PARANOIA

That bastion of government competence and good sense, the Transportation Security Administration -- the ones who screen you at airports -- has announced a private-sector "Registered Traveler" program. Basically, they'll let you pay big money for a pass to speed through security checkpoints.

But hold on to that checkbook! It turns out, because terrorists might subscribe to this program (will they stop at nothing?), the government is wisely removing program benefits at random:

We know that terrorists may seek to exploit the Registered Traveler program, and the program must be designed to thwart those efforts. Therefore, program benefits will change from time to time in order to make it more difficult for terrorists to anticipate our security activities. Further, TSA will not exempt Registered Traveler participants from random additional screening.

Presumably every PARANOIA player has already discerned how this idea can swerve into Really Stupid Badness. But just in case, here's Hannibal at Ars Technica:

Consumers will want the fastest possible screening for the lowest price. This will give private screeners massive incentives to hire low wage, unskilled employees to man the checkpoints, and to give them the worst benefits possible. (Of course, such incentives are already in place to a large degree under the current TSA regime, but the proposed RT plan will increase them.) The new plan also will explicitly encourage companies to find ways to move travelers through checkpoints as rapidly as possible. Do unskilled, minimum-wage airport screeners who're under pressure from management to move customers through checkpoints as rapidly as possible sound to you like a recipe for thorough and secure airport screening?

[...] Given that a truly market-driven airport screening program would encourage shoddy screening and give terrorists just as many options for gaming the system as it would give travelers options for participating in it, it's hard to believe that the program was actually designed with keeping the skies safe as its primary goal. Rather, the program seems tailor-made for handing out lucrative TSA contracts to well-connected private sector companies.

Inspiration for PARANOIA scenarios is left as an exercise to the Gamemaster.

Dan Curtis Johnson of the Traitor Recycling Studio, author of many excellent PARANOIA missions (including "Mister Bubbles" in the rulebook and the incredible "Hunger" in WMD), is also promulgator of an unusually interesting LiveJournal meme: Rabbit Hole Day. The premise is that on January 27th, every interested LiveJournal user should take a day off from chronicling his actual quotidian life and instead, for one day only, write journal entries about his life in some weird parallel existence. As Dan puts it:

Travel through time. Turn into an animal. Flee from assassins. Talk to your goldfish. Conquer Greenland. Sprout some extra limbs. Learn how to walk on water. Marry an insect. Take a break from the Every Day and write about your Rabbit Hole Day. Your normal life will be waiting for you when you get back. If you decide to come back.

Will some loyal LiveJournalist perhaps write about his parallel life in Alpha Complex? Browse the blogs this January 27th and see!

February 24 is the release date for Ultraviolet, a new action flick starring Milla Jovovich and directed by Kurt Wimmer, who previously did the very PARANOIA-like film Equilibrium. (Don't confuse this new film with the 1998 British TV miniseries Ultraviolet.)

From the title onward, Wimmer's Ultraviolet has vague resonances with the Alpha Complex setting:

"In the late 21st Century, a subculture of humans have emerged who have been modified genetically by a vampire-like disease (Hemophagia), giving them enhanced speed, incredible stamina and acute intelligence. As they are set apart from 'normal' and 'healthy' humans, the world is pushed to the brink of worldwide civil war (a war between humans and hemophages) aimed at the destruction of the 'diseased' population. In the middle of this crossfire is an infected woman -- Violet (Jovovich) -- who finds herself protecting a nine-year-old boy who has been marked for death by the human government, as he is believed to be a threat to humans."

Ultraviolet 500K Quicktime trailer.

The server bill is due soon at the leading PARANOIA fan site, Paranoia-Live.net, so High Programmer Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick has posted a request for donations. P-L.net is growing nicely (currently over 1,000 loyal citizens), and now that Jazzer has returned -- from the future, it turns out -- he wants PLN Sector to grow still further. He has posted a bunch of keen banner ads for all good citizens to post on their blogs and home pages.

Roleplayers are an impecunious lot; I swear I've never seen such price resistance in any other hobby. But if any PARANOIA fan has a few spare dollars or pounds to throw Jazzer's way, it's the best way to support the game -- short of, you know, actually buying it.

