PARANOIA

Cedric Chin has posted a spoiler-filled (ULTRAVIOLET Clearance) review of the new PARANOIA mission collection Crash Priority on RPG.net (Style: 4; Substance: 4).

This is an opportune time to plug Patched Up, Paul Baldowski's list (posted on his fine Omega Complex fan site) of bits I heartlessly cut from his Crash Priority mission "Patch Job."

A contractor who prefers to remain anonymous wrote to me:

"My employer handles military contracts, and I occasionally work on them. Earlier this month I spent some time at [DELETED] Air Force Base in [CLASSIFIED LOCATION]. Work there required a security clearance of SECRET or better, or a waiver for the same.

"I have a SECRET clearance, and so got a yellow badge. My co-worker lacked any clearance, and so got a red badge. This meant I had to escort him everywhere he went in the building -- including the bathroom. Getting there required swiping the badge and keying in one's social security number, but enough about the various frustrations there.

"I looked at our badge colors and thought of PARANOIA. My co-worker had less access and a red badge. I had more access and a yellow badge. This made me laugh. I laughed even harder when I looked down at my black tool box and the blue jacket draped over it. My life now had every element of The YELLOW Clearance Black Box Blues (except for the giant cockroaches)."

Pedants might observe that giant radioactive mutant cockroaches appear not in YCBBB (which will reappear soon in the forthcoming PARANOIA Flashbacks), but in the PARANOIA 2nd edition introductory mission "Into the Outdoors With Gun and Camera." But leaving such punctilio aside -- what other color-code schemes in the real world have reminded you of Alpha Complex?

Want to see what an all-PARANOIA convention looks like? Citizen Standback has posted a gallery of photos from Mandatory Con 13a held in Israel last month (previously mentioned on this blog). (Caution: The site is slow.) Notice in particular the many loyal INFRARED citizens, High Programmers at work (also aiding a Troubleshooter and apprehending this Communist traitor), and, just in time for the holidays, this multi-clearance menorah. Despite many touching demonstrations of brotherhood, it appears some congoers fell prey to treason and met the fate of all traitors. But let us hope for citizens of improved loyalty next year.

Commendations to Standback and all those involved!

I trust all citizens enjoyed a merry Mandatory Consumption Day. I spent it working on PARANOIA Flashbacks, which must constitute merriment by some standard. The only interruption occurred in the early morning hours when some obese RED-Clearance traitor tried to infiltrate my quarters via the chimney. I tasered him, and now he's spilling his ample guts in a windowless IntSec interrogation chamber. The hirsute thief carried a bag of loot, including the items described in these C-Bay entries from the "Great gifts" section of the forthcoming equipment book Paranoid STUFF:

Stress-B-Gon Squeeze Ball

Category: Category: Gifts / Office Toys / Stress Relief

Feeling a little stressed on the job? Having trouble maintaining required levels of relaxation and happiness at home, or in the office? Try one of our patented Stress-B-Gon Squeeze Balls! When you feel stress begin to build, just give it a squeeze, and keep on squeezing until you feel the stress melt away. Remember, stress in the workplace leads to inefficiency, and inefficiency is treason, so protect yourself and those you work with, and order today! Also makes a great gift! Available in black, red and orange. Please specify color with order.

((GAME STAT BOX: The Stress-B-Gon Squeeze Ball is a fist-sized sphere of soft rubber foam. It is remarkably effective at relieving stress when squeezed repeatedly. This is due to the tiny doses of trepafocutine the ball administers when squeezed. In small doses, trepafocutine is an excellent, if mildly addicting, anti-anxiety agent, giving the user a +1 bonus to all Action skills for the scene in which the squeeze ball is used. In larger doses, it causes seizures, paralysis, and spastic colon. The Stress-B-Gon Squeeze Ball holds a small processor that tracks the number of times per day it is squeezed. If the processor decides that the owner of the Squeeze Ball is suffering from an unusual amount of stress, it automatically schedules him for additional medication, psychotherapy, and treatment. STRAIGHT, CLASSIC))

Customers who bought Stress-B-Gon Squeeze Ball also bought:
SerenityNow! 24-caplet blister pack; Relaxing Vat Sounds audio file; Watching Algae Grow screen saver

[Ben Engelsberg]

Component 305

Category: Jewelry / Pendants

((PICTURE: An elaborate, inscrutable, and strangely attractive widget that’s clearly part of some larger machine.))

