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The PARANOIA formerly known as XP. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
TraitorRecycling.com
At my request, Paul Baldowski, proprietor of Omega Complex and contributor to many PARANOIA products, has kindly started a blog for the Traitor Recycling Studio, the unruly collective of Famous Game Designers who produce the PARANOIA support line.
What with the flotilla of PARANOIA sites already out there, I'm not yet sure what function this blog will eventually fulfill. Right now it has a page of biographies, a list of published PARANOIA supplements, and not much else. I'd like to establish the Traitors as a brand of sorts, both for PARANOIA and eventually, perhaps, for other endeavors. The blog is a step in that direction; if you think of other purposes, please post them in the comments.
For now, I hope the assembled Traitors will use the blog to promote their non-PARANOIA work. As a start, Dan Curtis Johnson ("Mister Bubbles" in the PARANOIA rulebook, "Stealth Train" in Crash Priority, and a sensational, groundbreaking new mission in next month's WMD) plugs his new five-issue Batman miniseries from DC Comics, "Snow," starting this month in Legends of the Dark Knight #192. Dan has written nearly three dozen published comics, as you can see in his bibliography.
Thanks to Paul for setting up the Traitor Recycling blog. Check it out at www.traitorrecycling.com.
PS. I'll save you the trouble of Googling for the blog's Latin epigraph, Nemo unquam sapiens proditori credendum putavit -- "No wise man ever thought that a traitor should be trusted." (Cicero, Orationes In Verrem II.1.15)
What with the flotilla of PARANOIA sites already out there, I'm not yet sure what function this blog will eventually fulfill. Right now it has a page of biographies, a list of published PARANOIA supplements, and not much else. I'd like to establish the Traitors as a brand of sorts, both for PARANOIA and eventually, perhaps, for other endeavors. The blog is a step in that direction; if you think of other purposes, please post them in the comments.
For now, I hope the assembled Traitors will use the blog to promote their non-PARANOIA work. As a start, Dan Curtis Johnson ("Mister Bubbles" in the PARANOIA rulebook, "Stealth Train" in Crash Priority, and a sensational, groundbreaking new mission in next month's WMD) plugs his new five-issue Batman miniseries from DC Comics, "Snow," starting this month in Legends of the Dark Knight #192. Dan has written nearly three dozen published comics, as you can see in his bibliography.
Thanks to Paul for setting up the Traitor Recycling blog. Check it out at www.traitorrecycling.com.
PS. I'll save you the trouble of Googling for the blog's Latin epigraph, Nemo unquam sapiens proditori credendum putavit -- "No wise man ever thought that a traitor should be trusted." (Cicero, Orationes In Verrem II.1.15)
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
PARANOIA Live-Action forum
Loyal citizen James Barratt runs the annual PARANOIA live-action roleplaying game (LARP) at MegaCon in Orlando, Florida. As James says in this LARP forum announcement on Paranoia-Live.net, "I finally got tired of how hard it is to find real, concrete information on PARANOIA LARPs and the people who run them. So: I created a Web forum just for PARANOIA LARP stuff! [...] I want the forum to be the place to go to find out about PARANOIA LARPs all over the country (and hopefully world!).
"I'd like to build a resource Web site for PARANOIA LARPing too, but I'm bad at Web design. Anyone out there want to help me construct the ultimate, unified resource guide for PARANOIA LARPing? Shoot me an e-mail [at] jamesbarratt (at) gmail (dot) com."
"I'd like to build a resource Web site for PARANOIA LARPing too, but I'm bad at Web design. Anyone out there want to help me construct the ultimate, unified resource guide for PARANOIA LARPing? Shoot me an e-mail [at] jamesbarratt (at) gmail (dot) com."
Sunday, June 19, 2005
You know you're a gamer when...
"I'm getting married tomorrow. My wedding rehearsal was this morning, and as I was thinking about what everyone would be wearing, I realized that I would be only INFRARED clearance while my bride would be ULTRAVIOLET, and that this might symbolize a great lack of balance in power between the two of us."