UPDATE January 23: Well, that was fast. Seven loyal citizens chipped in US$120 over the weekend to cover P-L.net's server costs. Congratulations, Andy! If you're late to this fast-moving story, you'll still want to check out the banner ads. Post the ads! Forge the links! Spread the word!

Via BoingBoing, this Shanghai Daily story (January 5, 2006) about two cute little Chinese Internet cartoon cops who pop up on websites and bulletin boards to keep the populace in line:

Cyber Police to Guard All Shenzhen Websites

Shenzhen police plan to equip all Shenzhen Websites and electronic bulletin board systems with two virtual policemen icons on the main pages to maintain order in cyber space.

People may click the two cartoon policemen to enter the cyber space of two virtual cops and ask questions about information safety. Real policemen will answer their questions immediately.

Internet users may also learn information about the Internet laws and regulations and some typical Internet criminal cases from these two virtual policemen.

"The two dummy policemen were made to remind Netizens the Internet is protected by the law. People should pay attention to their behavior when they are surfing on the Net," a senior official of the Shenzhen cyber police told China Youth Daily.

The mordant Shanghaiist site comments about the mascots: "One is named Jing Jing (the male), and the other Cha Cha (the female). ‘Jing’ and ‘cha’ are the characters that compose the word for ‘police’ in Chinese. [...P]eople have expressed the feeling that Jing Jing and Cha Cha look just too darn cute, and that no Internet bad boys are going to be thinking about what they gonna do when these cartoon cops come for you.

"We’ve been unsuccessful at actually getting someone [to talk to us] thus far. It could be that there are just too many people out there dying to talk to an internet cop about Tibetan independence, official corruption, human rights violations, heroin and gay sex."

You can see these two darling little instruments of totalitarian oppression on the China Internet Information Center site: Cha Cha, Jing Jing.

Our friend The Computer's loyal servants in HPD & Mind Control would certainly promote similar cartoon mascots in Alpha Complex. Suggestions?

Close on the heels of his RPG.net review of STUFF this past Friday, Matthew now offers another RPG.net review of the new PARANOIA service group supplement Service, Service!

Matthew comments about three pages of the book that are all too obviously missing illustrations by Jim Holloway. In the version Mongoose sent for approval to PARANOIA co-owner Greg Costikyan, those pages had the illos correctly placed. But after his approval, somehow Mongoose sent an earlier version of the book to the printer. As they say in Alpha Complex (usually when Internal Security is heard knocking on the door), oooops.

Matthew has posted a somewhat stream-of-consciousness RPG.net review of the STUFF equipment book for PARANOIA. Check out the RPG.net store recommendations at the end, where they invite you to buy "Brown Stuff" and "Green Stuff." Hmm, maybe those can be sequel volumes....

STUFF appeared this past May, and it's only getting its first review now, in January, after I resorted to continual depraved groveling. Citizens, it is time to buckle down! Let your inspiration soar freely, like a flybot gone frankenstein! Address the sad shortage of PARANOIA supplement reviews and submit your own review on RPG.net or the review site of your choice. Be strong, be proud, be prolific!

Longtime Paranoia-Live.net citizen Aratos posted a notice this week that may help PARANOIA Gamemasters who want to establish a background for player characters who are Spies for Another Alpha Complex:

"Alphacology [.PDF link] is a setting I've been working on for about six months now, though it seems like years. It's not so much an alternative to Alpha Complex as a source of antagonism, which was possibly inspired ever so slightly by a Shadowrun supplement called Renraku Arcology Shutdown. Basically I rolled up a Spy for Another Complex when I was generating characters for a campaign that never happened, and decided to make the other complex important.

"Anyway, being the sort of person I am, I pretty much used the strategy I use for all my work and bunged an open license on Alphacology. Or at least a temporary license until I get told I'm breaking international laws. A small group of us did some work on it on a wiki, making some basic designs, but that died. So, I need some advice on whether it's looking fine so far. Which it isn't, but you know what I mean."

