PARANOIA

In the new edition of PARANOIA appearing this August from Mongoose Publishing, Twitchtalk is a secret sign code, or set of codes, used by Alpha Complex secret societies. A range of gestures -- winks, smirks, nose scratches, ear and finger wiggles, irregular spasms, burps -- conveys simple messages: "We're being watched." "Corroborate the blatant lie I'm telling." "The person to my right is a mutant."

In nearly every secret society, certain factions or especially paranoid cells relentlessly promote Twitchtalk for discreet communication. This, despite the language's obvious problems:

• Conspicuousness: Every IntSec agent is trained to watch citizens for incriminating signals. The watcher may not know what the signals mean, but a lot of twitching is suspicious. Burp at the wrong time, and in moments you're looking straight at an IntSec 4,000-candlepower FriendFinder flashlight. And if you develop a rash from the dye in your barracks blanket, don't scratch. Just don't.


• Inconspicuousness:
  

  
  "Augh! Why did you shoot the guard, you idiot?"
  
  "You told me to. You scratched your left eyebrow and pointed to him. That's 'Shoot him.'"
  
  "I was distinctly telling you not to shoot him! I brushed my left heel against my right instep!"
  
  "You're standing behind a table. I can't see your feet."
  
  "Oh. Huh. Well, what should we do with the body?"
  



• Obsolescence: To keep ahead of infiltrators and rivals, societies must often update their particular set of gestures. If your copy of the memo goes astray, you're like Monty Python's Dutch guy in the tobacco shop with a vandalized phrasebook, saying "My hovercraft is full of eels." Possible repercussions are left as an exercise for the reader.
  

Twitchtalk was directly inspired by Frank Herbert's famous Dune series of science fiction novels. Their ever-subtle characters, who would fit in easily throughout Alpha Complex, carry on silent conversations for pages, using barely visible gestures. When you realize the syntactical richness of this gestural language, you're impressed anew with these far-future politicos. They maintain unflappable dignity throughout, whereas if I tried to sign something like "House Harkonnen is gaining support in the Landsraad for an invasion of Arrakis," I would be contorting spastically like Pee Wee Herman.

Check out these PARANOIA props created by Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick, proprietor and mastermind of Paranoia-Live.net. Jazzer has been so helpful in the development of the new PARANOIA edition (forthcoming in August from Mongoose Publishing) that I look forward to crediting him in the rulebook as "Coolest Clone in the Complex." Citizens, aspire to serve as Jazzer serves!

Launched April 1 (no fooling), the Paranoia Lexicon game has now reached Turn 7 (letters O-P). The game's great success pleases me beyond easy description. As many as 18 ULTRAVIOLET panelists are still hanging in there, compiling two brilliant entries per week and perpetual funny commentary on the mysterious and multifarious Toothpaste Disaster. (Thanks again to Neel Krishnaswami, who designed the Lexicon rules.)

This game is revealing a lot about High Programmer life. Unlike lowly RED Clearance Troubleshooters, these most-high administrators don't worry about their Loyalty Officer shooting them in the back. The danger they face is more abstract: overwhelming info-glut. Don't understand? Check the entry -- one single entry -- called GASES. There's dozens like that. And these guys are only half done!

To channel if not control this flood, several commendable players have created useful Wiki macros (they talked about "negative lookahead regex expressions," which is way above my clearance), as well as a terrific timeline of the disaster. This is a good starting point for newcomers. Then wander where you will. You might look into Acidophizz, bouillon, the COL gate incident, Denta-Bots, the sinister Easter Bunny Device (named for "the ancient holiday on which the dead would rise from their graves and give chocolates to the living"), foil, Glee Quotas, the Helmet of Education, the Incident Terminology Categorical Hierarchy, InfoGlyphs, a mysterious Jackobot Brain found in the waste land of COL Sector, KorDrill7, the Leaning Tower of Treason, and the tragic Poprox Massacre. Really, though, you can dip in anywhere and find wonderful stuff.

A roleplaying game about fussy intellectuals may sound a bit dowdy, but this is PARANOIA. The killing started in Turn I-J, when Knok-U-OUT-5 got "vaporized to seven decimal places," as the post mortem report put it, and his peevish clone brother Knok-U-OUT-6 took his place. Drake-U-LAH-1 went insane reading the Manifesto Out of Space and Time, leaving Drake-U-LAH-2 to soldier on. Brush-U-TTH-32, HPD&MC thought control officer with a relentlessly cheerful attitude that endeared him, if that's the way to put it, to the other ULTRAVIOLETs, vanished for several turns and was presumed terminated, but recently was temporarily succeeded by (follow the numbers closely) Brush-U-TTH-9.

