PARANOIA

A PARANOIA writer and Traitor Recycling Studio member who writes under the name "WJ Maguffin" (hi, Bill!) runs the fan site FriendComputer.net. There WJ/Bill has undertaken another project, a Lexicon game called "Ruckusball Explained."

Lexicon, designed by Neel Krishnaswami, is a roleplaying game where players use a Wiki to collaboratively create and embroider entries on some fictitious subject. (If you followed the development of the current PARANOIA edition, you'll recall I ran a Lexicon game set in Alpha Complex, the Toothpaste Disaster.) WJ has adapted Neel's Lexicon rules to a competitive version he calls Smacktalk. Each turn, one player gets voted off the island, and the last survivor writes an entry explaining the sad fates that befell all his competitors.

And Ruckusball? "In this game, players take on the role of retired, famous veterans of an imaginary sport called ruckusball," WJ explains. "The rules, history, and traditions of ruckusball have never been written down before, so these ruckusball champions are asked to delve deep into their memories and write down those rules and whatnot.

"The players will be creating the rules, history, and traditions of ruckusball as they go along. Each entry should describe some complicated rule or whatever, including citations to other rules or whatever like the SmackTalk rules state. Everything should be about ruckusball -- whatever the hell that is -- so players should be making stuff up from their fevered imaginations. That's the point of the game!"

Fans of PARANOIA's "FunBall" may look to Ruckusball Explained as a useful source of rules confusion.

Jerry Weis, a new PARANOIA Gamemaster, has written a fine Classic mission called "Dog Duty" and kindly made it available for free download on the Paranoia-Live.net fan site. (It's in .PDF format, so you'll need the free Adobe Reader program to read it.)

"Dog Duty" assigns the Troubleshooters to deliver a new mutant detection device, "Project Kiko," to Internal Security. "Kiko" is, in fact, a dog -- not a robot dog, a dog, and one with a poorly developed sense of self preservation. In the likely event Kiko bites the soylent during the mission, the Troubleshooters have to find or invent some likely substitute Kiko to complete their task. (Here fans of classic science fiction may recall Eric Frank Russell's 1955 Hugo-winning novelette "Allamagoosa.") It all leads to a grand finale of inspired deviltry.

Commendations to citizen Jerry for his yeoman service to The Computer and to the PARANOIA community!

Gaming Report has a press release detailing Mongoose Publishing's upcoming releases. There's one Paranoia product on there - a 32 page adventure entitled The Sweep of Unhistory.

Paranoia: Sweep of UnHistory
One troubleshooter team! One experimental cryogenic preservation chamber! Infinite Alpha Complexes! Comprising multiple scenarios over multiple time periods, Sweep of Unhistory takes the Troubleshooters from the present into the unimaginably far future, proving that things can only get worse!
To Retail for: $9.95

Meet Hyperactive Bob, a computer program for running fast food franchises. The program monitors the restaurants through cameras, tells employees what to do via touchscreens, and "analyzes historical and real-time data to learn about each restaurant individually".

The product page proudly proclaims that "Hyperactive Bob's food is FRESHER and HOTTER!". And, no doubt, more fun.

The livescience article linked above brought me to the online novella Manna, by Marshall Brain. It's amazingly relevant to Paranoia, to the extent that you could use extracts as Humanist propaganda...

(Oh, Gareth Hanrahan here, writer of the Traitor's Manual and several other upcoming supplements, which I'll talk about here soon.)

How many PARANOIA fans care about the esoteric reaches of modern roleplaying theory, as espoused on The Forge? We may find out: In response to a passing remark in my Escapist magazine article "My Eyes Glaze Over: Roleplaying theory for short attention spans," a few Forge-ites are debating whether and how PARANOIA fits in the "Big Model" Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist framework.

The initial, abortive topic was "GNS and short attention spans." Following The Forge's emphasis on discussion informed by play experience, moderator Ron Edwards split off the topic as "GNS and actual play," where the discussion continues.

If you feel moved to join the discussion, remember to base your comments explicitly in your own personal experiences playing PARANOIA. In fact, I strongly advise you to first familiarize yourself with The Forge's rules and customs, which are enforced with a rigor unknown in more freewheeling RPG forums. It reminds me of the 1979 Monty Python film "Life of Brian," where the official tries to organize a mob: "All right, no one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle."