if there's no sea nearby) or tsochar.

[Red Fel]

Be intelligent about it. Send them on high risk/reward missions for the guild. If they succeed, the guild becomes more powerful and the mcguffin increases your personal power. If they fail, mission accomplished. Make sure they're replaced by your evil henchmen. Do this over very long periods of time. You can even make the missions seem righteous. Go destroy the lich and bring back his spellbook. You get rid of a threat to your position of power, and now you have a very powerful spellbook. If a few die along the way, so much the better.

This. Basically, there are two methods, which can be used separately or together.

1. The Camelot method. Camelot was a utopian beacon of justice that fell into ruin. Why? Because its greatest and noblest warriors went in search of impossible quests - menaces to vanquish, prizes to conquer - while its rebellious and corrupt dregs remained at home, in the seat of power, immersed in luxury. And what happened? Fewer and fewer heroes returned from their missions, resulting in their inevitable replacement with sub-par, corruptible curs. Send the best away to do great things; either they benefit you, or they die.

2. The Hydra method. After WWII, Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., and indoctrinated recruits. By present day, roughly half of the entire organization - an organization ostensibly tasked with protecting the world against superhuman threats - was controlled by Hydra, even reaching the highest levels. Basically, as leader, you want to hand-pick the most vile (but loyal) monsters you can, and fast-track them for success. Those who aspire similarly will emulate them, and you will gradually draw the attention of other would-be minions you can recruit into the organization's shadow. As the noble ones kill themselves off, your hand-picked minions will replace them, quickly rising to power and filling the ranks.


What I would do is corrupt the organization into decadence and evil. The truest do-gooders will leave on their own, and then I can brand them as terrorists and use the rest of the pawns to wipe them out. Meanwhile, my own legions of evil don't even lose a single man.

Ehh... Risky. Corrupt the organization, and the good ones will leave, sure. And then they'll start a new heroic organization, without you. You can declare then terrorists and enemies, but that will only convince more people over time that you are corrupt, and they are the heroes. You're starting with that heroic sheen to your actions; don't blow it so easily.


If that doesn't work, I can always doff my disguise (did you think I took over Good Guys Inc without a disguise?), bring in my legions, and say "hey, so in the interest of order we're going to remove this corrupt, infighting organization from power and restore peace."

Tempting, but again, you're disrupting a position of near-absolute power on a gambit. Better to maintain your position of power the entire time, maintain the integrity of the organization, and simply weed out the heroes slowly, than to fragment the entire thing an hope that what's left can support you.


*snip*

Exceptional, but flawed. Your objective is off.

This is the perfect way to consolidate power. It's the Palpatine method. Invent a war, then use the war as an excuse for absolute authority. It's smart.

Problem is, you're not after absolute power. You have that. You're after an expedient, undetected method of killing the heroes. And as soon as you consolidate power, you pop up on their radar. At least one hero will survive the initial attack, and at least one survivor will eye you - the one who now stands to gain the most - with a level head.

Once you start your witch hunt, anybody with a grain of insight is going to become paranoid. They're going to suspect that they're next. The heroes, upon seeing the brutality of your rise, will turn against you. As soon as that happens... Well, let me put it this way. You're using the Palpatine method. We know what happened to Palpatine.

He became Emperor, that's what.

[Flickerdart]

Ehh... Risky. Corrupt the organization, and the good ones will leave, sure. And then they'll start a new heroic organization, without you. You can declare then terrorists and enemies, but that will only convince more people over time that you are corrupt, and they are the heroes. You're starting with that heroic sheen to your actions; don't blow it so easily.
Why would I run an organization without a powerful propaganda machine?



Tempting, but again, you're disrupting a position of near-absolute power on a gambit. Better to maintain your position of power the entire time, maintain the integrity of the organization, and simply weed out the heroes slowly, than to fragment the entire thing an hope that what's left can support you.
I don't need the support of "what's left." In this scenario, I have unrelated evil legions, because you should always have evil legions. Get the good guys to kill each other over loyalty to the old organization VS exterminating the taint in it, and then roll in with your own guys once they've killed a bunch of one another and royally ticked off the populace.

[dascarletm]

Exceptional, but flawed. Your objective is off.

This is the perfect way to consolidate power. It's the Palpatine method. Invent a war, then use the war as an excuse for absolute authority. It's smart.

Problem is, you're not after absolute power. You have that. You're after an expedient, undetected method of killing the heroes. And as soon as you consolidate power, you pop up on their radar. At least one hero will survive the initial attack, and at least one survivor will eye you - the one who now stands to gain the most - with a level head.

Once you start your witch hunt, anybody with a grain of insight is going to become paranoid. They're going to suspect that they're next. The heroes, upon seeing the brutality of your rise, will turn against you. As soon as that happens... Well, let me put it this way. You're using the Palpatine method. We know what happened to Palpatine.

He became Emperor, that's what.

Ah, but who would be left to fight? Beaten down or dead heroes from my organization? Hardly a threat now. The ones capable of being deluded fight for me, and I will always be whispering in their ear, "The ones fighting me are trying to destroy all that we have worked for. Your wife that died? They are the ones that did it. Their heroism is a farce, and I have the proof."

