Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

What?

5 (19.2%)

Yes.

8 (30.8%)

Wait, I think I meant no.

6 (23.1%)

[Whimper]

7 (26.9%)

Total Members Voted: 26

[PTTG??]

In the past, Paranoia has been cultishly adored as one that pits the game master against the players. The recent, kickstarted reboot maintains the formula, but shakes out a lot of the cruft, shapes it up for less adversarial play, and updates the slightly creaky "communists" of the old game with "terrorists," although the communists are still around, drinking vodka and complaining that nobody takes them seriously anymore.

But that's not what we're here to talk about. Paranoia takes place in Alpha Complex, a computerized subterranian realm where replaceable individuals toil under the uncaring eye of an omnipotent overseer. Each citizen -- color-coded by occupation and status -- is only a few degrees away from complete mental breakdown, and is only held together by daily doses of psychoactive beverages. Aside from the beards and the stoutness, it's basically the same as Dwarf Fortress.

For those familiar with Alpha Complex, the reboot (also known as the Kickstarter one, or version six) changes the setting mainly by pushing the date forward by a few centuries. Alpha Complex is in a terminal decay spiral, in fact. There aren't enough repair-bots to fix the repair-bot assembly plant. Friend Computer has been paranoid for a long time, but now it's less coherent. The current yearcycle is 214, but that's mostly meaningless since last yearcycle was 214 and next yearcycle, assuming AC makes it that far, will be 214 as well.

Clones are now equipped with Cerebral Coretech, which allows Friend Computer to access all of a clone's senses, except for touch; allows Friend computer to project useful and useless information on the citizen's eyeballs whenever it likes; allows Citizens to send communiques directly between themselves; and goes on the fritz whenever the wifi is down, which is, according to Friend Computer, never. According to the Clones who get splitting headaches every time the walk through corridor junction GAR-543222, it's pretty regular.

I've seen some discussion of Paranoia on these boards before, but nothing for the latest edition. Kickstarter backers (i.e., Infrared-intellect suckers like me) have almost all received their packs, and I'm looking for people who have played before and maybe have some particular troubleshooter missions or sectors or characters floating around AC that my players should run into.

[RexMundi]

This all sounds rather interesting, and as a long supporter of friend computer I can't not look into it! I'll render my own verdict later after I check out the kickstarter myself, but for now I'm glad to see it coming back

[inteuniso]

I know how much the bay 12 community enjoys it. Here's hoping to many mostly-coherent stories spawmed from this iteration. I'll be up for shenanigans once I can.

[Rift]

Yeah i actually backed it and got it in the mail a week or two ago (as i've both played/ran a few games of XP/20th). I havent read it yet, but i guess i really should.

[Aklyon]

Huh. Neat.

[PTTG??]

I have some headcannons that I've been thinking of integrating into my AC. For one, R&D isn't actually allowed to research new things. It's the same few dozen projects on a cycle. Friend Computer doesn't trust the scientists to actually do something useful.

[Dorsidwarf]

A link might help garner more interest . I'm not a fan of taking away the adversarial play though, that's literally the whole point of Paranoia, that your coplayers are only tangentially allies

[Drakale]

Yeah, and why replace communists with terrorists? Feels like it just remove some of the flavor. Not that it changes anything, you can still roleplay it like you want, but feel like it's an unnecessary modification.

Being a secret trekkie is where it's at anyway.

[PTTG??]

A link might help garner more interest . I'm not a fan of taking away the adversarial play though, that's literally the whole point of Paranoia, that your coplayers are only tangentially allies

Oh, players fight a lot, still. Its just that the GM is out to kill the PCs in a productive way. From what I've read, it's more that the GM gives the PCs enough rope to hang themselves rather than chasing their players' characters down.

As for the communists, they're still there. They're just one of several secret societies.