Paranoia

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Anyone got any good Paranoia tales to share? I haven't played it yet, but wish I could. Sounds awesome and fun. XD

I think a The Protomen roleplay could be made using the Paranoia system.

edited 7th Mar '11 11:17:57 PM by lalalei2001

Ditto to this:

I haven't played it yet, but wish I could. Sounds awesome and fun.

Did you ever see those online Paranoia RPs?

edited 14th Sep '10 1:46:23 AM by Gelzo

I find it interesting that this is being discussed now, because I actually introduced someone to the concept just yesterday morning. (Hopefully I can spin this into an actual gaming group.)

My brief experience GM'ing Paranoia last year was based around moments such as the Teleport power turning bomb disposal into a moon mission; a pyrokinetic T-Shooter setting off a grenade in another's backpack while both were in a very small room (I think we can call that suicide); fudging a dice roll so that a bad drug combination drove a character utterly insane; and, when someone else tried to GM without referencing the rules (not too hard, since they're more like suggestions, now report for termination - this is outside your clearance), I was promoted to Orange clearance for grenading a toilet.

I bet if anyone ever got promoted to Violet, they'd be deemed too suspicious and be terminated.

^A common misconception. That's one of the key points about the Paranoia world. Your clearance level is how much the Computer trusts you, nothing more, nothing less. You can have a hyper-competent Infrared, and you can have incompetent Indigo-clearance citizenry. The only difference between those two is that the Computer doesn't want the Infrared to learn anything exciting, while the Indigo is allowed access to secrets beyond what even Blue-clearance citizenry get.

That said, if someone suddenly rocketed through multiple levels of the heirarchy all at once, you'd better believe that everyone who knew about it would be poring over their history to find out how they hacked the Computer. If they couldn't find anything, someone would slip them a Communist pamphlet. Then they'd be terminated.

The main issue with Paranoia is it's difficult to get your group in the right mindset for it. It's also difficult to get yourself in the right mindset for it if you're not used to GM-vs.-Players play.

edited 29th Sep '10 4:15:41 PM by Somfin

I recently bought Paranoia: Troubleshooters, and tried to get some of the people in my school's local gaming club to try it. The results of the first game (minus mistakes from me being a rookie GM and them being rookie players) on the troper tales page for the game (as of this post, it's next to last on the page). I managed to get a couple of other people in on it, and bought some expansions too. I managed to get a short ways into the second mission from the rulebook (they had just gotten into the APC) and everyone seemed to be having fun, but this week they just said they don't really want to continue, and are now writing up their own homebrew RPG, something about a zombie-infested city. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, and the sourcebooks are fun to read, so there's that consolation.

I also have to agree with the above troper, there was some trouble with getting them to actually role-play, and I'm no actor, so my performance as Friend Computer was... not as good as it could have been.

edited 11th Feb '11 6:34:27 PM by Mokari

Where can I procure a copy of this, and what's the best edition?

You can pick up a pdf from drivethrurpg.com or mongoosepublishing.com.

Running Gags, anyone?

I give Friend Computer the Verbal Tic "Have a pleasant daycycle. The Computer Is Your Friend."

Where to start <rubs hands> ...

In one scenario, the team goes looking for a pack of communists. The commies start spouting their heresy, stuff like, "Throw off your chains! The Computer keeps you in cages!" When they take care of the commies, they find a tunnel to another complex. Of course, the second they step into the other complex, they become the commies and get vaporized.

Someone hacks into the PA system. The prankster begins issuing fake directives, such as "No work today, it's Hot Fun Time!" The Computer has to announce, "Please disregard the previous message." Then the fun part—the prankster begins issuing "disregard previous message" messages. Mass confusion ensues.

edited 25th Mar '11 7:49:14 AM by RalphCrown

Nice.

Another, related question: does anyone else use props? I remember at one point using a Rubik's Cube for a "tactical fusion cube" - a miniature fusion generator that the T-Shooter carrying it mistook for a grenade. Then he shot it, meaning it was a grenade. He ran out of clones before debriefing, though, so we never got to hear him justify that one.

