PARANOIA

Enough, enough, stop! The High Programmers have been rushing forth in droves, or at least one drove, and that's quite drove enough for the PARANOIA Lexicon game now in progress.

What a bunch! There's a Harvard doctoral student, a Finnish comic book translator, a grocery clerk, a high school principal, a couple of real-life Programmers (it remains to be seen how High), and many of the usual suspects from the endlessly exciting forums at Paranoia-Live.net.

If you didn't make it into this game, hold off on the strychnine or arsenic just yet. People may drop out and require replacement -- yeah, like that would ever happen in Alpha Complex, right? -- or when this game winds up in mid-May, if it's all gone well and nobody has sued or assaulted anybody, we could decide to hold another game.

Meanwhile, look in on the growing Toothpaste Disaster Report as nearly two dozen players start in high spirits and excitement, barely cognizant of the potential scandals that may befall them in the coming six weeks.

The Toothpaste Disaster High Programmers have begun compiling their Clearance ULTRAVIOLET report in the PARANOIA Lexicon game.

Over a dozen illustrious top-clearance citizens are currently endeavoring to get to the bottom, or avoid reaching said bottom, of the many-threaded Toothpaste catastrophe. More may join the effort, but probably not many more or we hit a point of diminishing returns. As you can see from the early entries, already such notorious subjects as Nuclear Facility RON-372/B and Toothpasty Supplement #5 have risen to dim public awareness. Who knows what else may emerge as the weekcycles pass? Check back twice a week. Turn deadlines are local midnight Monday and Thursday.

To promote and create content for the upcoming edition of PARANOIA due from Mongoose Publishing this August, we are starting an online Lexicon game set in Alpha Complex. Players are fractious High Programmers preparing an ULTRAVIOLET Clearance report on the enigmatic and far-reaching "Toothpaste Disaster." Wanna play?

Lexicon was designed last year by Neel Krishnaswami. In a Lexicon game, players collaborate on an alphabetical encyclopedia of sorts, writing 100- to 200-word entries for each letter by turns and posting them to a Wiki, a collection of editable Web pages. Here's a completed Lexicon game created for a NOBILIS campaign. We want ours to turn out more or less like that, except a lot funnier.

For our Lexicon game we are running turns twice a week (Monday and Thursday) for six weeks, covering two letters a turn. The first turn's entries, covering the letters A and B, are due by midnight (your time) this coming Thursday, April 1 (despite the date, this ISN'T an April Fool's joke). If you want to play, you'll write an entry twice a week through May 13 and read all the entries by other players. You'll receive credit in the PARANOIA rulebook as a "Toothpaste Disaster High Programmer," but no other payment or material compensation of any kind whatever. You must grant Mongoose Publishing the right to reproduce extracts from your entries in the rulebook or future PARANOIA supplements. Full rules and instructions on how to join the game appear in my lengthy post on the Paranoia-Live.net forum.

Commendation points to the many diligent friends of The Computer who pointed out, in the comment thread to my mandates post, the way to make mandates less beneficial to the player: by making them, uh, mandatory. (No, in fact I didn't think of that. I expect no nomination to the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame any time soon.)

That comment thread soon moved offtopic. (That was a shocker. In the laser-focus world of Web boards this seldom happens.) The dialogue, in precis:

Darrin Bright [writing about player empowerment]: Giving the players more of a sense of control makes things more enjoyable for them.

Me: This is true in almost all games, but player control is antithetical to the spirit of PARANOIA.

Nick Caldwell:: You are confusing player control with character control. With players who know the game, this will become like a jazz combo -- the players will come up with more neat ways to mess with the characters (their own and others') than the GM can alone.

Me: I understand your point, and I still disagree. Player control and character control are both antithetical to the atmosphere PARANOIA establishes. The player, in his own person sitting at the table, should feel tense, unsettled, and psychologically vulnerable, just like his character. At least, that's my personal ideal.

Mike: I disagree with you about Player Control vs. Character Control. The character should feel tense, unsettled, and psychologically vulnerable, yes. The player should be having fun. But then I'm not a big fan of (or even believer in) the "immersion" ideal ...which is to say, the player should, at the very least, be empowered enough to craft his or her experience of playing a tense, unsettled, and psychologically vulnerable troubleshooter in a way that is most fun for everyone at the table.