Proper PARANOIA play requires many forms (CPU Central has a broad and excellent selection), but to date we have overlooked that staple of modern society, the bomb threat call checklist. One version, popular with many businesses and institutions, (here's a copy used by the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point), includes helpful questions you ask the guy who's just given you one minute to get out of the building:

1. "What does [the bomb] look like?"


2. "What kind of bomb is it?"


3. "What will cause it to explode?"


4. "Did you place the bomb? Why?"


5. "What is your address? What is your name?"

Oh, and while you have the bomber on the phone, be sure to tick the appropriate checkboxes to describe his voice: Calm/Angry/Excited, Slow/Rapid, Soft/Loud, Laughing Crying, Normal/Distinct/Slurred/Nasal, Stutter, Lisp, Raspy, Deep, Ragged, Clearing Throat, Deep Breathing, Crackling Voice, Disguised, Accent, Familiar ("If voice is familiar who did it sound like?").

Don't forget to indicate -- never mind the passing seconds, pay attention! -- to indicate background sounds: Clear/Static, Local/Long Distance, Street Noises, Crockery, Voices, PA System, House Noises, Motor, Animal Noises, Music, Office Machinery, Booth, Factory Machinery, Other.

Also please indicate -- relax, you still have plenty of time, at least ten seconds easy -- the caller's Threat Language: Well Spoken (well educated), Foul, Irrational, Incoherent, Taped, or Message Read By Threat Maker.

Use the remaining seconds of your bomb-call experience to record "Remarks." The instructions say "Print this form out, fill it out, and as soon as possible relay the information to Protective Services." Better hope the printer doesn't jam.

This is a real form, in use right now in (what we may call) the real world. What questions would additionally apply in Alpha Complex? First, you'd obviously inquire about the bomber's security clearance, to determine your proper level of deference. Beyond that, what would Internal Security desire you to find out before your sector explodes?

For three months Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick, mastermind of Paranoia-Live.net and member of the Traitor Recycling Studio, has been missing in action. Nobody knew where he went or why. Then suddenly, today, he popped up in my instant-message friends list.

Session Start (APVarney:Andy Fitzpatrick): Fri Jan 06 15:12:51 2006

APVarney: Egad! Andy! Where have you been? I heard your computer died.

Andy Fitzpatrick: Yeah, it's barely breathing. Unless you have several hundred pounds (or dollars) making holes in your pockets, I'll just have to stick to my original plan and scratch enough dough together for a new hard drive. I've got a couple of hundred saved but that's about eight or nine hundred short of what I want. I'm getting something half-way decent this time or nothing at all.

Apart from my hardware problems we've had Real Life crap to deal (including but not limited to Jan having a serious health scare). (Jan is my partner of ten years. She's fine now.) Not to mention my 'business partner' leaving his wife and kids to settle with some girl in Transylviania, of all places.

APVarney: Are you coming back to P-L.net, or the Traitors?

Andy Fitzpatrick: If the machine holds out. I've only just got my email working again and am slowly sifting through it. I'm going to pop back in tonight probably, once I've got the skinny from Takyn-U. Or maybe not. I don't even know what my IC status is!

I hope to be online for the foreseeable future. I'll probably take the plunge and buy a new drive before my hand is forced. If that happens, I might disappear for a week or so.

APVarney: What, formatting it?

Andy Fitzpatrick: No, if this one goes down and I have to await the new one. Still visiting P-Live?

APVarney: Five times a day or more. People have gone beyond "I miss Andy" and into "Those were the days, back when Andy was here."

Andy Fitzpatrick: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's still standing so that'll do fine.

APVarney: I'd like to post your status on the development blog. What do you want to say?

Andy Fitzpatrick: I'm still here, I still love you all. Especially if you want to give me money for a new machine.

On one of my favorite roleplaying blogs, The 20' by 20' Room, Neel Krishnaswami has posted the rules for a new RPG, The Court of the Empress. Neel, you may recall, is the brilliant designer of the Wiki-based Lexicon RPG, which inspired the PARANOIA Lexicon game The Toothpaste Disaster.