Take this opportunity to get hold of the trendiest jewelry in all of Alpha Complex! Manufactured in limited quantities by Industrial Jewelers LLC. Component 305 has been lovingly machine-crafted from only the finest materials: copper, iridium, aluminum, osmium, gallium, tantalum, beryllium, uranium, stainless steel, steatite, diorite, dolomite, polycarbonate and synthetic diamond! I can assure you you’ll find nothing more fashionable anywhere in Alpha Complex. Still vacuum-sealed in its original packaging, and bubble-wrapped for extra protection. Includes a 24-inch sterling silver rope chain. Don’t miss out. Buy it today!

((GAME STAT BOX: Clearance RED. 800cr. Once upon a time, PURGE decided to build tacnukes. Lots and lots of tacnukes. But one key component turned out to be impossible for them to fabricate, and they needed more than they could conveniently steal. But they found a solution! With a little massaging of an HPD&MC focus group, they made that key tacnuke component into the most stylish fashion accessory in Alpha Complex.

((Openly wearing Component 305 draws admiring crowds eager to ogle or fondle it. But once enough tacnukes go off, IntSec will suss out the scam, at which point the unfortunate owners of Component 305 possess illegal merchandise classified as dual-use for the manufacture of terrorist WMDs. STRAIGHT, CLASSIC, ZAP?))

Comment on this item:
What’s so amazing about this thing? It looks like something from inside a plasma generator. - crashzero
Oh, I want one. It’s so magnificent... so beautiful... so precious. – Bill-O

Customers who bought Component 305 also bought:
Anodized Aluminum Tubing

[Eric Minton]

Paranoid STUFF includes well over 150 items, almost all far more useful than these "Great gifts."

So what great gifts did The Computer or its servants generously provide you for Mandatory Consumption Day?

The 1985 West End PARANOIA adventure Send in the Clones begins when The Computer dispatches the Troubleshooter players to track the source of treasonous songs being sung over the Alpha Complex PA system: "I'm an Alpha Complex Dandy," "Top Hat, White Tie & Laser," "Kelp!" The mission reproduces lyrics for these recognizable pop tunes in an accompanying "Alpha Complex Songbook." For the updated version appearing this February in Mongoose Publishing's 256-page hardcover PARANOIA Flashbacks compilation, I've asked around for new lyrics to add to the songbook. The redoubtable Zeke Fraser (Fargmania on Paranoia-Live.net) provided this delightful adaptation of an Old Reckoning rock classic:

PLC Stock Anthem

[Percussive beat: stomp-stomp-clap]
Buddy, you're a JC, quietly
Playin' in the hall, gonna shoot some trouble some day
But you smashed up a bot!
You're gonna get caught!
PLC will insure that you're not!
(Singin'--)

We will, we will stock you!
We will, we will stock you!

Buddy, you're a RED clone, all alone,
Workin in the vats, gonna make a big noise some day
You got crud on your shirt!
Treason Alert!
PLC helps you keep it covert!

We will, we will stock you!
(Sing it!)
We will, we will stock you!

Buddy, you're a UV, groovily
Runnin' the place, gonna make 'em all pay someday
But you made one mistake --
Ain't nothing to take
When PLC just won't give you a break.
Because --

We will, we will stock you!
(Sing it!)
We will, we will stock you!
(Everybody!)
We will, we will stock you!
We will, we will stock you!
(All right--)


If you have lyrics to add to the Songbook, post them in the comments. If I use them, neither I nor Mongoose will pay you anything nor give you a free copy of anything, but if you post your full name, I'll credit you on the Send in the Clones title page.

