Paranoia RPG ??

[Blood axe]

What do you know about the Paranoia RPG? What are your experiences playing it?

Ive never played it & only know the basics.
Ive seen they are announcing something new for Paranoia on the Mongoose game forums. No real details yet though.

Six clones?

[seneschal]

I played it once many moons ago. It is the type of game you have to be in the mood for to enjoy. Basically, Paranoia pushes the conventions of old-school D&D style role-playing to their logical conclusion. Your player-character must consist of six identical clones because Paranoia PCs are fragile beings in a world specifically designed to kill them in the most bizarre (and presumably humorous) ways possible. Your character will die, but the clones give you five computer-game style respawns. Citizens of Alpha Complex went underground centuries ago to avoid a Cold War era nuclear apocalypse. Unfortunately, the computer that controls the habitat has malfunctioned; it is insane. So is the characters' existence. The Computer is your friend. The Computer is also paranoid about Communist infiltrators, fifth columns, and traitors. Unfortunately, most normal human activities are potentially traitorous. Secret societies are banned, but every PC is a member of a secret society. Mutations appearing in the Alpha Complex gene pool must be eliminated (but every PC is secretly a mutant). The Computer needs maintenance but possessing computer programming skill is potentially traitorous. The Computer sends PCs on missions the purpose of which is unclear and equips them with strange experimental gadgets (and no instruction manuals). Failure to complete the mission is treason, but completing the mission may cause the PCs to know too much and become expendable. Your character's goal is to survive as long as possible, perhaps by betraying his companions to prove his patriotism. The Alphans have been underground so long that they are ignorant of the world outside and know of Alpha Complex only what the Computer chooses to tell them (which is as little as possible). Equipment use and area access is controlled by security clearance, and of course the PCs have the lowest possible clearance level, at least at the game's beginning.

In the session I participated in, one of our gadgets proved to be a device for dissolving bodily cholesterol. On high settings it was a dangerous weapon but its initial use actually improved the health of our opponents. Computer-issued equipment may not function at all, or it may be more hazardous to the wielder than to the target. And it could turn out to be anything from a weapon to a portable music system (the possession of which is traitorous).

[Miraje]

I think the thing I learned from both playing and running a Paranoia campaign (and campaign is generous, you usually end up generating totally new clones each module to fit the challenge level) is that it's intended to be more about the ROLE-PLAYING part of RPG than stat/skill/dice roll interaction. If you read some of the sample play you can get the feel of it. As a ref I usually rewarded good character play (playing the personality rather than the stats) with easy dice rolls, and only fell back on actual game systems when players weren't playing to the feel of the game. Lots of dark humor, lots of silliness, and a willingness to immerse yourself in a Woody Allen version of Star Trek/Star Wars should make the game go well.

MRJ

[seneschal]

FYI, both the "classic" Paranoia Second Edition by WEG and Mongoose's Paranoia Troubleshooters (latest iteration) are available used on Amazon.com for about $40. The 2nd edition copies are softback, Troubleshooters is hardback.

[Texasyeti]

This game is great for one shot adventures, I converted it with FATE Core and it was great. The game itself is awesome but it leads itself to backstabbing and killing the other players and outdoing each others to get ahead. It is hilarious if the DM plays the npcs well it can be really fun, scary, hilarious and piss you off or make you piss your pants laughing. I have had some great times playing it. One time I did a Traveller game where the characters had to go give food medicine and weapons to a hollow astroid and I made it Alpha Complex, some high programmers had created their own society because they enjoyed it like a sick game, while dropping off the goods a troubleshooter team tried to highjack their ship to travel off world and force the characters to help them. The troubleshooters got killed nd the programmers ordered the PC's killed because they had found out their secret. So they had to escape from jail with the help of some secret society types and find their ship in alpha complex and deal with the crazy computer insane high programmers and their minions. It was awesome.