-- A post by psychojosh13 on RPG.net, kicking off a thread aptly titled "I spend WAY too much time on RPGs". Best wishes to the new bride and groom -- may their clearances rise together!
-- A post by psychojosh13 on RPG.net, kicking off a thread aptly titled "I spend WAY too much time on RPGs". Best wishes to the new bride and groom -- may their clearances rise together!
Saturday, June 11, 2005
PARANOIA in the real world: How the Vultures recruit
From diligent Paranoia-Live.net citizen Elle-R-KNO comes this link to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer news story about US Marine recruiters who really, absolutely, I mean it, literally won't take "No" for an answer.
Game Loft needs help
Via Greg Stolze, an interesting charity pitch by the Game Loft in Belfast, Maine. The Game Loft is a nonprofit youth center and social club centered around the play of board, card, and roleplaying games. (The town calls it a "community of promise.") They're running out of money and need help.
This worthy idea impresses me, so I tried hard to find some kind of connection to PARANOIA so I could plug it here. After diligent search I found an extremely distant connection: The center hosts an annual tournament of Pax Britannica, the historical boardgame designed by Greg Costikyan, PARANOIA's original co-designer.
Yeah, I know -- lame! But hey, it's a good charity, and any excuse, you know?
This worthy idea impresses me, so I tried hard to find some kind of connection to PARANOIA so I could plug it here. After diligent search I found an extremely distant connection: The center hosts an annual tournament of Pax Britannica, the historical boardgame designed by Greg Costikyan, PARANOIA's original co-designer.
Yeah, I know -- lame! But hey, it's a good charity, and any excuse, you know?
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Paranoia-Live.net: Phase IV has begun!
On the leading PARANOIA fan site, Paranoia-Live.net, the High Programmers have been working overtime to increase happiness levels for all citizens (now nearly 1,000 members and rising fast!). To this end they have already introduced three Phases of improvements.
The exact nature of Phases I and II remains classified; Phase III was a minor readjustment of security clearance requirements; but now, today, after weeks of suspenseful anticipation, the most amazing and dramatic phase yet, the landmark turning point moment, Phase IV has finally arrived!
A massive clearance shakeup! New living quarters forums for all clearances! Most amazing of all, a CompConomy full of neat new Alpha Complex items, which you can virtually buy and sell, using virtual credits, in new forums representing PLC, C-Bay (the leading Alpha Complex auction site), and an illegal Gray Subnet!
The continued development of this wonderful site warms my heart. It is an ongoing tribute to the hold PARANOIA exerts on its fans. Congratulations to hard-working Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick and his fellow UVs Fargmania, Takyn-U-RUN, and saulres.
Phase IV is here! And may I say -- woooooot!
The exact nature of Phases I and II remains classified; Phase III was a minor readjustment of security clearance requirements; but now, today, after weeks of suspenseful anticipation, the most amazing and dramatic phase yet, the landmark turning point moment, Phase IV has finally arrived!
A massive clearance shakeup! New living quarters forums for all clearances! Most amazing of all, a CompConomy full of neat new Alpha Complex items, which you can virtually buy and sell, using virtual credits, in new forums representing PLC, C-Bay (the leading Alpha Complex auction site), and an illegal Gray Subnet!
The continued development of this wonderful site warms my heart. It is an ongoing tribute to the hold PARANOIA exerts on its fans. Congratulations to hard-working Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick and his fellow UVs Fargmania, Takyn-U-RUN, and saulres.
Phase IV is here! And may I say -- woooooot!
Monday, June 06, 2005
Mission clearances?
As I've mentioned several times this month, Extreme PARANOIA, the major rules supplement for PARANOIA due this August, offers rules for playing characters of all security clearances from ORANGE through VIOLET. That includes Troubleshooters. In the optional rules I'm introducing the idea of "mission clearances."
Every published PARANOIA mission has worked for basically any clearance. Even the groups in The YELLOW Clearance Black Box Blues, or the mixed-clearance groups in Send in the Clones and Alpha Complexities, take few actions specific to their clearances. In some missions The Computer dispatches RED Troubleshooters to change a light bulb; in others they must save Alpha Complex from imminent destruction. The clearance of the player group is irrelevant.