Goriest yet is Omega-U-MAN. Omega-U-5 died at the hands, or edges, of the homicidal giant robotic dodecahedron called the Magic Hate Ball. The MHB also bumped off Err-U-DYT-9 and is currently busy in the clone tanks killing a whooole lot of Omega-U-MAN clones in (this is the cool part) consecutive numerical order.

I hope you'll look around. After the game ends in early May, I hope we can package the whole armature of macros, templates, timelines, bio pages, et al, and make it freely available to players who wish to start their own Lexicon games.

A post here last month described the new PARANOIA rules system called General Perversity Modifiers. This allows players, with the GM's permission and supervision, to spend points (formerly called "Scene points," now "Perversity points") to modify the target success number of their own or others' skill rolls.

In a reversal of the usual RPG mechanic, where circumstances impose modifiers, the PARANOIA Gamemaster takes the players' Perversity modifiers and retrofits circumstances to match. The GM invents these circumstances on the fly for each particular situation, with undoubtedly eager assistance from the players. In the PARANOIA rulebook, due this August from Mongoose Publishing, we'll offer a chart of sample circumstances for different modifier levels, intended as inspiration to help the GM establish an atmosphere characteristic of Alpha Complex.

The chart groups circumstances by the severity of the modifier they must account for: +1 and -1 (slight adustments to the situation), +5 and -5 (signal advantages and severe drawbacks), and +10 and -10 (drastic and dramatic turns of fortune). The GM can mix and match these to add up to the specific modifier. So if the players' aggregate Perversity spending amounted to -7, the GM might choose a -5 circumstance and two -1s, or even a -10 and three +1s.

In backing and filling to explain these numbers, the GM may create previously unknown aspects of the situation that players can then exploit, dispose of, or possibly die from.

Some sample entries (the full chart will offer more):

-1:
Attacker: Sneezes; slips on some Cold Fun or a chapstick tube; his phone rings (wrong number).
Teammates: Speak words of encouragement, making attacker suspicious.
Target: Coughs, pulling head out of line of fire; turns or kneels; changes direction.
Environment: Light fixture blinks distractingly; air conditioner switches on loudly; sirens blare nearby.

+1:
Attacker: Holds breath and sticks tongue in cheek; strikes intimidating pose.
Teammates: Fall pleasantly quiet due to scrutiny of each other.
Target: Coughs; gets whiff of noxious smell from nearby food vat, gags; urgently scratches itchy skin rash.
Environment: Ceiling spotlight suddenly shines on target.

-5:
Attacker: Disconcerting attack of deja vu; suddenly recalls a forgotten errand or appointment and hits own forehead in disgust, spoiling aim.
Teammates: Fool attacker into believing an enemy is behind him, so he whirls.
Target: Finds cover (behind a trashbot, in a confession booth,etc.).
Environment: Light gets in attacker's eyes; air conditioner blows food wrapper in attacker's face; public-address announcement causes everyone to listen nervously.

+5:
Attacker: Surfs dramatically forward on flat piece of rubble while firing.
Target: Target forced to exit cover (trashbot trundles away, confession booth emits tear gas, etc.).
Environment: Rogue autocar careens through line of fire; high-clearance citizen in athletic uniform jogs by, everyone in combat stops and acts nonchalant.

-10:
Attacker: If it has a bot brain, attacker's weapon takes this moment to state a long-standing complaint.
Teammates: Someone's weapon rattles unnervingly.
Target: NPC target manifests previously unrecognized mutant power.
Environment:Scrubot rolls by, randomly washes attacker; The Computer suddenly calls for a status report.

+10:
Attacker: Exhilarated with sudden surge of adrenaline, emits bone-curdling yell that paralyzes teammates and enemy.
Teammates: Someone's belt pouch breaks loose, buckle flies up, hits attacker's arm, knocks it into proper alignment for perfect shot.
Target: Something on body catches fire.
Environment: Wall pipe or nearby vending machine is hit by attack and explodes, showering target with blue goo.

You may note a dispiriting repetition in this table -- too many air conditioners and blinking light fixtures. Anyone care to offer new circumstances?

To maintain good order, The Computer has enlisted many loyal citizens. Those who serve with distinction are shining examples for all right-thinking people in Alpha Complex. In the ongoing ‘Heroes of Our Complex’ (HOOC) initiative The Computer periodically recognizes and honors meritorious individuals of all clearances. These lucky friends of The Computer see their smiling faces on evening vidshows, transtube loyalty posters and food containers.