Pointless bump because I finally played Portal today and it reminded me of a line I found on rpgnet. Sadly, I don't remember who was responsible.

"In Paranoia the cake isn't just a lie. It's a brick with CAKE written on the side that you are nevertheless required to consume and enjoy."

Greetings, Citizen. Friend Computer is quite displeased with how neglected this topic has been. The members of Internal Security Voluntary Information Dispensing finger the triggers of their plasma drills with anticipation.

But Friend Computer understands that you were all likely busy with production and planning out spontaneous acts of loyalty.

Seriously, Gotta be a few people out there still interested in a discussion.

One of the reasons I want to discuss it is improving the page we have on it. Some information I think needs to be cleaned up. Such as the secret societies that have long since been purged by Friend Computer and are no doubt still listed due to Communist Sabotauge. (In other words, secret societies that are no longer part of the game. The Wobblies and Trekkies.)

Also, anybody played the 25th Anniversary edition? I haven't seen it, and it's supposed to just be streamlined, but I feel XP edition will serve me well enough.

25th Anniversary mainly just alters the character creation to go less into the P Cs' off-Troubleshooting jobs (i.e. service firms are less specific). [EDITION TITLE REDACTED DUE TO POTENTIAL LAWSUITS FROM A LARGE SOFTWARE CORPORATION] will do you just fine.

I love Internal Security. One mission they gave us, a bunch of relatively new Troubleshooters, clearance to do anything that kept knowledge of the mission out of the hands of anyone lower than Blue clearance. We ended up blowing away an entire squadron of Green clearance fighter craft with an old AA gun and weren't even questioned about it later.

Ahh, yes, Internal Security was their revision of HIL Sector Blues, wasn't it?

Hope they did a better job than they did in Extreme Paranoia, where they practically copy-pasted without much concern for how the game has changed.

I recently started playing Paranoia with my friends, and it is without a doubt the best game ever. But I have one problem: I want to buy more mission books, but I can't find them anywhere online for sale. They used to all be on Drive Thru RPG, but they aren't there anymore for some reason.

I've been checking rpgnet for information, and apparently Something Big is brewing at Mongoose.

Talk about a High Programmer run-around! My head hurts. I'm going to healing booth.

I just Squeed like a Fangirl when I read that.

I think I've managed some kind of zenith with this game - I'm running a sort of weekly 30-60 minute episode, and when I pulled the dark room routine they were too paranoid to shoot each other.

Not even kidding.

Two of them did, however, take the opportunity to slip drugs of some kind into cans of BBB and hand them out, while the third sabotaged a laser. The net result was one rolling a 1 on his "stay awake" roll, so the Sleepy-Sleepy he'd been slipped had no effect, and the other - who got an experimental drug - then proceeded to accidentally out himself as a mutant while trying to levitate over to a GREEN-clearance desk to claim a black pen to redact things with, before blowing himself up with his own laser while the others were trying to remember whether they were supposed to shoot him or not.

Impressive.

My goal is to eventually get my players to be paranoid enough to run the "go down the hallway and get a cup of water" mission.

edited 9th Nov '13 7:36:55 PM by Quantumawsome

Oh that's hilarious

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1990654819/paranoia-rpg

Rejoice, citizen, for now you may contribute to the cause and assist the latest release of Paranoia. Updated to bring new terrors and fears to a modern age.

Kickstart, or the commies have already won!

Because I support Friend Computer whole-heartedly and I aspire to serve, I've supported it at the Violet level. I have to admit, if I got a sudden influx of cash, I'd upgrade all the way to the NYC playtest.

The funny thing is, because one of my groups has driven me to distraction, I was poking around game stores' "used games" section for older versions of Paranoia to punish them for what they've done to my sanity. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the Computer knew about this, wanted to prove that it was my friend, and started this Kickstarter to show it.