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Paranoia RPG Returns in New Edition
Allen Varney writes "The classic tabletop roleplaying game PARANOIA, originally published by West End Games in the 1980s, returns in a new edition this August from Mongoose Publishing. PARANOIA, the game of a darkly humorous future, is set in an underground Alpha Complex ruled by an insane Computer. I am writing and (re)designing the main rulebook, under direction from original PARANOIA co-designer Greg Costikyan, with contributions from novelist and game designer Aaron Allston. I'd be happy to answer questions from Slashdot's gamers."
Mmm, hot fun.
Is the computer still your friend in this edition?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Is there any other type?
i like this from their website. i found it quite humorous.
One Hasbro(R) to rule them all
One Hasbro(R) to find them.
One Hasbro(R) to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them
Parker Brothers(R), Milton Bradley(R), Selchow & Richter(R), TSR(R), SPI(R), Avalon Hill(R), and Wizards of the Coast(R) are registered trademarks of Hasbro, Inc. Their use here is not to be construed as a challenge to their trademark status.
It was an RPG where the people who did the dumbest and funiest things lived the longest which was about 10 min longer then the rest. PS: You don't know the rules, you must be a comiemutentterrorist!!!!!!
Long live to the computer! The computer is your friend and wants you to be happy! /me falsely smiles (don't want to get killed)
May the source be with you!
- Dave #2
Have you got your copy of the Paranoia RPG, citizen? What's that? The old version? SCRUBBERS!
what color paper is the book going to be published on?
Anyone trolling this article must report to the nearest execution booth. Have a pleasant day, citizen.
Alas, Babylon.
So tell us...
Does the computer REALLY love us?
I can once again take bootlicking as a skill!
Knowing about the game is FORBIDDEN. Not knowing about the game is RESTRICTED.
Please report to the nearest termination center.
Thank you!
Will the tinfoil for hats come in blue?
Can I get Ultra-Violet clearance now?
Oh wait, that's illegal...
(enter clone #2)
Can I get Ultra-Violet clerance now?
(enter clone #3)
(Happy Officer takes a core sample)
(enter clone #4)
Can I have a happy pill?
I think this is the only time I've ever seen a product-existance-denial actually be in-character.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Well, I don't remember the "official" Alpha Complex song, but there was one that got bounced around a bunch of my college buddies that was sung to the tune of the "Oscar Meyer Weiner" song.
Oh, I'm glad I'm not an Alpha Complex commie,
That is what I'd really hate to be
Cuz if I were an Alpha Complex commie,
All the citizens would shoot at me.
Or this one, to the tune of Billy Joel's "Piano Man":
It's 9 o'clock in Computer time,
A communist crowd shuffles in
There's a White-Class sitting next to me
But I'm not cleared to look straight at him...
Let's not go there, though. That was a silly time.
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
Thank you for your interest, Citizen! Here is your copy of the New Paranoia Mandatorily Happy Rule Book. Putting it down is treason. Removing it from its experiemental plasma-chamber suspensor is treason. Not knowing the rules is treason, and doubting what I say and looking it up in the book is also treason. In addition, wh^H^H if the plasma destablizes, surviving the explosion is something only a mutant could do, which would be treason. Have A Nice Day.
That which does not kill us makes us... st
killing several thousand citizens resulted from an over entusiastic attempt to retrive a bag of crunchy-time algea chips
You'd be a lot safer sticking to soilent green. In fact, there was a lot more of the stuff around after this accident. Not sure why.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
This is going to be fun!
Like Slashdot with dice!
in black citizen, as befits your infra-red security clearence.
Is there any point in asking questions?
We all know we won't have a high enough security clearance for the answers.
Do you have ultraviolet clearance?
Did you read this thread?
Not even close...see the PARANOIA Computer is completely and clinicly insaine, where the ones from Matrix and Terminator were only compulsive.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
They're calling it "Paranoia XP", which I hope is a thinly-veiled dig at Windows XP. I hope the new game comes with a shrink-wrapped license and pages of bilious marketing screed, detailing just how much better Paranoia XP is over Paranoia 3.1 or even Paranoia 95. It won't mention Paranoia Me though - I hear it was a complete disaster.
I thought you were going to say it was the basis for the current US Government's homeland policies.
Calling friend computer insane is treason. Report for termination immediately.
Thanks to the vast improvements in modern graphics capabilities, it'll now be a side-scrolling platform game, a la "Super Mario Brothers." Other than that, however, no major changes are planned.
In high school, my friends and I would play all sorts of things. I ran a Shadowrun campaign, another ran a Star Trek RPG, another ran a Rifts campaign, etc. We'd switch it up pretty regularly, keeping it all fresh.
One of the guys decided to do a one-off Paranoia game. Here's how it started:
COMPUTER: Troubleshooters! Report to briefing room B-X-37-Y for your mission briefing!
ME: Friend computer, where might one find riefing room B-X-37-Y?
COMPUTER: What is your clearance?
ME: Red, friend computer.
COMPUTER: You are not cleared for that information.
Analiese: [sarcastically, momentarily channeling her D&D character] Well, I cast a spell to locate the briefing room.
ME: Argh! Mutant powers! Shoot her shoot her shoot her!
[Much expendature of Red lasers into Analiese.]
Analiese Clone #2: [arriving] You guys all suck.