For example, this month’s HOOC honoree reduced waiting time by 22.3% on a per-line basis in her PLC subsector warehouse routing office through the simple yet ingenious expedient of subdividing the single line for each security clearance into three separate alphabetical lines indexed by weekday and devising a schedule designating visiting days for each alphabetical segment of customers. For this HOOC-worthy innovation, congratulations to [NAME DELETED per IntSec corrective order following discovery of treasonous history].

Serve The Computer well, and you too may join [NAME DELETED]!

Now accepting individual candidates for future HOOC awards. In your comment, list the worthy citizen's name and accomplishment. Named citizens may receive honorable recognition in the forthcoming PARANOIA rulebook due this August, or in future supplements to be named.

Version 3.0 of the PARANOIA playtest rules has gone out to playtesters. Longtime paranoia, a valuable survival skill for game designers, reminds me dramatic rule changes are still possible. But I'm hoping the two character attributes in the current draft make it through to the final rulebook due from Mongoose Publishing this August. I'll tempt fate by discussing them here.

(This is Clearance ULTRAVIOLET. Players don't know their characters even have attributes, let alone their names and ratings. Only the Gamemaster knows all.)

Seven of the previous editions' eight Primary Attributes and all Secondary Attributes are gone. There are now only two attributes, Power and Access. Each is ranked from 1 (low) to 20 (high).

Power is the familiar Power Index of past editions. It indicates the strength of a character's mutant power. When a character wants to do something with his mutant power, the GM rolls 1d20. Rolling the Power rank or less means success; rolling above the rank is failure; rolling way over is a backfire. In the Straight and Classic play styles, using the mutant power may expend Power points, which replenish gradually. In Zap games the power is always full strength.

Optionally, the GM can also interpret a character's Power rating as a general Luck attribute. This idea won't suit every GM, because it means big-time mutants are for some mysterious reason luckier than ordinary shleps. Then again, why not? A guy who can melt metal at a touch can pretty much make his own luck, can’t he?

Access is new. It measures a character’s ability to navigate the intricate bureaucracy of Alpha Complex, and to pull strings to get favors from influential people. Access is different from security clearance, which measures The Computer’s trust in the character. Access is not trustworthiness, but streetwise efficiency. The higher a character’s Access, the more smoothly he can (for instance) get that disgrunted clerk behind the counter in PLC to have a broken showerhead repaired promptly.

In this way Access is better than security clearance. A high security clearance just moves the character to the front of the PLC line and lets him threaten the clerk -- but if the clerk doesn’t have the replacement showerhead, threats won’t help. The Access attribute lets the character realize he needs Plumbing Supply Requisition Form 2214-PLC-5632 rev. 12, in sextuplicate. Or Access can instead ensure that a friend in Free Enterprise lines up an INFRARED-market showerhead pronto.

Access is also a character’s "treason armor." Through backchannel connections and quiet influence, Access reduces the significance and danger of accusations of treason.

Treasonous offenses inflict steps of "treason damage" in the same way weapons inflict steps of physical damage. When someone successfully accuses a target character, subtract the target’s Access rating from the total damage steps of the charges he faces. If this reduces the value to zero, The Computer automatically drops the charges. If steps remain, the character suffers only the reduced treason damage.

The GM can also use a character’s Access as a default "get something done" skill when no actual skill applies.

Inspired by Call of Cthulhu's Sanity, and by the Weariness, Self-Loathing, and Love attributes in Paul Czege's My Life With Master, Access quantifies an abstract relationship between characters and setting. The design approach here refocuses somewhat away from measuring the character's ability to affect the physical world. Dexterity, Agility, and Mechanical Aptitude aren't what the game is about. The characters' different innate capacities do little to create atmosphere or aid the players' experience of Alpha Complex. It matters more whether one character knows better than another how to get a broken showerhead repaired.

I believe this design approach will make PARANOIA more like what it is.

In the new edition of PARANOIA due this August from Mongoose Publishing we'll describe diaboli-- innovative research breakthroughs that let Gamemasters mess deeply with their players' heads. They help the GM create a broader range of paranoiac moods, a central goal of the new edition. These devices are as optional as everything else in the game, and some GMs won't go near them. But for those who want it, this stuff can plunge players into Philip K. Dick reality shifts. Consider, for instance, MemGo.