Neel's new RPG is set in a fictitious monarchy; one player is the Empress, and all the others are courtiers, trying to please her and avoid execution.

Will some enthused citizen attempt a version of "The Court of the Empress" set in Alpha Complex?

Now that another Year 214 of The Computer has closed with record-breaking increases in all approved happiness metrics, your friend The Computer has wisely decided to commence yet a third Year 214. After all, why tamper with proven success? Let us praise The Computer!

2005 was a mixed year for PARANOIA. When the new Mongoose edition appeared in August 2004, the task was to convince gamers that PARANOIA, after its long sad decline at West End Games in the early 1990s, was once again good. That worked out well, so in 2005 the next idea was to broaden the range of experiences players associate with the game. Results so far are, to repeat, mixed.

Sales were generally good; the rulebook is entering its third printing (still the same "Service Pack One" as the second printing). And editorially, everything went fine. I'm exceedingly pleased with the 2005 roleplaying supplement line. It demonstrates anew how PARANOIA can be more than silly parody; it works best as dark satire, and can positively own the territory of paranoid fear and suspense.

The Traitor Recycling Studio, a gaggle of fine creative designers who all understand PARANOIA deeply, wrote every book in the line: The Mutant Experience, PARANOIA Flashbacks, the STUFF equipment book, the Straight-style mission collection WMD, Extreme PARANOIA, Service Service!, and I just missed (well, by a couple months, cough) a December ship date for the character creation rules supplement Criminal Histories. (There was also a card game, which I had nothing to do with.) I consider all of these standout books. Extreme PARANOIA, with new rules for player characters of all security clearances from ORANGE through VIOLET, opens up the game in amazing, unsuspected ways. WMD, a landmark book in the line's history, is the best roleplaying supplement I've been involved with in 22 years as a professional designer.

So the books themselves pushed the game to rewarding frontiers -- but the gaming audience largely hasn't found out. Outside the fan communities on Paranoia-Live.net and RPG.net, many gamers, imprinted 20 years ago like baby ducks, still mistakenly associate PARANOIA with atrocious shoot-everything punfests. Mongoose Publishing doesn't send out review copies or buy ads for the game, so there is no good vector to spread the truth, other than word of mouth. So I ask everyone reading this to mouth the words -- to spread the truth. Thanks.

Personally, I had a hard time staying on track this year. My wife, Beth Fischi, and I edited and packaged over 1,000 pages of PARANOIA material in 2005. This was exhilarating and rewarding, but oh man, it kept us hopping like chickens on electrified grillework. It was expensive, too, in opportunity costs -- that is, it took so much effort to put together the PARANOIA roleplaying line (a more than full-time job, far more), I had to pass up design work that paid much better. Don't take this as a complaint! I asked for the job; I'm glad for it, and would do it over again in a second. But it's a bald fact that editing PARANOIA basically costs about US$1,000 a month in lost income. I went into debt, and won't get out for a few months yet.

Again, no complaints -- but for 2006, strictly for personal financial reasons, I have asked Mongoose to scale back the line. There will be just as many books, but they're shorter -- mainly 32- to 64-page mission collections, not 128-page supplements. Don't worry; there's still great stuff in the works, including (at long last) an introductory guide for new players. I'll talk more about the upcoming schedule in later posts.

Perhaps you ask, "Why not hand off the job to someone else?" Unfortunately, I am mortally certain the line would instantly revert to dismally dull-witted Zap-style puns and parodies. This style brought a 90% drop in sales during the late West End era, but as I say, too many gamers imprinted on that style, and veer unfailingly toward it. It may take at least another year to prove the PARANOIA audience is smart, not bone stupid. You can help prove it by buying the books!

And now I must return to finishing up The Underplex. This time last year Beth and I were slaving away on Flashbacks, and now here I am again on New Year's Eve (Day, now) working on another deadline. At least this one is less heinous, and I'm not even actually late this time. Well, not much. By the next time Year 214 rolls around, I hope everything will proceed much more smoothly, and happiness pills will prevail all around. Be loyal, citizens, and have a Mandatory Happy New Year!