I congratulate Mike on his nice Spurious Logic roll, but his post elides the point. If you, the player, are in fact immersed in tension and anxiety (and, of course, hilarity) while playing PARANOIA, and you see the other players also giggling fearfully, then even though you're not architecting your portrayals with maximal craft, you're all having intense fun -- at least if you enjoy playing tense fearfest games, as some do.

So far that's my design approach to the Straight (aka "Dark") play style in the new edition of PARANOIA due this August from Mongoose Publishing. But if everyone thinks this approach is dead wrong, I need to recalibrate. I've quoted the comments in this new post in hopes of getting feedback. Please pull me back from catastrophic error before it's too late.

Help me here. Inspired by the "tweak" rules Famous Game Designer Robin D. Laws created for the first supplement to his Dying Earth RPG, I'm considering the following idea for the new edition of PARANOIA coming this August from Mongoose Publishing. The current idea has clear problems, which I discuss below.

Mandates

To guarantee Complex security, politeness, adherence to safety codes and widespread happiness, The Computer recently expanded the scope of law enforcement by granting its Troubleshooters 'mandates.' You, the GM, can assign mandates as an optional step during character creation.

A mandate lets the player make a roll, or force another player to roll, in a specific type of situation that doesn't ordinarily call for a skill roll. The roll's outcome may grant the player a benefit listed in the mandate description.

Mandates are keyed to service groups (not service firms, but their controlling service groups). The PARANOIA rulebook or its supplements would list many available mandates for each service group.

During character creation you may, if you wish, assign the PC one mandate appropriate to your service firm's group. Have the player note the mandate on his character sheet. Between missions, or when a PC rises in clearance, you may wish to assign another mandate. All mandates are public information.

Be sure you tell the player this: He can keep a mandate only if it doesn't increase your information burden. The player must be able to remind you of his mandate's exact working. If he ever asks you what his Directive to Ensure Chapstick Purity does, The Computer will permanently revoke that mandate. If the player spent Scene points to get it, tough; he loses those points. If you ask what his mandate does, he must have the answer ready.

MANDATE EXAMPLE

Service group: Power Services

Mandate: TMPS14.252/a, 'Directive to Ensure Safety of Light Switches'

Instructions: Ensure the good working order of light switches in any room of your clearance or lower.

Benefit: If the PC uses a screwdriver to tinker with a light switch for one minute, have him roll against Hardware skill. A successful roll means he can sabotage the lights controlled by that switch so they turn off a specified time after he finishes tinkering. The greater the roll's margin of success, the more accurate the PC’s timing. Making the roll exactly means his estimate is correct to within one minute; by 1-3, to within 15 seconds; by 4 or more, to the exact second.

---

I like the mandate idea because it makes service groups more useful and helps individualize characters in a characteristically PARANOIA way without a lot of rules overhead. But you see the problems. Oh sure, we can limit the PC from fiddling with every light switch by restricting the mandate to one use, or once per session, or you have to spend Scene points to use it. We can avoid overwhelming newbie players by restricting mandates to experienced paranoiacs. No sweat.

The biggest problem, though, is psychological. Mandates give characters a bonus with no downside. They empower players. This is a horrible, horrible idea. Suggestions?

In the new edition of PARANOIA appearing this August from Mongoose Publishing, The Computer pays its Troubleshooters a salary sufficient to cover basic living expenses. Ambitious characters can also pick up spare credits on the side. A high-clearance citizen shanghais your team as bodyguards, and may be disposed to leave you a tip. A service firm slips you something under the table to sabotage a rival contractor. If you're untroubled by niceties of legality, you can sell stuff you found or stole on the market site C-Bay.

The trouble here is that the credits -- which are electronic data, not physical money -- often come encumbered with particular licenses, like software licenses. For instance, someone in the secret society Corpore Metal pays you a hundred credits for illicit Brainade neuropop, but the license on that hundred requires you to spend the money only on bots, bot parts, oil, lubricant, or a cybernetic replacement for your brain.

Accepting the payment and its license can also unwittingly give the payer any number of terrible rights, including surveillance, invasion of privacy, etc.
Keeping track of the licenses is so frustrating that a new secret society, the Cash Hackers, has arisen to de-license encumbered credits, or even re-license them according to your own dictates.