The Computer's loyal biochemists have created a set of neuropeptide analogues that smoothly cross the blood-brain barrier. When ingested -- as, for instance, from the Alpha Complex water supply -- the first MemGo chemical, MemTag, binds to memory traces as they are laid down in the forebrain. The MemTag chemical transforms at a gradual, predictable rate over hours, days, and even years.

The remaining MemGo chemicals, MemWipe 1 through 1,044, are often laced in a DMSO base to permit application directly through the skin -- as, for instance, when a Troubleshooter touches a prepared piece of equipment or Mission Report Form. Each MemWipe targets and destroys a particular form of MemTag along with the associated memory traces. The citizen loses the memories formed at some particular chosen time. A skilled biochemist in R&D or the Tech Services clone tanks, or a well trained IntSec agent, can target and erase particular blocks of memories formed within the last several years, often to an accuracy of one hour. Men in Black? Pfft! MemWipe is a scalpel to their sledgehammer.

Experienced PARANOIA players can already imagine ways this system might go wrong. But the most chilling approach is to assume the MemGo system actually works as planned. Troubleshooters may arrive at a Commie-ridden sector to find the entire population blissfully unaware of any recent disaster.

Better yet (or worse, depending on whether you're a GM or player), the Troubleshooters themselves might visit a high-clearance destination for the first time -- apparently -- and meet people who already know them, see personal equipment they left on a previous visit, hear code phrases that trigger the faintest sense of deja vu...

For a long-running Straight miniseries (a PARANOIA campaign? Unthinkable!), gamemaster Ville Lahde established several behavior archetypes for The Computer that would shift by day and sector. Players started to learn hints from the tone of the GM’s voice and the way he, as the Computer, responded to their attempts to wriggle out of danger. In the PARANOIA playtest 3.0 rules going out within the next couple of days we present Ville's four archetypes:

Evil Headmaster: ‘Now, citizen, your instructions were to locate Communist traitors in the indicated Armed Forces base and terminate them. If the traitors happen to be more numerous than reports indicated, that simply requires you to tackle the problem with greater resourcefulness. Do you wish to complain about the resources provided to you? Complaints are a sign of unhappiness.’

Overbearing Mother: ‘I certainly understand your apprehension about the number of Commies in that stronghold. Yes. A citizen who lacks decent equipment, adequate strategy and—what was the third? ah, yes—courage would certainly have every right to be apprehensive, as you are. It makes me sad to think of you quivering in fear, waiting and waiting for proper combat support or at least a few extra laser barrels, and did they arrive? No! No, they did not arrive, and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s all The Computer’s fault! Wouldn’t you agree with that, citizen?’

Enthusiastic Commissar: ‘Citizen, your perceptive identification of a greater number of Communists than previously suspected indicates the success of the current "Flush Out Treason" initiative. The hunted traitors have banded together for a last stand before our imminent, convincing and well deserved victory! Go forth, Troubleshooters, go forth with The Computer’s confidence and trust, and inflict on these traitors the justice they deserve!’

Spanish Inquisitor: ‘So, you’re saying there are more Communists than intelligence reports indicated? Which report? Who was responsible for that report? Do you think that citizen, who (I’ll remind you) has a higher security clearance than yourself, should be punished? No? You say Communists must have sabotaged his report? Let me direct you to Footnote 132 in Appendix B of this report, which clearly states, “all figures subject to change pending further intelligence.” Would it perhaps be accurate to say you yourselves overlooked this footnote? Yes? I see. Perhaps there are more kinds of “sabotage” than we normally acknowledge, such as dangerous self-sabotage through omission of proper preparation. Wouldn’t you agree, citizen? Hmm?’

If you've played or encountered other Computer personalities, we'd love to hear about them.

"Report to the termination center." Few sentences are more canonically PARANOIA. The source of the game's darkly humorous fear is the utterly binary Alpha Complex judicial system: Every serious crime receives the death penalty. Sure, you can die six times, but still.

The new edition of PARANOIA due this August from Mongoose Publishing spotlights three play styles: Classic, Zap, and Straight. For Zap games, termination justly remains the standard penalty. But in Straight games, GMs may well want to keep the Troubleshooters alive a while to build tension. Classic games could go either way as the GM prefers.

Are there good alternatives to termination that still keep the PARANOIA atmosphere? Here's what we'll be suggesting for Straight games, in ascending order of severity:

Probation: In addition to imposing fines for minor infractions, Internal Security turns rules violators into volunteers who test R&D's many proposed Malfeasance Control Devices ("McDs"). For instance, a Troubleshooter on probation may be accompanied everywhere by his Reminder Friend, a stern little McD bot who points out opportunities to commit treason and cautions against them.