Mongoose Publishing has posted a free downloadable .PDF of the cover to the forthcoming PARANOIA XP rules supplement The Mutant Experience by R. Eric Reuss. This isn't quite the final version you'll see on store shelves in January; I mistakenly included Hypersenses in the list of new mutant powers, but Mongoose's Ian Belcher caught the error before sending off the cover.

I screwed up the Web site's promotional copy too: The Mutant Experience is all ULTRAVIOLET Clearance (Gamemasters only), not RED. (Players, betray no knowledge of the contents.) Really, it's remarkable they keep me around nowadays.

You'll need the free Adobe Reader software to view the cover .PDF.

Together with my wife, Beth Fischi, I'm hard at work trying to pull together PARANOIA Flashbacks, the 256-page hardcover compilation of classic 1980s West End PARANOIA adventures updated to the new XP edition. One of them is Send in the Clones, which I wrote in 1985 with Warren Spector (who was at the time my boss at Steve Jackson Games and later became a famous producer of computer games, notably Deus Ex). I'm reveling in the opportunity to restore the text as I originally wrote it, before West End PARANOIA line editor Ken Rolston and later hands had their way with it. Though I respect and admire Ken greatly, this pleasure nonetheless resembles that of dancing on an old enemy's grave.

I have a question for those familiar with Send in the Clones. You may recall a sequence near the end that has the Troubleshooters battling with Vulture Squadron guys on an Alpha Complex game show called Date With Death. The arena is a reconstructed version of an Old Reckoning laundromat; for some reason Warren and I thought that would be funny. Ken Rolston took our original, somewhat vague text description of the battle and vastly expanded it into a literal boardgame, with counters and over a page of rules. Remember?

Did anybody anywhere play this game? Did you enjoy it? Do you think I should retain it for Flashbacks? I'm going back and forth, and would appreciate opinions.

The British government's Central Office of Information commissioned several civil defense books and Public Information Films (PIFs) from 1975 to 1980 in a program called Protect and Survive. Two of these films, Casualties (1975) and Action After Warnings (1976), produced by Richard Taylor Cartoons, made striking impressions on the British viewing public with their fatalistic pragmatism: "If a death occurs while you are confined to the fallout room, place the body in another room and cover it as securely as possible. Attach an identification." (The bombs are gonna drop, so here's how to dispose of your irradiated parents.)

I understand these films are currently available on DVD in the UK, and you can get RealAudio recordings and transcripts on the Web. Seems these would make good mood-setting preludes to a Straight PARANOIA play session. Any other suggestions along these lines?

A highly entertaining RPG.net forum thread, "Describe your favorite game setting as a bad movie trailer," prompted one DagobahDave to offer a preview of a PARANOIA movie that unfortunately will never be. Another user, WhollyRandom, responded, "You realise that you've just made Michael Caine the voice of The Computer in all future games of PARANOIA I may ever run?"

Who do you think would provide The Computer's perfect voice?

"Name the one treason you are most likely to commit and why? Also, why haven't you reported this proclivity before now? Be honest.

"Should learning about new types of treason make you happy or sad? Explain.

"What service organization is the least useful? Why?

"Name three ways to improve Alpha Complex that you think The Computer is NOT aware of."

These kinds of funny no-win questions ornament every PARANOIA form and test as far back as the original 1987 Mandatory Bonus Duties. Steve Gilbert, celebrated co-designer (with Peter Corless) of the classic 1986 adventure "Me and My Shadow Mark IV" from Acute PARANOIA, wrote these four specific test questions as part of a lengthy article about jobhunting in Alpha Complex, tentatively titled "What Color is Your Security Badge?" Steve's article may see print in the big August 2005 rules supplement Extreme PARANOIA, which features rules for playing characters at all security clearances through VIOLET.

In his article Steve describes The Computer's Happy Fun Citizen Placement Center and its many job aptitude tests. These tests are rife with landmines like the questions above. In one test, Prompter Bot Model M.A.X. 843 has the Troubleshooters play Simon Says: "The Computer says: 'Hit Job Acceptance Bot #275 with a chair'. What's that? Oh, he's that big dumb-looking bot over there. Also, right before you hit him, The Computer says, 'Yell: 'Hey, scrubot wannabe, the next time you pick on Max, you and I are gonna tango.'"

