PARANOIA

The Traitor Recycling Studio's Eric Minton, principal writer of the upcoming STUFF equipment book, has commandeered a portion of Paranoia-Live.net's electrons to post this request for playtesters:

"As I'm sure you all know, the upcoming Extreme PARANOIA supplement will contain rules for several all-new, incredibly brilliant non-Troubleshooter careers in Alpha Complex. As Famous Game Designers, we've come up with some exciting new rules systems for these careers. In fact, they're so exciting that we don't even know if they work.

"That's where you come in. If you have a local tabletop PARANOIA group that's interested in playtesting, or if you live in the New York City area, please contact me by private message for information on how to participate in a playtest. You'll get to see some of these exciting new rules in advance, and you may even get your name in teeny-tiny print somewhere on page XX!"

If you aren't registered on Paranoia-Live.net and therefore can't send Eric (aka Jan-U-ARY-31, the lovable brain-in-a-jar) a private message, take a treason point and write to me instead at APVarney (at) AOL (dot) com. I'll forward your message to Eric.

George Orwell's 1984, among the chief inspirations for PARANOIA, is one extended insight into totalitarian government. We could mine the book for a hundred roleplaying supplements, if only it were -- you know -- funny.

Among many aspects of Orwell's Oceania that we haven't translated to Alpha Complex, one interesting omission is a personalized enemy of the state. The Party in Orwell's novel conditions all citizens to hate a rebel named Emmanuel Goldstein, supposedly the leader of a revolt against Big Brother. Even PARANOIA fans who haven't read the book can deduce this mild spoiler: The state maintains Goldstein as an icon, an idea, for its own ruthless purposes. An Inner Party official tells Winston Smith near the end of the book:

"The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant; the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live forever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon -- and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again, generation after generation...."

I wonder why we haven't established a similar personalized enemy in PARANOIA? Orwell chose "Goldstein" to point up the Party's anti-Semitism, which is obviously a non-starter for us. But some kind of person, an actual face, makes sense in the setting and would probably play well.

You could argue that individual characters dilute the setting's essential pure facelessness. But I think it's probably a missed bet that we've given Alpha Complex so few recognizable individuals. The ardor with which the early PARANOIA fan base latched onto the only named character in the first-edition setting, Teela O'Malley, shows there was a need, or at least a craving, for individual referents. I added a couple more characters in the XP edition, like the newscaster Friendly Frank-U, but not many fans seem to have taken to them yet. Maybe once they show up in a couple of missions?

What enemies, if any, do you think The Computer would set up? A chief Commie? An arch-mutant? A crimelord? I welcome names and play notes.

Dated April 26, an Associated Press story by Doug Gross, via ABC News: "Students Rewarded for Tattling at School: Across the Nation, Students Getting Cash or Prizes for Informing on Classmates":

"For a growing number of students, the easiest way to make a couple of hundred dollars has nothing to do with chores or after-school jobs, and everything to do with informing on classmates.

"Tragedies like last month's deadly shooting at a Red Lake, Minn., school have prompted more schools to offer cash and other prizes including pizza and premium parking spots to students who report classmates who carry guns, drugs or alcohol, commit vandalism or otherwise break school rules.

"'For kids of that age, it's hard for them to tell on their peers. This gives them an opportunity to step up if they know something that will help us make an arrest,' said James Kinchen, an assistant school superintendent in Houston County, Ga., which earlier this month started offering rewards of up to $100 for reporting relatively minor crimes like vandalism or theft and $500 for information about a crime, or plans for a crime, involving a gun.

"Critics call them 'snitch' programs, saying they are a knee-jerk reaction to student violence. Some education professionals fear such policies could create a climate of distrust in schools and turn students against each other. [...]

"About 2,000 schools and colleges, from Honolulu to Palm Beach County, Fla., have adopted Student Crime Stoppers programs like Houston County, according to the nonprofit Crime Stoppers U.S.A., which began helping schools set up such programs in 1983.

"Most schools offer an anonymous phone line or a school drop box for tips. Rewards range from cash to gift certificates to free parking passes.

"Elsewhere in Georgia, Model High School in Rome uses the proceeds from its candy and soda sales to pay students up to $100 for tips about drugs or weapons on campus or other crimes."

Certain parties have asked me to mention, loudly, that the forums on the leading PARANOIA fan site, Paranoia-Live.net, are not, in fact, newly infested with secret societies -- that registered users cannot, despite rumors, go to their User Profile (top right on each page) and select a secret society -- that the leader of your secret society (who obviously doesn't exist, if you've been paying attention) cannot promote you through the ranks for rendering valuable service to said fictitious society -- that nothing whatever is planned by way of introducing goals and rewards for these un-existing traitors to fight over -- in short, that everything is absolutely as control always under. You for thank cooperation your.