We hope to present a variety of entertaining cash licenses, either in the basic rulebook or a supplement. As always, we're open to suggestions.

In the new edition of PARANOIA due this August from Mongoose Publishing, the GM rewards entertaining play by giving out Scene points. Players can spend Scene points to raise skill ratings and buy new specialties, but they'll probably spend most of their Scene points on General Perversity Modifiers.

Other (non-fun) roleplaying games use lots and lots of modifiers. You apply them to figure out what number you need to roll:

Other Game player: I aim my rifle and fire it at the lead goon.
GM: Okay, your rifle skill is 10, +3 for aiming, -2 for the range to the target, -4 for his armor, but he doesn't see you so that's +3, and you're using the targeting scopebot and depleted-uranium ammo for +4, so you need to roll ... wait, what was your skill again?

PARANOIA makes this process easy by reversing cause and effect. When the GM allows it, you and your fellow players can spend Scene points as General Perversity Modifiers to influence your roll's success chance for better or worse. After all points are spent and the final success chance is determined, the GM interprets the circumstances of the roll to fit all the modifiers.

PARANOIA Player #1: I aim my cone rifle and fire it at the lead traitor. I have a Violence skill of 10, so I need a 10 or less to hit.

Player #2: No you don't. I'm spending 2 Scene points on Perversity to reduce the roll you need to 8.

Player #1: Bastard!

Player #3: Three more points to reduce from 8 to 5. I'm phoning to IntSec that there's a firefight brewing.

Player #1: Betrayer!

Player #4: Two more to reduce the hit roll to 3.

Player #1:: I'll get you in the mess hall!

Player #5: Uh, I'll pass.

Player #6: Well, I support this heroic action. [Player #6 secretly knows Player #1's target is the high secret society official Player #6 has been ordered to assassinate.] I'll spend 7 to raise the hit roll back to 10.

Player #1: Good. I'm spending 5 to raise it to 15.

GM: All right. Plus 5 to hit, let's see... [Thinks.] Your malfunctioning rifle scopebot blinks back on just as the traitor's foot slips on a stray NiceLife empty. The scopebot says, "Hey, what's up? Did I miss anything?"

Player #1: "Scopebot, target that traitor!"

GM: The scopebot says, "Ready!" Okay, roll.

Player #1: Here goes....

If the players' collective Scene points expenditures had instead reduced Player #1's success roll to (say) 6 or less, the GM might instead retrofit the in-game situation as follows:

GM: All right, you're 4 down. [Thinks.] The cone rifle's broken scopebot suddenly yells, "Lubricant for the working man!" The traitor's head whips around. Even though he couldn't possibly have heard you at this range, he heard you. [The GM has spontaneously decided to give the target the Hypersenses mutation.] He dives for the ground. Roll.

See? Perversity works like ulcers. People used to think you got ulcers from worrying too much. Turns out you get ulcers from a bacterium, and the stomach pains make you worry. In exactly the same way, sort of, PARANOIA takes other games' arduous combat process (assess circumstances to figure out the modfiers) and reverses it for smooth and easy retrofitting (get the roll and then figure out the modifiers that caused it).

Your fellow players may ask something like, "If the GM interprets one set of Perversity modifiers so my cone rifle gives me a bonus, how can I not get the same bonus in later attacks, even when Perversity goes against me?"

You, a wise player, can gently correct them in the characteristic PARANOIA way, as follows:

"Quiet, or the GM will kill you."

Concluding our look at the skills in the new PARANOIA edition arriving this August from Mongoose Publishing (previous posts gave a skill overview and looked at Action skills and Knowledge skills):

Secret skills

Any area of knowledge or practice not covered by the Action and Knowledge skills is a Secret skill. Secret skills are grouped in these categories:

* Treasonous: Old Reckoning Cultures, Communist Propaganda, Filesharing, etc.

* Not treasonous but uncommon in Alpha Complex: Swimming, Rock Climbing, and other Outdoors skills; foreign languages; highly advanced science or mathematics, etc.

* Unlikely to figure significantly in an adventure: Knitting and other hobby skills, Whistling, Teela O'Malley Trivia, Video Games, etc.

