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[LordBucket]

Please read first
(EDIT: Dec 11, 2012)
This thread is substantially different from most other forum games in that a high degree of realism is being employed. This is problematic for some participants because, as tvtropes explains, Reality is Unrealistic. Every few weeks somebody comes in and derails the game with a couple pages of complaints about the nature of the game, what is and isn't realistic, the choices that the protagonist has made, what his goals are and what they should be...all sorts of things.

Don't be one of those people

Thank you.

(Previous version of the readme first:)
(Note: On the Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness this game is intended to lean slightly towards serious. Yes, there may be some silliness. But not You Are Russian levels of silliness. This game will take place in modern day "real world" USA. So no superpowers, no giant mechs, no aliens etc. This will largely be a game of resource management based loosely on reality. If you want minions, you'll need to hire or convince them to join you. If you want explosives you'll need to make or buy them. If you want military hardware, tanks, planes, bombs, etc. you'll need to find a way to get those things. Don't expect to hide in the basement for a week and develop a super-strength serum or build Dr. Doom's armor out of scrap metal.)


Background
So after the letdown of 2012, apparently the world is still here and so are most of us. There was no cataclysm, no alien invasion and no spiritual ascension. The government didn't round up people to put them in concentration camps and the election happened as normal. Quite a few people did kill themselves in disappointment, but personally the biggest effect December 21, 2012 had on you was that you got invited to a pretty awesome BBQ party.

So now what?

You're 19 years old and halfway through your second year at the local community college. You don't know why your parents bothered insisting you go. It's not like there are any jobs anyway. Your cousins both have bachelor's degrees and they work in a kiosk selling tacos. Still, it does give you an excuse for not having a job and it's more fun than hanging around the house doing yardwork.

Either way, you want more than that from life.

Last week
After recovering from the hangover from the end of the world BBQ, on a lark you spent a dollar from your lunch money to buy a lottery ticket. You won. Not the super huge "I can retire now" lottery. Just a little one worth $650,000. Which seems like a lot, but unfortunately it turns out that the posted lottery winnings are "estimated" values based on some sort of long term plan that gives you yearly payouts for 20 years. Your options were $325,000 in cash, or $32,500 a year for 20 years. Which is stupid. So you took the "cash now" option, and the IRS took 35% of what was left, leaving you with $211,250.

Today
January 1st, 2013

After an excruciating week of waiting, the check finally cleared. Your parents insisted you keep going to classes this past week, but unable to focus on your lectures you've spent every waking moment of every day planning instead. Scheming. What are you supposed to do with a mere $200,000? It's not enough to live on. You don't really want to live frugally and invest it. You definitely don't want to spend the next two and a half years finishing your degree only to end up selling tacos at the kiosk with your cousins. You're tempting to blow it all partying, but you know if you do you'll end up right back where you started. This an opportunity and you intend to make the most of it. But how?

You think about your cousins and how grateful they were to get a minimum wage job selling tacos. So much for their ambitions of becoming doctors. You think about your friends from school, studying accounting, physics, law...any number of things to allow them to one day become "good citizens." Bah. Just higher ranking slaves to the system is all they are. You're better than that. But if people like that are really so eager to become wage slaves, why not become the master? Surely none of the people who got ahead in life got there by doing what they were told and working hard at some menial dayjob. Surely the people who have real power are those who were smart enough to think outside the box?

"Outside the box." You toy with the expression in your mind, until one day your destiny comes to you in a flash of inspiration. You won't toil with the rest of the peasants. You won't settle for the mediocrity of a degree and a "better" paying slave job. No.

You will become a supervillain.


Story Posts
Jan 1: Amusement Park of Evil and Coffee Latte of Death...not
Jan 1 to Jan 2: Evil Kickstarter
Jan 2: Villanous Shopping
Jan 2: Supervillain Costume Designs
Jan 2 to Jan 3: Costume Upgrades
Jan 3: Searching for an Evil Lair
Jan 3: Our Evil Lair will be...a two bedroom house in Ohio. Introducing Gilbert, and mining robots...not
Jan 3 to Jan 4: How to Move Dirt, and Supervillian Costume Upgrade
Jan 4: Buying a crossbow and taser
Jan 4: Skakeboarders offer a harsh dose of reality instead of becoming Minions
Jan 5 to Jan 6: Researching Investments
Jan 7 to Jan 8: Introducing Stan, Clara and the Artic Spyder Lasers
Jan 9 to Jan 12: Hiring a Property Manager, the Computer Swapmeet, and Buying a Snazzy Hat
Jan 13: Rejecting a Second Property Investment, and Checking up on Stan
Jan 13: Fruitless Searching
Jan 14: The Big Reveal: Stan does Breakins
Jan 14: Dumpster Diving - Part 1
Jan 14: Dumpster Diving - Part 2
Jan 15 to Jan 18: Working out
Jan 19 to Jan 25: Job searching
Jan 25 to Jan 27: Camping and Rappelling in Joshua Tree
Jan 28 to Feb 1: General research on 'Explosives and politics and ninja, oh my!'
Feb 1 to Feb 2: Lockpicking and ninja - Part 1
Feb 1 to Feb 2: Lockpicking and ninja - Part 2
Feb 2 to Feb 6: First two ninjutsu classes, and a third real estate investment possibility compliments of Michael

