[Straight style] Secret Society retooling?So I'm still slowly building up my vision for a Straight rendition of Alpha Complex, and my mind is currently thinking about how that would play out in secret societies. For a Straight game, they need to be looked at as having at least somewhat consistent goals and motivations on top of just a reason to exist. Some wouldn't take too much work in that regard - Romantics could be cast almost as archaeologists and historians of a previous age without getting too goofy, where as some would take a lot more work - Death Leopard is pretty much tailor-made for the ZAP! style chaos, not so much for a game with a fairly serious tone.
So I open a question up to the group: How might you re-imagine some of the classic secret societies to better fit a Straight style game? Still allowing room for some satire but more than just setups for cheap gags?To get the ball rolling, I was thinking about the true original threat to Alpha Complex, the Communists. Now it can be REALLY easy to let them fall into the cartoon goofball stereotype of traitors with bad "rooskie" accents wearing fuzzy hats and tossing bombs around, but that doesn't serve the Straight mindset. So take them back to the basics. They chose the Communist theme because it was the specific existential threat The Computer chose to fixate on (due to bad interpretations of Cold War era media). They don't really have a grasp on what *actual* Communist doctrine was, but they can fixate on ideas like overthrowing oppressive leadership, destroying the class-based power structure, and trying to make all equal by seizing the means of production and distributing resources. They certainly don't have a real grasp of the full political or social aspects throughout history, but it probably shouldn't be so bad that they spout off about the teachings of Groucho Marx and John Lennon. Taken somewhat seriously, they could present a legitimate threat to the social order of Alpha Complex, especially with a 'revolutionary' mindset behind them.
One aspect that most Paranoia Commies all have is the fuzzy hat/big mustache/fake accent thing. Like I said above, it doesn't fit the Straight game very well, but it is somewhat iconic to the game. So how to capture that in a way that isn't so... silly? So I thought about it a little, and came up with a real-world parallel: Guy Fawkes, at least as many came to learn about him through V for Vendetta. It was presented as a distinctive mask and costume to hide the identity of revolutionaries (one in particular, but there are others) in the story, becoming a symbol of the force of the people to stand up to power. The imagery was so strong that outside the film real-world protesters and hackers adopted the same disguise for their own versions of resistance. So adapting to Paranoia, your classic "Communist" look is an obvious costume, even including a mask, to emulate the "stereotypical Commie" as a symbol to try and inspire the crowd they're playing to through their terrorist acts. The greatcoat, hat and mask are their V, designed to draw eyes and deliver the Great Message in the trademark language of the Revolution while their less conspicuous operatives hatch the plan away from the center of attention. The production and smuggling of these costumes is almost as dangerous as the ideas they embody and a marching horde of Infared drones all wearing the masks would be an existential threat on its own. The Communist threat is real, citizens, and it is all around us...
submitted by
/u/Laughing_Penguin [link] [comments]