You start the game knowing one Secret skill in each category (Treasonous, Uncommon, Unlikely). You suggest each skill you want; the GM decides its category and says yes or no. (Don't choose something like 'Unerringly Destroy Fellow Troubleshooters' or you'll alienate the GM's tender affections.)

If the GM, the paragon of fairness, approves your suggestion, write the skill on the secret part of your character sheet. Roll 1d20 and divide the number rolled in half; the result is the skill's rating.

Skill specialties and weaknesses

A specialty is something your character is particularly good at -- a specific emphasis within a skill. When a situation comes up that calls for your specialty, you use the specialty's rating instead of the governing skill's rating. Specialties can be common or narrow.

* A common specialty is useful in situations that crop up frequently in Troubleshooter missions -- for instance, Lasers, Bootlicking, Surveillance. All common specialties are rated 14.

* A narrow specialty affects a single specific target character (but not The Computer), a certain piece of equipment (not a type of equipment, but one particular item), or a situation that occurs infrequently -- for instance, Annoy My Service Firm Office Mates, Eat Entire Bag of Algae Chips in Four Seconds, Suck Up to CPU Boss Judd-G-LKN, Soothe Autocar SPD-1's Jangled Brain, Make Hot Fun Into Sticky Paste, Get Barracks Vending Machine to Stop Making That Funny Noise. You are encouraged to make up your own narrow specialties. All narrow specialties are rated 18.

You may, if you wish, select up to six specialties. To take a specialty in any skill, write it under the skill's name. Each specialty can be common or narrow. You can take one specialty in each skill, or put all six in the same skill, or split them any way you want. You never have to take a specialty.

When you take a common specialty, the GM will give you a compensating weakness(es) in the same skill. A weakness is a particular blind spot, your character's area of incompetence. Write down the weakness or weaknesses under the specialty. Each weakness rating is 1. A narrow specialty doesn't give you a corresponding weakness.

A fair-minded GM -- and really, is there any other kind? -- will assign a weakness or weaknesses of the same scope and significance as your chosen specialty. That is, a situation that invokes your skill's weakness will arise about as often during play as does a situation that plays to its specialty.

For instance, suppose you choose a Violence specialty of Laser Weapons. This specialty arises very often in a typical PARANOIA adventure. In this case the GM might assign you two Violence skill weaknesses, Projectile Weapons and Vehicle Weapons. Situations that call for one of these weapon types arise about as often, together, as does the Laser situation alone. The frequency of the weaknesses balances the frequency of the common specialty.

You can suggest a weakness, but the GM isn't obliged to accept it. If, during play, it turns out your weakness isn't limiting you as often as the specialty benefits you, the GM may assign additional weaknesses to right the balance.

The cascade of skills continues. After outlining the skill system to be introduced in the new PARANOIA edition arriving this August from Mongoose Publishing, we looked at the Action skills. Now for the three Knowledge skills: Bio, Code, and Hardware skills. Use these to determine if your Troubleshooter knows a given scientific fact or technical procedure; how to operate, maintain, calibrate, and repair stuff; or how to sabotage your companions' equipment in nonviolent, creative ways.

All three Knowledge skills overlap routinely. For instance, suppose you want to "adjust" a medbot so it detects your team leader as a monstrous, tentacled alien invader. This could involve Bio (altering the bot's biosensor settings), Code (inserting a new variable in the bot's interpretation subroutines), or Hardware (adjusting biosensor voltages). If you can convince the Gamemaster a skill applies, go for it.

Bio: Biological and organic topics and devices, including health, bioweapons, disease, drugs, first aid, biochemical therapy, cooking, poisons, bacteria and organic viruses, cloning procedures, bioscience engineering, survival Outdoors, and identification and understanding of specimens from Outdoors. Common Bio specialties: Biosciences, Bioweapons, Cloning, Drug Therapy, Medical, Memory Transfer, Survival.

Code: Anything data- or software-related, including bot and device programming, operating systems, communication protocols, data search and analysis, safe software, software viruses and worms, confession-booth lie-detector programs, and (at the highest skill levels and security clearances) even the inner workings of The Computer itself. Common Code specialties: Bot Programming, Data Analysis, Data Search, Financial Software, ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures), Operating Systems, Vehicle Programming.