Stick with me here, I promise I'm not off my medication: In the capital city of an Arabian Nights fantasy setting, all the players are junior wives of the all-powerful but quite deranged Sultan. Confined to their palace harem with hundreds of other wives, ruled by officious eunuchs, the player-wives intrigue for the Sultan's favor, in hopes of rising to the coveted First Wife position. They belong to separate, bitterly competitive factions within the harem, and have various illicit contacts on the outside. The Sultan has outlawed magic, so each player-wife must carefully conceal her knowledge of one or more dangerous magical spells.

Now, an ambitious young satrap (ruler of another city) has announced his wedding to a desert princess. Kingdom custom permits the Sultan to send certain of his wives to visit the satrap's palace to instruct the bride-to-be in proper bearing and conduct. He chooses the player-wives, but secretly gives each of them a dangerous magical weapon and a mission: Whoever manages to assassinate the satrap, without implicating the Sultan, will become First Wife. Off go the wives in a camel caravan, with eunuch guards and attendants, some of whom are known spies for the First Wife or various evil viziers.

Admit it, you can see it working. No, come on, admit it!

All right, maybe I did forget to take my medication today....

This week Webcomic artist Scott Kurtz (PvP Online) visited Mayhem Comics in Ames, Iowa. Scott posted a panoramic photo of fans at his signing, oblivious that this "fanarama" included Famous PARANOIA Game Designer Jeff Groves. A PARANOIA devotee since second edition, and currently a Computer Science major at Iowa State, Jeff wrote "Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk" in Crash Priority and "Pre-PARANOIA," a new bonus introductory mission included in the imminent PARANOIA Flashbacks; he's also got a great Straight mission in June's collection, WMD.

I've never met or seen Jeff, but I picked him out of this lineup instantly. This appalled, mortified, scared Jeff. It was fun! By way of further mortification (hi Jeff!), feel free to post your own guesses about which fan in the photo is Jeff; list your reasons for extra credit.

After a recent putsch on Paranoia-Live.net that temporarily ousted High Programmers Jazzer, Takyn-U-RUN, and Fargmania -- but it was all just a loyalty exercise! Phew! -- some young citizens on the forums seem to have grown restive and bumptious. They have turned many forum topics into hotbeds of in-character (and off-topic) treason accusations. This unwelcome behavior, though characteristic of Alpha Complex, is for sanity's sake best confined to the ever-growing (1300 posts!) "Accuse Prior Clone of Treason" playground.

How to correct the pathology? Following an inspired suggestion by newly promoted High Programmer saulres, Takyn-U has instituted a lovely fix. Atop each post there is now a new button: "Accuse!" Jazzer explains:

This new feature allows you (in-character) to report acts of treason while leaving the original thread intact and on-topic. Once pressed, the Accuse button will act like the normal Quote button but will post within the brand-new standalone 'Accuse Someone in Another Thread of Treason' thread situated in the Rec Hall.

Rejoice! Rejoice in the inevitable drop in off-topic accusation-of-treason treason!

A beautiful idea, saulres and Takyn-U. I can think of other online forums, not to mention a lot of places in real life, where I could use an Accuse button. Suggestions?

I've been browsing Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), obviously a seminal influence on PARANOIA. (Somaweb.org, a great site, hosts the complete text and many essays). In Huxley's future world, if you screw up, the government sends you as punishment to Iceland. Leaving aside the unjust slander of a fine nation, I ask: Is there anything equivalent we can adapt to Alpha Complex?

The Computer clearly doesn't believe in exile or imprisonment; traitors must be either assimilated or terminated. Sending them Outdoors would only let them join with The Computer's omnipresent enemies. Exile within the complex itself makes no sense... or does it?

Could the game benefit from some kind of funny location that serves as a recognized non-fatal punishment? A threat of relocation that any given IntSec officer could casually drop? For decades we've had "reactor shielding duty" (which Andy Fitzpatrick finally pulled onstage in Crash Priority); could there be a less-final equivalent? Someplace obviously inimical, yet viewed as not conducive to further treason -- a place where you'd be expected to learn the error of your ways and eventually return as a better citizen? Someplace interesting that could be detailed in some hypthetical future supplement?

Suggestions welcome.