Now that PCs can be any clearance, GMs may find it fun to designate a given mission as requiring a particular clearance or higher. This indicates that mission's importance to The Computer. A light bulb replacement errand is still RED; forestalling complex-wide catastrophe is BLUE or INDIGO; removing a body from a High Programmer's mansion is VIOLET.
This idea is not only optional, it's pretty trivial. We may mention likely clearances for future published PARANOIA missions, if we remember, but it hardly matters. Still, I'd like to include a table listing typical kinds of missions and their clearance ratings. Ideas?
Every published PARANOIA mission has worked for basically any clearance. Even the groups in The YELLOW Clearance Black Box Blues, or the mixed-clearance groups in Send in the Clones and Alpha Complexities, take few actions specific to their clearances. In some missions The Computer dispatches RED Troubleshooters to change a light bulb; in others they must save Alpha Complex from imminent destruction. The clearance of the player group is irrelevant.
Now that PCs can be any clearance, GMs may find it fun to designate a given mission as requiring a particular clearance or higher. This indicates that mission's importance to The Computer. A light bulb replacement errand is still RED; forestalling complex-wide catastrophe is BLUE or INDIGO; removing a body from a High Programmer's mansion is VIOLET.
This idea is not only optional, it's pretty trivial. We may mention likely clearances for future published PARANOIA missions, if we remember, but it hardly matters. Still, I'd like to include a table listing typical kinds of missions and their clearance ratings. Ideas?
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Czech Dream
Paul Baldowski (of the Traitor Recycling Studio and Omega Complex fame) pointed me to a 2004 Eastern European film called Czech Dream, a "provocumentary" about the largest hoax in Czech history. As related in this Economist story from last year, "Two film students persuaded advertising and public-relations agencies, graphic designers, printers, jingle-writers, even crowd-psychologists from the Czech army to help them devise a marketing campaign announcing the biggest and cheapest hypermarket ever seen in Prague, a city already besotted with supermarket shopping. Lured by flyers and posters, more than a thousand would-be shoppers turned up for the grand suburban opening—only to find that the campaign was a hoax, and the store a fake. As they gradually realised, they were queuing in front of a canvas façade stretched across scaffolding in a bare field."
PARANOIA Gamemasters who have read Dan Curtis Johnson's "Stealth Train" in Crash Priority will understand exactly why I post about it here.
Paul also sends along a link to the informative Czech Dream press kit (.PDF).
PARANOIA Gamemasters who have read Dan Curtis Johnson's "Stealth Train" in Crash Priority will understand exactly why I post about it here.
Paul also sends along a link to the informative Czech Dream press kit (.PDF).
Dept. of Paranoid Ironies
The George Orwell plaza in Barcelona is under continuous surveillance. (Via BoingBoing.)
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Viva VEG Sector 1.0
Almost exactly one year ago, the teeming and bubbly fans on Paranoia-Live.net decided to create their own full-length mission for PARANOIA. High Programmer Jazzer set up a forum devoted to this Mandatory Community Mission. The early brainstorming flirted first with a zombie theme, then moved through a fascinating digression on changing light bulbs before settling on a gambling theme.
Now, a year later, Mandatory Community Mission coordinator Biggles (Bill O'Dea, proprietor of FriendComputer.net and member of the Traitor Recycling Studio) has completed Draft 1.0 of the mission, Viva VEG Sector.
Biggles has announced he's looking for proofreading help, editing, and a general eagle eye. Please download this FREE Mandatory Community Mission and help out!
Now, a year later, Mandatory Community Mission coordinator Biggles (Bill O'Dea, proprietor of FriendComputer.net and member of the Traitor Recycling Studio) has completed Draft 1.0 of the mission, Viva VEG Sector.
Biggles has announced he's looking for proofreading help, editing, and a general eagle eye. Please download this FREE Mandatory Community Mission and help out!
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