Censure: To dramatize the way insubordination truly pits the erring citizen against all his fellow citizens, yes indeed!, HPD&MC coordinates unified public displays of scorn or corrective finger-wagging. A letter code on the censured citizen's chest designates his offense, and all other citizens who meet him are required to consult their current Censural Behavior Schedule and shun, lecture, sneer at, or kick the censuree as specified.

Medication: Huh? What? I did something wrong? M'head hurts. Ooh, colors. Hey buddy, you're glowing the wrong color for your clearance. I gotta shoot you, okay?

Brainscrub: IntSec sends offenders too obnoxious or persistent to be medicated to the nearest Bright Vision Re-Education Center. There specially programmed docbots treat the offender's forebrain to a relaxing bath in a variety of neurotransmitters. The former criminal emerges fresh, optimistic, and full of inspiring loyalty to The Computer. Rare instances of delusional or hallucinatory behavior, including so-called imaginary playmates, are now being corrected.

Termination & Repatterning: Colloquially called "twiddling," this recycles an existing traitor and transfers his MemoMax brainmap into a newly grown clone body -- with a few alterations. To correct the thought patterns that gave rise to the original treason, The Computer's skilled technicians remap synapses in brain areas known to promote criminality. Happily in over 22.4% of cases there are absolutely no side effects, aside from trivial losses of skills, memory, and motor control.

Erasure: The judicial equivalent of Vaporized. The Computer eradicates your Tech Services clone template, prohibiting further revivals. If you happen to still be alive, The Computer also declares you a fugitive criminal. It would take fancy strategy and high-clearance connections to pull yourself out of that bind.

---

On another note, Eric Reuss has offered a Paranoia mascot of sorts. Suggestions for a name?

When you're tired of telling a Troubleshooter "That information is not available at your security clearance," roll a d20 and consult this handy list of alternate excuses provided on Paranoia-Live.net by one Nose-R-TNR.

1: The requested information is above the inquirer's clearance.
2: The information is unavailable due to Commie sabotage.
3: The information is unavailable due to an unknown mutant force.
4: If the inquirer files the appropriate request form, it will be processed in 6-8 daycycles.
5: The form to request that information is currently being revised.
6: The inquirer was already briefed on that. If he wasn't paying attention, it's his own fault.
7: Only a traitor would have a use for that information. Is the inquirer a traitor?
8: Give information as a printout, entirely blacked out except for a few pronouns and articles.
9: Give information as an encoded printout. If inquirer asks for the code, roll again.
10: If the NPC being asked is below Clearance ULTRAVIOLET, the information is above the NPC's clearance. If a High Programmer or The Computer, roll again.
11: An honest I-don't-know. If inquirer is asking The Computer, roll again.
12: Give obviously wrong information. 'Repeat' it a second time, completely differently and still obviously wrong.
13: Imply the question is a sign of unhappiness.
14: The NPC pretends not to hear the question.
15: That information is on a need-to-know basis and is not yet required.
16: Information is available in a purchasable but prohibitively expensive publication.
17: If the NPC told the inquirer, the NPC would have to kill him. If the inquirer insists, do it and dock him a Merit point. The next clone doesn't remember the answer, so you don't need to actually tell anyone.
18: Refer inquirer to a non-existent room number for that and related information.
19: Refer inquirer to a real room way above their clearance.
20: Roll twice and vacillate between the two responses.

Space permitting, we hope to include this table in the upcoming edition of PARANOIA due from Mongoose Publishing this August. We'd like to include other useful or inspirational tables of this type, in the tradition of the old Random Pipe Contents and Random Passerby tables. What do you want to see?

We are mulling over ideas for the cover of the upcoming edition of PARANOIA due this August from Mongoose Publishing. Before you say anything: No, we don't have rights to the covers of earlier editions. Sorry.

Ideally the cover should show some uniquely Alpha Complex situation. The second-edition cover, though sillier in tone than befits the new edition, nicely conjured key elements of the setting: the future time-frame, the comedic tone, the all-seeing Computer eye, and the sense of many enemies, even among your supposed allies. A standard firefight action scene wouldn't get that across.

The first-edition triptych of covers strikes a more serious tone that I think is a little closer to, but not entirely on, the mark. These Jim Holloway works miss the vital "darkly humorous" angle, but I love the sense of everybody observing everybody else.

Suggestions?

(For reference, here's an odd online collection of bootleg cover scans.)