PARANOIA

Hard-working Paranoia-Live.net Citizen No. 5127 has posted "Introduction for newbie GMs," an article compiling the advice of many wise forum residents to Gamemasters running PARANOIA for the first time. Commendation point, 5127!

Labels: newbies

How soon 12 monthcycles flash by! Already it is almost Year of The Computer 214 Month 7, or (in Old Reckoning parlance) Worldwide Adventure Writing Month. Once again Jeff Rients is encouraging all roleplayers to test their creativity by writing an adventure of any length for their favorite RPG. Obviously all citizens of loyal heart who are within range of an Internal Security camera will volunteer to write for PARANOIA. But in fact, as Rients observes in "What System Should I Pick?" any game is permissible. The assignment begins next week, so start planning!

Labels: WoAdWriMo

Comrades! Many many many times ve have been linkink to photos of abandoned Soviet tunnels. Never never never can ve be gettink tired of photos of tunnels. Now, vith compellink title "The Underground Moscow," how could ve possibly not be linkink to English Russia blog's amazink photos of genuine Soviet-era KGB dungeons, flooded conduits, and alvays more tunnels, ever more mysterious nightmare tunnels? Go, and see Internal Security and Technical Serwices tunnels made wisible!

Labels: glorious comrades, underplex

On the Paranoia-Live.net forums, Eric Zawadzki of the Traitor Recycling Studio (he wrote, among other PARANOIA pieces, "Mockumentary" in Service, Service!) calls for blindtesters for the Studio's latest RPG project, working title Android:

After about 2 1/2 years of development and local playtesting, the Traitor Recycling Studio (the same folks who've written tons of supplements for PARANOIA) have finally reached the point at which we need blindtesting for the current version of Android. Blindtesting means we need people who aren't on the Traitor Recycling Studio's design team for the project to playtest the rules and tell us what works and what could be better. This is our first non-PARANOIA project, and we're really excited about it, but we need your help!

In this game, players take the roles of androids and the humans who control them. As an android, the player possesses enormous physical and mental prowess, but it is an object with no control over its own destiny. As a controller, the player wields absolute power over another player’s android, but he is also responsible for even its smallest failures. The two depend on and are defined by one another. Both obey the ones they serve in hopes of realizing the dreams that are dearest to them. At its heart, Android is about innocence, freedom, power, and human desire.

If you are interested in participating, please take a look at the playtester resource page. Whether you decide to run the game for a few sessions or a few months, we need all the feedback we can get.

Sacha Feinman's feature article in the latest GOOD Magazine, "Blacker-than-black market," presents the most perfect imaginable description of an INFRARED Market in Alpha Complex, with the minor qualification that the market in question is, in fact, in Paraguay:

The downtown market is dense and compact, a maze of concrete spanning a five-block-by-five-block square. Despite its size, the market is extraordinary for its diversity. There’s the upscale Monalisa shopping mall, where the nouveau riche stock up on authentic Montblanc pens and Bulgari jewelry, alongside sidewalk kiosks offering pirated copies of Die Hard 4.0 in bulk and where San Francisco 49ers fans can buy shoddily sewn “Startar” jackets. Thanks to the fact that Paraguay has lower import tariffs than either of its neighbors, Ciudad del Este essentially functions as a massive outdoor duty-free shop—a destination for anyone looking for a bargain.

At the markets, business is international. Everything comes from somewhere else, stopping in Ciudad del Este for a brief respite on card tables and in malls before being packed into the luggage of tourists and smugglers who flock here by the hundreds daily, stocking up on My Little Pony dolls, PlayStations, bootleg DVDs, brass knuckles, and, of course, machine guns. This can make it a dangerous place. Even the city’s police admit that Ciudad del Este has become a haven for criminals.

I know -- you harbor lingering doubts that an incredibly illegal Alpha Complex black market, secured from Internal Security only by diligent secret society action and hefty bribes, would actually sell My Little Pony dolls. To see what the IR Markets do sell --

• weapons like Psionic Detonators, Nuclear Slugthrower Rounds, Toilet Firebombs, and (brrr!) the Chainsaw Gun;


• blackmail material to use on high-clearance citizens (what could go wrong?);


• illicit services like Mutant Power Training, NuIdentity, the online game AlphaRage, Alibis-R-Us, and Treason Scene Cleanup;


• medications such as ClotAlot, Meme Paste, and the first drug for bots, FORTRANce;


• and miscellaneous oddities like CyberNeck, the Speak-with-Head Perfused Brain Reactivator and 'Squishy' the Faciomimetic Bio-blob

-- please consult the 96-page equipment book STUFF 2: The Gray Subnets. Everything knowable about the Alpha Complex black market is in there, along with over 100 all-new thingies to dazzle the criminal-minded Troubleshooter. And what other kind is there?

Published last fall, STUFF 2 is one of the best books we turned out at the Traitor Recycling Studio, and I'm dismayed it has received little attention to date. In the near future I'll do what I can to rectify the situation.

(Via BoingBoing.)

Labels: IRmarket, Stuff2

Though he fought nobly and held on much longer than his doctors expected, Erick Wujcik died Saturday evening, June 7, 2008, of pancreatic cancer. His longtime close friend, Palladium's Kevin Siembieda, reports Wujcik's passing. Before his death, Erick received many fond tributes on ErickWujcik.com and on forums throughout the industry.

Erick was loved by roleplayers worldwide as the designer of Amber Diceless Roleplaying and author of many Palladium RPGs and supplements, including Ninjas and Superspies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. PARANOIA fans also know Erick as the author of Clones in Space (reprinted in Flashbacks 2) and the "Drugs" and "Psychological Tests" sections of Acute PARANOIA (reprinted in the current Mongoose rulebook).

Erick helped me with advice and information several times over the years, and I unreservedly confirm the universal consensus regarding his endless generosity, keen and enthusiastic intelligence, and copious talent. His death is a sad, sad loss for gaming and the many who loved him.