Hardware: Mechanical or electronic devices and inorganic materials, including laser and projectile weapons, armor, battle suits, bots, autocars and other vehicles, monitors, electrical equipment, power generation, many kinds of engineering (chemical, electronic, habitat, mechanical, nuclear), clone tanks, actual tanks, etc. Common Hardware specialties: Bot Operation and Maintenance, Chemical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Habitat Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Vehicle Operation and Maintenance.

Loyal citizens reading this blog have already highlighted subtle sabotage in this otherwise perfect system, no doubt introduced by subversive elements. We are diligently correcting all treasonous errors and may summarize a revised system at a later date.

News flash: The first complete draft of the playtest rules has gone to the powers that be for review.

A previous blog post outlined the rudiments of the skill system to be introduced in the new PARANOIA edition arriving this August from Mongoose Publishing. Now we'll look at the three Action skills: Management, Stealth, and Violence. Use these to affect the world and to interact with other people, bots, and The Computer. Later posts will cover the rest of the skills.

Management: Nonviolent, nontechnical interaction with other characters who are aware of your presence. Mangement actions include persuasion, bootlicking, bribery, confidence games, fast talk, intimidation, interrogation, leadership, oratory, and all other verbal actions. Management also includes checking and correcting another character's hygeine, appearance, or demonstrations of loyalty. Management doesn't typically cover anything requiring specialized or technical knowledge, such as medical or psychological diagnoses, or equipment calibration or repair; these actions require Knowledge skills. Suggested Management specialties: Bootlicking, Bribery, Chutzpah, Confidence Swindles, Interrogation, Intimidation, Moxie.

(Chutzpah: the quality shown by a man convicted of killing both parents who then claims clemency because he's an orphan; Moxie: canniness, assessment of character, streetwise experience.)

Stealth: Any nonverbal attempt to detect or to physically evade detection, conceal physical objects or materials or locate them, misdirect another character's attention, or avoid being misdirected. Stealth includes security and surveillance. Stealth doesn't typically cover sabotage of equipment; these actions require Knowledge skills. Suggested Stealth specialties: Concealment, Disguise, Lip Reading, Security Systems, Shadowing, Sleight of Hand, Surveillance.

Violence: Physical, nonverbal attempts to hurt or kill characters, destroy or break objects, or otherwise physically manipulate the world -- a versatile and very, very popular skill. Violence includes all weapon skills plus demolition. Violence doesn't typically cover undetectable sabotage of equipment; these actions require Knowledge skills. Suggested Violence specialties: Demolition, Energy Weapons (lasers), Hand Weapons (force sword, grenade, neurowhip, truncheon), Primitive Weapons, Projectile Weapons, Unarmed Combat, Vehicular Combat.

Next post: Knowledge skills.

In the new PARANOIA edition appearing this August from Mongoose Publishing, your Troubleshooter has six broad areas of competence called skills, grouped in two categories: Action and Knowledge. Some skills fall outside these categories; the current rules draft creatively calls these "Other" skills. (Yes, friends, that's why I pull down the big money.)

Unlike previous editions, the new PARANOIA doesn't tie skill ratings to an attribute number. Skills are rated from 1 (low) to 20 (high). For each skill, you roll 1d20. If you roll a number below 8, record 8 instead. If you roll above 16, record 16 instead.

In each skill, beginning characters may, if they wish, take one specialty, a specific, narrow competency or emphasis. These specialties encompass and expand on the original PARANOIA skill list; nothing from previous editions has been left out. When a situation comes up that calls for your specialty, you get a skill bonus. You can acquire new specialties over time, assuming you live.

In later posts we'll look at all the skills and their specialties. For now, here are the reasons we're simplifying the PARANOIA skill system:

* We want to improve atmosphere by focusing on what the game does best. Elaborate differentiation of skills has nothing important to do with the way players experience the game. If your Troubleshooter is the tech guy and mine is the driver and our leader is the face man, are we playing a well-oiled, diverse team working together to handle a wide range of problems? No. We're all plotting and conspiring against each other, the same as plain generic guys.

* The PARANOIA rules don't rely on deep, well-defined skills. For example, the second-edition Security skill description given to players read, in its entirety, "Jiggering locks and alarms."

