Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Super-gigantic mining machines 

Many players' all-time favorite PARANOIA mission is "Me and My Shadow Mark 4" from Acute PARANOIA (1985), reprinted in the hardcover collection PARANOIA Flashbacks. (Say it with me: "Something falls off.") That mission, you'll recall, assigns the hapless Troubleshooters to guard a humongous cybertank. The inspiration for the Mark 4 tank was certainly Steve Jackson's Ogre boardgames, and the Keith Laumer "Bolo" stories that inspired Ogre.

In actuality, the largest vehicles in the world are all mining machines. Canadian blogger Avi Abrams has posted a breathtaking series of stupendously large mining vehicles. Another post concentrates on one particular beast, the Krupp mining company's bone-chilling Bagger 288 -- a Warhammer-sized chainsaw that once absent-mindedly chewed up a bulldozer. You just know Alpha Complex has 30 or 40 of these monsters ripping out new tunnels for the underground city. Wish Paul Baldowski had known about these things when he was writing The Underplex....

I hope someday some loyal and industrious citizen may Photoshop some of these photos to create a real-life Mark 4 cybertank.
Posted by: Allen Varney / 12:35 PM (5) comments

Monday, November 13, 2006

The Sweep of Unhistory - cover and more information! 

Mongoose have posted the cover and some introductory text for the upcoming Sweep of Unhistory mission book, and I must say OTPA Jim has outdone himself on the cover art this time. Go take a look!
Posted by: Gareth / 8:54 AM (5) comments

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Soviet propaganda gallery / Flashbacks 2 

Comrades! Now to be marwelling at werrry comprehensive set of galleries of Soviet propaganda posters, suitable for to be adapting to Alpha Complex and glorious vorkers' struggle against oppressive capitalist pig-dog Computer, ptui!

Sorry -- I've been babushka-deep in Commie-speak, because I just finished laying out the updated reprint of Edward S. Bolme's high-camp 1989 West End Games PARANOIA mission The People's Glorious Revolutionary Adventure -- the one where the players are all Commie "Smershoviks" in "Alpha State." PGRA is the last of three missions in the 96-page reprint collection PARANOIA Flashbacks 2, to be published next spring. The collection also includes updated versions of Ken Rolston's Orcbusters and Erick Wujcik's Clones in Space, both from 1986. (These were originally announced under the now-obsolete title Collapsatron.) All three missions feature brand-new art by The One True PARANOIA Artist, Jim Holloway.

Flashbacks 2 just about completes the restoration to print of the worthwhile material from PARANOIA's original 1980s run at West End Games. There's still a few good bits in the DOA Sector Travelog; a pleasant little Steve Gilbert mini-mission from the first Forms Book; and Greg Costikyan's rules for playing bot PCs in Acute PARANOIA (not the later version in The Bot Abuser's Manual) -- but there are currently no plans to reprint these modest remnants. Onward with glorious new material, comra-- er, citizens!
Posted by: Allen Varney / 4:23 PM (1) comments

Monday, November 06, 2006

PARANOIA in the real world: Environmentally friendly munitions 

Loyal citizen Adam Marafioti forwards a story from the British newspaper The Observer, dated October 29, 2006, by ethics reporter Lucy Siegle. The article, "Where did it all go right," concerns the new wave of "ethical" products for "conscious" consumers. (Speed the day.) Adam writes, "There was one paragraph right near the end of the article that I found to be very PARANOIA-like":
There have also been some bizarre attempts by decidedly unethical industries to jump on the bandwagon. My favourite initiative by far, just in terms of downright audacity, comes from arms manufacturer BAE Systems, and its introduction of an 'environmentally friendly' range of weapons - reduced-lead bullets, reduced smoke grenades, and rockets with fewer toxins.

Not that this is a stupid idea, as such -- but we can easily imagine R&D working with HPD & Mind Control Persuasion Counselors to spin a PR campaign for "Restricted-Impact Lethality" weapons. Slogan suggestions, anyone?
Posted by: Allen Varney / 2:09 AM (7) comments

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