Paranoia: Kickstart the Computer

[PTTG]

Greetings, fellow clones!

Those of you of {Clearance_level_not_found} level and higher have no doubt received your copies of the Paranoia reboot. If you did not know about the Paranoia reboot, Kickstarter, or related topics, then you are not cleared for this conversation and should proceed to a voluntary termination booth at your earliest convenience.

For those of you that remain, what do you think of Paranoia? Remember, it is treasonous to provide an inaccurate (i.e., negative) review of Friend Computer's benevolence.

Also for discussion, any ideas for sectors and adventures?

[Steve Jackson]

I would start by asking the players why they think the box is all white. A correct answer is treasonous, but creative lickspittle answers like "to save The Computer on print costs" and "to deny information about its contents to those not cleared for it" would be creditable.

[woodchuck]

Originally Posted by PTTG

For those of you that remain, what do you think of Paranoia? Remember, it is treasonous to provide an inaccurate (i.e., negative) review of Friend Computer's benevolence.

I've only played it once, it was fun although I think I must have been doing something wrong because my character only died once.

[Parody]

I have my Paranoia 6th* set now and I've read through the rules and cards. My reaction is mixed.

As a GM who runs Paranoia at game conventions, your typical four-hour RPG time slot gives you roughly three and a half hours of precious time for players to perform their Extremely Important Mission for The Computer.

While the player vs. player character creation process is very important to the authors (they continue to reference it in other parts of the rules as a main reason for players to make various decisions) it's something that'd take far too long to explain and do in a convention slot. In a less time-limited environment it'll probably work OK.

As actions the cards seem limiting; players will likely assume that they can only do actions on the cards, rather than use them as options or enhancers when they apply. Similarly, Equipment on cards means that all of your equipment has to be cards or players will forget it exists. There goes all of your R&D deathtraps...err...devices and anything else you feel like making for your players, unless you also make cards for it.

As initiative...well, initiative has never been a very important part of any Paranoia game I've run or played. I don't see players challenging the bluffs just out of spite; they'll only do it if they're pretty sure they're about to die. I don't see the point.

The reduction of skills looks fine. Coming from 2nd or XP/25th, there are a number of skills that either rarely come up in my adventures or are too similar and the differences won't stick in the time available. You could argue the degree of reduction, but as I was already ignoring some of the ones that were designed for campaigns I don't have a problem with it. (I will miss the group realizing that nobody's any good at, say, Nuclear Engineering, but whatever.)

The dice pool is fine as well, though I prefer a single number and roll to things that require players to do math and counting. :) Here I liked XP's/25th's changes; one downside to 2nd's skills is that it's too hard for characters to succeed.

I already had weird things happen on 1s and 20s, so the Computer die (== Ghost die) looks like it'll be a fine substitute.

Moxie points have three uses: pool modifiers, charges for Mutant Powers (Power from previous editions), and Sanity. I dropped Perversity Points early in XP/25th events because people forgot to use them, so that's probably out. The other two uses are probably fine.

A minor writing quibble: I obviously don't find "acronym that includes words repeated afterwards" jokes as funny as the authors do.


At this point I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the 2017-2018 convention season. I might experiment with using everything, try 6th but cut out the cards and character creation, or just stick with XP. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it with folks I know in the next few months to get some actual data.


* Mongoose has not provided a designation for this version, but there's been 4 and a half other versions and I needed some way to separate it from the others.

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

I would start by asking the players why they think the box is all white.

If you can't see what's printed on the box, it must be above your clearance. :)

[sir_pudding]

I missed the Kickstarter. I really want a copy of this, if it is all a spiritual successor to the first two editions.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I missed the Kickstarter. I really want a copy of this, if it is all a spiritual successor to the first two editions.

It's still Paranoia, same as XP/25th Anniversary.

The box sets should be in the stores before too long.

[PTTG]

I've only played paranoia once, and that was with friends who were really willing to cooperate, so, you know, not a real game.

But I've been planning some stuff that should be interesting. For instance, in my AC, some sectors are very much experimental. They have distinctly challenging traits. For example, in THD, clones inherit the XP Point totals of the traitors they slay, which has been a complete success, as it has resulted in thousands of new traitors being discovered very week!

This being Paranoia 6 (in which AC is noted to be on the brink of terminal decay), many of these experiments were forgotten, disrupted, left to run far past their intended course, or were just mangled to begin with. Such is Sector QET, which blasts bass reverberations 24 hours a daycycle.

Any functional sector has its function mitigated by its very nature. ORE, a mining sector, exhausted the last of its mineral deposits back in 214 (the current mission year is, has been, and will be 214 in 6, as a labor-saving decision by The Computer). The entire sector is still in operation, though, and mainly consists of shuffling rubble from one side of the mine tunnels to the other. Some of the rocks are worn into something like riverrocks by the work.

AQA, a water reclimation sector, works fairly well, but is oppressively humid and has a serious mold problem. It neighbors two adjacent algal processing sectors, NOM and OMN, which are engaged in a feud that's lasted for decades.

NUL is a real sector that exists. The Computer believes that NUL doesn't exist, however, due to its coincidental name. This has resulted in NUL being slightly better off than most, albiet that no external shipments ever arrive. NUL sector citizens must smuggle occasional vats of algae and critical components from neighboring sectors, where they are considered skilled hackers who have deleted their name codes.

ZZZ, being lowest on the alphabet, is somewhat superstitiously believed to be a low priority for random computer scans. This may be true. As a result, the sector is riddled with secret society members lying low.

ERR is not actually a sector. However, many shipments with errors in their sector code key end up bound for ERR, which the Computer believes to be at a junction between a few other sectors. Often, shipments bound for NUL end up in an immense pile in a chasm next to a disused monitoring stop marked ERR by a clever and desparate Orange.

ZAP is a local fission reactor hub for several nearby sectors. It uses breeder reactors, but even so they're still running out of fissiles. It doesn't help that back in 214, they were mandated to reduce their exports of nuclear waste, and so citizens started receiving "performance bonuses" of small canisters of waste. The only citizens that don't receive the canisters are infrareds, since if a whole barracks of infrareds kept their canisters in a pile, it'd very nearly go critical. For some reason, this sector is having a serious problem with mutants.

URR, a bureaucratic sector that helps manage much of the region. It's currently managed in large part by a blue-rank clone named Arron. Incidentally, it's not far from UTT, and there is a serious backlog of transfer requests away from UTT among its Blue citizens. The computer is investigating it closely for a possible plot.

[johndallman]

I've only played once, but I discovered a win condition for classic Paranoia in doing so. The GM was someone whose games I avoid, because she's arbitrary, vindictive and confused as a referee, but those are positive qualities for one-off Paranoia. My character managed to survive without losing a clone, but a lot of complicated things happened. After the debrief, I had been technically demoted to Infrared, but for political reasons, I was still officially a Red Troubleshooter, and got Red accommodation, food and pay. I just wouldn't ever get assigned to any more missions. The GM couldn't understand why I was so happy . . .

I ran a fair amount of Paranoia, but it was "straight" Paranoia XP, and the players co-operated with each other. AAA sector was amusing, though. It doesn't exist, and is used as a placeholder and an example. It's really sad how many forged documents claim to be from there.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I've only played once, but I discovered a win condition for classic Paranoia in doing so. The GM was someone whose games I avoid, because she's arbitrary, vindictive and confused as a referee, but those are positive qualities for one-off Paranoia. My character managed to survive without losing a clone, but a lot of complicated things happened. After the debrief, I had been technically demoted to Infrared, but for political reasons, I was still officially a Red Troubleshooter, and got Red accommodation, food and pay. I just wouldn't ever get assigned to any more missions. The GM couldn't understand why I was so happy . . .

I ran a fair amount of Paranoia, but it was "straight" Paranoia XP, and the players co-operated with each other. AAA sector was amusing, though. It doesn't exist, and is used as a placeholder and an example. It's really sad how many forged documents claim to be from there.

The first time I tried to play Paranoia I was executed for every action I took so I ran through all my clones and was done. The second time I tried to play Paranoia I did nothing so we just all sat around waiting for something to happen and nothing did.