For a scene in the forthcoming Straight mission collection WMD I'd like to include a tongue twister characteristic of Alpha Complex -- that is, using recognizable PARANOIA-related words. The tongue twister would be a passphrase. Ideally it should be a complete, longish sentence, so that individual player characters can each know a part of the longer phrase. Ideas?

If I use your tongue twister in WMD, Mongoose won't pay you anything or give you a free copy of anything, but if you post your real name with the phrase, I'll credit you in WMD.

Many citizens in the fast-growing population of Paranoia-Live.net have played the PARANOIA roleplaying game only through the freeware Java-based online client software JParanoia. They feel intimidated at the prospect of running an actual tabletop face-to-face pencil-and-note-passing PARANOIA session. Courage, Gamemasters! A forum thread offers useful advice on running tabletop PARANOIA games. And remember: You are always right!

I'm toiling away editing and laying out this June's Straight mission collection WMD, by the Traitor Recycling Studio, so I have little time for idle banter this week. I'm just ducking in to note that Mongoose Publishing has received at its warehouse the new PARANOIA Flashbacks, the 256-page hardcover compilation of the best PARANOIA adventures from the 1980s West End Games line: the three RED-Clearance missions from the GM Screen booklet ("Robot Imana 665-C," "Trouble with Cockroaches," and "Das Bot"), Vapors Don't Shoot Back, The YELLOW Clearance Black Box Blues, Send in the Clones, "Me and My Shadow Mark IV," Alpha Complexities, and three Code 7 mini-missions from Acute PARANOIA, including "Whitewash." All have been very lightly updated to match the new XP rules. (Actually, I revised Send in the Clones more thoroughly to match my original 1985 draft. After 20 years -- justice!)

PARANOIA Flashbacks also includes a short introductory mission by Jeff Groves (originally published in Signs & Portents magazine) -- "Pre-PARANOIA," a trip through training school for freshly drafted Troubleshooters. And there's a helpful appendix by Paul Baldowski on converting skills from older editions of PARANOIA to the XP rules.

A few weeks back, I put out a call on this blog for scans of the Jim Holloway artwork from the GM Screen booklet. Several fans responded speedily, led by Michael Croft. But I'm sorry to report I was too late in passing along the artwork to Mongoose, and so the scans weren't used in Flashbacks. My apologies to all concerned, especially Michael. Maybe if there's a second printing....

But let us stick to the bright side, citizens. PARANOIA Flashbacks should hit store shelves starting in a couple of weeks!

The forthcoming PARANOIA card game may, in fact, be called "PARANOIA: The Card Game." Assuming we can't think of anything better. Can you? If so, we'd like to hear your suggestions.

If you followed last month's attempted takeover of Paranoia-Live.net by traitors saulres and Biggles, it is your civic duty to witness the corrective public shaming now in progress. Now that Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick and the other High Programmers are back in power, the collected citizens are censuring saulres in an enthused manner probably way too true to Alpha Complex.

It's blackly humorous reading, but by the second page you might start to have unpleasant memories of the Stanford Prison Experiment or Jane Elliott's 1968 "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes" school exercise in prejudice. Let's try to keep it civil, guys....

Mongoose Publishing has posted the Jim Holloway cover for STUFF on its Web site. STUFF is the 128-page PARANOIA XP equipment book, written by Eric Minton (Jan-U-ARY-31 on Paranoia-Live.net) and the Traitor Recycling Studio (Crash Priority). Minor correction to the Web site text: The book has 225 items. Also, for reasons I now forget I had to change the title from "Paranoid STUFF" to STUFF alone, not that I'm really proud of either title.

But the book itself -- it rocks! Look for STUFF to hit the shelves later this month!

From WNBC.com and the Associated Press, April 6, 2005:

NEW YORK -- Ming Kuang Chen was written off after vanishing last Friday night while making a delivery for Happy Dragon restaurant at a high-rise apartment building in the Bronx. As police conducted a massive search and days passed, speculation grew that the 35-year-old Chen was the victim of armed bandits or some other urban horror.

But more than three days later, the disappearing deliveryman emerged with a mean thirst and a tale of survival: he had been stuck by himself in an elevator the whole time, without food or water. He was pulled out at about 5 a.m. Tuesday by firefighters responding to an emergency call at the high-rise. [...]

The deliveryman was given water at the scene before being taken to Montefiore Medical Center. He was treated for minor dehydration, but "that was all. ... He was in very good condition," said hospital spokesman Steve Osborne.

On Tuesday, authorities -- who conducted a door-to-door canvass of the apartment complex over the weekend -- were questioning why police officers and the building's private security force found no sign of Chen, who claimed he had repeatedly cried out and pushed an alarm button in the elevator.