There's lots more like that, much of it excellent. Steve Gilbert still gets PARANOIA and still remains funny across the decades. But the preponderance of hose-jobs in a job placement center bothered me. In discussing my concerns with Steve, I realized I'd always unconsciously assumed The Computer approves all forms and tests. Things don't necessarily have to work that way; I just assumed The Computer micromanages everything.

Operating on that unexamined principle, I unjustly took Steve to task for what I presumed was an actively malign Computer. I wrote him, "I'm trying hard in the new XP line to move away from the latter West End attitude that The Computer was actively trying to screw you over -- that it would lay inescapable traps and use devious tricks to force you to incriminate yourself. I want to return to the early view that The Computer genuinely means well. Though its bureaucratic agents may have individual reasons to screw you over, The Computer wants you to succeed; it wants you to be happy; it's not actively trying to trap you. The trouble is, it's totally nuts."

Steve sensibly responded, "I agree with you completely. The Computer is not out to get anyone, and it really wants what is best. Unfortunately, all citizens know revealing treason is the quickest route to earn The Computer's favor. Less scrupulous (i.e., most) citizens/organizations capitalize on this emergent phenomenon by playing the 'treason' card. All overt attempts to root out treason in my piece are human or organizational-based, strictly for the purpose of present (or past) career advancement. At no point does The Computer ever try to trip up or trap the players. I can add a line or two to place the blame more clearly on HPD & Mind Control. It is their excessive enthusiasm that makes HFCPC such a tricky place to navigate."

All quite reasonable. Yet somehow I still want to think The Computer really does approve every single question on every single form -- that not a sparrow violates Alpha Complex airspace but that The Computer knows it. By that light, The Computer might arguably discern that the many traps laid by HPD&MC bureaucrats in fact produce unhappiness, and would order them corrected. But I don't know how strongly I want to defend that view.

People love the no-win questions on Ken Rolston's original forms. On the other hand, to expand the game's range to encompass a slightly more plausible Straight tone (using "plausible" loosely, you understand), we might like to avoid making these deathtraps so pervasive.

What do you think plays best?

(Oh, by the way -- welcome back, Steve Gilbert!)

Alon Elkin (El-R-KIN on Paranoia-Live.net) posts this too-brief report about the all-PARANOIA convention mentioned here in October:

"Citizen Standback's Israeli PARANOIA con, the Mandatory Con 13a, finally took place yesterday. The atmosphere was cheerfully fatal, the decorations -- including large reproductions of Holloway's paintings and a couple of termination booths -- were superb, and clones died by the hundreds.

"I ran [...] a tabletop version of Two Too Many Troubleshooting Teams, the two-team game Mike and I GMed at the Paranoiathon. It needed some tweaking, but turned out to be a success, especially the chase scene, which included taking the teams into the hallway and recruiting random bypassers to act as Miranda and Persilia (formerly Excalibur-1 and Excalibur-2), the cocky cyclebots. The crash scene, narrated by the two GMs simultaneously, was entirely chaotic. And oh, the sweet look of surprise on their faces when the climax was introduced… it was a true display of PARANOIA, which should be run again sometime in the future, preferably with more functional Walkie-Talkies."

Thanks, Alon! Let us hope other loyal citizens debrief us further on this impressive mayhem. And photos, we want photos!

There once was a dirty red Commie,
Who thought worker's rule would be bonny.
He died from gunshot,
Believe it or not,
At the hand of a Vulture called Ronnie.

Similar inspiring flights of oratory on Paranoia-Live.net.

Morbus Iff, who hosts the interesting and long-running Gamegrene Web site, also runs an ongoing online game using Neel Krishnaswami's Lexicon rules. Morbus maintains an interesting and apparently comprehensive list of completed and ongoing Lexicon games, which of course includes The Toothpaste Disaster PARANOIA Lexicon game I ran earlier this year.