The heroes that cannot be turned, are either dead or kept blissfully unaware waiting for their demise. The ones capable of falling, well, they work for me now. This witch hunt will never be public. In fact nothing I do would really be public.

The answer for killing the heroes is, to not. Turn them. Those that will not turn we run them full-throttle to death, let them be the martyr they always dreamed of being only to find out it was for my cause.

Why expedite the process when watching them slowly fall or fight tooth-and-nail day-after-day slowly painfully die out or lose hope is so much more... delicious? What's the point of killing them if you don't get to enjoy it slowly over a bottle of Baatorian Blood Wine :smallamused:

[Segev]

Honestly? You need to evaluate your goals. You want unbridled power? Hey, you already have it. And the heroes work for you. What is it you want to do with it that you can't use them for?

Sure, you're evil. But, Shirley, you're not evil fur the evuls! Evil is a means, not an end. So what is it you want that those pesky heroes are in the way of, now?

Don't kill them. Move them out of the way of it. They work for you. Hopefully, they trust you. Make sure they're handling things that are legitimately of concern to them, and keep them busy with it. You're already in charge; you don't need to be consolidating power through unscrupulous means. Sic them on any treacherous underlings who might be out to usurp you: obviously they're evil, and the heroes will want to stop them.

Are you iron-fisted? Be smart about it. Don't be cruel for cruelty's sake. Let your heroic minions do a lot of the dirty work; they'll probably find some way to make the people love them for it, and that only comes back to benefit you. Now you've gotten what you really wanted, and the people aren't trying to find a way to overthrow you for it. You can be "evil" by stepping in only when the heroes' "good" efforts have failed, and you make the hard decision. Console the heroes; don't mock them. Take the burden of the guilt - you need not let the heroes know how light that truly is to you - on yourself, and again, they can be grateful. Express regret at the necessity, but point out that you let them try everything, and that you have a "higher duty."

Sure, it's to your own power and security, but you've been in charge long enough that that's he same thing as the continuation of all the "good" the heroes do, right?

In short, don't "be evil" and you probably don't have to worry about killing the heroes.

If you do, then the way to kill them varies depending on what your end nefarious goal is. Because you might be able to use them towards it. And how much you have to trick them and the organization you lead into working towards it changes how you use them up.

[RoamingSorcerer]

Honestly, I would do nothing directly to the organization. Given the power disparity between myself and everyone else, I would be worried about getting caught or thrown out of power if I started thinning the ranks with suicide missions. So I would have to get outside "help."

I would forge documents in the name of a high official of one of the most powerful governments and hire assassins -without giving my own identity away- to kill 10 important members of another powerful country's government. Eventually, one of the assassins will get caught and the second government will issue a response to the first. Keep prodding both sides until they begin a war.

At this point, I would issue a statement of neutrality on behalf of my organization. The members of this group that are citizens of either government may not like this, but at this point things will still be stable. This will change when one side begins to lose.

Offer, in disguise of course, magical aid to the losing Country. Preferably aid that is de facto banned in war. I can see scrolls of Cloudkill as an easy example of something that a desperate power would use to turn the tide of a conflict against another great power. Animate Dead might be another banned spell. The other country, not liking this violation of the codes of war, begins to use similar methods to balance the scales. Eventually, both sides will begin to commit atrocities against the other on a grand scale, all in the name of winning a war against a savage and brutal foe.

The members of my organization who come from these powerful countries will be desperate to render aid and distrustful of those who come from the other nation. Seeing their good organization not willing to aid their homeland, many break ranks and begin aiding their country of origin as more and more of their childhood friends die.

Having weakened the organization through neutrality and escalated a war between two weakened great powers, I would let the atrocities continue until I declared both governments evil and use my army of good to end the conflict. Heavy casualties would be suffered and the end result would be an armed takeover of two great powers with populations that would be desperate for an end to violence.

From there, you simply fill the ranks of your depleted organization with those loyal to you and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

[Amon Winterfall]

Imagine any standard fantasy world, such as Greyhawk or Forgottern Realms. There's a gigantic organization of good guys. You a master of evil and you become their leader, because you are the strongest, stronger than any of the guild members, and you want to destroy them. If you destroy them, the world will lose a significant percentage of its defenders of innocents and then you can do whatever you want... almost.

You are basically Palpatine and you want to pull Order 66 in D&D. How would you go about it?

I'm thinking of not giving you more details. You can imagine the rest, but if you absolutely need some info, I can come up with it for you.

Seems pretty simple in D&D, to be honest.
There's always a greater evil, such as something like the legions of Hell. Simply decide to declare war on Hell, launch a gigantic invasion, and lose the war.

This is straight out of Palpatine's playbook, even to the point where you can simply purge the organization after it fails since it is clearly "tainted". For an added bonus, try to look somewhat overwhelmed or incompetent when starting a stupid war against Hell.

If you somehow win, I, uh, really am not sure what happens...

[Jack_Simth]

If you somehow win, I, uh, really am not sure what happens...You find a bigger target. This is basically LTwerewolf's plan.