I've finally tried Paranoia, and I love it!!
Paranoia! is a classic RPG, and I’m glad you found it. It has a history going back several edition over the decades. Out of curiosity, which version are you playing?
Having that information means...
Jd Smith1
Hero
Now you're learnin', boyo!Having that information means...
I normally have PvP games, but Paranoia is a clear exception. IF you have the right people, a session is great on a level few RPGs can touch.
GuyBoy
Hero
I was thinking of a totally whack-job Paranoia campaign, featuring batshit crazy ideas such as:
But then I decided it was too swivel-eyed loon, even for a game of Paranoia. Just impossible to suspend disbelief for something this wacko!
- forest fires created by space lasers
- life-saving vaccines rejected in favour of horse medicine
- people being born in Hawaii actually being from Kenya
- a verified election somehow being false
- a kraken waking
- cyber ninjas in Arizona
- people with these views actually getting elected to Congress
But then I decided it was too swivel-eyed loon, even for a game of Paranoia. Just impossible to suspend disbelief for something this wacko!
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Bird Of Play
Explorer
Heck if I know. I think it was..... the second edition?
Our DM also told us that "the rules actually require more dice rolls, but they're so unnecessary I skipped that part", adding that the dice rolls would be for stats like hamburger-slicing and other odd things. He was upfront about how he skipped that stuff, but insisted nothing actually would be missing from the game itself. He said the core of the game was making the wacky story and completing whatever secret mission each character had. I also think he invented the plot we dealt with (which was about a yellow-level officer who was demoted to red-level..... and we were supposed to escort him to his new job testing rat-eating mutants, except he was already dead when we arrived, but the A.I. insisted he was alive so we had to play along!).
I'd like to get into a couple more sessions of Paranoia to get more familiar with it, and then start DMing it myself.
What difference is there between the editions?
Also, the happiness pill: do they actually do something besides being a plot device?
Wicht
Hero
Quality Control in Alpha complex is rigorous, and every joy-joy pill, happiness pill and smile-wide pill is manufactured to exacting standards. Suggestions to the contrary are propoganda spread by communists and mutant traitor scum. Stories concerning happiness pills causing the imbiber to grow yellow feathers, imagine themselves to be a cat, or rendering them comatose for three weeks are nothing more than traitorous rumors and spreading them further is treason and will result in the gossip-mongering commie mutant traitor being summarily shot.
As I recall, differences between the editions are more fiddly than anything else, mostly corrections and revisions. Until you get to the Mongoose (?) edition, which also shows you how to run it as a straight grim dystopian game.
Which is nice and all, but kinda misses the point. (And anyway, all the best jokes are for the GM.)
Which is nice and all, but kinda misses the point. (And anyway, all the best jokes are for the GM.)
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