The compiled statistics will give the hard-pressed Toothpaste Disaster High Programmers yet more reason to curse my name and memory: Their game turns out to be by far the largest Lexicon game yet undertaken, at least in the total number of entries. And they had to keep up with all this twice a week! Even now they shudder in recollection.

What's that? When am I running another PARANOIA Lexicon online game? That information is not currently available, citizen. To change the subject entirely, you may wish to follow Thomas B's historical Noteworthy game Le Secret du Roi, now in progress.

In March 2002 Flash animator Andrew Babb released this Flash-animated cartoon based on Jolly Blackburn's hilarious Knights of the Dinner Table comic book/strip/property (which, by the way, is about to reach issue #100!). This episode concerns the game "TreasonHackers," and yet I didn't hear about it for TWO and THREE-QUARTERS YEARS! Sheesh. I need to organize a better intelligence network. (Babb's site has been dormant for years, but you can still check out all past episodes.)

Among many new updates on the Mongoose Publishing Web site are two new .PDF downloads for PARANOIA XP.

The first file, "Mandatory Bonus Duty Handouts," includes the test and badges from the main rulebook. The second file, cleverly titled "Handouts" for maximum ambiguity, includes corrected versions of the misprinted sidebars from The Traitor's Manual. It's called "Handouts" because it also includes handouts for that supplement's full-length mission "Down and Out in Alpha Complex," such as the all-important Change of Toilet Permit.

You'll need the free Adobe Reader program to read these .PDF files.

Late last week I finished layout of R. Eric Reuss's The Mutant Experience, the big rules supplement of all things mutational in PARANOIA XP. I was late. A little. Okay, two weeks. However, all still looks promising that you'll see The Mutant Experience on game store shelves this January, as scheduled. And such is its plenitude, its plethora of good material that the book is now 72 pages, up from the announced page count of 64. It's great having a publisher that can blithely add pages at the last minute without great concern, a freedom unprecedented in my experience.

Because of the expanded page count, I had to cut very little from Eric's manuscript. We lost a couple of forms, but I hope Mongoose will make these available for free download from its Web site. As for the rest, I now reproduce for you the one-and-only text section cut for length, a single mission idea from the "Fun Things to Do to Players" chapter:

Registered mutant elimination derby: It's not cheap to produce, but this vidshow draws immense ratings -- and, more important, indoctrinates the general populace with the notion that mutants are violent, dangerous, untrustworthy scum. The concept is simple: Two (or more) teams of registered mutants are assembled through bribes, official orders, coercion, drugs or whatever else it takes. They're released into an isolated but well-filmed subsector to fight it out however they want; the surviving team splits a cash bonus and some shiny but useless prizes. Footage from this event is heavily edited to reinforce societally appropriate themes and is never, ever broadcast live.

It's not well-known among the audience that there's strong incentive for team members to betray each other -- not only does backstabbing result in fewer survivors among whom to split the prize, but all contestants are given an 'action bonus' based on how many kills they make, allied or not. Even less well-known is that most registered mutants who appear on the show have ulterior motives -- the subsectors used for filming have generally been sealed off due to industrial accident, sabotage or environmental hazard, leaving valuable property and useful information still inside. All survivors are thoroughly searched, of course, but those with secret society contacts usually have ways of making sure their finds aren't confiscated.

You can run this two different ways: either the team is actually all registered mutants who are there to compete -- or the registered mutants are running short and Troubleshooters have been called in as extras. (Whether or not they then must pretend to be registered mutants is up to you.)

A loyal citizen, posting on the Mongoose Publishing PARANOIA forum as "ttsgosadow," has kindly posted a cool online computerized version of the solo tutorial pick-a-path mission presented in the Player's Section of the XP rulebook. That solo originally appeared in the first edition of PARANOIA (1984) and the second edition (1987) as well. Commendation point, ttsgosadow! Update Dec. 4: The link now brings up "Object not found." TTS Gosadow's commendation point has been suspended pending review by CPU's Committee for Review of Commendations Absent Prior Authorization (CROCAPA). Dec. 6: TTS Gosadow succeeded in his Programming roll and has restored the solo mission.