Paranoia XP Tabletop RPG 'Goes Gold'

Costik writes "Paranoia XP, the new version of the cult tabletop RPG which first debuted in 1984, and in which a 'well-meaning but deranged Computer desperately protects the citizens of Alpha Complex, a vast underground city, from all sorts of real and imagined enemies', is done, and will appear at Gencon Indy later this month. The interesting aspect is that it was designed 'in public,' using a weblog, an online forum, and a Wiki, with enthusiastic support from the community. Fans of the game wrote text, debated rules, proofread, ran statistical analyses, and even wrote a computer simulator to test the game's paper-and-pencil rules. Allen, the game's designer, says 'We borrowed the tools and methods of open-source software development for a paper game, and it worked brilliantly.'"

Comments

I've often said it:

[Thedalek]

Paranoia is a great way to entertain someone for a few hours. Unfortunately, that someone is going to be the GM, and everyone else is going to wind up hating him or her, and to a lesser extent, each other.

Now I know what many of you may be thinking: Just because I had a negative experience with Paranoia doesn't make it a bad system. I'll point out that I've had a particularly long string of bad experiences with Paranoia, even with GMs who, in other systems, do quite well. Paranoia seems almost structured to punish players for any action or inaction. Especially if you're testing technology for the lab guys.

I will readily admit that I haven't really gotten into the resistance side of the game, so it may be that all the rest is to try to force the player into becoming a rebel.

Re:I've often said it:

[Chelloveck]

Paranoia is a great beer-and-pretzels game. It sounds to me as if you and your group are taking it way too seriously. It's not really the kind of game suited to epic campaigns; it's more of a sci-fi version of Toon.