ME: Argh! Questioning the wisdom of Friend Computer! Commie traitor! Shoot her shoot her shoot her!
[Much expendature of Red lasers into Analiese's second clone.]
COMPUTER: Well done, citizen! You are now cleared for Orange access.
And things degenerated from there. I don't think we made it out of the briefing room.
Clearly, if this was a problem for you, you weren't paying adequate attention to the GM's guidelines.
The first guideline: KILL THE BASTARDS. (that is, the players). If you were overly swamped by notes from the players, the appropriate response would be to discourage further notes through the judicious application of death. Commies.
ALL HAIL KING TORG! Oops, sorry, was thinking of Kobolds Ate My Baby.
As a GM in some of these games. I completely agree. On several instances I (as the GM) accused a player that was contantly writing notes of too much knowledge. How did he know he was in a game and that I could control it. TOO MUCH KNOWLEDGE. Please report etc, etc......
Sounds about right to me. In a first-time Paranoia party, if they survive all the way to the mission briefing room, you are clearly doing something wrong. :)
Warning: The following text is classified ULRAVIOLET. Do not read if you are not a Game Master. Should you accidentally make out some of the words as you scroll by, terminate yourself immediately. Your clone will be commondated for your loyalty.
One campaign which I designed that I never get tired of running with new groups of players is a scenario where key high-level people in Alpha Complex who were members of the "trekkie" secret society conspired to have a fully-functional "Enterprise" built. The party is sent up to command the bridge. Lots of great conflicting interests from secret societies (The "Whovians" consider it blasphemous and want it destroyed, for example), lots of tech that can go wrong: There are the insanely dangerous transporters. All five clones are stored in stasis on board for faster activation from the captain's chair (now you know what all those buttons are for!) An android First Officer who suffers from MPD (fans of different eras of Star Trek wanted him to be like different "logical" characters from the series, so one moment he talks and acts like Spock, the next like Data.) Lasers are replaced with "Phasers," which penetrate reflective armor, but are prone to "overload" and violently explode.
I even wrote an element of the campaign where they actually encounter a "Klingon" opponent, but the one party that lived long enough to encounter them never even turned on the view screen. When they were detected by the ship's sensors, the conversation between me and the guy playing the Communication Officer went sort of like this:
"A red light starts blinking on your console."
"Does anybody else seem to have noticed."
"No, everybody else is too preoccupied"
"I ignore it then."
A few minutes later...
"The light has begun blinking again, faster this time."
"I unscrew it and pretend nothing is wrong." (Note: clearly an experienced Paranoia player, that one!)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
(Fry) "I'm not so sure I--"
(booth) "Slow and Painful. Thank you, have a nice day."
(Bender) "Bring it on!"
(Fry) "Aaaaaah!"
With apologies to Matt Groening. That really was the greatest space opera ever (Star trek, of course, being prophecy). =)
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
I'm surprised at you, citizen! Don't you see that traitors are everywhere? The Department of Unspecified Threat Assessment has recently raised the Unfocused Anxiety Index to THREE, and I don't have to tell you what that means.
We will keep the Communists -- that is, the absurdist PARANOIA flavor of Communists established in past adventures -- but we'll also add plenty of new and subversive secret societies, new "service firms" (privatized service groups) in bitter commercial rivalry, and weirdly altered bot behavior provoked by zealous open-source bot-liberation advocates. Among many other things. Trust me -- enemies are everywhere!
Serious question:
Is waiting until after you've released PARANOIA XP, and until after I've purchased my copy, before reporting both of you for treason on the grounds of that remark, itself an act of treason?
(Or is reporting you for "being inalterably opposed to such thought control" treason, on the grounds that as the sole protector of our freedoms, The Computer is also inalterably opposed to such thought control?)
Questioning Friend Ashcroft's benevolence is an act of treason, commie.
Please report to the nearest termination center.
Have a nice daycycle!!!
As the only white clearance troubleshooter of the bunch, you are all in direct violation of your security clearance by reading this white backgrounded forum!
Computer, I request immediate authority for summary execution of all fellow forum readers! I'll fill out the termination vouchers in triplicate later.
Damn I love Paranoia!
- OrbNobz
Another quote from the second edition manual (which is actually a quote from another book whose title I forget):
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
tenths of books, eh?
so you and your brother played a lot of Synnibar?
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
It's called Brazil....
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I seem to recall the Armed Forces sourcebook containing a variant marching cadence that ended with:
Treason is the life for me,computer's now my enemy!
People would blanch as the Sargeant lead them up to this line. Singing it was obviously treason and grounds for termination. Breaking cadence was obviously treason and grounds for termination. Good times.
One thing I really wish I could find was my copy of the R&D Catalogue. The description of the "IT" superweapon remains possibly the funniest piece of game writing I have ever read.
IT is finished!
-- YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
My favorite note went like this: "When you read this, nod at me and smile."
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Paranoia: Like Logan's Run crossed with a Microsoft Ad.
(At least I think I remembered the wording correctly)
Besides, are you really sure you want to tie the game's reputation to Microsoft's? ;)
The computer fits very well with the Microsoft standards. They both want you to be happy. They both know what's best for you. And they both have the same exellent quality and stability. Obviously the computer is running some version of windows.
I'll just go terminate myself now for knowing that, goodbye friends and have a nice daycycle. By the way since you hearn me you might want to tag along with me to the food vats.
- We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
Please take your happy pill.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.