[LordBucket]

Current stats
Date: Thursday, February 6, 2013
Name: Bob Mason
Age: 19
Title: Second year community college student
Notoriety: None

Physical status and abilities
Uninjured.
Three weeks of running and weightlifting.
 * Can jog a half mile in 4 minutes
 * Can comfortably hop a chainlink fence

Skills
 * Novice rappeller
 * Novice lockpicker
 * Dabbling ninjutsu student (Two classes completed. Ranked white belt.)

Resources:
Checking Account: $33,960
Certificate of Deposit: $150,000 @ 10% APY, matures Jan 8th, 2014
$914 in cash
$60 in a kickstarter account
Cellphone
Driver's license
Debit card

Property
2 bedroom house in Dayton Ohio, appraised at $27,000

Supervillain costume:

 * A  "point blank" level IIIA SWAT armored vest
 * A "point blank" level IIIA ballistic helmet
 * A pair of Smith & Wesson 8" combat boots
 * A high end handheld nightvision mono-goggle
 * A pair of 21" steel batons
 * A tactical belt with straps

Ninja uniform

 * Tactical pants with four pockets
 * Heavy canvas gi top
 * Black socks and t-shirt
 * Two-toed tabi boots with heavy canvas shin guard covers
 * Cloth arm guards with back of hand hand cover
 * Ninja hood and overhood.

Evil Lair
Rent-free single bedroom in your parents' house in Irvine, California
 * Single bed and dresser
 * BBQ Grill in backyard

Gear in lair
 * Supervillain costume
 * Snazzy hat
 * Carrying case:
  * 350 fps crossbow
  * 6 carbon arrows in a quiver
  * 12 extra arrows in case
  * 4.5 mAmp taser gun

Vehicles
 * Borrowing your mother's car

Income:
$350/month rent from Dayton, Ohio rental property

Expenses:
$35/month cellphone, payable the first of each month
$190/year property tax on Dayton house, payable 50% every 6 months, next due May 1st 2013
$100/month property management for Dayton, Ohio house, payable the first of each month
$100/month ninjutsu classes, payable the first of each month

Outstanding Payables
$350 rental deposit, Dayton Ohio property


Aquaintences

: Gilbert. (Childhood friend.) A EECS major with an interest in robotics, computers, lasers and all kinds of electronics. Was a boyscout at age 12, but mostly did science merit badges.

Known skills: Novice lockpicker

: Clara. (Recent friend) A junior with a background in telephone phreaking and cellphone hacking. Actively evades federal triangulation attempts.

Known skills: Adequate Gymnast. Talented parkour practitioner. Skilled rappeller. Adequate lockpicker

: Stan. (Recent friend) Experience with social engineering and bypassing various physical security systems. Has a 2011 Toyota Land Cruiser, and access to a cabin in Big Bear. Likes camping.

Known skills: Talented parkour practitioner. Skilled rappeller. Skilled lockpicker.

Micheael, your property manager in Dayton, Ohio

[GreatWyrmGold]

Name: Jordan Mason
What do I do? First, I look up some existing supervillains who might be willing to take a temporary apprentice.


EDIT: I'd like to say that this vaguely reminds me of an RTD I'm running...

[LordBucket]

I look up some existing supervillains who might be willing to take a temporary apprentice.

What supervillains? Hitler, Kim Jong Il and Charles Manson are all dead.

This game will take place in modern day "real world" USA

[mainiac]

Name: Bethany Mann
Initial Plan: Amusement park... of evil!

[Caerwyn]

Name: Bob Miller

Evil Plan: Invest in a local coffee-shop, to help fund it, support it, advertise and plan to bring in a cut of the profit!

[GreatWyrmGold]

I look up some existing supervillains who might be willing to take a temporary apprentice.

What supervillains? Hitler, Kim Jong Il and Charles Manson are all dead.

This game will take place in modern day "real world" USA

Quotes are decieving. And...how about mad scientists? Or at leas scientists with minimal ethics?
What did I major in, anyway? If it's something like engineering or genetics, that's going to shape our Evil Plans.