"I tried to knock (down) the door and kept screaming for help, but no response," Chen said in the television interview. "During the time I was stuck in the elevator, I just kept sleeping because I don't know what else to do."

Chen was last seen about 8:30 p.m. Friday after making three deliveries at the same apartment complex in the Bedford Park neighborhood. He later told police through a translator that he had entered an elevator on the 32nd floor of a 38-story building when it plunged down and became stuck between the third and fourth floors.

An investigation on Tuesday determined that the security camera and alarm system in the elevator were working. But security officers told police they never heard nor saw Chen until they received his emergency call early Tuesday. Even maintenance workers who were called to check out the disabled elevator on Monday missed Chen, police said.

For that special Commie Mutant Traitor in your life, this fine CMT ring by jeweler Roy Goodell of Five Axis Jewelry in Kearns, Utah. (Found on his Recent Works page 5.)

(Can't believe I've posted a second entry about rings, let alone the second in the space of ten days! Thanks for the link to Tombking of Paranoia-Live.net.)

WMD, the collection of Straight PARANOIA missions due in June from Mongoose Publishing, is shaping up as something quite remarkable. Three of the four missions are now in. Jeff Groves (Mike-U-LEM on Paranoia-Live.net, and designer of "Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk" in Crash Priority) has turned in his best mission yet -- exciting and characteristically paranoid as always, yet far more dramatic and pointed than his previous Zap-style work. Bill O'Dea (Biggles on Paranoia-Live and administrator of FriendComputer.net) has made an excellent debut; Bill will certainly be a force to reckon with in the XP line, as soon as he learns to use apostrophes.

And this past weekend Dan Curtis Johnson ("Mister Bubbles" in the XP rulebook, "Stealth Train" in Crash Priority) breezed through a quick 20,700 words, producing the most audacious, the most breathtakingly funny-frightening PARANOIA mission I've ever seen. This mission, like the whole of WMD, pushes the XP line into exciting territory that you've never seen in any RPG, yet that rings absolutely true to Alpha Complex. Dan does no violence whatever to the game's premise; rather, you read through his WMD mission and think, "How did no one ever realize before -- this is what PARANOIA is supposed to be!"

The fourth writer and his wife have yet to finish their mission. I pity the poor devil, now that the bar has risen so unexpectedly high. He must be lying awake nights, trying to amp up his humble little exercise to match these stunning works -- to find some way not to appear the lamest excuse for a Famous Game Designer since the dismal days of "Fifth Edition." I hope the poor blindsided sap can pull out something in time!

[Twitches silently.]

In 2003 Australian writer, photographer, and tireless gamer Steve Darlington wrote a brilliant RPG.net review of Paul Czege's My Life With Master, thereby pointing me to what became my chief design influence in doing the PARANOIA XP edition. I sent him a .PDF of the XP edition rulebook by way of thanks, and that persuaded him to actually buy a hardcopy.

Now SteveD has posted -- not a review, but one of his 28,270 (and counting) RPG.net forum posts -- praising the XP edition in terms I haven't otherwise seen:

It's like a katana strapped to a nuke strapped to Courtney Love. [...] A machine designed to kill, and to kill them like sheep, but far more, far far more, to mess them up so bad that they think they're doing it to themselves.

It is all the bleakness of the first edition and all the dark comedy of the second, combined, boiled back to the bones, liquefied to essence, mixed with amphetamines and shot straight into the heart of an unsuspecting schoolchild.

It warmed my heart. Hope this isn't some cruel April Fool's joke....

After an epic battle across half a dozen topics in multiple forums of Paranoia-Live.net, both saulres of Psion and Biggles of Anti-Mutant got hauled away by Internal Security in mid-battle for failing to fill out their Bouncy Bubble Beverage Satisfaction Surveys. (Isn't it always those blasted surveys that stop your firefights?)

As you can see from the photo at the bottom of the forum page, Jazzer, Fargmania, and Takyn-U-RUN, High Programmers of PLN Sector, have retaken control. It all appears to have been a gigantic loyalty exercise. You might enjoy the new thread on the forums, "Confess All You Unworthy Traitors." And soon, the show trial!

Congratulations to Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick and the whole P-L.net crew for an unusual and entertaining exercise in -- what would you call it? -- performance art? Andy will write up the whole P-L Putsch saga as an article he will submit to Mongoose Publishing's Signs & Portents magazine.

The whole event took on a magical quality, like certain other PARANOIA Web activities. Is this common to other RPGs on the Web, or is there something about PARANOIA, do you think, that inspires particularly interesting and novel Web events?