* Characters with broadly similar skill sets need not rely on each other. Their mutual antagonism increases. A commentator on Paranoia-Live.net complained, "If everyone is the same, then they have no reason to work together, as any of them could perform any random task just as well as the others." Bingo.

* Skills shouldn't be key to character survival. Your character should survive because you play in an entertaining way, not because you have a high Electronic Engineering skill. Troubleshooters don't need a wide range of skills to handle a wide range of problems. Instead, the players need cleverness. Anyway, ideally the Troubleshooters themselves are their biggest problems.

* Some fans assert skills promote emotional identification with your character. The new edition promotes attachment through advancement, through your character's potential to gain influence and possessions. If your guy reaches Clone #6, you'll fear for him, not because he's got a great Projectile Weapons skill, but because he's just made GREEN clearance, has a nice corridor suite and a staff of bot servants, and can now hand out treason points to other characters. Who wouldn't identify with that?

Enough. Next post: Action skills.

This August the new PARANOIA edition from Mongoose Publishing will give Troubleshooters in the Straight play style another way to feel pressed and anxious, a way you yourself may understand: money.

Sure, in previous editions you got credit bonuses, so you could buy your own grenades and flamethrowers and chapstick. Self-righteous Blues and Greens would arbitrarily level 100,000-credit fines. But credits didn't intrinsically cause tense, backbiting rivalry among players. What were we thinking?

Buying new clones; ME Cards; for-profit service firms -- this blog has talked about some ways credits will become important in the new edition. There are others: salaries, monthly living expenses based on your clearance, and the ever-receding mirage of social advancement. Also fines, bribes, confidence games, extortion, blackmail, ransoms -- you'll find out. Heh, heh.

This pecuniary angle bugs some fans, who feel it abandons a central joke of PARANOIA: that The Computer, in the name of fighting Communism, created a totalitarian socialist anthill. Do they think a capitalist society can't be ruthlessly repressive, can't reduce citizens to mere consumers in a soul-crushing police state? Perhaps our readers in Shanghai or Singapore might comment. Oh, wait -- they can't.

Mainly these worried fans fear that an Alpha Complex with branded merchandise and advertising -- "Wal*Mart with gun emplacements" -- will feel too different. We could offer defensive reassurances (The Computer is still absolutely in charge; money is only important in Straight style; GMs can ignore these ideas the same way they ignore anything they don't like). But that's mealy-mouthed! Far better to present uplifting examples:

* Multi-Clearance Marketing is the new get-rich scheme spreading wildly among the Infrareds. You join at Clearance "RED" (note the quotes), and pay 10 credits to the name at the top of this list. As soon as you recruit ten new members, you're promoted to (quote-unquote) "ORANGE." Then they recruit ten new members each, and soon you're "YELLOW." When you reach "ULTRAVIOLET" you're rich! What? Treason? Pshaw.

* Without a credit economy there's no reason to spam. We can't have that. Alpha Complex spammers take viral marketing literally. Suck down the wrong tube of Hot Fun and virus SellFast.C quickly occupies your frontal cortex. Against your will you end every sentence with, "Ask me how to make millions with Multi-Clearance Marketing!"

* New PLC directives require you to bid for equipment. "Mission Alert #9562.78/AG-3: Troubleshooter team to report to nearest Netstation and log on to C-Bay to acquire equipment for their upcoming mission. Equipment recommendations provided at logon. Credits available for equipment this mission: 1,347. Mission-specific username: iliketohug. Password: tr@it0rsD1e." If there's a shortage of essentials, like laser barrels, they're pricey. If anyone trojaned your password, your budget evaporates on Teela O'Malley souvenirs. And "sniping" has many meanings. (Thanks for the idea, Philip Storry.)

* "Citizen, your assigned equipment costs a total of *beep* 30,482 credits. To reclaim your deposit, please return your equipment in pristine condition. Have a nice daycycle!" (Thanks, Mike Lemmer.)

* ...and, of course, we're looking for more suggestions.

"Still," you might ask, "why bother?" Because PARANOIA isn't a monument to Cold War cliches, it's a living game. Reagan-era bruises have long since gone numb. Players today have sore spots and exposed nerves in all-new places. We're finding those places, and we plan to jab.

