Rebuilding Paranoia OSS Style

hapwned writes "In the latest Escapist issue, Allen Varney explains how he built the latest version of the Paranoia RPG from the ground up in an Open Source fashion. From the article: 'Fans vetted the playtest rules and contributed lots of material, like coders on an open-source software project. It wasn't really open-source; everyone knowingly surrendered their material to PARANOIA's owners, without hope of compensation. (The blog disclaimer read, 'All your rights are belong to us. No bloody Creative Commons here! Bwahahaha!') But - this is the key point - they pitched in anyway, hoping they would benefit by getting an improved game.'"

Comments

Paranoia Has Rules?!

[Chi Hsuan Men]

The way I learned to play (and eventually the way I GMed) Paranoia was to liberally ignore all of the stats, charts, dice rolls, modifiers, and all of the other "technical" aspects of the game.

We had six character templates that were geared to specific "roles", so when the players arrived they would discuss what they wanted to play that night, so we would never have to roll stats. In addition, we would not need to figure out secret societies or mutant powers, as the GM would write those elements into the adventure. Despite the practice sounding restrictive, no one ever did anything as planned, which always caused interesting (often hilarious) results.

By liberally ignoring structured rules and dice, the GM could move the story along as they saw fit, which made pacing a lot more fun. I've been in numerous D&D campaigns where something came up where a character needed to spend extended time with the DM in order to roll for such and such so they can accomplish a certain task. By throwing out the technicalities, everyone was engaged at all times and decisions had to be made very quickly, which completely fit the mood of the game.

As a result of these decisions, it was very easy to indoctrinate new players into the game, because they didn't have to learn any rules, they simply had to get a feeling for the milleu of the game. In addition, any revisions to the rules really didn't matter. All we needed was new content every once in a while (mutant powers, secret societies, R&D gadgets), which could simply be created by the players or GM.

Regardless, I am glad this game is receiving some new life. I cannot express how hard I have laughed while playing this game. Despite its label of "RPG", I would recommend this game to any group of creative friends, as they don't necessarily need to be gamers in order to enjoy it.

Re:Paranoia Has Rules?!

[snorklewacker]

The way I learned to play (and eventually the way I GMed) Paranoia was to liberally ignore all of the stats, charts, dice rolls, modifiers, and all of the other "technical" aspects of the game.

That is entirely the way you're supposed to play it. A player challenging the GM on the rules must have read the rules. The rules are classified Ultraviolet. Instant termination. Since this is the player we're talking about, not the character, the GM doesn't have the player terminated immediately, but arranges for rather unfortunate things to happen, like this:

"Okay, you're right, after much laborious argument, I concede your point. I confess, I rigged that roll. I promise to do everything by the book now. By the way, while your character was standing by, internally raging against pondering the unfairness of life, 100 mutants have moved into position and each one has launched a rocket at you. Roll dodge. For each one. I promise not to fudge."

Re:Paranoia Has Rules?!

[kubrick]

Dice rolls were useful... for intimidating the players, if you made the rolls behind a screen and then made the appropriate noises.

Done Before

[MisterMurphy]

Quicksilver did a similiar thing when they were creating Master of Orion 3. The devs drew comments, concepts and mechanics from the community at large through their forum. A not insignificant number of people became honorary, and unpaid, designers. I don't know how much of their design was fan generated, but there was no shortage of intelligent and creative sci-fi buffs helping them make the game.

Of course, then they threw the Elephant out, and it all went to heck. But thats neither here nor there. Point being, a community of fans that has access to a creative work can dramatically aid in its creation.

Has anyone ever actually played Paranoia?

[Ratbert42]

Has anyone actually played Paranoia? It's got a reputation for being entertaining to read but that's about it. I was set to run a game at a con once but we dropped it for some new game at the last minute.

We always found Car Wars funny enough.

Re:Has anyone ever actually played Paranoia?

[MilenCent]

Has anyone actually played Paranoia? It's got a reputation for being entertaining to read but that's about it. I was set to run a game at a con once but we dropped it for some new game at the last minute.

Oh man. You so missed out!

The key to understanding Paranoia (and it took me a failed session and some time to understand this) is that it's a competition. The mission is only a pretext for the players trying to kill each other. Often, missions are impossible to complete.

You can't just shoot the other players however; that's treason. Despite its reputation, not everything is treason in Paranoia BTW, though many things are. Instead, you have to find proof of treason before you shoot. Many times this proof is spurious, or even forged, which naturally is treason itself, but so long as the authorities don't find out about it, you're in the clear.

So in a way, the game is about putting one over on The Man. When The Man is your fellow Troubleshooters, backed by a gigantic totalitarian/capitalist bureaucracy overseen by an omnipresent Computer, it just makes it more fun.