[LordBucket]

Initial Plan: Amusement park... of evil!

You don't know much about amusement parks, so you decided to do a quick web search to find out more. Before long you find some relevant material

"There is an industry “rule of thumb” that when planning for the construction of a theme
park, developers should anticipate investing $100 per expected first-year guest.  In
other words, if the goal is to attract a million paying guests per year, the total investment
needs to equal $100,000,000"

Hmm. So according to that if you want your amusement park to mutilate receive 1000 guests over the next year, that will probably require an investment of about $100,000. Roughly half of all your money.

Well, maybe you can start with a more humble foundation and build upwards. Perhaps a coffee shop?

Evil Plan: Invest in a local coffee-shop, to help fund it, support it, advertise and plan to bring in a cut of the profit!

Looking around, you find a British firm offering a Coffee Latte franchise opportunity. Converting pounds to dollars, it predicts the following:

 * $29,025 royalty for rights to use the name
 * $61,275 for furniture, equipment, training and marketing
 * Expected revenue of $362,812 per year

You will also need to lease commercial space and hire staff. Doing a quick search you discover that commercial space in Irvine costs millions of dollars to buy, and typically $20-$30 per square foot per month. After a little more looking you find a small 1,000 square foot shop available for $22,000/month. So...$264,000/yr for the lease plus $29,025 for the franchise, $61,275 for the setup comes to $354,300 for an expected revenue of $362,812 leaving an anticipated $8,512 in profit. Assuming you operate the shop yourself rather than hire anyone.

You frown at that. That doesn't sound right. How can anyone actually make any money like this? You remind yourself, of course, that your goal isn't actually to make money but to become a Supervillain. So maybe you could lease the property for only a single month and simply poison your patrons. Still though, that seems kind of expensive.




Note: I'm not trying to discourage anyone here. If you really want to go ahead with amusement parks and coffee shops, that's fine. Generating positive cashflow would be useful. But we're working with real life here, so I want you to understand how these things will work before you commit to anything.

[LordBucket]

Quotes are decieving. And...how about mad scientists? Or at leas scientists with minimal ethics?
What did I major in, anyway? If it's something like engineering or genetics, that's going to shape our Evil Plans.

Sure, there are probably mad and unscrupulous scientists in the world. If you can find them and convert them to your cause.

As to your major...that's up to you guys. Just remember you're a second year college student. I'm guessing that probably most sophomore engineering and biology majors would have a difficult time building power armor or constructing loyal, intelligent mutant hybrid armies.

If you want explosives you'll need to make or buy them. If you want military hardware, tanks, planes, bombs, etc. you'll need to find a way to get those things. Don't expect to hide in the basement for a week and develop a super-strength serum or build Dr. Doom's armor out of scrap metal.

[Wrex]

Doing anything physical is probably beyond our means, at the moment. Cybercrime is probably cheaper, although I have no idea how much computer experience we have. Purchasing a botnet for the purpose of revenue generation may be a wise idea, since although risky, we only need it for a short period of time. It's something to think about, anyway.

[GreatWyrmGold]

How about a major in computer programming?
Aaand...plan? How about some kind of virus that screws around with the IRS database, reducing my taxes to nil and increasing my tax refunds greatly?

[Wrex]

How about a major in computer programming?
Aaand...plan? How about some kind of virus that screws around with the IRS database, reducing my taxes to nil and increasing my tax refunds greatly?

Too noticable. Baby steps.

[GreatWyrmGold]

How about a major in computer programming?
Aaand...plan? How about some kind of virus that screws around with the IRS database, reducing my taxes to nil and increasing my tax refunds greatly?

Too noticable. Baby steps.

It's not noticeable if we do it right! And I don't hear any nice, profitable, villainous schemes from YOU...
Hey, I didn't suggest we crash every network-connected computer in the world and demand they hand over the Hope Diamond/Fort Knox/the presidency, did I?

[LordBucket]

What did I major in, anyway?
how much computer experience we have
How about a major in computer programming?

...yeah, might be helpful to narrow down your background a bit.

Name: Jordan Mason
Name: Bethany Mann
Name: Bob Miller

And also get a consensus on a name. Though it does look you guys mostly agree on initials: B.M.

reducing my taxes to nil and increasing my tax refunds greatly?

Note that at present you have no income, and therefore have no income tax liability. You already paid tax on your lottery winnings.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Bob Mason sound good?

And uh...let me look up the real-world terrorist plans to make money. Wait, there aren't any.

Bucket, I get your desire for realism, but it kinda goes against the goal of being a supervillain.

That being said...how can we use out l337 haxxor skillz to pwn a bank and run off with the swag? Or, in English, use our computer programming skills to rob a bank?