Yesterday Eric Goldberg, co-creator of the original PARANOIA and one of the masterminds behind the new edition forthcoming this August, visited the ever-hopping Paranoia-Live.net Website for a nice online chat.

Loyal citizens seeking advancement will certainly read the log of Eric's Webchat.

In the new edition of PARANOIA appearing this August from Mongoose Publishing, we want to emphasize a play aspect that fell somewhat into neglect in older editions: your Troubleshooter's service firm.

In the old days, Alpha Complex municipal functions were handled by eight service groups, powerful bureaucracies supervised by The Computer: Central Processing; HPD & Mind Control (HPD&MC); Internal Security; Production, Logistics, & Commissary (PLC); Power Services; Research & Design (R&D); and Technical Services. Some years back, The Computer privatized most of these functions, spinning them off as privatized service firms.

A service firm is a privately owned, for-profit company that carries out a particular municipal function in Alpha Complex. Each former service group now includes several service firms locked in bitter capitalist competition under The Computer's watchful eye.

The only service groups that were not privatized were Armed Forces and Internal Security. The rest of the old service groups remain today as regulatory agencies supervising the appropriate service firms. These service group bureaucracies are absolutely not flagrantly corrupt sump-holes full of superannuated, impotent bureaucrats. Don't think that. No matter what they act like, don't think that.

When you reached age 16 and left your clone creche, The Computer assigned you to work at one of these firms as an Infrared line worker. You worked there for years before The Computer promoted you to Red clearance and recruited you as a Troubleshooter. You still have low-level connections in your old firm, which may prove useful as sources of information or equipment.

Every PARANOIA Troubleshooter team once had to make an obligatory trip to R&D to receive valuable experimental equipment that awaited testing. The new edition retains and expands on this idea, now giving a duty that may be for a firm in any one of the service groups. We call it a "service service."

Yes, you may still visit R&D, but The Computer may instead call on you to deliver Power Services equipment (it's not really radioactive, that label is a mistake), or install scrubot software updates on behalf of Tech Services, or, or -- well, actually, we're looking for suggestions.

In the new edition of PARANOIA from Mongoose Publishing this August, we plan to support three distinct play styles. Currently we're calling them Straight, Classic, and Zap.

PARANOIA Straight is a darkly satiric style emphasizing fear, mutual suspicion, spying and subterfuge, and careful collection of evidence. It is Yossarian in the Ministry of Truth -- Aldous Huxley meets Patrick McGoohan -- Terry Gilliam's film "Brazil" and Stanislaw Lem's novel "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub." Troubleshooters who play it smart and low-key can live long enough to score small victories, which draws in players so we can scare them bad.

PARANOIA Classic is the familiar comedic style perfected in the game's 1987 second edition. Though slapstick didn't dominate the rulebook proper, it became the support line's watchword. Troubleshooters run through a clone or two before the mission proper even starts, and may easily exhaust a six-clone family before it ends. Most fans love to play the game this way.

PARANOIA Zap is the frenzied cartoon style of the latter West End Games era. Your first clone probably dies during character generation, and the rest follow at maybe 90-second intervals. Silly names and pop-culture parodies predominate. Firefights erupt if a newbie player even asks, "What exactly is Bouncy Bubble Beverage?"

We aim to please and support the fans of all these styles. That said, I hope the Mongoose support line will take the Straight style as its default -- not because I think it's better, but strictly for pragmatic reasons. A GM interested in playing Classic or Zap can easily introduce slapstick elements to a Straight adventure. The reverse is much harder.

Those eager to earn The Computer's favor already check this blog regularly, of course. But have you also gathered with other loyal citizens like yourself at the exceptional Paranoia Live fan site? Many +5 Insightful contributors to our blog comments also congregate in Paranoia Live's extremely active, literate, and incontrovertibly loyal forums (or, for pedants, "fora").

In particular, the forum Discuss here. Or else features lots of splendidly twisted ideas that may well make it into the new edition of PARANOIA. Best of all, by posting to that forum, you automatically consent to let us rip off your idea without any financial compensation of any kind whatever. No fuss, no muss, it's just maximum convenience from your fellow fans at Paranoia Live! Go post today!